❄️ Charles Winter Games ✦ New Kafka bits and special gifts!

Hello, all! ❄️

Christmas is around the corner and we have some news and more to share! Read on for: Kafka, … and a special treat!

But if it involves K, the protagonist of Kafka’s books, isn’t it Kristmas? 🤔

Anyway: We hope you are all good and well, in the most festive mood possible and perhaps ready to snuggle with a hot beverage of your choice and possibly play some games.

Speaking of games…

…it’s Playing Kafka time! ⌛️ After showing the demo at Game Developers Session (we made a goofy TikTok), we are now in full dev mode, designing, programming, polishing so we are on track to release in May 2024 – coinciding with Kafka’s death anniversary. Here’s a picture:

The game will have three parts - The Trial, The Castle and Father’s Letters, each with a distinct narrative and set of characters, but all united by the Kafka-esque dream logic and the central drag-and-drop mechanic. To talk with someone, for example, you need to pick up Kafka and drop him - floating - on another character or item. 🧵 Like this:

You can sneak peek it in action in this short video.

Since characters in Kafka’s works are subjects to opaque systems of inhuman rules, we felt it fitting to treat the videogame characters as a sort of puppets too, with your invisible hand guiding them through all of it. How to wrestle out of an improbable legal case? Can you find your way into the mysterious castle? And are you even supposed to be there? 🏰 

We are making the game with the Goethe Institute and things we have planned are big. So stay tuned and let us know, perhaps on our Discord, what do you think. We’ll be sharing more trailers and information in the coming months!

We are also busy by (codename) Project Toys! 🧸 We will share much more soon, but allow us to show you some current (still subject to changes, of course) renders of the main character of the first episode!

As for the names of our protagonists, blue is Mak, violet is Melissa. For the rest, you’re gonna have to wait a little more. The story involves a young photographer, surviving amidst a war and how even in the dire circumstances, friendships form, endure or break apart.

To recap: Project Toys is part of the Mementoes project, where we’re making games to help foster historical awareness. It will be a narrative adventure, one made in cooperation with the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo.

And now for the less serious part of the newsletter. 🎄 

Giveaway time! We promised you a treat in the subject line and here it is. 2x Svoboda 1945, 2x Attentat 1942 for you to play or to give away. Last minute gif(t), maybe? 💝 

So keep your eyes peeled, since it’s first come, first served:

And since I mentioned playing games in the beginning, we have to end up - well - with tips. 🎩 And since it’s the end of the year, I hope you will let me off the hook this time and allow me to showcase great games our developers have been making in their spare time. So without any particular order… 🪄 

Gun-tender by Růžoví plameňáci (includes our programmer Alex!)
Being a bartender is a hard job. Never know who's gonna show up.
Itch.io

The Other Game by Lucie Formánková (our QA and marketing person)
Interactive satire on female monstrosity
Itch.io

Thumblock by Lucie Tvarohová (our artist!) and team
Phone unlocking authenticator!
Itch.io

Lost in the Maze of Those Memories I Wander and Nervously Laugh by… well, me. But they allowed me to add it so its okay. Anyway.
Talk to things, look at textures, collect sigils. Listen.
Itch.io

And to keep it at least a bit less nepotistic, I would like to end by a quick shoutout to The Highland Song! Beautiful rhythmic Welsh nature exploration game full of heart and soul. ⛰️ 

So that’s that! Have a great Christmas, celebrate your New Year to the fullest and most importantly (from our perspective), thank you so much for being with us another year. 🥳 🎊 ☃️ 

It’s been such a joyride:

• Beecarbonize earned over 250 000 players, yay

• Playing Kafka became a thing

• Project Toys started taking shape

• Digistories: Alex hit the classroom shelves

• A project for People in Need about farming sustainability in Iraqi Kurdistan is almost done

• Additional dog entered our Charles Games extended universe.

And since iOS has this nice feature that automatically cuts out subjects from photos. Let me end up with a picture of Midori, happily dozing off as we hope you’ll be under the mistletoe or whichever festive decoration you choose to rest underneath. 💤 

Thanks so much for having us.

Ondrej
Charles Games