DONNE TOI LA LUNE
Donne Toi la Lune is a dark fairy tale built on a lifetime of existing inspirations and myths within my universe.
The lore unfolds through illustrated screenshots of a video game from another reality.
WHAT IS DONNE TOI LA LUNE?
WHAT WILL IT BECOME?
This project will be an illustrated guidebook full of lore and fake gameplay info, as well as a soundtrack packaged to look like an actual game,
I spent much of my childhood in a very isolated setting. Video games offered me the freedom to explore worlds and stories as if I were living them.
I have no interest in actual game development, but I love the ‘what if’ factor. Real gameplay is amazing, but, for me games have always been about art, emotion, and experiences which is what I hope to provide with this project.
This is a dark fairy tale of a game that doesn’t exist in our reality. One we can explore only through a lost guidebook that’s leaked into our world, piecing together the lore and wondering if perhaps this game might have held more than the remnants that made it into our realm suggest.
WHY A FAKE GAME?
A raw talk about why I started working on this project
Support the creation of this project on Patreon and get behind the scenes process journals, lore and works in progress for as little as $1 a month
Gallery of finished works and lore
'Memories seem to wail at you from beneath the deadfall of the forest with each step you take. Old echoes of a life you can’t recall, yet long to remember. A golden glow in the distance makes you uneasy. You haven’t truly forgotten, have you? You’re haunted by a familiar light'
Memories truly can be a weight. We dwell on them, we silence them, we drown them in noise. What are the consequences of forgetting, and how will we suffer if we remember? The protagonists of this story are often faced with their shattered pasts though you, as the player, would be in charge of helping them to remember, or living with them in ignorance.
'In the dilapidated ruins of the castle garden, you find the graves. Gilded hands of a saintly corpse float in quiet beckoning above the shrine, inviting you in. Your heart drops as you take a step toward the shadows. You’re not alone. You sense someone long forgotten.'
‘It’s said that the unicorn daughter was formed from a tree. Nursed in the golden glow of the Ochre light by the Green Man themself. And as the years turned and the moon cycles grew dim, they’d call her back to them, her name ever a whisper on the tip of twisted roots. Eager daughter rooted in place by green lies cloaked in fairytales.’ Throughout this fictional video game, you’d uncover memories about the world’s inhabitants. Lore from long ago that unravels between whichever of the two protagonists you choose to play as. The Ochre Queen, lady of the golden light, who, unlike the Hunstmink, can no longer interact with the castle at the center of the world. Can you piece together her hidden memories, or better still, heal her from them?
'In the light of the yellow meadow, static stirred a memory. Golden tears fell as the scales broke apart leaving you alone and wondering if anyone had ever been there at all' If you find yourself exploring the Castle Tree Forest later in the game, you will come upon a sad spirit who leaves you to ponder the questions that have been haunting you throughout your journey, 'What happens when you create a god? What about when you kill one?'
'Those long gone from this world used to worry over this forest, searching for the faces of friends and enemies in dreadful eagerness. Mourning cries mixed with chants of conquest still whisper through the wind here.’ The Huntsmink sits deep within the Castle-Tree Forest in the quiet company of stones. The rocks here are strange, echoing the death masks from the castle graveyard. It’s said that before the death masks were being carved, the faces of those soon to die would grow on the stones here before they passed. Whether that’s truth or a legend that died out along with the faces of those on the rocks is unknown. Perhaps it’s merely another burial site. If you dig deep enough, would you find bodies here?
You’ve Surrendered to the Nightmare. So you’ve given yourself over to that bitter sleep? Though the way is bloody and the wounds still haunt you, you may pull from the source of your muse and return to the path where your body now lies without a soul to guide it. ---- Death screen for the Huntsmink
'As I have blinded those that loved me, I myself have become blind to the dangers of being so loved.'
You’ve Succumbed to the Dream. If you’ve met with an untimely end, you can call upon your sacred muse and you may return to the path from whence you were vanquished. But be warned, my dear, you may yet be haunted by that which drove you so deep into the sleep. ——— Death screen for the Ochre Queen
I love imagining the anthropomorphic protagonists of this story suddenly tossing their clothes aside to run on all fours. It seems so healing and freeing for them. Something they dearly need in the often miserable tale of their lives.
You've fallen into the longest sleep
I’ve been exploring how the normally anthropomorphic characters might shift into a wilder form as a way to heal themselves (be it mentally or physically) Playing with ideas through these small drawings has not only been incredibly fun, but it helps me process ideas in the slow way I need to.
You can't run from this. You're losing signal
What you’ve done cannot be undone. Will you carry this weight? Or will you forget and fade away into the longest sleep? A decision made is not always a weight lifted. Once we act upon something, we then have to live with it and this can be almost as unbearable until we find our footing on new ground and make something out of the broken pieces. This scene takes place before the opening of my fictional video game, Donne Toi la Lune, moments after the Huntsmink committed what would be considered one of the most vile acts in the Queendom. Red stains on his hands, tears on his face, he knows that everything he’s ever loved is over. A decay will settle in his mind and spread throughout the spiralling landscape leaving shadows deeper than the queen’s light can reach. How would you grieve such a loss? With whom would you remember?
‘You feel ill at ease among the pines. Something dreamlike and dreary makes your head swim with the shifting shadows as a low buzzing whispers beneath the wind. The faces of the dead watch unblinking from their stones as you move onward through the Hauntling Wood. Then, a blinding light, artificial stars screaming from the ruins as they manifest the glinting maws of the Cosmic Static that hunts you.'
'The trumpet baying of the hounds precedes you as you slip deftly through the forest. Never a twig cracked nor a stone turned beneath your silent feet. Silence is your veil in these woods, but it’s a wonder that they can’t hear your heart thrumming, thrumming, thrumming to the deep bay of the ghost hounds at your side. Bells ring, you cry out as the taste of decay sends a near cataclysmic shiver of pleasure over your tongue. You begin the hunt, and let what’s left of your sound mind unravel' While playing Donne Toi la Lune as the Huntsmink, you’d have the option to start hunts of your own, which could be useful for particularly challenging battles. But be mindful, for the Huntsmink is already an erratic character to control, and giving into the hunt tends to be a fairly big setback to the player’s progress in handling him.
Your Lamp Can’t Reach Us, Little Unicorn, We’re Light Itself ‘There in the Hauntling wood, you felt a thrumming beneath the earth. Distant wailing like the cries of a dying star filled your ears before you saw them. You cast your lantern, but the light of them made a mockery of all that you know' If you meet with those who cannot be returned unto themselves by your light, you’ll have no choice but to run or choose their death and hope you survive to reach them beyond the veil’ Our lady of golden light, the Ochre Queen, futilely casts her lantern in an attempt to restore the souls of her pursuers that taunt her with the starlight echo of the Muse she so loves and cannot find.
‘Deep within the Hauntling wood, your golden light begins to fade, scarcely worrying the shadows that slowly become your own. Absorbed, you let yourself fade into the growing darkness.’ It’s said that the queen’s battles are best fought quickly lest she overwhelm and lose her head which prompts a death screen. When this happens, and as long as you aren’t in battle, you can activate 'forme savauge' to recover your life. In this form, you're more wild and true to yourself, thus allowing your mind to slip away into healing.
‘You never knew me well, but I held you all the same, and I’ll hold you still. Your roar cannot frighten me, for it’s the same as my own. I’ll be the storm in your heart, you’ll be the ocean in my eyes.’ Upon your leave of the Muse of Passion, you find yourself waking in cold waters, the ocean’s tide carrying you to shore. Though you rage at the chill you’ve been thrown into, you cannot help but feel the burning heat of the Muse’s gift within. Your heart renewed, you ready yourself for what’s yet to come.
‘You overlook the mountain of the Black Sun Fox, Muse of Tenacity, now resurrected from their shadowed grave. The last of the Divine Muses. You thought you’d feel lighter. Have you not accomplished what you set out to do? You await the gift of the Muse, the final piece of the moon, but it’s smaller than expected, leaving a taunting sliver of emptiness at the edge of the lunar face that shines above you. Your journey isn’t over, there's yet a heavy weight to bear.’ The Black Sun Fox, Muse of Tenacity and first love of the Huntsmink among the three Divine Muses. If you’ve reached this part of the game, you probably thought you were nearly finished, only for another cruel twist to challenge you more than any yet have. The weight of a memory now returns to you. Will you bear it?
‘You think yourself made of pure tenacity, but I see it isn’t so. You deny my name, you hide from my light, but I’m still here. Rest now in your weariness, be idle in your repose, and donne toi la lune, my dear.' The world of Donne Toi la Lune is both vicious and beautiful. Exhausting in the many challenges it asks of you. Fictional video game though it may be, I’d like to leave you, the ‘player’ of this game, with a reminder from the Divine Muse of Energy, keeper of the moon: Rest. For you, much like the protagonists of this story, rest may often be forgotten in favour of fierce dedication and the exhaustion of pulling energy from an empty vessel. As with the moon, we’re unable to be at our fullest all the time, so take what your phase is giving you now and be idle in your repose.
‘Blood on my hands and a maw running red, you’d meet me unfearing with a chain in your hold, and I’d gladly bend to your leading light as you led me back to myself.’ The Huntsmink, bell-cry devourer of those beyond the veil, feared and accepted by the queendom only for his ability to safeguard the queen in ways rumoured through frightened whisper. But what toll does it take on a person to hunt souls beyond the Light’s reach? What ravaged mind could return over and over unscathed by the decay of such blood as was consumed by the Huntsmink? Only the Queen could know, in her patient way, as she pulled him back to himself by golden Light, by gilded chain, by a subtle power none but she could bear.
‘You may have thought your journey over, but you’ve yet a heavy weight to bear. Will you carry it by cosmic light to the void where all things are said to end? Will you grieve this weight? Will you remember who you are?’ Your final stretch through the crystalline desert in search of the last sliver of moon, the weight of someone that might have been dear to you now heavy on your back. Your limbs ache, your sorrow is deep, but the light of a cosmic void calls to you like a song on loop in your mind. You face the moon and move onward.
‘Our world was aching, sick against the shadows we were trying so hard to dispel, but you held me steady against those before and beyond the veil. Your light was mine, your bells were mine, sound against the storm.’ You’ve borne the weight of a memory long lost, a subtle warmth in the eye of a storm that you stood against together. You can’t remember them as they were, but you recall their steady comfort, and it eases you now as you venture further into the void.
‘You lost your memories of the sun, but for the forest’s words ignited a spark in you nearly as hot and sinuous as the smoke of the sun itself.” The Black Sun Fox, Divine Muse of Tenacity, lies dead in their mountain tomb. As memories of someone long forgotten begin to surface within you, you race toward the domain of the sun, swearing on the Ochre Light that your world won’t see another day of darkness.
‘I’ve so longed to see you, and now I must let you go. I’ll cast you back into the womb of starlight from whence you came. Never fear my absence, for I’ll not be far. When you see me, you’ll know me, though I’ll shape-shift and gleam.’ The world of Donne Toi la Lune is a spiral cradled by an ocean of starlight, said to be the veil that covers the face of the Muse of Passion. After resurrecting this Divine Muse, you’ll find yourself waking in the cold, wet cosmos, swimming to shore with your newly acquired piece of the moon and the kiss of the Muse light on your heart.
‘Haunt me with your static, trouble me with your lies, but I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. I’ll hunt you through the astra, I’ll bloody my teeth in your oblivion. You’ll never be rid of me until I’ve sent you crashing through the stars.’ As with all aspects of this fictional game, your experience playing would vary depending on who you chose to play as. The Huntsmink is a beast of sharp edges and explosive rage, growing in power the longer a battle wages. This can make for some devastating finishing blows to your enemies if correctly calculated, as long as you can withstand his tendency to rebel from player commands.
‘The faces didn’t bother us, for we knew them as friends. Though gone long ago, we could still feel their whispers when we lay among them, our bodies as still as though we were dead ourselves.’ The inhabitants of the queendom have many stories for the faces on the stones, but the oldest consider them graves with naturally formed death masks that would appear just before a person’s demise. No one alive remembers when the last face grew. For the Ochre Queen and the Huntsmink, these faces held a kind of fascination in youth, leading to idle hours spent among the stones trying to listen for the voices of the dead (something the Huntsmink is particularly adept at).
'Far out in the way beyond, a vast, crystalline desert lies cradled by the cosmic ocean. Deep within the shining rocks, you hear a song that echoes like hollow ghosts chasing you from void to void.' The final realm in the queendom of Donne Toi la Lune. If you’ve made it this far, you’re doubtless exhausted in body and troubled in heart, for you thought your journey would have long been over by now. You consider turning back, but the ghost of a song deep in the distance calls to you like a broadcast through the static of your mind. You can’t turn away, so you tune into the void and keep going.