Mission
Tale of Tales is a videogames development studio, founded in 2003 and run by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn out of Belgium. Our goal is to create elegant and emotionally rich art for computers interactive entertainment. As artists we focus on beauty and joy. We want to create art for people. That is why we distribute our work on line, and cheaply. As designers we hope that videogames can be as diverse and meaningful as any other medium. We want to create playful experiences that appeal to both gamers and non-gamers. We try to design expressive interfaces to access engaging poetic narratives through simple controls.
History
Both Auriea and Michaël were trained as artists. Auriea studied sculpture at Parson's in New York and Michaël graphic design at Sint Lucas in Ghent, Belgium. We've been using computers since Windows 3.1 and Mac System 7. We met online in 1999 as members of an online artist collective around the hell.com domain. We have been collaborating form the very day we met. At first, as Entropy8Zuper!, on website designs for clients and on internet artworks. Then expanding to other types of interactive projects. Since 2002 we've focus on videogames. In 2015 we abandonded commercial production in favor of dedicating our lives to the muses. In 2019 we moved from the beautiful medieval city of Ghent, Belgium, to the eternal splendor of Rome.
Photo by Paolo della Corte
Our collaborators
Strictly speaking, Tale of Tales is just two people. But we have a history of collaboration. In fact it could be said we use each videogame as an opportunity to reach out to talented people we admire. In some cases these are industry veterans, but often they are talented artists whom we feel can contribute something of their unique expertise to the medium.
Laura Raines Smith has animated all of the characters. Walter Hus has composed music for Bientôt l'été and Luxuria Superbia. Kris Force has created sounds and music for many of our games. Jarboe composed music and performed vocals in The Path and Fatale. Silent Hill artist Takayoshi Sato designed and modeled characters in Fatale and dancer Eléonore Valere Lashky created the choreography in that game. Gerry De Mol made music for several of our games. And Austin Wintory composed the soundtrack for Sunset.
Lina Kusaite designed the deer of The Endless Forest. She and Gorik Lindemans created concept art for 8. Fabienne Mésenge and Christophe Poulain did the voice acting in Bientôt l'été. Tina Marie Murray played Angela Burnes in Sunset. Ronald Jones programmed the multiplayer engine of The Endless Forest. And Marian Bantjes created the logo and font in The Path. Other collaborators have included Theresa Schlag, Daniel Hellweg, Jan Verschoren, Stacey Diana Clark, Perdo Murteira, Martin Maximilliam Michl, Ferry Marcelis, Alex Mouton, Niklas Roth, Joseph Silverman, Lucie Viatge, Jurie Horneman, Leigh Alexander & Ste Curran, Kellee Santiago, Kelly Wallick, Jessica Curry, Vicki Wong, Marie Lazar and the mysterious Señor X.
Strictly speaking, Tale of Tales is just two people. But we have a history of collaboration. In fact it could be said we use each videogame as an opportunity to reach out to talented people we admire. In some cases these are industry veterans, but often they are talented artists whom we feel can contribute something of their unique expertise to the medium.
Laura Raines Smith has animated all of the characters. Walter Hus has composed music for Bientôt l'été and Luxuria Superbia. Kris Force has created sounds and music for many of our games. Jarboe composed music and performed vocals in The Path and Fatale. Silent Hill artist Takayoshi Sato designed and modeled characters in Fatale and dancer Eléonore Valere Lashky created the choreography in that game. Gerry De Mol made music for several of our games. And Austin Wintory composed the soundtrack for Sunset.
Lina Kusaite designed the deer of The Endless Forest. She and Gorik Lindemans created concept art for 8. Fabienne Mésenge and Christophe Poulain did the voice acting in Bientôt l'été. Tina Marie Murray played Angela Burnes in Sunset. Ronald Jones programmed the multiplayer engine of The Endless Forest. And Marian Bantjes created the logo and font in The Path.
Other collaborators have included Theresa Schlag, Daniel Hellweg, Jan Verschoren, Stacey Diana Clark, Perdo Murteira, Martin Maximilliam Michl, Ferry Marcelis, Alex Mouton, Niklas Roth, Joseph Silverman, Lucie Viatge, Jurie Horneman, Leigh Alexander & Ste Curran, Kellee Santiago, Kelly Wallick, Jessica Curry, Vicki Wong, Marie Lazar and the mysterious Señor X.
Thinking about playing
Video presentations, texts, slideshows and articles about game development.
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YE OLDE BLOG
From 2007 to 2010 we had a blog were we discussed, interviewed, and created controversy along the way.
Blog Highlighs »
Exhibitions & presentations »
Blog Archives »
notgames
Can we create a form of digital entertainment that explicitly rejects the structure of games? What is an interactive work of art that does not rely on competition, goals, rewards, winning or losing?
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