It’s time for a little insight into what’s been happening behind the scenes with Chapter 2 of A Twisted Tale.
As many of you know, development continues to be entirely hand-drawn and animated frame by frame – and with Chapter 2 being significantly larger than Chapter 1, there’s now even more to illustrate and bring to life.
Most of my recent work has gone into backgrounds – especially the lush jungle areas. While I’m careful not to reveal too much, here’s a small glimpse from deep within the swamp… which may or may not feature a claw machine. I couldn’t resist.
Jungle foliage in particular takes a great deal of time. Even though I’ve become more efficient at suggesting detail in the distance, I still tend to lose myself in the process.
At one point, I realised I’d completely lost track of how many scenes were still ahead – so I grabbed the nearest thing at hand (a piece of kitchen roll, naturally) and scribbled down a rough plan.
The result: 21 scenes, an as-yet undefined number of quest-specific ones, a map, and several close-up views. About half of the core scenes and some of the close-ups are already complete. The first testing phase will begin without the quest-specific content, which I’ll build in parallel.
Chapter 2 doesn’t just bring new locations – it also raises the bar visually. To match the more detailed environments, the characters you’ll meet are being drawn with greater nuance, and their animations have become noticeably more expressive.
One of these characters is Montoya, a gifted fencer who plays a key role in Chapter 2. He’s already become a personal favourite to work on.
Compared to Chapter 1, the process of animating characters feels far more natural now. For the first chapter, I hand-drew hundreds of animation frames – every movement frame by frame. But many of the early character animations (such as the antique shop owner or Ned) were created in the earliest stages of development, and are relatively simple as a result. By contrast, the game’s intro – which I completed last – taught me a great deal about timing, motion and emotion. That learning now flows directly into the animations of Chapter 2, and I’m excited for players to see the difference.
The world is also beginning to sound more alive. I’ve started integrating early ambient sounds and musical sketches, and even at this stage they bring a lot of depth to the atmosphere. I'm delighted to be working again with Maxim (sound) and Micha (music), who both helped shape the experience of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 builds on that foundation and already has its own distinct feel.
That’s all for now – thank you so much for following along! If you enjoyed Chapter 1, you can look forward to a bigger, richer and more vibrant continuation in Chapter 2 :)
Greetings from Germany,
Eva