Hey, everyone!
This is Julian from DigiTales. I haven't written a proper blog post in almost a year even though a lot was going on behind the scenes. In a nutshell, we were having a tough time like many of our fellow indies. I'm not going to get into the various crises, detours, and tough decisions of the past year because the bottom line is: We made it out the other end, and we're feeling better than we have in a long time.
DigiTales Publishing?
That's right, we're doing the thing! You either die a dev, or live long enough to become a publisher. In our case, this was a spur-of-the-moment decision when we saw the opportunity to help our friends at Forking Paths Gardening Interactive get their first game across the finish line. It's called The Great Sassanelli, and I'll tell you more about it below!
DigiTales x Forking Paths
Quick Q&A
Q: Wait, are you no longer making games in-house?
A: On the contrary! We are currently working on one and have the next one already lined up.
Q: Do you take new pitches?
A: Not right now, as our attention is fully taken up by Sassanelli and our own new in-house title. We don't even know if we'll ever publish other titles, or if the experiment starts and ends here.
Q: What do you do as a publisher?
A: Marketing, PR, and distribution. For Sassanelli, we also took over producing and programming to help finish the game.
Q: Can you even do these things?
A: We'll see! With many years of combined second- and first-hand experience surrounding the publishing process, we feel ready to take on the challenge.
Q: Does all this mean you're going to self-publish from now on?
A: Not necessarily. For our current in-house title, we are actually looking to work with a larger publisher, although self-publishing is an attractive option as well.
Q: Those are stupid questions, can I ask you other ones?
A: Yes, please email us: publishing[at]digitales.games
The Great Sassanelli
We've actually been following this project for many years, ever since it was just an idea in Forking Paths co-founder Nico's head. It slowly developed into an amazingly written and unique interactive novel about a travelling circus in WWI Europe. When Forking Paths were presented with a tough choice about its future (which they expertly anticipated when naming their studio), we proposed to help finish and publish the game because we just... need it to be out there. Oh, and maybe you recognize the amazing art style – Sassanelli's sole artist Jon created both Between Horizons key artworks.
I'm not going to try to sell you on the game here, that's what the store page is for! Please, please wishlist the game now on Steam if it sounds like your jam, so Forking Paths think we're doing an excellent job as a publisher. It's not coming out until next year, but you can follow its development on our channels. We're about to post interviews, feature spotlights, character intros and more that should give you an idea of why we fell in love with it.
Status Quo
With the headline announcement out of the way, let's catch you up on the past year and take a brief look at the present and future!
ICYMI
Here's a quick-fire round of what we've been up to since the Between Horizons console release a year ago:
6VCR Shop: World-renowned pixel artist 6VCR joined our team three years ago, and in January of this year, we collaborated on the relaunch of her shop featuring her amazing artworks in various physical and digital forms.
Unburied Kickstarter: For the past two years, we've already known which game we're going to make after the current one: a psychological survival horror title called Unburied. We have some great plans for it and will update the Kickstarter preview page later this year with lots more details. Follow it now to stay in the loop!
Between Horizons 1.2.0: This major patch came out on PC in June, introducing a host of fixes, upgrades, and QoL improvements, alongside a new kick-ass key artwork. Full patch notes here. We have another update planned, but no concrete timeline yet.
Sticky Business: We collaborated with our friends at Spellgarden Games to bring new content for their breakout hit Sticky Business to PC and Nintendo Switch: the free Pride, Among Us, and QoL updates as well as the Camp Zinnias and Book Of Shadows DLCs.
New DigiTales game
Despite its very favorable reception, Between Horizons was somewhat of a dud commercially. There are many complex reasons for it, and I'll lay them all out in a detailed post-mortem soon. Combined with the larger industry crisis at hand, we were unfortunately forced to cut down our team by more than half, among other concessions.
While that hurt a lot, there is a silver lining: The efficiency and quality output of our reduced crew over the past few months has been mind-blowing. It gave me great confidence that we can deliver our next game at a fraction of the cost, in less time, at an even better quality than our last. The new title is already close to being feature-complete, and about a third of its contents are finished in final quality. If things continue this way, we expect it to release in 2027.
I'm not going to reveal more about the new game for now, but if you liked our previous titles, it should be right up your alley. Follow us so you don't miss the big reveal. As mentioned above, we are looking to work with a larger publisher to get it over the finish line, so feel free hit us up if you are one! We have a pitch deck and vertical slice ready to go.
New office, old friends
We have moved yet again if you can believe it, making this our fourth office in six years. However, I don't expect another move any time soon as this one meets our needs perfectly. We have our own space on a shared floor with some indie friends, finally reuniting with our old office roomies Radical Fish Games after over two years apart.
Our new place right after moving in (still a bit of a mess)
That's the long and... not-so-short of it. Please wishlist The Great Sassanelli, and follow our socials for more regular updates.
Thank you so much for reading and, as always, for all the love and support over the years.
Julian