Interview: Tell Me Your Story Was Made In Six Months With Ten Main Devs

Red Deer Games: Inez “Neska” Górska Brzezińska, Game Designer and Producer of Tell Me Your Story.

Kamila “KamFox” Osińska, 2D Artist on the Tell Me Your Story team.

Karolina “lirei” Wójt, 2D Artist on the Tell Me Your Story team.

Paulina Czapla, Developer on the Tell Me Your Story team.

Red Deer Games: Tell Me Your Story’s plot focuses on Rose and her precious memories. Both she and Amelia are passionate about adventure, though the latter is just finding out about how deep her passion goes.

This intergenerational relationship based on this shared love for travel is one of the most important themes of the game. Adventure and family are deeply interconnected and additionally underlined by the different ways Rose and Amelia store memories.

When it comes to discovery, both main characters capture their important experiences differently. Rose does it via photographs – her home is filled with them. Meanwhile, Amelia likes collecting stickers and making a scrapbook out of her experiences and the new things she’s learned.

Red Deer Games: Creating Rose’s backstory was connected with the game’s development journey. At first, Tell Me Your Story was more focused on a character digging up artifacts, but this quickly changed. When all of the puzzle pieces (like Rose’s travel locations and the semi-vague time when the game took place) were put in stone, there was a need for something deeper than what the team had.

In the end, focus was put on human relationships, especially on how they impact us, and on making dreams come true despite challenges. This was also translated into the gameplay and is shown more in the “present” time when Amelia is at Rose’s cottage.

When it comes to how players would see Grandma Rose’s journeys – we aimed for the younger audience to be able to get in Amelia’s shoes and experience the story through their own eyes. Bright colors, adventurous vibes, and vivid imagination were all a part of that.

Everyone a bit older might look at Rose and think about their memories or grandparents and, hopefully, remind them of all the good times. Others might see Tell Me Your Story through their own eyes and relate to Rose more; in this case, the game is here to show that a dialogue between two generations is possible.

There is also the universal cozy feeling that people like regardless of their age.

Red Deer Games: What we aimed for was a light and delicate art style with bright colors, when it comes to emotions we focused on what exactly the art should convey and how much should be shown through it. We decided to trust our creative process.

It involved a lot of schematics that would be appropriate for many different topics, so the game, no matter what area the players are in, would connect smoothly to the other chapters.

Positive colors, readable expressions, simplicity, and giving the characters the ability to express their feelings without a shadow of a doubt on the player’s side were very important. Every emotion, even the more “negative” ones (like anger or sadness), is treated softly and calmly. The game is not supposed to scare the players but to let them relax even when Amelia gets in trouble.

Red Deer Games: Peanut is like a mascot of the game and a companion of Amelia who copies her reactions and characteristics, but at the same time, he is a bit of a prankster. He is energetic, has a positive outlook on life, and matches his owner’s personality.

Players will encounter him during some levels and see him accompanying Rose and Amelia during their activities at the cottage, as well as interact with him during some of them.

Red Deer Games: We talked about each level in very basic terms when it came to planning and then talked much more in-depth about revisions. Each track was informed mostly by the location and period in which each chapter takes place.

Wyatt Barclay, our Composer and Producer, started with an idea for the game, then moved to musical samples, and finally, whichever idea resonated the most became the framework of the rest of the soundtrack. From there, it was just a process of deciding what mood and instruments would work best for each chapter.

Red Deer Games: One central melody was made and re-shaped for each part of the story, and the variety in the soundtrack is supported by the themes of the game. Maintaining consistency was a focus, but it left a lot of room for experimentation.

Depending on the chapter and period, we could switch out the instruments and change the mood, but the musical ideas would be the same.

Red Deer Games: Overall, less than 10 people worked on the game development directly. The people with portraits are the core team, but the credits don’t give everyone’s impact justice.

The game’s development happened over 6ish months.

Red Deer Games: The adventure of Tell Me Your Story has just begun, so we hope that the players are going to enjoy it and that a part of their hearts will stay in the cottage for longer.