#dreamfeel

[ratedjo]

Creator's Description: CURTAIN is an interactive first-person narrative about Kaci & Ally, two queer women in a Glasgow punk band, which gives you a first hand experience of their destructive relationship.

Players embody Ally coming home to their apartment after a successful gig as Kaci, your partner, watches and comments on every thought and action, creating an overwhelming, stifling atmosphere

Developer: dreamfeel Engine: Unity Price: Paid/ 5USD Download: Itch.io

[sepiiarecord]

if found... 3/?

[lexi-daysical]

Hey, if you can, please sign up and support my former co-workers and one of the most unique, creative studios out there. I've had a few sneak peeks at what's coming and it's very exciting!

[evegoldenwoods]

I don't have a particularly emotional story about my enjoyment of friends at the table. I can't say that it changed my life or anything. I started listening in the middle of 2019, and I've enjoyed it a lot over the years. I think it's made me a better writer and game designer. I like drawing fanart for it. something about the combination of looseness and specificity vis a vis character description, as well as the serial nature of the show, really sparks my imagination and has helped me to improve my craft by pushing me to do work I otherwise might not have done.

But I do have some very fond memories of listening to it. Washing dishes and cracking up laughing over counterweight. Walking back from the dreamfeel office (when we still had an office, gosh) and listening to twilight mirage. Particularly in the dark of winter, around maybe November of 2019, the music of twilight mirage playing through my headphones in the cold night air is a sense memory I think I'll keep for the rest of my life. I feel really lucky to have those memories, and to have found a group of storytellers who make work I connect so strongly with.

And they were right in the palisade post-mortem: they do need to take more breaks. I'd rather have a little for a longer time than a glut that causes unsustainable burnout.

[first-impressions-gaming]

If Found...

Developed by Dreamfeel

Published by Annapurna

Release Date 2021

Tested on PC (16 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 7735, RTX 4060)

MSRP 12,99 USD

Humans do connect and communicate what they speak and convey, but what is unsaid and kept to oneself carry the same weight. What we have, after all, is words, nothing more. To understand one, trying to get through them is an attempt beyond comprehension sometimes. What we have is to try our best, do our best, be our best. If Found asks these questions, and it asks them in the best angle you can possibly think of. Welcome to Achill Island.

Here’s the opening scene welcoming you:

If Found takes place in 1993 in Achill Island, Ireland. The game has a handful of references let it be local and Irish language, these references are presented in a natural way and you will find footnotes in relevant scenes with explanations. What you will realize first is the phenomenal aesthetic and artistry in the game, the whole game is a visual novel, and as the player you progress in the game by erasing what is on screen, and you move on. The design choice you will find here is more of hand-drawn pictures and caricatures and landscapes with great attention to detail. By erasing you progress and this makes the game feel like this is an entire canvas and we keep going by erasing what’s behind us and draw what is present right there. The game’s silent narration speaks so much with this way, of course as the player you will be playing ‘as’ the main character, yet more often than not you will…an observer let’s say. You are the one who is witnessing what’s unravelling in front of you rather than what’s happening to you.

The game has one story on two planes: first one, and I will call this ‘main’ one, is with Kasio, a trans woman who is on the cusp of getting a scholarship for PhD in Dublin. Kasio returns to her hometown, Achill Island, to visit her family and just to see what’s waiting for her. The second one deals with a female astronaut who is named Cassiopeia. She finds a black hole which threatens to destroy entire planet if it is not to be prevented, and the only way to prevent the earth being sucked into the black hole is to find the exact location on the world that has this extraordinary power to stop this possible event. The two storylines get connect to one another in a nicely way through the ending and you won’t be left with questions.

Take a look here at Kasio’s diary and ‘eraser’ game mechanic:

During the game, we witness Kasio’s notes and drawings in her diary, she takes notes of everything, her surroundings, event, people, her feelings, ideas, thoughts and much more. As I touched upon, we erase what is on Kasio’s diary as well to progress. Diary is the most personal belonging for a person, it is where a person opens themselves to themselves, and maybe to entire planet. It is personal because it is a safe zone for the one, and we keep erasing and erasing what is said, drawn and thought. Erasing and moving on makes it feel like you are always starting with a clean slate, a fresh start. But no. Not in Kasio’s life. We erase, and we still cannot leave behind…what’s behind. They haunt us. Kasio’s dad passed away couple of years ago, we don’t know exactly how many years passed but Kasio mentions that she was in class in high school when it happened, therefore at least six to seven years must have passed thinking that she is trying to get the scholarship for PhD. Ever since her dad’s passing away, nothing has been the same between Kasio and her mom and sibling. Apart from her family members, Kasio comes across couple of strangers who are younger than her, they also identify themselves as outcasts or outsiders of Achill Island, who don’t fit in this small town’s standards and norms, and they are queer as well. They crash temporarily on this abandoned house in a remote location on the island, and Kasio joins them shortly and she gets to know them closer. For a fleeting moment, we witness thinking that ‘yes, this is a group of young adults who can get through anything and overcome any hardship if they stick together’ but no, as much as I wanted to believe in this, the reality and real life slap you hard. Yes, they are outsiders in this town like Kasio, but they are not going through what Kasio been. A close-knit group of friends may seem they won’t drift apart no matter what, yet…life happens and you go separate ways. Each member of the group grow apart and they will seem a stranger to Kasio once more. The narration is so powerful that you get the gist of it: when you meet a total stranger, at first stage you feel ‘yes, this is the person who gets me!’, but this is not permanent, the next moment you know they are the most distant human being to you for no reason. Kasio is not trying to find a safe port for her, she is trying to steer ship of hers in this chaotic ocean, every time she finds a port to rest for a short time, she gets kicked out, and she is on her own once more, numerous times. Without spoiling the story for you I’ll throw some quotes from the game at you. Remember, I said that understanding somebody is the key to everything, if you don’t get it, what’s more to say? What’s more to try? To achieve? 

“I just want to be normal, Kasio. And I’ll never be normal with you”.

“You are the biggest freak around that’s for sure.”

“Oh god, you are really lost.”

“You are making life difficult for yourself.”

All these lines, sentences spoken to Kasio mean only one thing: you don’t belong here, you don’t belong inside our borders, our determined lines.

As a trans woman, Kasio is up against everything and everybody including her family members and ones whom she thought had understood her. But no, alas. Her family is ashamed of her because she is this ‘freak’ who dresses ‘funny’ and shows up at family Christmas dinner with women's clothes. A closeted queer rejects being associated with Kasio because he thinks that he is just in a phase and once the phase is over, he can be ‘normal’ and he cannot be ‘normal’ with a trans woman. She is the talk of town and he will be also the talk of town if he is with Kasio. Kasio is this scape-goat, she is a clown. She is not ‘normal’. Kasio is ‘lost’, she is not herself, actually she is not himself according to her mother. Kasio must be a ‘he’ in order not to be ‘lost’, not this stranger who is putting on women's clothes with long hair. Kasio is also accused of ‘making life difficult for’ her. How can somebody be accused of being…themselves? According to her mother, she has to be a ‘he’, be the person that she raised for twenty-three years, not this weird ‘she’, build a family, have children, and live. Kasio is not okay with this, she openly rejects having the life her mother and father have had. Regardless of with whom Kasio tries to connect, nobody gets her. Her family members think she is ‘lost’, and this must be stopped. People she met recently avoid being associated with her in the long run because there is already rumours doing the rounds in the town. Kasio is expendable, she is ‘lost’, ‘making life difficult for’ her, clearly not ‘normal’, and on top of everything she’s a ‘freak’. That’s a lot… a lot for a person who wants to live as she wishes.

And I want to end this review with this heart-warming scene:

If Found grabs you in every moment, it does not hold anything back, the serene and clean narration coupled with amazing aesthetic design is everything a visual novel enthusiast could hope for. Dive into Kasio’s diary and accompany her.

[gmlocg]

3,116.) If Found...

Release: May 19th, 2020 | GGF: Visual Novel, Adventure, Story Rich, Interactive Fiction, Atmospheric | Developer(s): Dreamfeel | Publisher(s): Annapurna Interactive | Platform(s): iPad (2020), iPhone (2020), Macintosh (2020), Nintendo Switch (2020), Windows (2020)

[djstormageddon]

Side Quests is back and this episode's host is writer, podcaster and explorer of black holes, Flora Merigold! The game she is talking about today is If Found... by Dreamfeel and Annapurna Interactive!

[hexalt]

Favorite Gaymes

Happy Pride! To commemorate the occasion, here are my favorite video games where you play an LGBT character. There isn't enough LGBT representation in media, including video games, so I wanted to share some of my favorites.

Continue reading…

[contemporaryartdaily]

“A Cat May Look On A Queen” at The Green Gallery

[pixelrender]

Top 10 games I played in 2019

In many ways 2019 was a transitional year for me. 2020 will be a completely different year than 2018. Full of work and studying. And that’s why I need to leave my computer behind for a while. I have few games I would like to play on my phone, but mostly, I’ll be silent on the gaming front. I managed to play over 95 games this year. I wrote two or three sentences on every single one of them here. They were mostly short games from Itch.io, most of them under one hour of gameplay. There were many gems and I have an urge to honorably mention at least five of them. So, there might be another post along these lines or check this playlist of mine for some essential games, which might be missing in this selection.

Top 3 was a clear cut, but coming up with the order for the rest of it was difficult. FTL is in my top ten of all times for example and a superior game to both Morphblade and A Short Hike. It is however a game I had played before. The list is quite cohesive this year and I think that every single game on it is either an example of excellent design, great fun or an experience more interesting than films. 2019 was a year, in which I stopped caring about the story being good. I don’t need twists I only want feelings and there are other ways to evoke them. Video games and various kinds of walking sims are way more powerful tool for that. It might be that I’m more sold on games than most movies right now? Dunno, I guess I just managed to dig myself deep enough in my niche. There’s one honorable mention I should make right here. I finally managed to beat, one of my favourite games, FTL this year. Finally! It was the most satisfying moment in gaming of the year. I considered to put it on the list for that reason alone, but being one of my favourite games of all times, I don’t think it needs further spotlight.

10. The Isle is Full of Noises

I played several games from Dreamfeel early 2019 and fell in love with the devs. They’re sensitive, emotional and visually delightful. Curtain probably is the best starting point, but The Isle is Full of Noises is where it’s at. This flatgame is a full emotional outbreak accompanied by some of the best music I’ve heard in video games. It being a flatgame, there’s no collision just your character moving around and discovering things. Despite this simplicity I felt the game and the painful alienation of the character. It’s free and on every platform but phones!

9. Espectro City

This is such a weird combination of influences and simply the best game to come out of  CosmoD’s jam. This game’s about a city inhabited by ghosts. The whole world seems to be dead. It’s a detective game and you move around the city, which happens to be a desktop of a computer and individual places icons. The writing is really good, the mood superb and the gameplay itself surprisingly fun. The game’s full of sentimental sadness and rather deep too! I can’t wait to see more pieces like Espectro City from the dev. Again the game’s free and that’s a  nice bonus.

8. Renowned Explorers: Inernational Society

I played this back to back with Curious Expeditions and expected to like Expeditions better, because their gorgeous art style suits my taste better. And they were a lot of fun with ridiculous thngs happening all the time, usually because of my exploits. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but not as much as Explorers. This game’s really sweet with its simple addictive tactical battles, which are winnable by being friendly, handcrafted locations, great random events (the structure reminds me of FTL) and board game like elements like cards. Also, individual explorers feel way more personal. This was the most fun I had with the game all year long.

7.  The Things We Lost in the Flood

This little free game was exposed on major outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC gamer for a reason. It’s an impressive experience, a piece of art almost. It makes you think and most likely creative and insightful. I played it only few days ago, but I immediately knew that this needs to go on the list. Besides floating on your ship through the flooded world (in one direction), you come across messages from other players. This subtle multiplayer function makes the game really shine. You feel connected yet distant and there’s no space for hostile interactions. Even after several runs, I feel like there’s more stuff to explore too with screens being thrown at you at random. Play it and get engrossed in its meditative nature, this is the future of poetry.

6. Even The Ocean

For a fairly traditional Megaman inspired platformer in its core gameplay, Even The Ocean brought a lot of extra stuff from JRPGs in. There is a story, which gives you reasons to explore more, an overworld and the esthetic. It’s a nice game, but some of the backgrounds or platforms looked more like sketches than defined illustrations. The gameplay is smooth and good and I enjoyed a good portion of it. It’s all about jumping and overcoming various obstacles, the game doesn’t include battles. Also, the game evolves around corporations, exploitation of power and resources and nature and keeping things in balance and it’s all really actual with climatic changes being number 1 topic of the year. The story is somehow predictable but there is a very enjoyable twist.

5. Even The Stars

This was a simple game about exploring universe, which left a deep impression on me by its finally, which gave your wandering a purpose. Now this is a major SPOILER. This game ends with you dying and revealing your path and discoveries. Even without a purpose, your life had a purpose. It was such a strong message and it crowned the slow exploring, which, tbh, was quite enjoyable on its own.  There’s not much to say, just play the game, it’s free. While you’re at it check other games from Pol Clarissou as well, they’re little gems.

4. Heaven Will Be Mine

Ok, I claimed that I moved from story driven media earlier and this is a visual novel. It was the truth only partially. I still enjoy a good story if it manages to get me invested. This is both a hot romance and a tragedy. You choose to play as one of the three Mecha pilots, all of them are female, each of them representing one faction, one vision of the future. It's really complex and you can never fulfil all of your goals. Choices you're making are difficult from the get go and you're usually choosing between goals of your faction and your personal attitude towards one of the other two pilots, because you're, if not in love, in a hot relationship with both of them. Mecha suits get steamy and it Bronté level romantic. Also, it's worth it make multiple runs with various goals as different drivers. In the end the emotional impact this game with a relatively complicated and often post-human motivations had on me was the main reason why it stuck with me and why I enjoyed thinking about it's politics so different and yet same as problems of my own and this world. Despite the strange it was easy to relate thanks to masterful writing and sleek esthetic choices.

3. Morphblade

I hadn't got around anything really strategic or thinky this year before playing Morphblade. Damn, what a bullseye! This game's an almost abstract endless puzzle game with no real fiction attached to it. In the same way as Super Hexagon it makes it more addictive than morphine. Maybe that's why it's called Morphblade. Or it might be because you morph every turn into a new weapon or tool, based on tile you land on. The game's only mode is endless survival, so there's no real reason to keep playing but the addiction and the great combination of upgrading tiles by killing bugs on them and expanding the playing area. Despite being more of a little side project, this might be the best game Tom Francis has created so far. It's definitely the tightest design.

2. A Short Hike

The top 2 games on my list have a lot in common. They're both Humble Originals and they're both games about enjoying simple things. In case of A Short Hike, you're a city dwelling teen thrown on a Wi-Fi free island and you're being learnt to enjoy it. And it is enjoyable and warm and fuzzy. It's for reason this short game appeared on end of the year lists of many respectable outlets. Looking at screenshots and gifs doesn't make this game justice despite them being really pretty. The low poly in this game is superb and it being this good looking certainly gives it an edge, when it comes to presenting all the little nice things you can do to have a brighter day without exploiting anyone. A Short Hike is an extremely friendly game. Everyone on the isle is welcoming and sharing their enthusiasm with you. I cried of joy. Movement in this game is another thing. You walk, run, glide and climb and everything feels right. It's a game you can play on a wet day to make it the best day possible or on a sunny day to inspire yourself. Because enjoying the pleasures of movement on your own is the real deal.

1. Kimmy

This was a wonderful experience. The game's about Dana, a good caring kid, who is babysitting Kimmy. They walk around town, chat and play games. Mechanics of the game are simple but the way Kimmy presents itself, together with its structure and everything weaved in its narrative, it simply is brilliant. At first it might feel that the game's about building relationships with other kids. That part's really cool on its own as you get to know more about them and they're all original characters and positive ones in one way or other. Next, you uncover the second line. Simple game we all used to play and how we all managed to lose something, when embracing playing on computers and even various board games with many rules and components. It's never been the same sensation since. The last thing is the overarching narrative of the relation of Dana and Kimmy. There were more serious tones thrown in and the final plot twist went against my expectations and made me totally happy. The move from simply satisfying player is a bold one and I would say more rewarding in this case. Definitely more rewarding for me. Celeste and her work on Tacoma had put Nina Freeman on my map years ago, but only after playing Kimmy, she became a real star for me and I'm looking forward to playing We Met in May one day. This definitely is on par with Tacoma in terms of using the medium to carry over a message and a depth of the message.

[clairebrankin]

Always delighted to work with Dreamfeel! They asked me to create their Christmas card this year, so we decided to go with an Irish, coastal feel. 

[girrulez]

‪✨✨ TONIGHT ✨✨ at 8pm EST we are taking a look inward with @dreamfeelx and @annapurnainteractive ‘s If Found... Been wanting to check this out and it’s now available today! Come along for the feels trip! ‬ ‪✨✨Twitch.tv/GIRRULEZ✨✨ ‬ ‪#twitchstream #iffoundgame #visualnovel #indiegames ‬#dreamfeel #annapurnainteractive #smallstreamersconnect #smallstreamerscommunity #art https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYFNWvDEJS/?igshid=l5tsw3nbuj5m

[bestgamesintheplanet]

SPACE BLOOD - S02E06 (dreamfeel)

Our intrepid heroes find themselves lost in a vast desert...

Free to play (Windows, Mac, Linux)

[freeindiegame]

CURTAIN by Llaura

A game about an abusive relationship. Previously pay-what-you-want, then $5, now pay-what-you-want again.

[vowtogether]

who exactly are the writers ?

We just gave our team some mini bios on our curiouscat on twitter, so we'll pop those over here!

Rien Gray is an author of F/F and F/NB romance, and probably responsible for all the coffee being gone.

Arson Kidder writes high heat weird queer shit. You probably know them as Xekstrin but this is their new shiny official writer name.

Dayna Smith is a Michigan farm witch who writes werewolf westerns and alien sex comedy. Check out her story Hangdog in Beneath Ceaseless Skies!

Eve Golden-Woods is a writer and producer for Dreamfeel, a small Irish games company that released the award-winning If Found... in May 2020. She lives in Dublin, and when she's not writing she can be found reading, drawing and listening to way too many podcasts.

Devan Soyka is a DC-based game writer who is generally writing about sword duels when she’s not actually in the middle of one.

Frances Maples is a cis lesbian who loves writing romances that encompass the wide spectrum of what it means to be queer. Her career has been in game writing for the past five years or so, but she also writes prose, stage plays, and audio dramas.

A.K. Fedeau is a fashion fiend who wants to try every genre once. If there's a gritty middle-aged man in one of our stories, it's her fault.

Amanda Louise is a writer, editor, baker, and animal lover. Her passion is writing about magic, whether it involves kissing or spells.

Alix is a Jewish lesbian based in NYC, writer of comics, games, fanfiction, and all sorts of romance—and terminal sufferer of fandom brainrot.

Cyrus is an NYC based playwright, game writer, and now, soon-to-be author! They write relentless optimists and secretly soft skeptics falling in love.

A. Hendricks is a seasoned m/m romance and game writer who loves happy endings earned from lots of angst and tears.

Cherry lives in NYC, works in fragrance, and spends 90% of her time daydreaming

T.K. Hirst is a writer currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia. They enjoy watching cars go around in a circle for fun. 

Between writing characters smooching, thinking about characters smooching, and talking to friends about how said characters should be smooching, Margot Madison also finds time to teach high school, crochet, snuggle with her cats and her wife, and go hiking at every opportunity.

Fisher Strunc finally committed to making her silly made-up internet name her official pseudonym. When she isn’t writing stories with intensely fluffy happy endings, she can be found drawing, watching horror movies, and/or playing video games.

Abigail Laughlin is fifteen minutes late with Starbucks, imposter syndrome, and a very demanding cat. Her main characters tend to fall into one of two categories: emotionally repressed jerkfaces, or Miyazaki Girls.