Grotesque - Silent Dreams to Self Publish

We recently posted some Grotesque screens found at the Russian publisher's page - the first news we'd had in some time. Developer Silent Dreams writes in to give us an update, including the news they will self-publish (apart from the already existing agreement for Russia). It's also interesting to note Carsten Edenfeld from Piranha Bytes has joined them:

The storyintensive fantasy RPG Grotesque with new brilliant graphics.

Already a few years the developer Silent Dreams is working on the story-intensive fantasy roleplaygame Grotesque – Heroes Hunted for the pc.

The then still quite young company is working on remittance works for diverse games by now. Furthermore, the personal competence has increased. Carsten Edenfeld, lead programmer of Gothic 1-3, has joined Silent Dreams at the beginning of the year.

This positive change has led Silent Dreams to produce Grotesque independently from any publishers, to create an own vision of the RPG-genres: SRPG.

SRPG means: social and story RPG.
Social because quests can also be solved in other ways than pure fighting. Therefore we integrated some new elements which should be known from P&C Adventures. The relationships between NPCs are very important in Grotesque, some will be able to become friends or hate each other.
On the other hand the s stands for story, because the story is one of the most disregarded elements at the RPG genre, especially on pc.

The new graphical material of the incalculable an ironic RPG is showing graphical improvement in the area of Wishes Wind.

Someday, Roger Sun, the present-native main character who is a roleplay fan and guitarist of a metal band, awakes in the fair, beautiful and clichéd wood- and grasslands.

Because Roger lost his memory he directly notices as a RPG fan that this could only mean one thing: he must be the chosen one who should save the world… or ar least any beautiful princess.

However, Roger quickly finds out that living as a hero is not as easy as it seems to be.

Not only that some factions like highelves or mercenaries emerge as arrogant and little helpful for a world rescue but Roger also blunders into a deadly danger.

So he meets Dawnclaude & Solithaire, a psychopathic vampire-couple, who at this moment travel through the world, killing people in best Natural Born Killers-manner.

In fact, they rescue Roger from some annoying goblins but then casually predict the Guitar Heros death this very evening.

Fortunately Roger is meeting other NPCs which are helping him to find out more about his background and the world of Grotesque.

So the peculiar farmer Bennett is ready to share the rockstar some of his experiences and to teach him how to fight.

Bennett is one of many interesting NPCs which will be able give the game a very lively atmosphere with their distinctive charakters and the new relationship-system.

At this year the german studio will reach the alpha-state for conquering the world with their many many new ideas.

We've also uploaded the screens to our own gallery.
More information.

Sounds rather like "self-funding" than "self-publishing" to me. I think they found a way to secure the whole budget (minus the Akella part) without the help of a publisher. Which of course gives them more leverage in negotiations when the game is nearing completion.

I just checked the screenshots and was blinded for a moment. Any more bloom, ok? Or is that part of that "ironic" thing, too?

I not so sure about the "bloom" element but High quality seems to be on the menu -->

[In this version the new Vision 6 Engine from Trinigy will show its strength and High Quality Realtime Visual Renderer containing new added features as: HDR / Tone Shading / DOF and Speedtree 4.0.]
http://www.silentdreams.de/cms/index.php?lang=en

Re:- [Gothic 1-3 Lead / Senior Programmer Carsten Edenfeld has changed to Silent Dreams!]
…does this mean Carsten has actually severed from the Piranha's?

Originally Posted by Wulf
…does this mean Carsten has actually severed from the Piranha's?

Yes. This has been known for ca. 6 months. Maybe it was time for a change after ca. 10 years at 3 PB incarnations. Both studios are in the Rhine-Ruhr-Area, so he didn´t have to move.
I think Horst Dworczak (sp?), one of the graphics leads, has also done some work at Silent Dreams between the PB projects. That´s typical for game developers in Germany. Many of them are self-employed, although from an outside view it seems they are part of a studio.

The reason Grotesque is taking so long is that SD are doing lots of contract work in between to earn money. (Unconfirmed, but that´s what I´ve been reading.)

Originally Posted by Gorath
YThat´s typical for game developers in Germany. Many of them are self-employed, although from an outside view it seems they are part of a studio.

I think that's why some games have similarities. You can sometimes discover artistical styles that seem to be similar in different games.

Marian Arnold, who works for Larian, also did some pieces in Spellforce. Especially Orc Drummers. he once told in the forum.


Bottom line : Maybe that's one of the reasons why I see few distinctions and too many similarities between the Settlers 5 and Spellforce, I thought during the last days.

Originally Posted by Sputnik
I just checked the screenshots and was blinded for a moment. Any more bloom, ok? Or is that part of that "ironic" thing, too?

So you wanna have a rather dark environment like in the 10.000 other "western" RPGs ?

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
So you wanna have a rather dark environment like in the 10.000 other "western" RPGs ?

Dark? At least most of the western RPG's I have played have used also lighter colours while not using any kind of bloom effect. I can't remember the environments in Ultima's, Wizardy's etc being particularly dark.

I just do not understand this current trend of using the bloom effect everywhere, which especially in its exaggerated form makes the games look anything but photorealistic (if that's what is supposed to be achieved with it).

Strange. Except Sacred I think all RPGs I played in the recent times were particularly dark. Well, Divinity not so much, but I have rarely ever seen darker grass - not even in Reality.
Dungeon Siege was mixed, although not really "light-coloured" either.

me 2 ,
perhaps you played too much World of Warcraft.

the witcher = dark, Gothic = dark, Legend = dark, Dungeon lords = Dark, vampire 2 dark, two worlds mostly dark.

Grotesque seems to be an entertaining and humorous game. I think that is a good graphic style for that.

So he meets Dawnclaude & Solithaire, a psychopathic vampire-couple, who at this moment travel through the world, killing people in best Natural Born Killers-manner.

Well, that killed it for me.

Originally Posted by screeg
Well, that killed it for me.

Really? I like the game even better with that sentence. It so reminds me of Spike and Drusilla in Buffy and I loved those guys.

Oh, and I said countless times before: I'm going to buy that game if it doesn't suck totally. These days a funny, non dark, non serious rpg is as hard to find as a decent space sim.

Originally Posted by Roi Danton
These days a funny, non dark, non serious rpg is as hard to find as a decent space sim.

You're right. I can't remember any released in the last few years…

Originally Posted by Gorath
The reason Grotesque is taking so long is that SD are doing lots of contract work in between to earn money. (Unconfirmed, but that´s what I´ve been reading.)

What's unconfirmed? It's in the press release above.

Originally Posted by BlackKnight
me 2 ,
perhaps you played too much World of Warcraft.

Nope, I haven't even tried World of Warcraft. Actually I have been mostly (re)playing older, classic CPRG's lately, so it is possible that my views are a bit outdated.

Anyway, I think I was a bit misunderstood: I have nothing against games with light and humorous premises, nor do I dismiss a game only on the grounds that it has bright coloured environments. As I already wrote, I just dislike this overwhelming bloom effect which makes even watching screenshots of this (and mostly every other contemporary) game almost unbearable (well, unpleasant at least) for me. Ok, you can probably disable the effect in-game, but use of it in this extent still does not make sense to me.