Dinner Date

Wednesday 17th November 2010, 5.15pm GMT

WEBSITE & TRAILER: http://thestoutgames.com/:dinnerdate

PRESS PACK: http://thestoutgames.com/:press

The independent developer STOUT GAMES announces the release of „DINNER DATE”. In Dinner Date the player becomes the subconsciousness of Julian Luxemburg and is privy to his thoughts as he is waiting for his date. The game may now be downloaded from the Stout Games website.

A month after STOUT GAMES released a trailer for its début drama „DINNER DATE”, in which the theme of a man waiting for his date was introduced, the good news comes that his wait may finally be over: the game is now available for purchase & download. The perfect preparation for a date seen in the trailer – the joy of anticipation and the build-up of a cuisine that will surely woo the beautiful girl – falls short when the beautiful girl does not show up. Becoming the subconsciousness of Julian Luxemburg one will be listening in on his inner-most thoughts, his rights, wrongs and his troubles while the ticking of the clock grows continually louder.

This is the unique form of play seen in Dinner Date: as the subconsciousness of Julian one performs his every-day actions such as tapping the table, watching the clock and eventually reluctantly starting to eat. These actions become intimately personal when combined with Julian’s startlingly personal thoughts. There are indeed many things someone being stood up would not readily tell his friends and yet as Julian’s subconsciousness these thoughts come exceptionally close. By all means Dinner Date is the character portrait of Julian: one will get to know him better than he knows himself.

Stout Games offers the game for $12.95 but in the spirit of dating offers a unique deal for those arriving in pairs; the Dinner for Two deal offers two copies of the game at a $5.65 discount. By wrapping the gift digitally, Stout Games enables the giving of a personalized gift to a friend, game enthusiast or, indeed, romantic partner.

A large set of animations is used to bring Julian to life in his realistically rendered 3d kitchen. His musings are fully voiced and emphasized by a high-quality score composed specifically for Dinner Date.

The only manner in which one may find out what goes on in the mind of a man being stood up, whether the girl will come and how long he can bare listening to the ticking clock is to purchase Dinner Date and become the subconsciousness of Julian Luxemburg.

Dates and price

November 17 ^th:

- The game released for $12.45

- ‘Dinner for Two’ available for $19.25 (save $5.65)

Furthermore, those who have bought or received (as a gift) a single copy may purchase a game at a further discount.

Dinner Date – Context

Dinner Date is released amongst commercial titles such as The Graveyard and The Path (Tale of Tales, 2006, 2009) as well as Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream, 2010) and free mods such as Dear Esther (The Chinese Room, 2008) and Handle with Care (Radiator Games, 2009), titles which have at times polarized journalists and gamers by deviating from established norms. Their existence and the reactions to them clearly show an increasing desire for innovation both with developers and players, eminent in the establishment of NotGames, a movement by Tale of Tales to promote competition-less games. Stout Games joins this global scene by pioneering the choice of applying unique forms of interaction to a game with a realistic setting.

Dinner Date – Credits

Stout Games – Jeroen D. Stout ( http://thestoutgames.com)

Music – Than van Nispen tot Pannerden ( http://greencouch.nl)

Stout Games – The Developer

Stout Games has been founded by Jeroen D. Stout, a scholar in gamedesign with a Master of Arts in Gamedesign & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts (Netherlands) and a Master of Science in Computer Games Technology at the University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom). In Portsmouth he was supervised by Dr Dan Pinchbeck (creator of cultural classics Dear Esther and Korsakovia) and became enthused to begin developing games commercially, still following the fascination for original play that has been with him ever since playing The Graveyard (Tale of Tales, 2006) for the first time.

The goal of Stout Games is creating games innovative in play, using intelligent subject matters and infused with romantic-realistic plots and settings. With Dinner Date it shows its initial direction: focussing on a character portrait and treating it with the interaction required.

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