Trüberbrook (the game) is set in rural West Germany in the late 1960s. Trüberbrook (the village) is home to a health resort nestled in a densely-forested countryside.

Hans Tannenhauser (that’s you), a PhD candidate writing his doctoral thesis, journeys to Trüberbrook in hopes of breaking through a case of writer’s block. Instead, he becomes caught up in increasingly strange goings-on.

Hans ultimately discovers that he isn’t in Trüberbrook to write a thesis at all. He’s there to save the world.

Trüberbrook will feature a unique, distinctive (not to mention labor-intensive) visual style. All environments are being constructed as miniature scale models, staged with real lighting and captured via photogrammetry. Then, they’re digitally polished and blended with 3D animated characters and VFX.

We just love to build tiny worlds and we could spend days and nights in the carpentry! Since our first student projects and our graduation films, miniature scale modeling and stop motion animation played a big part in our work…As huuuuge adventure game fans, the application of these techniques was a somewhat obvious choice. We believe that a world like Trüberbrook needs a unique and magical look that can only be achieved through miniature scale modeling.

btf began developing Trüberbrook in 2016 after receiving financial backing from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg “as part of the programme for the development and production of innovative audio-visual content.” Team members have also taken on side projects as sources of income. In order to concentrate on the game full-time, however, btf will soon be launching a Kickstarter campaign.

Publisher Headup Games will handle distribution only, without any monetary investment. Full creative control will remain with btf.

It’s projected that the finshed product will be 7-10 hours in length. It will be fully voiced in both English and German. And it will be DRM-free.

Development of Trüberbrook is currently at the pre-alpha stage. The plan is to release the game sometime in 2018 for Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One and Switch; iOS and Android versions may follow. Stay tuned for more info!