This is a bit of a personal one. Sometimes it’s easy to forget when looking at something from the outside that there are actual people making games. People with their own lives with ups and downs. While I try to be consistent I also run into the unexpected. And this time the unexpected put a bit of a delay in writing the post 📨
The unexpected this time was something wonderful. My wife and I finally welcomed our first daughter to the world🌍✨. Trust me that I’m practising great restraint in not filling this post with cute baby pics (because dang, she cute). I’m trying to hold off on sharing pics of her online since, well, she can’t consent quite yet.
But! What about the game?! What’s going on with Passpartout?! Rest easy! While I’ve been away for a short while I’m now back and the rest of the team has been taking great care of the game in the meantime. For those who missed it, we finally revealed that the Passpartout 2 release window is in spring next year! So hopefully you’ll finally be able to get your hands on the game soon!
Until next time I leave you with a teaser for one of our new characters. Meet Flash, our radical jokester⚡️. Arguably the funniest in the punk gang - if you love tired dad jokes or infuriating puns that is. Speaking of dad jokes I feel I have to practice now, I mean, it’s every dad’s duty to embarrass their kid with bad puns, right?
Take care and have a good one,
Mattias
Passpartout The SpoOooky Artist 🎃👻
We're bringing back our Halloween version of Passpartout again this year, so you can unlock all of those wonderful SpOOOooOOOky hats and enjoy the Halloween aesthetic which is running from Monday 24th October to Monday 7th November!
What is the event🎃👻?
WE GOT GHOSTS! They have invaded your studios, wearing strange hats, and if you manage to please them, you get the hats!
Brought back 14 Halloween HATS! As previously mentioned, the ghosts are all wearing wonderfully bizarre hats, from horse heads to zombie and frog hats! Unlock them while you can during this event!
Spookified environments! We got cobwebs in the corners, cauldrons creating delightful horrifying brews, carved pumpkins and a whole host of different things in each of your art studios!
Also, the game 50% off during the Halloween event time 🎃👻
🕵️ Words from a whistleblower: The truth about Flamebait!
My name is Kalle and I’ve been spending the last six months as an intern at Flamebait Games and I can tell you… while hacking this newsletter… that the Flamebait crew is a bunch of crazy wild cats and has no limits whatsoever... I’m telling you this because it needs to come out. Telling the truth is my new life goal. Prior to this, it wasn’t. I was a storyteller working with film, books and music - telling made-up stories all day long. Late in life, I found a way into the gaming industry and applied for an internship at Flamebait with the aim to expose them. To unveil their secrets. Because it has to be something, right? And wow… I mean WOW😲!
First of all, as an intern, you expect to get simple tasks like making coffee, sorting papers, and maybe hosting an Instagram account for a week or two. Flamebait… made me work! I’ve been forced to make character designs, and quests and write narratives and dialogues from day one. I hosted game tests and analyzed the results. They are actually listening to what I have to say and are, at this very moment, implementing my designs into Passpartout 2. I am an intern, for christ's sake! Yes, I’ve been writing professionally for 20 years but still: an intern! Why don’t they want my coffee ☕️?
I have broken the game several times - no punishment! I have on one occasion accidentally knocked a glass of water out of the lead artist's hand without retaliation. They are suspiciously kind. Or simply decent human beings🤔.
Anyways - I guess you knew this already. What a lousy whistleblower I would be if I didn't disclose anything new. So I made a screen recording of me testing out our new tools🎨, making a self-portrait exclusively for you. I don't know what kind of trouble I will endure for unveiling this. If they choose the Flamebait way… they probably will offer me a job or something…
On a more serious note, I would like to say that I am super proud of being part of this game and I hope that my involvement added a nice flavour to Passpartout 2. You’ll soon be able to see for yourselves.
Yours sincerely
Kalle Carmback, Game Design intern.
We got nominated for “Excellence in Art🏆” + New tools info
Bonjour my fellow artists🍷🥖
It’s been a while since the last one. First, the team took a well-deserved break for summer and after that, I was away in Germany for Gamescom and Korea for Busan Indie Connect! Busy times, but so much fun!!
Showing the game in Korea was a joy beyond what we could’ve ever imagined. We were met with such warmth and kindness and got to hear a few personal stories from playing the first game that truly moved us. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth and tried the game!
In other exciting news, we got nominated for “Excellence in Art🏆”! No, win for us this time around but we’re super happy just to be on the radar with our cute puppet vibes! Though I have to say that the “Excellence in Art” should really be awarded to some of our players.
Next time around I’ll be showing you some of our new tools we got cooking. In the meantime, I want to show you a huge addition to the game you’ve been dreaming of since you got to lay your hands on the demo. This feature is a game changer that can truly spin your world 🌀
Until next time, happy painting!
/Mattias
🖼 Mattias sharing his top art picks from the Demo 🎨
Bonjour our fellow artists!🥖🍷
First of all, thank you so much for checking out the demo❤️! Your feedback and good vibes have given us mountains of energy to keep on cracking away at the game!
The one thing we were most excited about for the demo was of course to see all the art you cool cats would create. And oh my, you did not let us down! I was thinking I’d share some of my favourite paintings.🖼
I’m sure there’s plenty that I’ve missed, so why don’t you head over to Discord and share your art so that I can stare at it in pure amazement and awe. Also, a quick note that we’ll be heading off for summer vacation so the team will be a bit quiet for a few weeks🌻.
The Flamebait gang wishes you a lovely summer! I’d recommend picking up a piece of paper and a pen and just doodling away in the lovely sun☀️. Or, at least that's what I’ll do🎨!
/Mattias
🕰 Demo available now! ! Join our dev stream 🎨
Bonjour, fellow artists 🎨🍷
Gah! It’s finally time! We’re beyond hyped for you to finally get your hands on a demo of the game. It's available for you to try out from today, June 13th @10AM PDT until the 20th! So, check it out while you can!
During the event, Mattias (Game Director) and Bengan (Animator) will do a developer live streaming for Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist today (June 13th) at 10 am PDT/ 7 pm CET on Steam.
We hope you’ll have a blast with the demo! And please head over to our Discord and shout feedback. We’d love to hear what you think!
So many of you have asked “When can I play the game?”, “When’s the Beta?”, et.c… And we’ve channeled our inner politicians for so long by giving the vaguest of answers. By the way, if you elect me I’ll make sure every citizen gets one free baguette per day. Anyways, today we’re politicians no more! (Unless you ask other questions we’re not ready to answer). Very soon you’ll all be able to get your hands on a slice of Passpartout 2 as we’re taking part in the Steam Next Fest June 2022 🎉
The demo will be available to play on Steam June 13th-20th! We’ve been working hard with trimming brushes, mixing paint and wiggling them puppets and we hope you’ll have a blast with it! It’ll be time exclusive so don’t miss this chance to check out the game and give us all the juicy feedback of what you love and hate (or maybe what you’re just luke-warm to).
If you can’t wait and just want to spend the coming days leading up to the demo staring at an image of the game in pure hype and suspense I got ya covered! Disclaimer, don’t stare for too long periods at a time, don’t forget to blink and remember to eat, sleep and hydrate.
We’ll send out a little boop once the demo goes live so you won’t miss it. But to be safe you should mark June 13th down in your little calendar or on your fridge or wherever you mark stuff down you ought to remember!
Until then, keep being as awesome as always❤️
//Mattias
Woah❤️ 20k is a Big Number! Thank You!
Bonjour my fellow artists!🥖🍷
We recently reached a milestone of 20 000 wishlists for Passpartout 2!
We’re grateful and impressed by your wishlisting abilities. It’s amazing to see so many people excited to pick up the paintbrush again. Speaking of brushes we recently did some improvements to the watercolor brush I’d love to share with you.
Now I consider myself a mediocre artist at best, so for me it’s important that the brushes in Passpartout 2 help me make beautiful art. So far my favorite is the watercolor brush. It leaves behind this lovely texture that chaotically builds shapes that I can add to, helping me create some pretty sweet art. I especially like using it for drawing water or fire, but I’m sure the creative minds out there can find many more uses for it! I mean, the masterpieces you made with the barebones tools of Passpartout 1 is mind blowing so I can only imagine what you’ll cook up with this!
Here’s a little time lapse of me using the watercolor and some other tools to draw a tiny boat on the ocean, minutes before getting hugged by a big-boy octopus.
Now it’s time to go back to the development dungeon. Thank you for tuning in and stay awesome!
//Mattias
Developer Streaming During Steam Simfest: Hobby Edition 2022
Come to watch a developer play Passpartout: The Starving Artist!
//Bengan
A Premature Easter Egg🥚💕
Bonjour my fellow artists!🥖🍷
Today I wanted to share a little easter egg with you! Which I guess maybe prevents it from being an easter egg? Anyways, it'll be our secret egg🥚!
Meet MS Karashi, Harry's trusty fishing boat⛵️. He and his daughter Gabrielle used to often go out on fishing trips. Though not so much lately as Gabrielle has gotten older.
Now what's the easter egg you ask?! Karashi is actually the name of our marketing wizard Miya's cat🐈! This feline floofball has contributed so much in our work-from-home meetings. Though there is a bit of a language barrier as no one in the office speaks the Meowish language (^_^;)
//Mattias
P.S. Do you speak Meowish language? then join our Discord and talk with ＠EmberCat🐈#9665
