#hans en grietje epic tales

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 3)

Last time I ended my post while exploring the defunct epictales.com website. There was one page of this website (preserved in the Wayback Machine) that I did not add in this post: the About page.

The About page not only describes the Epic Tales line, but also lists the full staff that worked on this project. Here is what the website contains:

EPIC TALES™ is a developer and publisher of interactive storybooks for the iOS platform. EPIC TALES presents its own unique interactive adaptation of the imaginative and magical stories found in fairytales, folklore and world mythology.

All of our tales are narrated by our central storyteller, a most likeable dwarf named Silvertongue who used his magic to let our books and stories come to life. Each storybook offers stunning hand-drawn animations, a revamped storyline, original music scores, and spellbinding interactive environments that are sure to draw readers deep into the story.

EPIC TALES allows you to not only enjoy magical worlds and enchanting tales, but to experience them more closely than ever before.

We, the people at EPIC TALES, are always inspired by stories that fuel our ideas and imagination. We are storytellers, animators, and composers that gladly indulge ourselves in folklore, mythology, and the many tales and stories that have captured our imagination for generations. The result is a talented team of people driven to create original storybooks that are filled with whimsical characters, spellbinding environments, and interactive surprises. By combining creativity with technology, and talent with expertise, we hope to constantly produce exciting tales that bring every page to life. EPIC TALES is a joint venture between Cloud Castle Interactive and Anikey studios.

EPIC TALES Paul Hanraets, Founder of EPIC TALES and producer

Albert ‘t Hooft, Partner and creative director

Paco Vink, Partner and lead artist, animator

TEAM MEMBERS Lou Attia, Narrator and voice actor

Martin van Spanje, Software engineer

Joost van den Broek, Music composer

Arjen Schut, Sound designer

Sjan Weijers, Background clean-up artist

David Muchtar, Animator

Jelle Brunt, Animator

Ruben Zaalberg, Animator

The website also briefly offers descriptions/curriculum of the staff members:

Paul Hanraets Paul Hanraets has been a creative entrepreneur since 2002 when he co-founded Red Road Media, a media agency specialized in video games. Successful projects undertaken by Red Road include: Benelux largest annual game event Gamexpo, the tv show GAME FACTS broadcasted by TMF/MTV and the freely distributed game magazine Games Guide. In 2008 Paul founded Cloud Castle Interactive and was involved in the development of smaller game projects which further awakened his passion for the creative industry. As an immediate result Paul founded EPIC TALES, a developer of interactive storybooks for IOS and GAMBITIOUS an equity based crowdfunding platform dedicated to the games industry.

Albert ‘t Hooft & Paco Vink Albert 't Hooft and Paco Vink both studied traditional animation at the Willem de Kooning Art Academy in Rotterdam before they founded Anikey Studios in 2007. Anikey is an award winning animation studio which specialises in hand drawn 2D digital animation. Anikey creates independent and commissioned animations for television, films and games which have an emphasis on story, characters and fun. Anikey's first two independent films 'Paul & the Dragon' and 'Little Quentin' won several awards at international film festivals. In addition on working on the new EPIC TALES titles, Anikey is developing the first hand drawn animated feature film in the Netherlands since 30 years.

Lou Attia Working with the likes of Disney and Sesame Street, Lou Attia has been a professional voice-over artist for over 15 years. After studying professional vocals in London, England, Lou landed a radio host position at 104.2 Nile FM in Cairo, Egypt where he became Creative Director and then Program Director of the station. Throughout his seven years on the air, during which his morning show went on to be the No.1 listened to radio show in a city of 16 million, Lou continued to do voice-overs for numerous commercials, shows and features. In 2010 Lou moved to Toronto, Canada where he is currently a full time voice-over artist, writer and TV show host.

Martin van Spanje Currently co-owner of LayerGloss Digital Publishing, Martin used to program and design on 8-bit Sinclair machines in the eighties. Then came Macs, digital audio, ten years of IT-projects and finally, iOS. Nowadays he lives his life surrounded by Objective-C code, and he sometimes thinks cornflakes look a bit like people. Oh, and he doesn't do Twitter.

Joost van den Broek Joost van den Broek is a producer, composer, arranger and keyboardplayer based in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Starting out as a keyboardplayer for several metalbands like After Forever touring all over the world, he finished his conservatory with honour in musicproduction, keyboards and classical arrangement. Since then he been working as a freelancer in his own studio on several productions, compositions and arrangements, for acts/events like: Ellen ten Damme, Symphonica in Rosso, Wende Snijders, Games in Concert, Ben Saunders, Qlimax. Epic moviescores and/or/in combination with (pop/alternative)rock is what defines his style the most.

Arjen Schut Arjen Schut is a sound designer based in Hilversum, The Netherlands. As a freelancer Arjen has worked on numerous projects, both on location and in his own studio. Arjen is involved in sound effect creation for all sorts of media, but has a strong focus on interactive and animation projects. International blockbuster Killzone 3 being one of the larger projects.

I have taken upon myself to contact some of these artists, just in case they were open about talking or sharing information about the animation they worked onto. Is it a bad idea, or a good one? I don't know but that's the most straightforward direction one can take. I will warn you if I ever receive any response, positive or negative.

I forgot to link before the official page, on the Anikey Animation website, for their work on Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales. Not only does it contain large, high-quality screenshots of the artwork, but their "Production" page also has one concept art for the storybook. They also list the credits of the app as such:

Title: Epic Tales - Hansel & Gretel

Release: 2012

Directed by: Albert 't Hooft & Paco Vink

Animation by: Jelle Brunt, David Muchtar & Ruben Zaalberg

Backgrounds by: Paco Vink & Sjan Weijers

Music by: Joost van den Broek

Sounddesign by: Arjen van der Schut

Producer(s): Paul Hanraets for Cloud Castle Interactive

AppAdvice still has a page dedicated to the application. There is also a review by the MacTrast website that is quite interesting because, while today the pictures contained within it are "dead files", in the Wayback Machine you can fetch them back, and they are pretty rare screenshots of the game! Here's an additional Dutch article I forgot to add earlier. Again, not much to add since they all basically just announce the game's release and rephrase the storybook's commercial description.

I also don't think I have added this to my previous posts, but Cartoon Brew also had a page for the app's launching, which contained this text:

The Hague, the Netherlands — April 24, 2012 — Hansel and Gretel – Epic Tales animated storybook is the first in a series of tales as told by Silvertongue, the likeable dwarf and storyteller, and is now available on the Appstore for IPad and IPhone.

Hansel and Gretel – Epic Tales animated storybook offers a world filled with whimsical characters ranging from pesky gnomes to witty dwarfs; from brave children to wicked stepmothers and cunning witches.

“But we are not just another fairytale App,” says Paul Hanraets, founder and producer. “What sets Epic Tales apart from other storybooks are the incredible production values. Each of Epic Tales storybooks are digitally hand-drawn by our award winning animators, and offer stunning 2d animations, professional voice acting, original music scores and ambient sounds by game industry veterans. These elements combined offer spellbinding interactive environments that are sure to draw readers even deeper into the story.”

“Of course, our alternating witty and wacky humour and the high quality of our animations are amongst the things that separates Hansel and Gretel from other storybooks,” says creative director Albert ‘t Hooft.”However, what ultimately distinguishes Epic Tales is the implementation of our central storyteller, Silvertongue the dwarf.” Using the magic of pesky gnomes, Silvertongue brings the stories to life and narrates them.”Silvertongue used to be quite the adventurer, travelling the world in search of the most intriguing tales and stories, and now looks after your storybook collection in his humble bookstore. He is a truly gifted storyteller who can take an audience from a gasp of fright to a roar of laughter in just the twist of a phrase.”

Epic Tales is a series of high quality, interactive fairytales that allows you to not only enjoy enchanting tales, but to experience their magical worlds more closely than ever before. Children will love the sense of wonder and discovery,while adults will certainly appreciate the clever and wacky humor.

A final piece to add to the dossier so far is Muchtar Productions' page for Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales. Muchtar Production is the WordPress website of David Muchtar, a 2D animator and illustrator who worked on the Epic Tales animation as a (I quote) "Rough and Clean-up animator". He notably put within his portfolio an important number of concept art for the game's character designs. But, as with last time, I will keep it for the NEXT post!

Or... an almost final piece. I wanted to keep this for a much later post, but I ultimately decided to share it here. I vaguely described before one unofficial source for content about "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales". And that is an online review, a Youtube video, by a Youtuber named "Crazy Mike" specializing in app reviews. Here is the video, and the reason why this video is important (beyond it being the last remaining video review - unless I manage to get back the one from the defunct website) is because so far it is the only visual recording we have of the app outside of the trailers. Not only that, but at one point Crazy Mike opens the list of chapters within the app - which gives us a full glimpse of the story's main episodes, with thumbnails of each "tableau". Mind you, it is tiny details at the bottom of the screen so we can't get much of it... But with all the additional material I gathered, it will be a key element in my reconstruction of what the storybook looked like and was about.

[afatlotofchance]

Fishing for lost media! There used to be an animated storybook app on Apple. It was called "Epic Tales: Hansel and Gretel". It was originally a Dutch-American project so you might find it as "Epic Tales: Hans en Grietje" in its Dutch format. It was, as you can guess, an interactive storybook adaptation of the fairytale "Hansel and Gretel" and it was VERY cool because it was an actual animation effort. You had animated interactive screens intercut with full animation sequences in between, and it had this old timey Disney and vintage cartoon design and it was really great.

I do remember this fondly because they actually had a full scene of Hansel gaining weight, and growing fat. (He also gained a pig snout if I recall, because the witch also made him grow some porcine features?). Anyway there was this very precise interactive scene where Hansel had a cake as huge as him, just in front of his face, you had to tap on the cake and with each bite he grew a bit fatter, until the cake was gone and Hansel was chunky.

Unfortunately the application was REMOVED from all of the Apple stores, and nobody seems to have kept it anywhere so... Please if you have anything preserved of this app, be it video or screenshot or even just testimonies, please share! Because we had a nice case of little cute weight gain animation and it is just... gone forever without anybody noticing or preserving it.

Mind you there are still trailers, reviews and concept art of the app around - and in fact I will ask you to be quite careful about this because other people are currently searching for this lost app (it was how I came to know about it, on the non-kink side of things...). But the whole weight gain part is currently only preserved in memories and handful of Internet reviews apparently... So if anybody has anything to share, please do!

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 2)

In this second post (first one is here) I will collect and compile all the information I could find from the official outlets about "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales".

First, the last "official" post of the Twitter account, in 2013, long before it got overtaken by some little girl, shared a link to an article on the Erasmus Rotterdam University website. The article is now gone, but it seems it was linked to the app being used in some sort of cultural program, because here was the title of the article, as described by the URL: www.eur.nl/ ese/ english/ information_for/ students/ bachelor_students/ bhc/ cultural_programme/ jagten_by_thomas_vinterberg/

There was also a certain big deal made on the official accounts about the price of the game being lowered "by popular demand" at 3.99 euros, 4.99 dollars.

The Twitter account shared a video of the Dutch news during which their application appeared as part of an example of (what seems to be the digital market boom within Dutch startups?). The video is still available here but we don't see too much of the application, just the initial "tableau", the first chapter, during which Hansel and Gretel sit by the stream in front of thir house. What we do see is that during the entire scene their father is chopping wood in the background, and we can spot two interactions possible in the tableau: touching a bird will make it fly in circle while chirping, touching the stream will make a fish (a trout I think?) jump out.

The exact date of the application's release was the 20th of April, 2012.

The Twitter account also shared an official "Release announcement" article that was posted on PrWeb. The article is down since, but it is available through the Wayback Machine. Here is what it said:

From pesky gnomes to cunning witches; from witty and wacky humour to eloquent storytelling Award winning animation studio announces EPIC TALES™, a new interactive storybook developer that goes beyond the classic fairytales.

Award winning animation studio Anikey and Cloud Castle Interactive proudly announce: EPIC TALES™, the interactive storyteller.

EPIC TALES is a new developer and publisher of interactive storybooks for the iOS platform (IPad, IPhone) and delivers a unique interactive adaptation of the imaginative and magical stories found in fairytales, folklore and world mythology. EPIC TALES allows you to not only enjoy enchanting tales, but to experience their magical worlds more closely than ever before.

“Fairytales just never seem to lose their magic, but having said that, what we envisioned for EPIC TALES was not to merely reproduce them; we wanted to go beyond that,” says Paul Hanraets, founder of EPIC TALES. “To conjure up new worlds and the peculiar creatures that inhabit them: with characters ranging from pesky gnomes to witty dwarfs; from a brave woodsman to a cunning witch. And as much fun as it is to revamp the classics, we also want to find those unsung folktales that have not yet been exhausted, to reveal their magic, and breathe life into the world around them.”

Each of EPIC TALES storybooks are digitally hand-drawn and offer stunning 2d animations, professional voice actors, original music scores, and spellbinding interactive environments that are sure to draw readers deep into the story. The alternating witty and wacky humour, the high production value, and the high degree of interaction are amongst some of the things separates EPIC TALES from other storybooks; however, what ultimately distinguishes EPIC TALES is the implementation of a central storyteller.

“The tales are narrated by Silvertongue, a most likeable dwarf,” Says Albert ’t Hooft, co- founder and producer of EPIC TALES. “Silvertongue, who once travelled the world in search of the most intriguing tales and stories, now resides in his humble bookstore where he personally sees to your storybook collection. Silvertongue is a gifted storyteller who can take an audience from a gasp of fright to a roar of laughter in just the twist of a phrase".

For their first storybook release EPIC TALES has chosen to bring off their version of one of the Brothers Grimm’s most celebrated fairy tales. EPIC TALES; the tale of Hansel and Gretel is expected to hit the Appstore January 2012 and will be available for IPad and IPhone.

About EPIC TALES™

EPIC TALES™ is a The Hague (Netherlands) based developer and publisher of interactive storybooks for the iOS platform, and delivers a unique interactive adaptation of the imaginative and magical stories found in fairytales, folklore and world mythology. EPIC TALES™ is a joint venture between award winning animation studio Anikey and Cloud Castle interactive.

If you want to check yourself here is the url:https://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8981778.htm. The website on the Wayback Machine notably contains an in-article save of the EpicTales.com website... A website I will be looking at in a minute.

Here are two more articles that covered the app. Unfortunately they are only available on the Wayback Machine now. (I will put a "d" in front of the URLs so that Tumblr doesn't turn them into active links): dhttp://iheartthisapp.com/hansel-and-gretel-epic-tales-animated-storybook-classic-childrens-story/ ; and dhttp://www.theipadfan.com/review/review-hansel-gretel-epic-tales-animated-storybook

The official trailer for the animated storybook contains this exact description of the interactive projective:

From pesky gnomes to cunning witches; from witty and wacky humour to eloquent storytelling, EPIC TALES™ is a new interactive storybook developer that goes beyond the classic fairytales…

EPIC TALES™ brings off an original and humorous version of the Brothers Grimm's most celebrated fairy tale. The tale of Hansel and Gretel is an interactive storybook that offers a combination of prime storytelling, brilliantly animated scenes, and dynamic interactions!

The Tale of Hansel & Gretel Feature Set:

Classical tale, original adaption

2D animations and cut scenes from Award winning animators

Beautiful hand drawn environments

Dynamic interactive surprises on every page

Professional storytelling and voice acting

Original music score and sound effects

Intuitive navigation

The tale of Hansel & Gretel tells of a young boy and his soft spoken sister who have been abandoned in a gloomy and remote forest. After being lost for days the children are lured into a house constructed of delicious candy and sweets. Foolhardily, the children fall into a trap set up by an old and cunning witch.

The Facebook account doesn't offer any much new info, as it pretty much doubles the Twitter account... Though they did posts screenshots of the positive reviews of the app which propelled it to the #1 rank of the Dutch Appstore at one point:

Plus a list of positive reviews from the United-States (honestly with how many reviews and notes this got, which means tons of downloads, how come nobody seems to have preserved the app today? That's crazy, somebody MUST have it stored in their iPad or iPhone somewhere!)

The Facebook account also shared links to many dead articles and missing reviews - that however can be found back on the Wayback Machine (praise our lord the Internet Archive for saving us of the digital oblivion)! Mind you these reviews don't bring much but they're still evidence. One is here: dhttp://thesmartphoneappreview.com/ipad/ipad-mini-review-hansel-and-gretel-epic-tales/. Another is here, a list of Dutch releases: dhttps://www.metronieuws.nl/entertainment/zonder-deze-spullen-kun-je-niet-op-zomervakantie/SrZlgD!2tXHqyT0qzBsg/. Finally, the Daily App Show had a page for this app - which contained a video-review of the storybook. The article doesn't exist anymore, though it is on the Wayback Machine. As for the video, the Wayback Machine seems to not have preserved it? That or my computer can't download it... I'll try to fetch this one another day: dhttp://dailyappshow.com/hansel-and-gretel-epic-tales-animated-storybook.

Finally, let's conclude this post by looking at the defunct Epic Tales website thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Here is what we could read on the Home Page:

Available on the App Store for IPad and IPhone. Our first release; Hansel and Gretel - animated storybook brings off an original version of the Brothers Grimm’s most celebrated fairy tale. The tale of Hansel and Gretel tells of a young boy and his soft spoken sister who have been abandoned in a gloomy and remote forest. After being lost for days the children are lured into a house constructed of delicious candy and sweets. Foolhardily, the children fall into a trap set up by an old and cunning witch.

Hansel and Gretel - animated storybook offers a combination of prime storytelling, brilliantly animated scenes, and surprising interactions!

Hansel and Gretel Feature Set: Classical tale, original adaption Produced and animated by award winning animation studio Professional storytelling and voice acting 23 chapters filled with beautiful hand drawn environments Over a 100 interactive and dynamic surprises Cinematic cut scenes Original music score and sound effects Intuitive navigation Options : Read to me, Read by myself or Play around

There was a "Titles" page (the use of plural indicates the then hope of creating a full line of animated storybooks).

It repeats the text copy-pasted above, while adding this:

Silvertongue, the dwarf Storyteller, will welcome you into his magical bookstore hidden deep within the swampland forest. Once inside the bookstore, Silvertongue will gladly display you his collection of tales that are available for purchase or free demonstration. Once you’ve selected and purchased your book, it will be added to your private bookshelf where Silvertongue will keep them safe for future reading. Besides exploring the store, Silvertongue offers you the chance to engage in some challenging mini-games that can be unlocked as a reward for helping him catch the pesky gnomes that dwell throughout his magical storybooks.

EPIC TALES™ Storyteller App is our free App for the iPad and iPhone. Within the App you have direct access to the bookstore, your own bookshelf, and various mini games.

EPIC TALES - Storyteller Feature Set: EPIC TALES Bookstore, titles for purchase or demonstration Private bookshelf Gnome Mini games 2D animations from award winning animators Professional storytelling and voice acting Original music score and sound effects Intuitive navigation

There was also a "News" page which contained a very interesting article pointing out that the release of "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales" was notably made to match the 200th birthday of the brothers Grimm fairytales!

Let me copy-paste this article, called "Epic Tales celebrates 200th Anniversary of Grimm's fairy tales with Hansel and Gretel animated storybook"

Collaboration Between Award-Winning Animation Studio and Game Design Veterans Brings Classic Tale to Life On iPad and iPhone

“This version of Hansel and Gretel is a fully immersive, wonderfully engaging romp of a tale, complete with just the right amount of multimedia, professionalism and upstanding quality." – Luke Patrick, TheiPhoneAppReview.com

March 18, 2013 – Two hundred years after first being published, the magical and undeniable Brothers Grimm fairy tales continue to enchant and entertain children worldwide. Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales animated storybook celebrates this bicenntenial with the first in a series of classic, interactive tales from award-winning animation studio, Anikey, and the game veterans at Cloud Castle Interactive. For the month of April, the app will be available on the Appstore for iPad and iPhone for a special 200th anniversary price of $1.99, and thereafter will be priced at $3.99.

This EPIC Tales adaption stays true to the original Grimm Brothers' "Household Tales” – folklore laced with trepidation, morality, great joy and fun – but propels it into the 21st century. The storybook is digitally hand-drawn by award winning animators, and offers 20 chapters filled with over 100 dynamic and interactive surprises, professional voice acting, original music scores and ambient sounds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKvoy7QU_vc

Offering spellbinding interactive environments that will draw readers even deeper into the story, Epic Tales’ Hansel and Gretel’s world is filled with whimsical characters ranging from pesky gnomes to witty dwarfs; from brave children to wicked stepmothers and cunning witches. At its center is the narrator, Silvertongue, a truly gifted storyteller who can take an audience from a gasp of fright to a roar of laughter in just the twist of a phrase.

According to The iPhone App Review’s Luke Patrick, “This eBook is a monument to what can be accomplished within the realm of iPad design. Hansel and Gretel doesn’t just offer pages of content, but rather a fully engaging experience. There’s incredibly good voice acting for each and every chapter, as well as Disney quality animations. You’ll also get fully animated trailer sequences for key plot points, in addition to interactive elements hidden within the pages. This version of Hansel and Gretel is a fully immersive, wonderfully engaging romp of a tale, complete with just the right amount of multimedia, professionalism and upstanding quality." http://www.theiphoneappreview.com/2012/08/hansel-and-gretel-ipad-app-review/

EPIC Tales’ Hansel and Gretel features include:

Classical tale, original adaption

Produced and animated by award winning animation studio

Professional storytelling and voice acting

23 chapters filled with beautiful hand drawn environments

Over a 100 interactive and dynamic surprises

Cinematic cut scenes

Original music score and sound effects

Intuitive navigation

Three Options : Read to me, Read by myself or Play around

“It is wonderful that The Brothers Grimm anthology, a collection of 86 folktales, is still read and beloved by children today, 200 years after its first publication,” said Paul Hanraets, EPIC Tales founder and producer. “We are honored to celebrate the bicentennial of these enduring and highly entertaining fairy tales with the re-release of our animated version of one of its most popular stories, Hansel and Gretel.”

"We didn’t cut any corners with Hansel and Gretel, and it has paid off. We are pleased that initial reviews have highlighted its production value, the high quality of our animations and our alternating witty and wacky humor,” said creative director Albert ‘t Hooft. “And, the layout of the pages is clean and intuitive with hidden interactive elements offering lots of surprises.”

EPIC TALES™ is a series of high-quality, interactive fairytales that allows you to not only enjoy enchanting tales, but to experience their magical worlds more closely than ever before. Children will love the sense of wonder and discovery, while adults will certainly appreciate the clever and wacky humor.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales animated storybook will be available on the Appstore for iPad and iPhone for a special promotional price of $1.99 in April, and thereafter will be priced at $3.99.Review copies upon request.

ABOUT EPIC TALES™ EPIC TALES™ is a The Hague (Netherlands) based developer and publisher of interactive storybooks for the iOS platform, and delivers unique, interactive adaptations of the imaginative and magical stories found in fairytales, folklore and world mythology. EPIC TALES™ is a joint venture between award winning animation studio Anikey and Cloud Castle Interactive.

There was also a "Contact" page, and an "About" page - however I will keep the "About" segment for a third post, because this one is getting slightly too big for now.

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 1)

Some times ago I stumbled upon the trailer for an animated storybook adapting "Hansel and Gretel". I even made a quick post about it and then moved on my way. However, what I was not expecting was that my casual search would end up throwing me into a whole "lost media" investigation...

So I present to you the first report of my search for the lost media "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales".

"Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales" is the English title of an interactive, animated storybook originally created by a Dutch team - hence why it exists also under the Dutch name "Hans en Grietje - Epic Tales".

Its trailer (posted around 2012/2013) is still around the Internet - on both Youtube and Vimeo, in English. It showcases you all the effort put into the product as well as the quality of it all - because when you think "Interactive storybook" you think "Just some still pictures you flip over while a voice narrates in the background". But here, not at all: you have entire animated tableaux allowing for a true point-and-click kind of game, intercut with entire animated segments and sequences - making this interactive storybook quite close to a full cartoon or simplified video-game.

In fact, I am not the only one to say this: numerous reviews pointed out this application could be considered a full cartoon in itself. And if some comparisons are left a bit generic "A cartoon feeling", "It could be a Saturday morning cartoon" I have seen one review even going as far as to compare this traditional 2D animation to a Disney movie!

I especially love the art style here which is reminiscent of classic, old fairytale cartoons - and I will come back to this element later because I do believe the game has easter-eggs or nods to classics of the fairytale animation.

Not only that, but as the trailer indicates, this game was supposed to be the first of an entire line of animated, interactive storybooks, the "Epic Tales" line, each reinventing fairytales, all narrated by the same storytelling character you see in the trailer, Silvertongue the (elf? dwarf?) who beats up gnomes to bring books to life... To have such a big project coming from Dutch folks isn't so surprising given the strong Dutch love for fairytales (it is the land of the Efteling park, after all).

In fact, the Epic Tales line had not only its own website (that you can see in a different promo for the app, here) but also a Facebook page and a Twitter account to promote the release of the game.

The game was released on iOs format and distributed by Apple. You could get it on your iPad or iPhone by just buying it on the App Store or iTunes store. And it was met with very, very positive reviews. Everybody agreed on saying this game was awesome, the dub very good, the interactions fun, the music delightful - in a word, absolutely perfect. Here is a handful of positive reviews I could find in English ; coupled with another handful of articles in Dutch this time. Mind you, some people do complain about the story being a tad bit too "light" for their taste - as in everybody agrees it is a visual treat with splendid visuals and a goofy tone perfect for kids, but some do complain about a lack of "darkness" (one review even regretted the "psycho-drama" of the original story, absent from this light-hearted story). I personally think there's enough dark Hansel and Gretel retellings out there to allow us a nice light-hearted, goofy, innocent version, but oh well, that's just my opinion... I'll return to these changes in a later post.

These online articles are notably quite precious for bringing additional screenshots of this now unfortunately lost media...

Lost yes: for if you check the App stores and iTunes pages today, it seems Apple has removed the game from their offer. And given Apple was the only distributor... it seems you cannot get it anywhere else.

The Epic Tales website (epictales.com) has been brought down - though you can still find it back thanks to Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which did preserve several versions of it. The Facebook page for Epic Tales is still here too, though inactive since the app's release. As for the Twitter account... it seems that after a few years of inactivy it was briefly taken over by a little girl who posted goofy pictures of her on it... Was it the account-owner's daughter, niece or little sister? I don't know but it seems clearly that this account is a dead-end too.

Now, outside of the trailer, official accounts and online reviews, the last remaining official bits of this animated project (because there is one un-official element I will go to later) are the Anikey Studios videos. Anikey Studio is one of the two big teams that worked on the "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales" project, alongside Cloud Castle Interactive, and while the Epic Tales line seems dead and gone, Anikey is still working a lot, regularly creating and publishing animated shorts. They have a Facebook, a LinkedIn, an Instagram - but more interestingly a Vimeo account on which they regularly post videos (itself doubled by a Youtube channel). And they post yearly Demoreels collecting bits and extracts from their animation projects. Including "Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales".

Now, unfortunately they only use the scenes from the trailer of the interactive storybook, so nothing new - but still it worth checking out. The extracts most prominently appear within their Demoreels of the years 2016 and 2012 (I am using the Vimeo version, not the Youtube ones).

And so far, at first glance, this is it. If we do just a superficial search, it is a good-looking app that got removed by Apple ; a big hopeful project with a lot of effort put into it that everybody forgot about or did not notice ; a whole line of fairytale animations that got cancelled right after its first instalment. A first instalment seemingly disappeared into the limbo of "lost media"... But for me, it was only the start of the investigation - because if you know me, you'll know I can get incredibly frustrated when I see something cool I just happened to miss ; and as an enjoyer of both traditional hand-drawn animation and fairytale adaptations, this app seemed so wonderful...

As such, I am currently undergoing a sort of investigation to collect everything I can find and save about this animated storybook. Given I am not an expert "lost media hunter", I might find nothing at all - but at least it will be a fun ride playing the investigator for once! Plus something within the occult forces of the world seem to constantly condemn my blog to focus on "Hansel and Gretel"... I don't know why but every time it gets brought back to me one way or another. So who am I to oppose the mysterious flow of nature?

If any of you ever heard of this app before - if maybe you downloaded it some time ago, if you know someone who played it, or maybe if you still have it somewhere in your Apple product, please do contact me! Even the slightest memory can be of incredible use for such an investigation. Myself I am going to perform a breakdown of all the information I could find, and the following posts of this series are going to try to "reconstruct" what the app was about, and how the story unfold in this version - because here's the thing, it isn't just a regular, straightforward Hansel and Gretel retelling. They actually added and changed several elements in it... But that will be for another post.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. The application is somehow listed within the catalogues of several Dutch libraries. I don't really know much about how these libraries work, but if somehow there is a Dutch person who sees this post, could you eventually bring me some help? It would be very appreciated!

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 4)

After introducing the topic and compiling all the information I could find, I want to share here more visual elements and concept art I managed to collect throughout my (I hoped thorough) researches.

Last time, I stopped while exploring the Muchtar Productions website. As I said, David Muchtar posted on his website an important set of concept art for the character design. Here they are:

I linked in my previous post the Anikey Animation official page for Hansel and Gretel - Epic Tales. It contains a lot of beautiful screenshots preserved from the lost storybook - plus one concept art.

Now, while the Anikey animation website is the one that pops up first in research, Anikey Studios also had a blogspot in which they posted quite a LOT of visual files for the interactive storybook!

For example this post was a collection of backgrounds created by two of the team's artists: Paco Vink for the lay-outs and rough colors, Sjan Weijers for the "final color rendering".

There is also this post which was a "sneak-peak" of the upcoming Epic Tales product, and which contains not only some rare shots but also an unseen concept art for Silvertongue the dwarf!

Another interesting post is this one, that shares concept art for what was then an "unnamed fantasy project" - but in truth was the "Hansel and Gretel" prototype. (Each concept is respectively named Troll - Kids - Dwarf)

Finally, the blog contains a post about the release of the app's trailer - and it lists the various blogspots of the five main people who worked on the piece: David Muchtar (now it isn't a blogspot but a Vimeo account), Jelle Brunt (jellebrunt.blogspot.com), Sjan Weijers (amphibiousrodent.blogspot.com), Ruban Zaalberg (urbyz.blogspot.com), and Paul (the link actually only brings back to the Epic Tales website). Adding Paco Vink's blog listed previous (pacovink.blogspot.com) it makes six links in total. Most if not all of them being dead...

I still had them undergo the Wayback Machine treatment, but I could bring nothing new.

Next part in my quest: all the answers I received to my mails! Or... the absence of them in the worst case scenario...

[adarkrainbow]

Lost media quest: H&G Epic Tales (part 5)

Now that I compiled all the info I could find online, it is time for me to share with you the result of my various emails!

... And unfortunately I do not have much to offer you.

I first contacted the people who worked on the storybook's animation and that had either a gmail adress or a Tumblr. So far I have sent messages to Paco Vink, David Muchtar, Jelle Brunt and Sjan Weijers. So far, only David Muchtar answered me. Of the animation team, those I only couldn't reach Ruben Zaalberg (he has a LinkedIn but I am not on this website). I also sent a formal email to Anikey Studio via their official website - no answer so far.

I thought about contacting Lou Attia, the voice actor for the English version of the app, but couldn't find any way to do so.. If I still do not have in the future any answer, I will try contacting other members of the team. I do not expect any answer, but at least I would have tried!

The good news is that, as I told you before, David Muchtar did answer me and we had a quite pleasant conversation!

Unfortunately, he confirmed that he had preserved nothing of the files, art or animation he worked with during his time on the "Epic Tales" project (in fact, he told me if I ever found anything, I should sent it back to him because he would like to see it one more time). So all he could offer me was his testimony and his memory (which was, also unfortunately, quite vague - since it had been twelve years). But it was already a very valuable set of information, and so far the most precious information outlet I could have!

I am not going to speak of the story details here, I will keep this for a different post, but here are some facts he could share with me (some which are just confirmations of what I posted about previously, others which are new):

David Muchtar was an intern at Anikey Studio when he worked on the project. As such he didn't have any overview or decision when it came to the story as a whole, he just, to quite him, "animated what was in front of him". There was a second intern of the Studio who worked on the project: Ruben Zaalberg, who was a classmate with Muchtar at the HKU. They both interned for eight months roughly at Anikey. It was Muchtar's first experience as an animator for a studio.

He is pretty sure Anikey Studio still has the files somewhere, but since they don't own the rights to them, they likely can't release them (but he can't confirm this).

Paul Hanraets was the creator and investor who made the project come to life in the first place. He was a businessman who owned a company called Gambitious - it was a crowdfunding platform meant to help independent game developers and publishers, by helping them get funding. "Epic Tales: Hansel and Gretel" was a personal project of his, a "side-project" in which he poured his own, personal money. And while he had planned to continue the "Epic Tales" line, the first game never made him enough continue to continue the project (despite being quite famous upon its release).

The story and the visual style of the interactive storybook were designed by both Paul Hanraets and Anikey Studio. Anikey was truly a small studio at the time, consisting only of two men (Albert't Hooft and Paco Vink) plus one freelance animator (Jelle Brunt, who notably worked on the Anikey short film "Fallin' Floyd".

One specific animation David Muchtar had to work onto was, in the tableau of the kids sitting in front of their house (I posted several screenshots of it), the squirrel - supposed to come out of a hole in the tree, and run on the branch. He had been given the background art and the squirrel concept art by Anikey Studio. His job was to create the animation, clean-up the art and do the colors. In the same scene he had to animate the characters of Hansel and Gretel, while the woodcutter was done by Ruben Zaalberg.

Outside of this specific example, David Muchtar worked on many different animations throughout the game - each animation he was handed was his sole and entire responsibility, apparently? So, in his own word, this made him act as a "key animator, inbetweener, cleanup animator and colorist". He did note that in the final product, it is his drawings, his animation, directly put into the app - with no other hand or influence modifying his work. And that such a thing is very rare for him, despite having been working as an animator for more than ten years now.

Beyond all this info, he did share with me some story details. While my posts about this lost media are not very popular, I did find a few testimonies of other people who crossed path with this application... However they range from "I saw a demo in a shop a long time ago but couldn't play it" to "I only played the storybook twice, and so I only recall one or two scenes". But, as it is with all serious research, it is not because a testimony is fragmentary that it is less valuable!

We are currently re-creating an enormous puzzle scattered throughout the world, and each piece, no matter how tiny, is important! In fact, this will be the object of my next series of posts. Given all I could collect, I will try to reconstruct the story and content of the animated storybook...

I will mention that I do believe the storybook was actually influenced by some specific cartoon works. Several reviewers described a "Disney-feeling" to this animation - and I hold the belief that the way the witch was vanquished (not though an oven, as the app was designed to be a light-hearted and more cartoony take on the story) is an homage or was inspired by Disney's "Babes in the Woods"...

That being said, I will already post here two precious resources for information about the changes performed to the Hansel and Gretel fairytale by the storybook.

Katie Bircher's review of the app for The Horn Book gives us a lot of insightful information as it highlights key differences and divergences with the original story:

A caveat: as the Kirkus review points out, the characters of Gretel and the children's father are "largely relegate[d]...to passive roles." In the father's case this passivity minimizes his complicity in the wicked stepmother's machinations, rendering him innocent. In Gretel's case, however, it makes her a mere tag-along to the story's star, "clever" Hansel. (And another thing — we're repeatedly told Hansel is clever, but his behavior isn't consistent with this characterization.) Most of the app's changes to the plot are innocuous, if unnecessary, but one change I find troubling is the revised denouement. Instead of Gretel saving the day by pushing the witch into her own oven, here Hansel defeats the witch alone. This version is more Hansel's story than that of Hansel and Gretel.

[... Here is a list of other elements unique to the app's story:]

Tiny, bad-tempered gnomes are ubiquitous in the illustrations and animations, but never mentioned in the text until they eat Hansel's breadcrumb trail.

After the children's wicked stepmother takes them deep into the forest, she gets lost there herself and is never seen again — although her complaining can still be heard.

Hansel shoots the witch with his slingshot, pitching her forward into her own cauldron, which propels her up the chimney and out of the house.

A garden full of modern-day sweets (e.g., fizzy lemonade, gummies, and cotton candy) surrounds the witch's house. The enchanted gummy animals are returned to their true forms after the witch's defeat. A formerly-gummy swan offers to fly the children home.

Hansel, much heavier after his ordeal, is magically restored to his previous skinny state.

I will complete this review by the Kirkus Reviews linked within the previous article, which does note a lack of "psychological melodrama" and notes:

These include grimacing monsters and surly gnomes popping into view, the evil stepmother’s Cockney-accented screeches and fragmentary ditties like a skeletal minstrel’s “Dinnertime dinnertime for the witch, / She will eat the little boy, she’s suuuuch aaaa….” That fortuitously interrupted last line, plus some eerie moments in the dark woods, may be more appreciated by sophisticated audiences. On the other hand, neither the witch nor the stepmother is definitively killed off, and the title screen offers a “Play Around” option that dispenses with the storyline entirely in favor of going to any screen to check out the interactive features.

If you ask me, I think we have enough dark Hansel and Gretel retellings around to allow us a light-hearted, goofier one... But that's just me!