How to frame this. Well, perhaps what Fatale is ultimately about is framing. To even understand what Tale of Tales intends involves understanding their framing and the fact that their intentions are not to make a game at all makes me wonder why it’s even worth reviewing. That said, Immortall is in the same dimension of interactivity as Fatale, and so what this mess of an experience is doing is worth some discussion.
From a physical perspective, what Fatale is attempting to do is show a tragic existence. What is likely to actually be experienced is simply frustration due to unfamiliarity. Not doing something is doing something, but not doing something at other times is just not doing something. There’s a lot of play on expectations that make the experience messy and incongruous, so many perhaps that the experience is likely to be frustration.
In some sense, that’s actually a success of Fatale. It is a hard game, but it is hard because functionally it’s really bad. Awkward controls are one thing. Hell, Mount and Blade Warband has awkward controls. But that awkwardness is contextualized in a way that makes sense. Here on the other hand, we are just left to wonder if the developer is just bad at making the interaction intuitive.
If their past and future efforts are to be considered, it is largely that they simply have little clue as to how to make an interactive experience, never mind a game. In interactive experiences like Osmose or Ephemere, there is a clear progression, a sense of movement. Even within art, design is structured in a way that the designer has the ability to exercise intent without forcing design into the experience. Effectively in art, this is done by direction, by size, by use of space, by depth, lines, fluidity, the list goes on and on.
Somehow, Tale of Tales manages to throw out many of the good things about both artistic design practice and game design practice, toss them to the wayside, call a lack of insight art, and get away with it. There is clearly a problem here, and much of the problem lies in the laps of groups looking for interactive experiences to be regarded as art without consideration for what is artistic in an interactive medium.
The problem here is a mediocre game and a mediocre experience. There is a lack of appreciating the context within which the game is created. There are far too many instances of projects more worthy of attention than Fatale. What is amazing, simply, is a project such as Fatale would be considered as anything other than what it actually is–a urinal in a gallery full of urinals.
Recommended: No