At the occasion of an international exhibition of contemporary media art, Tale of Tales add a new feature to their free multiplayer screensaver The Endless Forest.The Endless Forest is a multiplayer PC game where everyone plays a deer in a virtual forest. There's no chat in the game and no violence. It's simply a peaceful bucolic landscape filled with wonder and magic.
Development of the game started in 2005 and has continued ever since.
The latest addition to the Forest is "De Drinkplaats", or "the watering hole", a peaceful place where players can bring their deer to have a drink from an eternally flowing source. When they do, however, they change into one of the other animals that inhabit the forest, often of disproportionate size. The more players gather in the place, the more magic happens.
A complete description can be found on
http://Tale-of-Tales.com/TheEndlessForest/drinkplaats.html
"De Drinkplaats was inspired by a painting of the same name by 16th century Flemish painter Roelandt Savery," say designers Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn. "The watering hole where animals gather is a typical subject for paintings of the period. And when we were invited to show The Endless Forest in a museum room of filled with such paintings, we couldn't resist. The Endless Forest has always been inspired by romantic tendencies in landscape painting. So it was perfect. And now you get to play a giant bunny!"
The new version of the game can be downloaded from http://Tale-of-Tales.com/TheEndlessForest/download.html
Fantastic Illusions is an exhibition of media art works by contemporary Chinese and Belgian artists. It was first shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai and opened last week in the Broelmuseum in Kortrijk, Belgium. Curated by Art Yan and Christophe De Jaeger, Fantastic Illusions illustrates the renewed interest of contemporary artists in the age-old desire to immerse the viewer deeply in the fiction of the art work. Next to computer games like Tale of Tales' The Endless Forest and thatgamecompany's Flower, the exhibition features installation pieces, video art and sculptures by Nick Ervinck, Hans Op de Beeck, Yannick Antoine, Aaajiao, Wu Juehui, Hu Jieming, Peng Yun and many others.
Disregarding the occasional ABIOGENESIS festivals that take place in the virtual world of The Endless Forest, it's been over a year since the latest addition to the game. Despite of this, the number of players has continued to grow and the player community has never been more active.
This means that the unique pictograms that players choose as a name for their deer are becoming scarce. Soon a new generation of "deer names"
will be added, turning a page in the history of the game.
"The Endless Forest is a difficult project to develop. As a free game that needs to grow, it is hard to find funding for it. But it keeps going, thanks to invitations like the one for Fantastic Illusions and contributions of the players. An interesting example of the latter is Project Greenleaf, a players' initiative that involves selling home made art objects online and donating part of the proceeds to the development of the game. The players are also putting together a calendar featuring some splendid examples of the great many works of fan art that are created every day."
Tale of Tales is an independent game development studio located in Gent, Belgium and headed by Auriea Harvey (US) and Michael Samyn (BE). Other projects by Tale of Tales include Independent Games Festival finalists The Path and The Graveyard and recently released vignette Fatale. The Endless Forest server is kindly hosted by the MUDAM museum for contemporary art in Luxembourg.