Don't even bother telling me "You just don't get it, it's art!" because I've already accepted that as a foregone conclusion. Still, even a blind person can appreciate art in some way... because not all art is visual. Just so, I'm out to appreciate FATALE for what it is, even if I'm not entirely clear on what I'm dealing with.

Spoiler Warning: The nature of this game makes it impossible to talk about it without marring the experience the developer wants you to have.

What Is It?
FATALE is a 3D adventure game where players take the role of John the Baptist first during his final hours before an unceremonious beheading and then as his ghost in the courtyard above where he died. The text within the game and most of the inspiration for its visual come from Oscar Wilde's play, Salome.

What We Saw
I played all three levels of the game on a copy I purchased for myself.

How Far Along Is It?
It's out now.

What Needs Improvement?
Make It Easier To Review The Controls: The control scheme changes between the three levels of the game and it's not easy to review them or to puzzle them out on your own. The game comes with Read Me file you could of course access while playing the game, or you can pause and navigate through a menu to look up the controls. But it'd be a lot more helpful and a lot less jarring to just press a single button have the controls for that level appear on screen in front of you.

What The Hell Are The Amp And The Guitar Doing There? Seriously, what gives with the anachronistic props? Don't knock me out of the time period just for shits and giggles.

What Should Stay The Same?
It's Very, Very Pretty: I've never seen such a gorgeous indie game. The subtle motions of Salome's veils and the dramatic colors on the face of her murderous mother are but two examples of the game's striking art style that comes back to haunt you even after you've completed the game.

Well-Used Music: There's only one song in the whole game and the developer gets some excellent mileage out of it.

Thought-Provoking: Maybe I'm wrong about art (and my high school art teacher will likely attest to this), but I always thought it was there to make you think. Maybe it upsets you with something alarming or violent, maybe it captivates you with something pretty and complex. Either way, I really felt like FATALE was making me think — not just about the source material and how it was worked into the game, but about abstract concepts like time and remorse. Pretentious, sure. But way better than being bored or disgusted.

Final Thoughts
I'm not sure if can explain exactly what went on while playing FATALE, but I am sure that I enjoyed it even during alarming moments like where I got my head chopped off. With a little effort and an open mind, you probably will enjoy it as well — thought I don't know if that holds true for Bible purists who think Oscar Wilde was off his rocker.

Maybe I'm not to be blamed for my morbid curiosity. Tale of Tales is known for its creepy, upsetting games and from what I understand of the parts Christianity added to the Torah, the Salome's story is certainly both of those. She dances what passed for a striptease back in those days and then demands the head of some guy on a silver platter. Talk about heavy tipping.

Here's what the developer has to say of the 3D adventure game:

Explore a living tableau filled with references to the legendary tale and enjoy the moonlit serenity of a fatal night in the orient. Fatale offers an experimental play experience that stimulates the imagination and encourages multiple interpretations and personal associations.

You can check out the trailer and pick up the game for a dollar seven dollars here.

Indie developer Tale of Tales is known for their creepy and often upsetting story games such as The Path and The Graveyard. With their game, codenamed Fatale, the developer aims to tell the story of Salome using the inspiration of Oscar Wilde's creepy and upsetting* play of the same name. IndieGames reports that the point of the game is freeze a "historical" moment in time and allow players to experience the emotions that the characters feel in that moment.

My question, then, is which moment in Salome's sad tale the game will depict? The striptease she dances for her stepdad, her mother's marriage to a total jerk or the part where she smooches a dead guy's head?

Look for it October 5.

Tale of Tales Announce New Game 'Fatale' [IndieGames]

*I base that statement on the fact that the play was banned when it first debuted. That and the fact that Oscar Wilde is good at being creepy and upsetting.

Considering the creators describe it as "more like an explorable painting than an actual game," this is no mean feat. They cover all the typical stuff (what went wrong, what went right), as well as download statistics, appendices featuring the people behind the game, and a section on reviews:

Overall, the reactions to the game (gathered from the articles, their comments sections and personal messages), fall into three categories.

Of course there is the expected response of the typical gamers whose desire for zombies whenever they see a cemetery is apparently insatiable. They tended to describe The Graveyard as "boring". Of course.

A little bit up the ladder of human civilisation, we find the people who were turned on by the idea but turned off by the actual experience. They were "disappointed". From what we can see, this was either caused by a failure on our part to maximize the qualities of the game or by certain expectations coming from the player.

Despite the fact that games are supposed to be interactive, many gamers still seem to be incredibly passive when it comes to the meaning of their entertainment. They expect to be spoonfed and don't seem to have any experience with literature, modern theater or fine art (or even art films) which require active participation, not just of thumbs and index fingers but also of heart and brain.

A final type of response was the simply "delighted" one. These people really enjoyed the game. And/or they were happy to see the experimentation that we're doing with the medium.

Ok, they sound a touch bitter at times, but it's a really nice piece on an interesting game — and worth wading through to read.

Postmortem: Tale of Tales' The Graveyard [Gamasutra]

Their previous work was The Endless Forest, a multiplayer environment that runs as a screensaver. There are no goals or missions, you can just explore a forest as a deer.

Before that came 8, a fairy tale-like adventure with a peaceful and non-linear story. It also has no words or language whatsoever.

The folks behind Tale of Tales are American and Belgian artists Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn. I had the pleasure of meeting them in Maastricht a few years ago. Thanks to their creativity and talent, they've been able to win a number of grants for their work. They may be among the few consistently, continuously productive game artists around. Maybe some day we'll see more of that.

The Endless Forest [Tale of Tales]
8 [Tale of Tales]

To see a game like The Path is fantastic. The artwork, although unfinished, looks amazing and modern with it's Tim Burtonesque, creepy, doll-like characters. The Path isn't supposed to be released until 2008, but I suspect we'll see more from this Little Red Ridinghood re-make. Kim Phu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For further information contact: press@tale-of-tales.com

First view from The Path
Tale of Tales release screenshots and artwork for their upcoming horror title The Path

Gent, Belgium, 10 June 2007

The Path is a horror game inspired by the fairy tale of Little Red Ridinghood. Just like in their first game project, 8, Tale of Tales go back to the roots of the story, where things are not as pleasant as the Grimm brothers portrayed them.

In The Path, you play Little Red Ridinghood. Not the cute blond toddler that we're used to, but a young woman in the throws of teenage angst. When her mother sends her on an errand, she has no intention to stay on the path. But the forest is a dangerous place. Especially for lonely girl with an interest in wolves.

Tale of Tales is releasing screenshots of an internal prototype of the game. It is safe to say that the images do not represent what is coming. But they are an integral part of the development process and as such worthy of documentation. The artwork is made by Stacey Demarco (environments) and Auriea Harvey (characters).

http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath/gallery.html

Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn are a new breed of game designers.

"With our background in sculpture and media arts, we tend to have very different ideas and methods. Our Endless Forest MMO is a good example. Initially commissioned by a museum of contemporary art, and largely funded by governmental arts support, the project continues to grow, fueled by a lively and enthusiastic player community. The players embrace the lack of chat, goals and game rules as an invitation to invent their own amusement in the game."

"The Path is a single player game but it is being produced in a similar way. We have decided on the main structure of the project, but within that, no game has been designed yet. We have made a prototype with the whole environment and some characters in it. Based on this, we can make decisions about gameplay. A technology that we had developed earlier, called Drama Princess, allows us to populate a virtual world with believable autonomous characters quite easily. But now it turns out that they are having too much fun. At the expense of the gruesome tale that we are trying to tell."

"Our story is about fear and uncertainty, getting lost in the forest and the inevitability of death. The music composed by Jarboe for the game already expresses this quite well. Now we are modelling the gameplay to get closer to that."

The Path is supported by Creative Capital, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds, the Flemish Authorities and Design Vlaanderen.