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I'm a little late to the party here too, but I just recently saw fanart that happily
reminded me of this game. I'm not completely sure but I believe I found out about GoaT
many a month ago via Worth Reading at Giantbomb.com

What captivated me was firstly, the fact that the main character is and
adorable mouse with a fancy attire and a lute on your back,
and you're in this sort of bleak-looking landscape with skeletons
and whatnot rising out of the ground which first made me think of Zelda for some reason.
Probably the green pointy hood's fault.

Then I noticed the health and (presumably) stamina bar, which drew even fonder memories
from me of the Dark Souls franchise.
Either way it put my imagination into overdrive and I just wanted to see more of the game.
I'm sorry I missed the crowdfunding campaign and I hope that went well for the developers!

As for the fanart, it was this image

Actually, it was the Redwall game I was watching that told me about this.

Great fan art !

My very first impression seeing GoaT pictures and video was graphics-centric. I told myself this simple thought: "What a great epoch, if nowadays a single skilled man could produce this kind of images."

I looove the Indie game revolution so much !

But back in the days, indies were emerging mostly with 2d engines and flash, with amazing sprite works or pixel art. Now, thanks to Unity for a major part, 3D engines are accessibles, and -relatively- easy to use.

But further than the graphical shock, underlined with the music and the animation quality, what reveals itself was how personal GoaT is.

That's what really an indie game is about: the work a small team, of a single artist, who does not worry itself with constraints of production, like "I have to match this kind of audiences: being cute for girls, powerful for boys, so you have to Mecha-Kitty in your middle-earth based game .
(Of course there are still constraints like time and money !)

Like I loved how single persons overwrite classic television paradigms with youtube, indie game developer are now installed, tools-gifted, and recognized to experiment, reaching very narrow scope of gamers.

I really feel like at dawn of the printing invention, I f** love it !!!

Thank you guys for your comments regarding the way you found out about Ghost of a Tale! It's very instructive for me to hear about it. I must say I'm probably not very aware of all the events that happened around (and the people who mentioned) the campaign. Hopefully David, as a community manager, was (and still is) here to keep me up to date with all things GOAT-related.

And Cosmogonies I agree with you that we're living a little revolution in how game-making has become available to the masses. As I more or less said on the campaign's page it's a kid's dream come true!

It was and is the purest rapture!
Thanks a lot for creating such a game, I will support it with all I can.

Within the scope of what's possible for a one man team, this is a marvel of a game. I didn't know who developed it when I bought it, but I thought this was probably the work of 4-5 guys.

That aside, I absolutely adore the player character Tilo, great work was done on his design, outfits and all his little animations. Great eye for detail and that's what makes the game largely. Of course the environments are rly nice too in terms of art, graphics quality and design, plus this game has a better environment interactivity that Skyrim or Fallout 4 (you can climb up and over objects and you can hide in basins, tubs, closets, trogs and chests, so you just got schooled, Bethesda).

Personally, I like that the game's gameplay is not over-complicated. I saw one Twitch streamer who refunded the game and got me triggered and he said that it was because he thought the game's gameplay was just about stealth and sneaking your way out and that's all. (No, that's just a means, the gameplay is about the story and finding objects and means to facilitate getting to your goal, dammit). What was he expecting, Rainbow Six Siege: Mouse Edition?

I think not nearly enough people know of this game's existence. If you look at the massive amount of people who bought the early access of We Happy Few (came out one day after Ghost of a Tale on Steam), y'know... I actually tried both and refunded both for financial reasons, until a very kind Australian guy gifted me Ghost of a Tale, for which I am very grateful, but I would have chosen Ghost of a Tale easily. But We Happy Few is incredibly buggy, not well optimized in its gameplay and doesn't even include the main story yet. I have done some word of mouth on Ghost of a Tale and at least one of the people I talked to about it, bought the game. But I strongly suspect at least one more person has as well.

edit: I have officially converted 3 people to Tiloïsm

Beautifully crafted, sumptuous scenery, interestingly different hero, intuitive and responsive controls, interesting story. It seems refreshingly original and well thought out.
But I need to add I am only just starting - just met my "rescuer".
However, it was first impressions you asked for ......... and my first impression is that this game is going to be terrific.

I missed the early states, but saw it on GoG few days ago (with built 1.47).
They had a picture of Faust's chamber and I immediately liked the cosy style with it's light and details. I took a short view at the description, what kind of game it is (no shooter, no ego-view) and clicked on "into the cart". It was a spontaneous purchase, based on my feeling, a thing of less than a minute.

Installed directly after buying at night it convinced me finally with it's first scenes around Tilo's cell and the quite mangeable key-controls of the figure (normally I'm a WASD-idiot, but nevertheless I prefered to play the whole game with keyboard. That's a ennoblishment for a game).
One can feel the heart, which is in that production.

It's a wonderful, cosy, adventurous, mysteriously, exciting, heart-filled and ... not too difficult game!!
I really like it. It touched my soul (the child in it).
And I guess, it has it's place in my all-time-highs
(And I'm 49 years old and a witness of AMIGA and C64!)

Will definitely spend money (50$ +), if ever Seith will continue with the story!

.

My first impressions on seeing initial images back in the day were:

Redwall!
Secret of Nihm!
Legend of Zelda!

And funnily enough, I was watching Disney's The Black Cauldron with my children this morning and the interior of the Horned King's castle (and the general medieval ambience of the movie) also made me think of Ghost of a Tale.

And now as I think about the game some more, Watership Down seems to fit into the mix.