Adventure Game Studio

Tales is now available! And it's still November 14th, just! ;)

Tales is a traditional point and click adventure with English voice acting and music by Luigi Di Guida.

Alfred Walsh is the new librarian, but on his first day he will accidentally unleash a dreaded curse upon the shelves within. He must fix things fast - but how will his tale end? With the help of Merlin and some other familiar faces, Alfred must solve puzzles in the strangest of places if he is to succeed and stop the curse of Oblivion!



There is also a short demo to be downloaded from the official website. This will also appear on Steam just as soon as they approve it! The unfortunate news is that GOG did not accept the game. But if you like it you could add it to the wishlist over there ;) In the meantime, making sure the Steam and DRM-free copy are in good working order.

Spanish texts are to be added by the end of the month, on Steam the update will be automatic, others can simply download and install the game again - so if you're waiting on the Spanish - keep an eye out for version 1.1.

Thanks for your interest in Tales, buying it, playing it, supporting Ape Marina with their debut commercial game and supporting Screen 7 by delaying a disaster like Dumbass Drivers 3D remake ;) Wherever you buy the game from, it is appreciated. And thanks for staying engaged and interest in the games in production thread (locky locky!)..

Thanks to the Ape Marina team for their patience with me (and players too for that matter, hey its still Nov 14th!!111) and also Fizzii who helped with voice editing. And also the VA's, the many lines recorded by Ali, and everyone else who played a part, Fitz, Grundislav, CaptainD, Grim to name a few.

I should probably get back to making sure the game is working for people for now. Andrea will hook up a db entry soon. If I forgot to mention something I will edit this post. Hope you enjoy Tales! taaaaaaaales :)

The first reviews are in!

"They should not have used the name Tales. It will get lost in search results" - Steam person

(laugh)

Yay!  The game is fully released!  Congrats to Andrea and Mark! ;-D

Boo!  My savegame files from the press preview build don't work now. :P  I can however confirm that it was worth the wait. (nod)

Congrats on the release, looks great. I'll be picking it up soon.

Well done Andrea and team! I've been following this one since day one and am so proud you've done it, will be buying on pay-day! :)

Congratulations guys. Glad to see this is finally available for the masses :-D

The day is finally here!!!

And Nov 14th it seems may be an auspicious date for indie ventures: The original "Evil Dead" opened production on Nov 14th (a fact I happened to read this week by total coincidence). So maybe the gods of indie developments smile down on this day.

I must admit I was a bit worried about a year and a half ago when I heard Tales was going to be fully voice acted. Having written the english translation of the game over the course of 3 years or so, I knew just how much voice acting was going to be needed. I was mostly worried about the endurance of the voice actors and publisher, but also about how my text would translate into voice-acted lines.

Well, I had no need to worry it seems on the former points: Screen 7 were working on the game right up until the 11th hour. Mod's, you showed huge levels of commitment to the game, and to making sure it got the release version it deserves. The voice actors did amazing jobs: In the emotional scenes I have actually teared-up from the feelings I can hear through the actor's performances, and in the comedic moments I have laughed out loud from the professional-level comedic timing of the performers.

As for the latter worry about my text translating into voice acted lines: Thank you to all the actors for putting up with any flaws, and for making their performances flowing and natural. It was an amazing wonder and an honour to hear lines I had written coming from the mouths of such a talented group of actors.

It was always my goal to polish the english version to the extent that nobody would ever even suspect that the game was originally written in italian. I wanted english-speaking players to feel they were playing the original language of the game, not a translated version. And, as I found out, this is easier said than done. But, many, many, many rewrites later based on countless playthroughs (over 50 at least) and close contact with and amazing support from AprilSkies, I believe I achieved my goal. And it's such a great feeling!

Of course, the heart and story of the game though is all AprilSkies (and his co-writer Giovanni), and the amazing endurance I saw from them from when the game was only a 5 room "demo", up until the final mind-blowing scope of the game, is nothing short of legendary.

So...stop reading my rant and go experience the "Tales"...

"...while you still can, 'librarian'..."

Oh cool! Congrats on the release! Will get it asap ;-D

Congrats on the release. It looks like an ambitious game :)

Congratulations, AprilSkies! And a big thanks to Mods for his work too.

I voted for it on GOG. Hope you make it to their store. I will probably pick it up on Humble.

Congrats on the release! Please don't forget to add the game to the AGS database to make it eligible for the next AGS awards!

Awesome to see this one finished, I've been really looking forward to it! Just purchased my copy, I'm looking forward to checking it out! :cheesy:

Congrats on the release! (nod)

hi guys and gals.
I thank you all for the support, comments and for existing :D
And thanks a lot m0ds for the great job!
I'm so so happy for the release!

edit: well also Mandle has been fundmental. best tester and text-editor ever.

I buy my games on GOG. Hope it will be available there too in the future!

Congrats on the release AprilSkies!

*1 for buying the game from GOG.

Looks fantastic, but unfortunately it's only available on steam right now, and I'm one of the many that don't support steam. 

PLEASE make it available on GOG, so I can buy it DRM-free.  :smiley:

You can get it DRM free on the Humble Store (https://www.humblebundle.com/store/tales)!

Congrats on the release!
Well done AprilSkies and Mark :)

Nice work! Congrats on the release, I look forward to checking it out :)

I've just finished it -- and what a crazy ride it was! It was an epic fairytale adventure, fun and whimsical in places, and dark and existential in others. I'd go as far as comparing it to Fate of Atlantis (an academic on a grand and dangerous quest, solving wicked logical puzzles with symbols and twisting stuff around), Little Big Adventure (with its vast world, beautiful landscapes and oddball characters), and The Whispered World (for the theme of a world falling apart and succumbing to negativity). Beautiful work all around.

I was perhaps a little disappointed that we didn't get to visit the more modern stories listed, such as Alice or The Wizard of Oz -- but what I appreciate more than that is that we get to learn a bit about the more obscure and older stories. It was a grand, beautiful journey -- beautifully drawn by Andrea.

The graphics were gorgeous, even in lo-res (though I would totally throw my money at you if you decide to make a hi-res redux sometime!). The music was another thing that reminded me of LBA -- which is one of my favorite soundtracks EVER. Beautiful job, definitely putting it on my chillout playlist!

The voice acting was a real treat. My complimens to Ali especially, I was totally immersed thanks to him in particular. Nice to hear some AGS friends. Recognized CaptainD instantly, Grundislav I didn't at first, and I was surprised to learn who Mandle played. BTW, great job on the translation! The one thing that amused me was everyone saying "dude" (or "man" in Enkidu's case, though that might've been his nickname for Gilgamesh, perhaps?) like they're surfer dudes ;) But hey, they're fairytales, so if you can have a Mayan woman speaking with an Irish (I think) accent, a ruggedly Slavic pelota champion, or an English-sounding mother with an American-sounding kid, anything goes ;) Voice-over was especially dear to me in this game, since I had my part in it. At first I thought that I did an absolutely terrible job, since I based my performances on lower registers and quiet nuances, and most of it got lost in the music -- but then came the Utnapishtim scene, and that I consider my tour de force (laugh).

The puzzles... Well, I did spam the help thread yesterday -- but aside from the puzzle in question, most of them were very intuitive. Though honestly, some did cause me some trouble, either because I didn't notice something or my reasoning was off (spent half an hour looking for a book about a winged creature) -- and sometimes the famed adventure game logic got me completely stumped (like the time when Alfred saw no way and no point whatsoever in filling a bottle with water). So what we get is a classic 90's adventure game: an epic story that doesn't take it easy on the player.

Again, congrats to everyone involved! It was a pleasure and an honor to be a part of it :)

Cheers Fitz for the awesome review there!!!

Quote from: Fitz on Fri 18/11/2016 10:25:08
The one thing that amused me was everyone saying "dude" (or "man" in Enkidu's case, though that might've been his nickname for Gilgamesh, perhaps?) like they're surfer dudes ;)

Some background on "dude":

Spoiler

This was a running joke that was born through Andrea's and my translation chats...

His original rough "guide" translations had the word "dude" in them and I found it so charming in the game that I asked him if we could have at least one character per book that said "dude"... Andrea was totally on board for it and so we included it as a running joke...

I think it really works to make accessible for the player what otherwise could have been stale classical speech from these old classical characters...

Another of my favorites is:

Spoiler

"Art thou crazy?!" from Dante

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About Enkidu's "man":

Spoiler

I was a bit worried about the "man" in Enkidu's speech until I heard the voice actor say it. I was worried it might rob that scene of its emotion by making it part of the running gag of "dude". But when I heard it said by the actor it felt for me more like it cemented their intimate friendship and also that the player was already used to the comical "dude" so the heartfelt "man" had earned its place in the scene and could be accepted not as a joke, but as part of the tone of the language of the game and be taken seriously...Anyways, long story short: The voice actor saved my ass right there... (laugh)

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Also: why so surprised about who my voice character was?

Spoiler

I actually had my wife listen to those scenes and she couldn't pick what voice I was... So I guess I did alright...(laugh)

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Quote from: Fitz on Fri 18/11/2016 10:25:08
It was a grand, beautiful journey -- beautifully drawn by Andrea.

The graphics were gorgeous,

After playing through the game as many dozens of times as I have: One thing I always wanted to say was that any one screen, whether it be a regular background, or a cutscene, would never look out of place in a gorgeous picture book...

And this really helped me in being able to play the game as many times as I had to: I was always looking forward to seeing the next scene, and also hearing the music, and watching the cinematic transitions...

The game always pulled me onwards like as if I was watching a favorite movie over again, or, as Alfred said (paraphrased) :

Spoiler

"I'll miss my old friends...By which I mean the characters in the books of this library..."

And I will miss them, and most likely come back every year or so and play the game over again just to smile and meet up with my favorites all over again...

I already know who my favorite character is: But I will leave that until voting for the next AGS awards comes around:

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Well, your favorite character better be the one I'm thinking ;)

I can echo your sentiments. My experience of the actual game in its full splendor was just a few days, but it did feel special. Like the Little Big Adventure games, it was a world I'd love to stick around in, have another visit to all the places in the epilogue perhaps, check up on all the crazy people and the beautiful locations. Sequel, maybe?

And I was surprised to learn via the credits at the end that Thrym was you. You know, the "it's nice to put a cartoon ice giant voice to an avatar" kinda way ;) I myself have the most fun with doing voices that don't sound like me at all, and especially creepy monster voices -- so Oblivion was a ton of fun to record. Sore throat for a couple of days, but totally worth it!

First online review I've found of the game so far:

https://emotionalmultimediaride.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/game-release-tales-pc/

Nice one ^_^
but Fitz's review is still the best one ^_^ thanks DUDE!

Well done and I absolutely like those voices! Volume is perfect!

This looks great! Well done on the release. Can't wait to give it a whirl.

Congrats! It's always good to see a quality AGS game get its commercial release. I do remember enjoying the Tech Demo a couple of years ago and I'm pretty confident that I'll enjoy the final product. Haven't seen much in terms of reviews, articles and interviews though, hopefully the press will pick it up and you'll get some more buzz around the game.

Congrats on the release.  Any news on Kinky Island, since I donated $100 to your Indiegogo three years ago, and all we've gotten since was "you'll have something this year...no this year...no wait, this year" update e-mails, as you pile on newer, more-profitable-to-you projects instead?

Rather than you or I derail this thread, I'll post an update and a direct response to what you just said in its GiP thread soon enough. In the meantime, there is also this update (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kinky-island#/updates) which explains how time since your pledge is for this games benefit, it's now listed on site at Screen7.uk, it's in a recent video on my youtube, new music on soundcloud and it's about to be up on Greenlight (and get a GiP thread overhaul here). Right now though, your support for Tales, is appreciated.

So... are we likely to see this on GOG?

Screen 7 still hasn't said anything about this. 

Heh, yes sorry it was tentative right up to release.

Spoiler

But also, Screen 7 does not use AGS as the priority means of news deliverance... try Twitter, where there's a pinned Tweet for the last week that says "It was not accepted by GOG". But I suppose you provoke a reaction somewhere like here where I can type more than 40 words, and you get one. They didn't like the art or voices. The fucking art man, they didn't like it. I can understand the voices but the art? This is why when "GOG only customers" crop up I just sigh. You don't know the half of it...not only for this game but for every indie game that has to deal with them. Look at all those lovely rejected games this year that you "GOG only" "support". Nelly Cootalot, Demetrios, Corrosion, Tales, probably a list longer than my arm. Literally god only knows what those were rejected on, but I bet every one of those developers feel real good. Feel supported. Thanks for not buying them, y'know, simply because you can't get it at GOG. Because they don't meet the quality you expect (despite knowing their entire production inside out from these forums). There's actually a big barrier with them, for everyone. Even you when you reach that point, have fun with it..! I was probably naive when they requested changes to Samaritan Paradox in order to distribute it...to distribute it - not publish, not develop, just distribute, but I won't stand for that again, not from a distributor, when you have Steam and Humble lining up for your work. In fact the entire future of Screen 7 + GOG is on the verge of going up in smoke, I'll tell you that. Valve are our supporters. Through and through, and without question. Valve. And if you can make games work on Steam then you have a viable career ahead of you. I thank them for that. With GOG it feels completely different. Like I said I bet everyone who gets rejected is feeling really into adventure games right now--oh wait no of course none of them have done anything else since. GOG has a positive impact on our sector, shall we harp that? Seriously? If you want to play the GOG distribution game then yes you are commendable for putting up with that but the exclusivity is counter-intuitive to all your (our) creative friends trying to deliver their game to YOU. Our supporter at GOG, Jeremi - left the company. Jeremi got us there in the first place and since his departure the "support" towards our catalogue has dropped off a cliff. I'm not bothered by GOG's decision, I'm used to this from them now. My point is from here out, GOG can come to me if they want our games. Because screw going to them, if things like the art in a low res point and click traditional adventure is considered detrimental by them. We do okay with the distributors that don't rip our games apart. LOL, ok rant over, but whatever. Now you know, right? Something was "said" ;)

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Well, thanks for your reply, Screen 7.  Not everyone uses twitter, so a lot of people, myself included, didn't know this. And when I see developers only using twitter to keep fans informed, and neglect to inform fans on other sites they have announced their game on... I just sigh! 

I can understand your frustration with GOG - it must be disappointing.  But MANY of us will not support steam games, because we don't like DRM in our games.  And steam is DRM.

If you want to know why people support GOG, it's because of their DRM-free policy.  It shows that adding DRM to a game is a waste of time, money, and effort. 
But since GOG is not an option in this case, I will be buying in from Screen 7 website. 

Congrats on release.  :smiley:

We started playing two days ago and so far are really enjoying it! Looking forward to continuing tonight.

@Frodo: Isn't Humble DRM-free? We have Tales from Steam, but I bought stuff from Humble before and had no issues with DRM.

Cat, yes Humble offers DRM-free for this game.  But I was trying to explain to Screen 7 why people dislike steam.   :smiley:

One of the problems people have with Steam is that it's like you don't OWN the game you bought, you're just sort of borrowing them -- and if one day Valve decides to take them down for whatever reason, they're just gone from your library and that's it. I haven't heard of that many titles that this happened to, but I did have my eye on certain Marvel Comic games, and they were taken down over some licensing issues between the developer and Marvel. But none of the games I owned got ever taken down. Meanwhile, one day I decided I'd love to give GTA4 a whirl after a long break, and logged onto my GOG library only to find it gone because reasons. My bad for not backing the installation file up somewhere -- but still, not nice to throw my toys away just because I haven't played them in a while.

So yeah, I don't trust either of them. I do tend to favor GOG, but if Steam is the only way I can get the game, then Steam it is.

Quote from: Fitz on Thu 24/11/2016 13:35:13
One of the problems people have with Steam is that it's like you don't OWN the game you bought, you're just sort of borrowing them -- and if one day Valve decides to take them down for whatever reason, they're just gone from your library and that's it. I haven't heard of that many titles that this happened to, but I did have my eye on certain Marvel Comic games, and they were taken down over some licensing issues between the developer and Marvel. But none of the games I owned got ever taken down. Meanwhile, one day I decided I'd love to give GTA4 a whirl after a long break, and logged onto my GOG library only to find it gone because reasons. My bad for not backing the installation file up somewhere -- but still, not nice to throw my toys away just because I haven't played them in a while.

So yeah, I don't trust either of them. I do tend to favor GOG, but if Steam is the only way I can get the game, then Steam it is.

Probably not the best place for this discussion, but GOG has never had any GTA game, and even for games removed from Steam, if you bought it, you can still download and play it.

Oops, my bad. It seems I got something really mixed up here. I realized I meant San Andreas. Then I checked back and it turns out you're right, it never was on GOG. OH well, I'm getting old, and that was long ago.

So anyway, I was thinking... Tales could really become AGS's Kyrandia. You've kind of set up a possible beginning for a sequel, and in part three you could twist it around and make the villain the protagonist! (laugh)

If you own the game on Steam, please leave a review (you don't have to type anything). This really would help us all out. Thank you!

I've just found a Let's Play of Tales done by a youtuber called 123Pazu. It seems he livestreamed a complete(?) playthrough of the game and the videos are currently being uploaded in 15 minute segments (parts 1 & 2 are up at the moment):

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv_2SQLNWWxYoBMjr2vaw9axAei7ouJTD

I've found several other walkthrough series of Tales on youtube as well, but this is the first I've found with commentary... And without that it's a bit dry and boring...

But, it's SO interesting to watch how somebody who has no idea what the game is about react to the story and gameplay!

EDIT: He's up to episode 7 so far...And when he mentions the hints from "Mandevil" in eps 6&7...That's me...He had a tad of trouble with the tavern door riddle so I helped him out in comments...

EDIT 2: Pazu is continuing the series after a few weeks break from it and has just mentioned that he plans to finish the game by the end of this week (I post this edit on Jan 12th, 2017)

I've found another Let's Play of Tales on youtube, and this one is SOOOOO charming because it seems that it's a father and his child playing the game together, and also it looks like they have only just started their youtube channel together and that Tales is their first full Let's Play series!!!

I had a grin on my face through every episode so far!

Here's the link to their first episode and then you can find one after the next from there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_1sq1qfDr8

;-D

EDIT: Also, it seems that they played the free demo on steam and liked it so much that they bought the game to play together for their channel... So kudos to the demo!

EDIT 2: Kudos as well to Mark (Mods) for having us take out the light druggie humour at one point or this father/child lets play might have gotten uncomfortable...

EDIT 3: Actually I just found out that this playthrough is a guy playing the game with his little sister. I think they are from India. This actually warms my heart more than a father/son team as fathers have a natural inclination to get their son involved in their interests, but older brothers (and quite a bit older by the sounds of their voices) do not usually have the same inclination towards younger sisters... So yeah, an interesting combo there indeed!

EDIT 4: This let's play has reached the end of the game and he has concluded the series. It's a very good watch for any fan of the game, and you can even hear him choking up a bit during the finale scene and epilogue. He mentioned to me later in the comments that playing the game and especially the ending was "emotionally overwhelming" for him!

Decided to get me 'Tales' gifted for upcoming christmas holidays. With a bit of luck, the Linux build might be also available on Humble...  ;-D

That's pretty sweet playthru (also a good way to spot bugs early on, and it was interesting to see someone take a while to find the inventory bar, lol) ... but man, that dad ignores his kid quite a lot ;) nice to know it's being played by folks like that though!

Spanish is now working on Steam. Hope to update the DRM-free copy as soon as we can (once we're certain Spanish is working proper and we've fixed a bit of Russian text!).

Quote from: Screen 7 on Wed 30/11/2016 23:52:24
That's pretty sweet playthru (also a good way to spot bugs early on, and it was interesting to see someone take a while to find the inventory bar, lol)

Yeah...another thing I noticed in every playthrough was that they have a hard time finding the King Arthur book because they go to K immediately without looking at the A page... This was not supposed to be a puzzle, but it seems it might have turned into one. The book is on the A page because it was thought that people would find it easier because they would see it as soon as they opened the catalogue. I guess that probably works for native english speakers, but if someone who is not native must look at every title one by one to concentrate on reading them, it doesn't work so well by the looks of it...

Quote from: Screen 7 on Wed 30/11/2016 23:52:24
but man, that dad ignores his kid quite a lot ;) nice to know it's being played by folks like that though!

I was wrong actually. Through talking a bit with them I found out that this playthrough is actually a guy playing the game with his little sister. I think they are from India. This actually warms my heart more than a father/son team as fathers have a natural inclination to get their son involved in their interests, but older brothers (and quite a bit older by the sounds of their voices) do not usually have the same inclination towards younger sisters... So yeah, an interesting combo there indeed!

We (I played the game together with raeff) finished playing yesterday. I thought I'd write a short review.

We really enjoyed the game and recommend to play it!

What I liked about the game:

Story A lovely story based on a unique game concept. I loved that you could visit several different stories (of some of them I haven't even heard before - great to learn something new!) and all characters were interesting and believable. It had also a very good and satisfying ending.

Spoiler

Around the world in 80 days was the only book in the game I read myself, but I couldn't for my life remember where they boarded a balloon. A Wikipedia search revealed that my mind was not playing tricks on me and there was indeed no balloon. So, of course Fogg could not help us with the balloon - great take on the story!

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Graphics Beautiful! The backgrounds were done with so much detail, it was a pleasure to look at them. Also the portraits enhanced the dialogs by emphasizing emotions. We played the game with the laptop connected to the TV having all graphics shown at large scale, which was great and helped a lot with immersion.

Music The lovely music was, together with the graphics of course, a huge factor of setting the scene for the different stories. You just opened a book and were immediately pulled into the world just by hearing the first bars of each tune.

Voice acting Great performance throughout, my favourites being Alfred and Enkidu. I also enjoyed the accents that were fitting to the book (especially in the Gilgamesh story)

Puzzles The were ranging from easy to difficult with lots of variation. Of course, this is mostly personal preference, for example

Spoiler

the tile slide puzzle in the temple: when we encountered it, I was "Great, I love this kind of puzzle" but raeff was just the other way round, he hates them. So, in our case, I solved it :-)

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What I didn't like:

UI Since we were playing together, most of the time raeff was controlling the mouse. Using the magic bag was somewhat tedious: every time we were interacting with the full bag, there was an unnecessary messagebox if I really want to remove the item (of course I do, that's why I clicked there!) and another box when it was empty. Also, only beeing able to carry just one item was annoying, especially with

Spoiler

the recipe puzzle were you have to carry so much stuff to the kitchen

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Another thing about how the GUI reacted to clicks:

Spoiler

The magic coat: you would either put it on or just take it as an item, depending on the room you were in. This was a bit weird. I'd have prefered to have Alfred clickable and use the coat on him.
Also the last puzzle: In all previous situations, left clicking the empty bag would just show a message. But suddenly it is the solution? Merlins hint wasn't helpful either (and he gave great hints for all other puzzles), we even tried to cut the books with the knife from the library (i.e. from outside) and just discovered the solution by accident. We felt a bit cheated then, especially with it being the last puzzle which should leave us satisfied.

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Voice direction Of course, noone knows for sure how ancient names were pronounced, but it should at least have been consistant. Some said for example 'Enkidu while others said En'ki:du. Additionally, some of the voices had very irritating accents, like the left woman at the market. Some of the voices where slightly different in volume.
Another thing: Lowering the music volume during voiceacting was sometimes a bit distracting, especially when there were several lines with just short breaks in between. It might have been better for a game with so much text to keep the music volume a bit lower throughout the game.



We found a tiny bug:

Spoiler

When you look up "Around the world" in the cataloge after you have been there, the red frame and error wont go away anymore. It was even visible in the final cutscene.

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Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed it :) About that bug,

Spoiler

you are able to see the red squares anytime just in case you forgot where the book was. Would you say the "error" was that you could see it during the ending sequence? As such, it was working as intended except for at the ending? It's true, if you searched for it again and never had reason to go back into it (thus clearing the red box) it may NEVER clear the red box from that point on.

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thanks for the report!

About the bug:

Spoiler

The red squares worked as expected throughout the game. They show up when selecting the book in the catalog and disappear as soon as I enter the book.
But the "Around the world" book cannot be re-entered later on (but can still be marked by selecting it in the catalog). So there is no chance to "get rid" of the red square again. The red square was a bit distracting, especially during the ending sequence.

I would suggest to remove all red squares either as soon as any book is entered, or at least before the final cutscene.

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Quote from: cat on Tue 06/12/2016 16:38:36
About the bug:

Spoiler

The red squares worked as expected throughout the game. They show up when selecting the book in the catalog and disappear as soon as I enter the book.
But the "Around the world" book cannot be re-entered later on (but can still be marked by selecting it in the catalog). So there is no chance to "get rid" of the red square again. The red square was a bit distracting, especially during the ending sequence.

I would suggest to remove all red squares either as soon as any book is entered, or at least before the final cutscene.

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I would also add:

Spoiler

Also maybe make the 80 days book unsearchable again in the catalogue once the player has done everything needed there. The display message could be something like:

Quote
"There's nobody left in that book that can help me. Oblivion has already wrecked that tale."

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Good idea, Mandle!

I just want to point out, that the bug is really tiny, more a graphical glitch.
Throughout the game we experienced no other bugs, no walkbehind glitches, no voice lines not matching the text,... none of the things that usually can be overlooked by testing. The game is very polished!

Quote from: cat on Wed 07/12/2016 08:41:13
no voice lines not matching the text

Well then, I'm glad that my extra half-a-dozen playthroughs to track down all the voice actors not reading the lines as written and then rewriting the TRS file to match what they said was not to waste!

But, actually this was a good thing for the game for the most part: Mostly the cases where the voice actors misread the lines resulted in a much more natural performance than what the line originally was, and I was more than happy to rewrite it to match what the actor did with it.

It felt a lot like what movie directors do when they decide to go with the actors' ad-libbed lines rather than what was written in the script: As long as it means the same and the delivery is better, I will always go with that version rather than it be delivered awkwardly.

I've found another let's play of Tales on youtube by a quite entertainingly snarky younger guy called Masterwolfin:

This is the first one I've seen in the current style of professional youtuber let's players where they show themself on webcam in the top corner and bounce their own comedic style off the game as they play it.

And this guy is quite good in my opinion. He's outspoken and snarky but never really at the expense of the game, and often mentions how much fun he is having playing it. The humour is just his style and it makes me smile a lot.

Masterwolfin's Tales playlist can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMaw0MQGWqQ&list=PLPep3x97x1NV3PviF91t0F2NbJvL9NOTZ

Also 123Pazu that I mentioned before is continuing his playthrough and has just said that he plans to finish the game by the end of this week...

Emineo4j, who I also mentioned on the previous page, has finished the game and the full playthough is available on his channel...

I will update links to these channels soon but for now you can just go back a page and follow the links there if interested...

Adventure Gamers reviewed Tales and gave it 4 out of 5 stars:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/32050 (http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/32050)

The German Adventure-Treff gave it 85% (which is very good):
http://www.adventure-treff.de/artikel/tests.php?id=435 (http://www.adventure-treff.de/artikel/tests.php?id=435)

I just read through the Adventure Gamers' review and it was very fair and balanced hugely in the positive side, while still pointing out what they viewed as slight flaws...

I was especially pleased to read the following section as it reinforced for me the warm-fuzzies I have gotten from watching let's plays and the reactions to my take on the different characters, and the choice to steer away from archaic speech and write them as modern archetypes, and the warm and light feeling of the original script by AprilSkies, also not to forget the voice actors that really gave each character their true souls:

QuoteIt was good, too, to see the dialogue treated with a spritely touch. The characters you meet aren't burdened by olde worlde speech and the knowledge that the weight of the world is on their shoulders, instead being more likely to greet you with a cheery, "Hey, dude!" They'll also occasionally give you acerbic commentary on everything from Uruk's bureaucracy to Bellerophon's angst at being mistaken for Hercules. They seem human, with ordinary human troubles and humour, and do a good job of making their lives and worlds feel real.

Thanks for sharing these links cat, and let's hope that the game's fame spreads even more because of these reviews!

I'm assuming this is for sale, have you had any sales yet?

The friendly guys from German Adventure-Treff.de (http://www.adventure-treff.de/) published a test (http://www.adventure-treff.de/artikel/tests.php?id=435) of Tales recently. Overall, a well-written review with a quite good rating. Especially the emphasis on books, the amount of animations as well as nicely produced voices and music are positively mentioned.

Congratulations, Ape Marina and Screen 7!

Edit: Me stupid  :sad:  Of course Cat and Mandle already mentioned it. Sorry. Will post more carefully, and read the thread thoroughly first.

I had a great time playing this beautiful game. I wish I could create backgrounds like this. I loved everything about it. Thanks to everyone involved for making a very enjoyable and fun adventure game.

Thanks for pointing out the reviews, and your own comments, they've all been nice to read! The game is on sale and it is therefore selling - but it is by no means a GTA 5 or the likes, as such it has a job to do winning some hearts first and what you might be hinting at - "selling well", later. It's good to see it's been appealing to different age groups and the fact it has several functioning alternative text translations is obviously paying some dividends - even if only small ones right now - for euro gamers (if the reviews are to be believed, ie, Adventure Treff isn't fake news ;)). Thanks again for purchasing, playing... when it goes on discount for the first time proper, I'll be back to let you know.

Just a quick heads-up that youtuber 123Pazu has just finished his 34 episode let's play series of Tales.

The full playlist is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZQ31oLs8KQ&list=PLv_2SQLNWWxYoBMjr2vaw9axAei7ouJTD

I found another review of Tales which I don't think has been mentioned yet in this thread:

http://www.gameboomers.com/reviews/Tt/Tales/Tales.htm

It is once again a massively positive review with only a few niggling negatives mentioned (the same ones that everyone mentions (laugh) )

Nice! .................... we won't talk about the adventures planet one though........................... :P

Never the less, the game has been well received by many of the sites, and by the 5 people that own it. It's been named Tales [PC] on Steam to help with visibility. Can't afford Linux version at the moment, sorry. Maybe when 7 people own it (laugh) No regrets. It has a solid shelf-life ;)

Quote from: Screen 7 on Sat 15/04/2017 02:39:42
Nice! .................... we won't talk about the adventures planet one though........................... :P

Pfft... someone peed in that guy's Cheerios... May Oblivion Himself devour that review!

Congrats on the positive reviews, and on people owning it! 

As a somewhat tangential question, how long did it take to get Tales greenlit on Steam, by chance?

Hmm, moot point really I'm afraid as it's about the 5th or 6th game I've put on Greenlight. You'd probably get a better idea from the dude that put Beard In The Mirror Up, or Dualnames, or anyone who's more recently done Greenlight as a first. TCL took 6 months but that was way back when Greenlight was first introduced and when getting into the top 50 or so was imperative to passing. Greenlight batches at that point were every few months, now I think it's monthly, perhaps even weekly or daily that they pass games. Some of ours have flown through, literally a hundred votes and somewhere in the top 1000 at best! But as I say that's because we have numerous behind us now. And a couple were negotiated with Valve rep. You might want to send the Greenlight team a complementary email, don't beg, just show them where the game currently stands commercially, that it functions and its reception if you're able to prove it, and they may take a liking to it a little quicker. It's only recently released, it exists in full and for all intents and purposes it works, so it's already a step ahead of a lot of games in Greenlight.

A good time to pick up Tales, 50% off in the Steam summer sale! http://store.steampowered.com/app/416250

and many percents off our other games: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=Screen%207

Please leave a review on the store page if you can, thanks! :)

Yay! Sale means wishlist sleepers wake up and hit the "Buy Game" button!

(In my head at least that's what it means...)

You can get the game for $4 alongside a bunch of other games at Groupees for a few more days: https://groupees.com/bms

Just spreading the word cos it looks like those folks want to unlock the last bonus game after a few more sales ;)