Wintertown

"Wintertown leant on a hillside facing east, protected from the fierce, cold winds blowing from the mountains. One fateful day the Regime came and gripped in its evil clutches both homes and people: cold and darkness snuffed out the flame of hope and love. Citizens lurk through the narrow alleys swept by the cold northern winds, trying not to draw on themselves the cruel attentions of the Soldiers. Fables are staging their resistance, working in the shadows to allow the return of Spring..."

We decided to give Wintertown a little darker connotation. The Land is after all in the middle of a Conflict and the soldiers of Winter are strongly present in every corner. The traces of war are all around the country: tanks, ruined and bombed houses, lights turned off or just shyly on. Fables can barely walk in the dark alleys without being intercepted. And everything is covered by a sinister and soft snow. Wintertown's architecture is clearly inspired by the Northern European countries: Bruges, Amsterdam, for example, without their canals. Everything is supposed to have a Flemish taste, with a “World War II touch”. I have observed Avercamp's and Bruegel paintings for a long time, in order to find the right architecture. The great job done by Hide on the board will reflect exactly these narrative cues.

Jocularis

Merry Christmas!

Under the Christmas tree, you find the sketch of a new character ...
May the Christmas night be full of happiness and peace!
Jocularis, Hide, Matteo

3 - Work in Progress: Board

Hide

The English version of Winter Tales website is now on-line!

Welcome, friends, to Winter Tales blog... Take a seat, have a cup of hot tea and get ready to discover the Regime of Winter and the Fables that fight for Spring. Winter Tales is a narrativist board game and in this site, we are going to delve into the phases of its development.

Matteo Santus

Mangiafuoco: Background

The terrible charismatic dictator of Pleasure Island, Mangiafuoco, aimed at more desirable goals. Enlisted in Regime's army, Mangiafuoco led to battle the soldiers of the Regime with ice-cold cruelty. He was wounded during the Autumn War by a Fable not yet identified, thus he has been promoted Supreme Judge of Winter, governor of the country and great general commander. He is the tyrant who dominates the fate of the inhabitants, with iron hand and without any piety.

Jocularis

2 - Work in Progress: Board

I have started working on the single elements that are going to compose the game board. It's going to be many elements, so I will need a working method which is based on the multiplication of elements. This is an example, I used the same building to test this kind of method. Next week you will read other news from Wintertown!

Hide

1 - Work in Progress: Board

Here is some preparatory study to identify the right style to depict the Land of Winter. Other studies and preparatory images will follow soon!

Hide

Pinocchio: Background

Once Pinocchio became a child, he chose to be a puppeteer. After his old father Geppetto died, he met Mangiafuoco, who had already become the tyrant of the land.He saw, embodied in his figure, the oppressive and persecutory ideology of the Regime of Winter, and saw the strings that bind every man's doom to the powerful. He believed with no doubt that all the inhabitants of the land should be rescued from oppression. Obsessed by the nightmares of his adolescence, he is now hunting for redemption. He is a revolutionary and acts fomenting rebellions and hatching plots to the detriment of the Regime, making sure no-one finds him and always persecuted because of his progressive ideas.

Matteo Santus

Alice: making of

When I started working on the characters of Winter Tales, I remember spending hours in Jocularis' company, drawing on the same paper, trying to find a symmetry between our ideas, crossing signs and correcting each other, to decide what was really interesting and what wasn't.
We needed an adult Alice, that would remind us of Carroll's child that we loved so much but, at the same time, would be different and darker, a little exhausted by Wonderland's follies.
You can follow Alice's realization by clicking on this LINK.

Hide

Concerning Game Design

When we first talked about Winter Tales game play, I must admit I was a little bit puzzled. Narrativist board-games, as I had tried them, used to leave a bad taste in my mouth. They usually lacked narrative rules and gave players so much freedom, that the story was deprived of any logical tie, pushing the player more to unjustified simplistic conversational actions, than to a construction of a credible and sensible story. Surely, a big part of the problem is that the player first wants to create a beautiful story, without simply growing up during the session, but I'm sure that the system must provide tools that help players create both a beautiful and sensible story.
This is why, when we started working on Winter Tales, I decided to always keep this idea in mind, to determine what our game should be.
Now I have to gather my thoughts in order to bring the many versions of Winter Tales into focus and decide which one is worth telling...

Matteo Santus