#light fairytale

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 1)

Some times ago I stumbled upon the trailer for an animated storybook adapting "Hansel and Gretel". I even made a quick post about it and then moved on my way. However, what I was not expecting was that my casual search would end up throwing me into a whole "lost media" investigation...

So I present to you the first report of my search for the lost media "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales".

"Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales" is the English title of an interactive, animated storybook originally created by a Dutch team - hence why it exists also under the Dutch name "Hans en Grietje - Epic Tales".

Its trailer (posted around 2012/2013) is still around the Internet - on both Youtube and Vimeo, in English. It showcases you all the effort put into the product as well as the quality of it all - because when you think "Interactive storybook" you think "Just some still pictures you flip over while a voice narrates in the background". But here, not at all: you have entire animated tableaux allowing for a true point-and-click kind of game, intercut with entire animated segments and sequences - making this interactive storybook quite close to a full cartoon or simplified video-game.

In fact, I am not the only one to say this: numerous reviews pointed out this application could be considered a full cartoon in itself. And if some comparisons are left a bit generic "A cartoon feeling", "It could be a Saturday morning cartoon" I have seen one review even going as far as to compare this traditional 2D animation to a Disney movie!

I especially love the art style here which is reminiscent of classic, old fairytale cartoons - and I will come back to this element later because I do believe the game has easter-eggs or nods to classics of the fairytale animation.

Not only that, but as the trailer indicates, this game was supposed to be the first of an entire line of animated, interactive storybooks, the "Epic Tales" line, each reinventing fairytales, all narrated by the same storytelling character you see in the trailer, Silvertongue the (elf? dwarf?) who beats up gnomes to bring books to life... To have such a big project coming from Dutch folks isn't so surprising given the strong Dutch love for fairytales (it is the land of the Efteling park, after all).

In fact, the Epic Tales line had not only its own website (that you can see in a different promo for the app, here) but also a Facebook page and a Twitter account to promote the release of the game.

The game was released on iOs format and distributed by Apple. You could get it on your iPad or iPhone by just buying it on the App Store or iTunes store. And it was met with very, very positive reviews. Everybody agreed on saying this game was awesome, the dub very good, the interactions fun, the music delightful - in a word, absolutely perfect. Here is a handful of positive reviews I could find in English ; coupled with another handful of articles in Dutch this time. Mind you, some people do complain about the story being a tad bit too "light" for their taste - as in everybody agrees it is a visual treat with splendid visuals and a goofy tone perfect for kids, but some do complain about a lack of "darkness" (one review even regretted the "psycho-drama" of the original story, absent from this light-hearted story). I personally think there's enough dark Hansel and Gretel retellings out there to allow us a nice light-hearted, goofy, innocent version, but oh well, that's just my opinion... I'll return to these changes in a later post.

These online articles are notably quite precious for bringing additional screenshots of this now unfortunately lost media...

Lost yes: for if you check the App stores and iTunes pages today, it seems Apple has removed the game from their offer. And given Apple was the only distributor... it seems you cannot get it anywhere else.

The Epic Tales website (epictales.com) has been brought down - though you can still find it back thanks to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which did preserve several versions of it. The Facebook page for Epic Tales is still here too, though inactive since the app's release. As for the Twitter account... it seems that after a few years of inactivy it was briefly taken over by a little girl who posted goofy pictures of her on it... Was it the account-owner's daughter, niece or little sister? I don't know but it seems clearly that this account is a dead-end too.

Now, outside of the trailer, official accounts and online reviews, the last remaining official bits of this animated project (because there is one un-official element I will go to later) are the Anikey Studios videos. Anikey Studio is one of the two big teams that worked on the "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales" project, alongside Cloud Castle Interactive, and while the Epic Tales line seems dead and gone, Anikey is still working a lot, regularly creating and publishing animated shorts. They have a Facebook, a LinkedIn, an Instagram - but more interestingly a Vimeo account on which they regularly post videos (itself doubled by a Youtube channel). And they post yearly Demoreels collecting bits and extracts from their animation projects. Including "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales".

Now, unfortunately they only use the scenes from the trailer of the interactive storybook, so nothing new - but still it worth checking out. The extracts most prominently appear within their Demoreels of the years 2016 and 2012 (I am using the Vimeo version, not the Youtube ones).

And so far, at first glance, this is it. If we do just a superficial search, it is a good-looking app that got removed by Apple ; a big hopeful project with a lot of effort put into it that everybody forgot about or did not notice ; a whole line of fairytale animations that got cancelled right after its first instalment. A first instalment seemingly disappeared into the limbo of "lost media"... But for me, it was only the start of the investigation - because if you know me, you'll know I can get incredibly frustrated when I see something cool I just happened to miss ; and as an enjoyer of both traditional hand-drawn animation and fairytale adaptations, this app seemed so wonderful...

As such, I am currently undergoing a sort of investigation to collect everything I can find and save about this animated storybook. Given I am not an expert "lost media hunter", I might find nothing at all - but at least it will be a fun ride playing the investigator for once! Plus something within the occult forces of the world seem to constantly condemn my blog to focus on "Hansel and Gretel"... I don't know why but every time it gets brought back to me one way or another. So who am I to oppose the mysterious flow of nature?

If any of you ever heard of this app before - if maybe you downloaded it some time ago, if you know someone who played it, or maybe if you still have it somewhere in your Apple product, please do contact me! Even the slightest memory can be of incredible use for such an investigation. Myself I am going to perform a breakdown of all the information I could find, and the following posts of this series are going to try to "reconstruct" what the app was about, and how the story unfold in this version - because here's the thing, it isn't just a regular, straightforward Hansel and Gretel retelling. They actually added and changed several elements in it... But that will be for another post.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. The application is somehow listed within the catalogues of several Dutch libraries. I don't really know much about how these libraries work, but if somehow there is a Dutch person who sees this post, could you eventually bring me some help? It would be very appreciated!

[zerochanges]

2022 Favorite Video Games

Another year, another instance of me not really putting in the time I used to for this favorite hobby of mine. Yup it’s true, 2023 was once again a year I really did not play a lot of games in. I found myself fairly busy and not having as much time as I would have liked to play games. Sadly it has been really difficult for me to manage time in my adult life as of late, and often I see what free time I do have going towards other hobbies with more immediate pay off. With all that said though I really wish I could be back to gaming like I used to be when I was younger. I like to think what I did play was at least of high quality but with my taste that might not quite be true. I suppose I should let you be the judge of what I wasted my 2022 on. What I did play I wanted to talk about , so although it’s not really much, I hope it still makes for an interesting read. 

AI the Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative

The first the AI the Somnium Files was a revolutionary title, no it didn’t do anything to change the landscape of visual novels, and no the narrative wasn’t ground breaking, it was revolutionary because of one thing: Kotaro Uchikoshi finally got a game with a good goddamn budget! Woo boy, you dunno how good that felt, the man is a legend and has created some of the best visual novels in the industry but the last couple generations seemed like no matter what he just couldn’t get major backing. 

I’m really glad the first AI happened, and I generally had a lot of fun with this second entry in the series as well, but I couldn’t help but feel a lot of the magic was gone from the first game. That isn’t to say, AI Ni, as the game has been dubbed, is a worse game; just that the first AI was exciting and I didn’t know what to make of it but now I have certain expectations from a sequel and AI Ni more or less met them all just as I thought it would. The game play is a bit more polished, and some puzzles felt a little more fair this time than in the first but besides that, under the hood it’s just what you’d expect.

I definitely did enjoy a lot of the new characters introduced in AI Ni, it was a smart decision to really center about half the game on an all new cast--and I thought they were just as dynamic and interesting as the characters from the first game. It helped that their interactions with the original cast made for some material that we couldn’t have see in the first AI game too. The main premise and murder behind the game is also some grade-A fun Uchikoshi, the man is always able to write great  sci-fi goobly gunk in such a fun way that I just will always love the his work. Basically, if you liked the first AI you’ll like this one. And that’s all I have to say about AI Ni for better or for worse.

Chaos;Head: Noah

The year was 2008 and I was nearly finished with High School. I was in the peak of my youth, and at the time couldn’t be a bigger weeb if I tried. I stumbled across this one interesting anime, based on a game I never heard of. It’s a visual novel and I had only just recently got into those games because of the many excellent ones released on the Nintendo DS. I can’t wait to try this out. That anime was Chaos;Head and oh boy did it begin a new chapter of my life. 

I don’t know how to stress this enough, there was no market for this stuff back when it came out. Fan translations were incredibly slow too, and often involved having to run some Japanese's version of windows and even then only certain routes had English patches and the other parts of the game were still in Japanese and it was a mess. I can’t even fathom that I finally can own this! And that it is in English!

Chaos;Head is the original and progenitor of the science; adventure series otherwise known as that series that Steins;Gate was in. In a way it makes a lot of sense why Steins;Gate took off to such explosive levels of popularity and overshadowed this game, but that also is kind of what makes Chaos;Head special. 

It’s so much grittier and more violent, it has a lot less mainstream appeal to it than Steins;Gate with an immediately lovable and quirky cast. Instead you have an incredibly flawed protagonist like Takumi who is an insanely flawed individual that manages to grow into somebody better. He has no self esteem, agoraphobia, and chooses to run away into fantasy from anything difficult. Plus he exhibits all the toxic traits of the fandom at that time but that makes sense since he completely devotes himself to said nerd culture in his attempts at avoiding reality. He’s a difficult character but honestly one of the best examples of a flawed protagonist and unreliable narrator in video games, hands-down. 

Light Fairytale Episode 1

I ended up stumbling upon this game completely by accident. Being a love letter to the classic PSOne era JRPGs and essentially being made by one guy really endeared it to me. Episode 1 is pretty short, maybe only 2 hours or so but it’s a brisk well produced vertical slice of a realized game, and I had my fun with it. No, it’s not fantastic or anything, but it really helped to entertain me one weekend and I ended up playing it twice even, the second time with the perspective of the main heroine. There’s a lot of personality in the game and it’s obviously a passion project which really shows. Trust me, I buy Kemco RPGs I know the whole “cheap profit off nostalgia” grift better than anyone, so when true passion is there, you really have fun with the game.

Pokémon Violet

It’s really easy to dunk on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. I know I did. These games are a mess!!! What a glitchy and bug ridden, unfinished, and lacking polish game. And this is one of the most profitable and beloved IPs the world has! What even is going on?! It’s easy to feel jaded and hate the game for it. Honestly the game does nothing to win you over when you start playing it. But if you give it time, damn, they really did deliver a good game after all. I know that’s a bit shit, right? “Oh the game is bad, but if you play it enough it becomes good!” I know, I know. If anyone told me that about any old random game I wouldn’t want to bother with it and think they’re an obsessed fan that doesn’t want to admit the shortcomings of their fave series. But in Pokémon's case, it’s true! Or shit, maybe I am an obsessed fan that doesn’t want to admit the shortcomings of one of my fave series. One or the other. 

Honestly it’s a tragedy the development was so rushed and that it runs as poorly as it does with so many glitches. By the end of the game you can really see how creative and inspired GameFreak was. They begin to do stuff I always wanted to see them do in Pokémon games. The story begins to really take shape and becomes one of the best plots the series had since Sun & Moon. The game play loop becomes even more fun and rewarding, and worth all the bugs to get through for just one more minute. Just one more! I found myself utterly addicted by the closing hours of the game. It’s a shame all this great stuff is tied to such a poorly made game.

Sega Genesis Mini 2

The model of Genesis I grew up with was actually the Model 2, in fact I was so accustomed to the Model 2 I legit never saw the Model 1 Genesis in my entire life until the internet came along. It’s weird, I owned the Model 2. My best friend owned the Model 2. My cousins owned a Model 2. I just thought this was what a Sega Genesis was and that was how they all looked. I didn’t even know it was a Model 2. So naturally, another Sega Genesis Mini console after the incredibly well made first one, and it’s shaped like the Model 2? Sign me the funk up, brother!!! 

It also helps that this time around the mini console is packed full of tons of Sega CD games, something the original was lacking in. If anything you might even want to call this the ‘Sega CD Mini’ instead. The game list is pretty solid, though I am bummed about the lack of Lunar games which the Japanese version got and which we didn't. That shit is whack. Also no Snatcher is just downright infuriating, c���mon you negotiated the rights to Castlevania Bloodlines, get off your asses and go back to Konami for Snatcher, it’s only the most prized and expensive Sega CD game ever made, like you know, an easy console seller. I usually never hack my mini consoles and just keep them stock, but yeah if a hack ever comes out I’m adding Snatcher, screw it. 

Okay, enough complaining, I love this little guy, it’s a gorgeous mini console, and I know I’m going to end up playing it tons when I can. I love how well it emulates the game, the borders look snazzy on it and the selection has some truly great choices like Crusader of Centy a game I definitely need to play one day. I also appreciate the extra mile M2 went just to get this thing made and how they gave us some quality of life improvements like the ability to switch from the North American and Japanese soundtracks of Sonic CD in menu and a new easy mode for Phantasy Star II. 

Shenmue

Like I mentioned in my anime thread, the recent Shenmue anime had me replaying this game again this year and man was it a blast! I really appreciated the insane amount of details the game had and in general the less-than-stellar elements that haven’t aged well only make the game more charming–especially the voice acting. But at its core is such an engaging and ambitious title that really just screams Dreamcast. This was an era full of experimentation and doing things like no one else had. It was an era where companies threw insane money at projects that they would definitely never make it back but who cares, it was now or never. Shenmue encapsulates all of that. 

It’s at times a really dumb game with some really jank controls. But it’s also at times a game that feels alive. The sandbox world it represents is tiny, hell even its sequel makes Shenmue 1’s world feel like a joke, and today we have sandboxes the likes of which they couldn’t even dream about when this game was in development, but still somehow everything feels so alive. Interacting with the cast is so good. Learning new martial arts or just about their day, it doesn’t matter, seeing all these NPCs grow and change over time is still special, even today. There’s an insane amount of detail to everything and the amount of interaction the player can have is just stupid at times. You can open cupboards to pull out shelves to pick up an item to turn side item around to read the bottom inscription on said item. It’s a whole lot, games today don’t do that amount of detail, I really appreciate it so much today in 2022.

Who knows if Ryo’s journey will ever find its ending, the future looks just as bleak now as it did when Shenmue 2 originally flopped, but I think anyone who enjoys this era of games should definitely experience the start of this journey.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade 3 feels like the crowning work of Monolithsoft. It is as if they perfected almost every aspect of their core identity as game developers in this one title. It’s a masterpiece and I don’t mean that lightly. The game provides easily the best combat in the entire Xenoblade series, hell maybe even all Xeno games, I am feeling just that bold. It manages to be just so incredibly fun to play and yet constantly finds ways to keep evolving, even towards the tail end of the game after 60 or 70 hours or so, the game still throws plenty of new elements and refreshes the system and how combat works. It never gets stale and on the flipside never feels overwhelming. Xenoblade 3 is the cumulation of years of work all coming together, even if that wasn’t intentionally so, as a third in a line of games, and as how well crafted as it is, it feels that way--it can’t help but to have that impact. If it weren’t for the staff working on the game being vocal that it isn’t an end to their Xeno games I could even swear this was some grand finale.

Oh and also did I mention you can combine and transform into giant robots?! Like hell yeah, what isn’t there to love about this game?! 

The game has one of the most realistic and personal feeling cast in the series. I personally related a lot to the character Taion all throughout the game, but every character manages to be fleshed out and brings an interesting perspective to what we are seeing. At times the plot can get a bit heavy, I kind of swear Tetsuya Takahashi really wanted us all to check out his pretty sweet Gundam fan fic, but this is the kind of stuff I love with these games. The return of super long and well animated cutscenes like the Xenosaga games had really surprised me as well. I know some people aren't crazy for 30 minute long cutscenes, but I dig this stuff.

Overall Xenoblade 3 is very easy for me to call my favorite game of this year. I know I didn’t play many but at least with all the hours of this game behind my belt I feel I can say I chose quality over quantity in this situation. The entire game just feels like a magnum opus for Monolithsoft and Tetsuya Takahashi. I honestly don’t know how they’ll top this one any time soon.

[bebs-art-gallery]

La Nuit (before 1937)

— by Auguste Raynaud

[escapismsworld]

📍Asthall, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

[bebx]

absolutely stunning midsommar dress by Kong Min Seon via instagram

[daisylambs]

[fairytaleprincessart]

[natureaestheticdreams]

@natureaestheticdreams for more

[littlealienproducts]

Fairy Tale - Tulip Wall Lamp by fiorediluce

[mollybeenoel]

Embroidery by Erin Alyssa (saltwaterstitches on instagram)

[adarkrainbow]

Fairytales in BD: L'envers des contes

L'Envers des contes (Bheind the Fairytales) is a BD series for children created by Gihef and Zimra. Taking place in a world that mixes medieval elements, fantasy characters and modern technology in a full fairytale-urban-fantasy, the idea of the series is to explore in a goofy way the "villains" of several famous fairytales that turn out to not be as wicked or sinister as we think.

Currently there are three volumes in the series. "The not so ugly stepsister of Cinderella", about how Javote actually worked behind-the-scenes to ensure Cinderella's happy ending ; "The not-so cruel stepmother of Snow-White" about the Evil Queen's reinsertion into society after a forced "cure of goodness" ; and the "Not-so malevolent godmother of Sleeping Beauty".

[satoshi-mochida]

Light Fairytale Episode 3 Teaser.

[bebs-art-gallery]

Midsummer Nights Dream, New York City Ballet Production

[etherealyearning]

Iford Manor

[everlinet]

tiny tiny new update of my art on etsy, link here. please check it out, I did a special limited 10% off so you can grab your favourite piece. btw., the crystals on the handmade frames are little sun catchers, and are perfect for windows! // @everlinet