Well well well, the end of 2022 is finally here! It’s been a pretty wild year, but undoubtedly a good one.
We have some little presents for you all, holiday gifts from us to say thank you to our wonderful team and to our fans. Everytime we see people talk about If Found, or draw us art, or write things about it it really means the absolute world.
First, we have a new trailer! With voiceover from Llaura, and animation by Carla Lennon, an amazing 2d animator, based on drawings by our own Liadh Young. And the whole trailer was edited by Kat Foyle, who is themself a wonderful artist (more on that later).
We really wanted a trailer that highlighted some different elements of If Found that hadn’t received as much focus in previous promotion! Obviously If Found is a game that hits pretty hard in places, but we’ve never wanted it to feel like a Sad Trans Game. Ending with something hopeful and giving Kasio a bright future were really important to us, so we want people to know that those feelings are also part of the experience. KASIO LIVES.
But a trailer isn’t the only cool thing we have to show you! You might remember from previous years that Dreamfeel likes to commission art for the team for Christmas, as a little present for ourselves. It’s also a wonderful way to get to work with some great creators! So this year we have not one but two fabulous treats for you!
First is our holiday card, designed by the amazing Kate Escolin, who you can find on her website ((https://www.kateescolin.net/)) or on twitter at tinygreensart. She does beautiful soft drawings, and we loved her art of Kasio so much. Plus she was amazing and gave us two versions, the one we used for the card and a special bonus version.
And then speaking of talented artists, we also got a fab drawing of the team by Kat Foyle, based on the film shoot we did back in April. There’s nothing as fun as seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes!
As we’re writing this the Steam Winter sale is up and coming, starting on the 22nd. It’s a wonderful chance to pick up If Found if you haven’t already! Or if you know anyone who’s been on the fence about it, this might be a good opportunity. If Found has only had the reach and impact it has because of word of mouth, so every time you tell someone about it it really helps us out.
—
A fun bonus interlude! We had our end of year team party on Thursday, and one of our Dreamfeel traditions is to do a secret santa of digital cards. Everyone gets someone else on the team and makes them a little drawing. It’s absolutely lovely, and the cards are always funny and thoughtful and interesting and we all love them. In fact, they’re so good that I feel like I just have to share them with you! I’ve redacted names and personal messages, so if there are obvious gaps in some of the cards that’s why. Blame me, not the amazing artists who made them!
And then also we played Gartic Phone, which is one of the best team games ever made, and a couple of particularly funny drawings got saved out, so I’m adding those in too. Are they funny even without context? IMO, Yes.
—
Dreamfeel is in the middle of a project that we can’t talk about at all, really, but I do want to take a moment and say that this year has been a really remarkable one. It hasn’t been without struggles, of course. Game development is hard. There’s always the unexpected. You do things, and then sometimes you look back and realise that maybe there was an easier way you could have got to point D, but you’ll never be sure if you would have reached it at all without detours through B and C. If Found itself is a good example of that, that’s art.
I’m so proud and delighted to be working for Dreamfeel, and so incredibly thrilled with what we’re going to have for you next. Part of that is what we’re working on. I think it’s so special, and interesting, and it’s a story that’s really meaningful to me in different but equal ways to If Found. But most of it is the team itself. The people who make up Dreamfeel are amazing, each and every one of them, and I feel so lucky to have colleagues as compassionate and brilliant and thoughtful and generous as I do.
We tend to think of games as products, but as Llaura likes to say, games are also records. An encoded history of the time that the people who worked on them put in. We want our game to shine not just because it’s a good story with beautiful art, but also because the people who worked on it put love and care and labour into it, and were able to do that while being safe and happy. There’s so much joy in being able to shape an experience with your own hands, and I think that we found a lot of that joy working together over this year. So here’s to 2023, and to the hard work and delight that it will bring.
I hope you can all find something that moves you the same way in your lives, and I hope that someday I’ll run across the beautiful and special things you make and be delighted by them.
With best wishes for the upcoming year <3
Eve and The Dream Team