Hi, everyone! Julian here.
Our publishing debut The Great Sassanelli by Forking Paths Gardening, an interactive novel about a travelling circus in WWI Europe, is now available on PC, Mac, and Steam Deck. For the next two weeks, you can get it 15% off in celebration of its launch. Please leave a review if you enjoy it, that would help us out a ton!
The game turned out so well. We cannot accurately convey how nice it is to immerse yourself into this world and its characters, especially lying down somewhere with the Steam Deck, for which the game just obtained a Verified badge. ✅
You’re still here? Fine, I’ll tell you a little more about it. But then you go play!
What awaits you
Is it a book? Is it a game?
The main reason we call The Great Sassanelli an interactive novel is that there’s a lot of reading, and we want to make that abundantly clear to any prospective players. All the narrative beats are conveyed through what we call the storybook:
That being said, the designation really does not do the game’s wealth of mechanics justice. The Great Sassanelli is arguably the most complex game we’ve ever worked on. The innocuous prose you end up seeing on the screen is the tip of an iceberg made up of complex, deeply intermingled systems. But that’s enough about how games are hard to make. Let’s talk about the complexity on your end!
The economy
In The Great Sassanelli, you take your circus from town to town in a war-torn Europe trying to make ends meet. The in-game economy runs on two currencies. One of them is the money you earn by staging shows. The profitability of any given show is determined by a number of factors such as the population size (which in turn can be impacted by the war), and the eagerness of the local populace to come see it. The latter can be boosted by advertising, but returns will inevitably diminish as you stay around, forcing you to move on to the next town eventually.
You need money to pay your troupe every week, and to buy amenities – more on those next. In addition to your income from shows, you can stumble upon the odd delivery quest, offering you to bring cargo from one town to another for a nice bonus.
The other currency is morale, which reflects the current mood of your troupe. Many factors and events can impact it, but the key to keeping it high is to always have a stock of amenities, a crate of which is used up every day. If morale drops too low, laborers may leave the circus, which increases the risk of accidents and makes certain actions such as travelling take longer. The scarcity of amenities also keeps you moving, as the local shops only carry a small number of crates for purchase and will take a while to restock.
Your ultimate goal
Layered on top of all that is a puzzle, which unlocks towards the end of the early game and accompanies you until the end. It reveals a second layer on your map, the purpose of which is to track everything you know about a mythical safe haven called Cuculia. Clues about its nature and whereabouts are scattered throughout a series of poems. Some are counterfeits which you need to check for mismatches with the original, some have other irregularities. Finding Cuculia by following these breadcrumbs is your ultimate goal in the game, leading to some of its multiple endings.
Unforeseen events
A lot of things can happen – randomly or not-so-randomly – on the road, at your camp, and across the various towns you visit. The Great War will often throw a wrench into your plans. As countries enter the conflict at historically accurate dates, more and more towns become war-torn, affecting your bottom line. You may get turned around at a border unless you bribe your way through or find someone to smuggle your convoy across. Active fighting can temporarily block off some paths altogether.
Of course, not all random events bring bad news. For instance, you may stumble upon a unique performer on the lookout for a new gig. You can take them in, provide a wagon and weekly rate, witness their new act at your show, and play through their bespoke storyline outside the circus tent.
If all that sounds intriguing to you, go play it already!
You’re still here? Okay. Let’s talk a walk down memory lane.
A look back
Both my co-founder Jasmin and I had known about The Great Sassanelli since before its inception. We learned about it from Nico, the writing half of Forking Paths. Sitting in his garden near Hamburg on a sunny afternoon over half a decade ago, none of us would have imagined arriving at this point together in 2026 – or really any of the events that transpired in those years.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that I first proposed the idea of DigiTales publishing the game. Jon, the painting half of Forking Paths, had just told us that their funds had run dry, and there was no way to finish up the game now that they couldn’t pay their freelance programmer. We were huddled together in our break room that night, probably over some drinks and board games. I remember just blurting out the idea without much thought.
DigiTales x Forking Paths in September of 2026
We ourselves were in a terrible spot financially at the time. Between Horizons wasn’t as commercially successful as Lacuna. Publishers were spooked, as the COVID boom was followed by a major bust. Investor money in the industry was quickly drying up. Games funding programs were in limbo for two years, both on the federal level and in our home state. Many of our friends shut down their studios in those days. We were forced to shrink from seven team members down to three. It sucked.
Signing The Great Sassanelli was not a business-minded move. We have no illusions about this niche game making millions – and even if it does, we drafted a contract that’s very advantageous for its developer. The only reason we got on board with it was, well… Just look at it. Read it. Listen to it. Wouldn’t it have been such a shame if it had never seen the light of day?
LOOK AT IT. 100% AI-free!
You’re still not playing it, huh. Well then. Let’s briefly peek into the future to wrap things up.
A look forward
Will we ever publish another developer’s game again? To put it in the immortal words of Elijah Wood: Maybe!
The future of DigiTales Publishing
As it tends to happen in game development, finishing up the code base of The Great Sassanelli was a lot more work than we originally thought. We expected having to fix a few bugs and add gamepad support. Not only did we end up rebuilding most of the game’s countless systems from scratch, we also designed and implemented a host of improvements and additional features – all in close coordination with Forking Paths, of course. Over the past few weeks alone, we added save slots and Johan’s Wagon.
All that to say: If the stars ever align again, we will do a much more thorough analysis of where the game stands and what it takes to finish it. Plus, we have certain standards when it comes our titles by now, which also need to be met. Crucially, we cannot be the ones making any of that happen – we cannot be a co-developer again, as it simply overstretches our tiny studio’s capacities.
That’s all of us. Four people having worked on four projects this year.
If you’re making a narrative game that you think might be a good fit, and you primarily need help with marketing and distribution, shoot us an email: publishing@digitales.games
What’s next
With The Great Sassanelli being out now, we will focus all our time and energy over the coming months on From Ruins as well as our secret side project, which we’re going to officially reveal in the first half of December!
Realistically, we will spend most of 2027 working on both of these games, so don’t expect any further DigiTales releases until about a year from now. This also pushes the launch of the Unburied Kickstarter campaign into 2028. I’m sorry – we’re not fast, just very persistent. To sweeten the wait, why don’t you
🚨➡️ go and play The Great Sassanelli ⬅️🚨
right now, and let us know your thoughts in a Steam review!
Thank you to the teams at both DigiTales and Forking Paths for making a fantastic game – and thank you very much for checking it out, and for reading all of my ramblings today.
– Julian