House of Tales

Last updated

House of Tales
Company typeDefunct
Industry Video games
Founded1998
Defunct2010
Headquarters,
Germany
Key people
  • Tobias Schachte
  • Martin Ganteföhr
Website www.house-of-tales.com (archived)

House of Tales Entertainment GmbH, trading as House of Tales, was a German video game developer based in Bremen. The company was known for its point-and-click adventure games.

Contents

History

House of Tales was founded in 1998 by Tobias Schachte and Martin Ganteföhr, who had previously developed children's video games for the ZDF. The company's first game, The Mystery of the Druids , was published by CDV Software in 2001. The company initially lacked a corporate office and organized in a decentralized fashion online, a rarity at the time. [1] In 2008, House of Tales was bought by DTP Entertainment, but initially remained an independent development studio under the new parent company. At the end of 2009, tensions arose between the House of Tales management and that of DTP regarding the future direction of the studio and the poor sales of 15 Days . As a result, Schachte left the company in January 2010. [2] Ganteföhr departed in March. Thereafter, House of Tales' company headquarters was moved by DTP from Bremen to Hannover, the location of Cranberry Production, another DTP-owned development house. House of Tales was subsequently integrated into the Cranberry team, marking the end of the company.

In December 2014, the Swedish publisher THQ Nordic acquired the rights to House of Tales' adventure games and made them available via digital distribution platforms.

Games

TitlePublisherGenreDatePlatformNotes
The Mystery of the Druids CDV Software Adventure2001Windows
Black HoleelkwareAdventure2003 J2ME
The Paper MenaceelkwareAdventure2003J2ME
The Moment of Silence DTP Entertainment Adventure2004Windows
Secret of the Lost LinkelkwareAdventure2004J2ME
The X-Files: The DeserterelkwareAdventure2004J2MEPart of The X-Files franchise
Verliebt in BerlinDTP EntertainmentAdventure2005WindowsPart of the Verliebt in Berlin franchise; co-developed with Radon Labs
Overclocked: A History of Violence Anaconda (DTP)Adventure2007Windows
15 Days DTP EntertainmentAdventure2009Windows
The Mystery of the Ghost ShipDTP Entertainment Hidden object game 2010Windows

For all of its games, House of Tales used a proprietary development environment called Inca ("Interactive Narrator's Companion for Authoring"), which includes a graphical user interface for building the infrastructure of a game and an adventure-specific scripting language. [3]

Awards

The Moment of Silence was voted Adventure of the Year in 2004 by PC Games and the website Adventure-Treff. Overclocked received the Innovation Award at the 2007 Deutscher Computerspielpreis. [2]

See also

References

  1. "Firmenportrait auf Mediabiz.de". Archived from the original on 13 July 2021. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Meldung auf Gamezone.de". 7 June 2010. Archived from the original on 15 July 2021. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  3. "Feature auf Adventure-Treff.de". Archived from the original on 14 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.