Worthplaying has two announcements from Silent Dreams, whom you may recall from their stylish concept Grotesque: Heroes Hunted.  It seems publisher discussions have not gone well and the project is on hold:

Grotesque is a new adventure/rpg from German developer Silent Dreams, and promises to be an original blend of traditional fantasy RPG (like Gothic, Fable, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment) and sarcastic humor with adventure elements along the lines of Monkey Island. With a nearly finished version ready, tough publishers negotiations forced Silent Dreams to put development on hold and focus on a smaller projects instead.

...and instead, they are pursuing a "tactics" game called Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes for the PC and Wii:

The digital market of Wii is perfect for independent developers like us. Grotesque Tactics is going to be one of the most beautiful but also one of the most enjoyable WiiWare games.", says Rayk Kerstan. "Tactical RPGs have a big tradition on Nintendo platforms and are extremely popular. We would like to bring some fresh air in the tactical RPG genre. Our experience and passion for RPGs is in good hands in the Nintendo community."

"Although there are many fans of round based games, there aren't as many such games for PC. A Tactical RPG is a brand new experience for players on PC. We'd like to show them why console‑players love Tactical RPGs. In addition, the lovely anime graphics run as well on a low PC.

We haven't heard much about Grotesque lately but Polish site gry.o2.pl has an interview with Silent Dreams  Here's a bit on the inspiration:

Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Approximately how long has the game been in development and how did the idea for the game come about?

Rayk Kerstan (Silent Dreams): Uhm... we started a few years after Duke Nukem 4 I think. We never worked at the game fulltime, because we also started a new company. So time runs, we had 3 or 4 new graphic versions, different storylines etc. The whole idea begins in the NWN 1 Mod AlwaysSummer Days where I tried to do a parody and adventure RPG Game. I wanted to get a new Monkey Island feeling in a RPG with cool characters, interesting story combats but also adventure puzzles. zzles.

We recently posted some Grotesque screens found at the Russian publisher's page - the first news we'd had in some time.  Developer Silent Dreams writes in to give us an update, including the news they will self-publish (apart from the already existing agreement for Russia).  It's also interesting to note Carsten Edenfeld from Piranha Bytes has joined them:

The storyintensive fantasy RPG Grotesque with new brilliant graphics.

Already a few years the developer Silent Dreams is working on the story-intensive fantasy roleplaygame Grotesque – Heroes Hunted for the pc.

The then still quite young company is working on remittance works for diverse games by now. Furthermore, the personal competence has increased. Carsten Edenfeld, lead programmer of Gothic 1-3, has joined Silent Dreams at the beginning of the year.

This positive change has led Silent Dreams to produce Grotesque independently from any publishers, to create an own vision of the RPG-genres: SRPG.

SRPG means: social and story RPG.

Social because quests can also be solved in other ways than pure fighting. Therefore we integrated some new elements which should be known from P&C Adventures. The relationships between NPCs are very important in Grotesque, some will be able to become friends or hate each other.
On the other hand the s stands for story, because the story is one of the most disregarded elements at the RPG genre, especially on pc.

The new graphical material of the incalculable an ironic RPG is showing graphical improvement in the area of Wishes Wind.

Someday, Roger Sun, the present-native main character who is a roleplay fan and guitarist of a metal band, awakes in the fair, beautiful and clichéd wood- and grasslands.

Because Roger lost his memory he directly notices as a RPG fan that this could only mean one thing: he must be the chosen one who should save the world... or ar least any beautiful princess.

However, Roger quickly finds out that living as a hero is not as easy as it seems to be.

Not only that some factions like highelves or mercenaries emerge as arrogant and little helpful for a world rescue but Roger also blunders into a deadly danger.

So he meets Dawnclaude & Solithaire, a psychopathic vampire-couple, who at this moment travel through the world, killing people in best Natural Born Killers-manner.

In fact, they rescue Roger from some annoying goblins but then casually predict the Guitar Heros death this very evening.

Fortunately Roger is meeting other NPCs which are helping him to find out more about his background and the world of Grotesque.

So the peculiar farmer Bennett is ready to share the rockstar some of his experiences and to teach him how to fight.

Bennett is one of many interesting NPCs which will be able give the game a very lively atmosphere with their distinctive charakters and the new relationship-system.

At this year the german studio will reach the alpha-state for conquering the world with their many many new ideas.

We've also uploaded the screens to our own gallery.

Signs of life! Avantenor writes in to point out new Grotesque screens at Akella.  Still no news on a release date...

A German-language site by the name of Daddelnews has an interview with Silent Dreams to discuss their unusual project, Grotesque: Heroes Hunted.  English readers might want to check out the nice screens accompanying the article but according to my Google-fu, Silent Dreams is suggesting this game defines a new sub-genre, which they are calling a "social RPG".  Apparently this focuses on deep NPC and story interaction, saying NPCs can become "real friends" and hinting of "intense" romances options.

This is the first newsbit we've had for Grotesque: Heroes Hunted here but some may recall a few newsbits back at RPGDot.  This German project with a twist of black humour is now looking for publishers, so hopefully we'll be seeing more in the near future:

The Story-Intensive RPG: Grotesque - Heroes Hunted

Schanz International Consultants and their partner Developer Silent Dreams are gearing up to present the very special atmospheric fantasy RPG: Grotesque - Heroes Hunted, to publishers.

There has been a lull for some time and over the last half an year the team was busy improving Grotesque, both technically and design-wise based on publisher feedback. It will now be proudly unveiled again in its improved form.

Grotesque - Heroes Hunted is a deep fantasy RPG and is considered in direct competition with Oblivion, Gothic and Two Worlds. As opposed to the modern classic RPGs, or all action RPGs, Grotesque focuses on a very intensive and atmospherically dense story line, which, through its elements of black humour, party battles and striking characters reminds one of the cult classic in RPGs, Planescape Torment.

Rayk "DeadPoet" Kerstan, Creative Director of Silent Dreams says, "Whilst we were revising the graphics and technology, we set ourselves another big target. We want to release the most story-intensive game that has appeared over the last few years. For many years it is exactly the story and interesting characters that have been totally neglected, because the focus has been on a massive world and optimal freedom - this has been generally related to coincidence-based actions and generated characters, but a thread leading the gamer throughout the game has been missing, and that is exactly what we are now putting back into place."

Just imagine, you wake up one day and find yourself suddenly transported into a totally different world.

The story of Grotesque concerns Roger Sun, an everyday hero from the present, who is neither particularly strong nor particularly honourable. He is the guitarist in a heavy metal band, loves animals and is a huge fan of RPG and adventures. Through a mysterious artefact, a richly decorated antique mirror, he is sucked into another world and lands, complete with his lounge furnishings, right in the midst of a conflict between the alliance of humans and elves and grass-like creatures.

It seems as though the eternal battle between light and dark of this game that has been going on for years suddenly becomes serious and turns to become his reality. But Roger had never realised that a hero's life, as a prospective chosen one, would be anything like this.

The forces of the light that Roger urgently needs as co-combatants and friends, emerge mostly as arrogant, egotistical and to some extent even engage in inter-fighting. When the vampires, Dawnclaude & Solithaire, appear and with sadistic fiendishness hunt down anything human, it becomes quite clear that they are merely the forerunners of a very angry and murky power, a power that would not remain unaware of the sudden appearance of Roger Sun...

Gerhard Schanz, the Managing Director of Schanz International Consultants says, "Over the next few months we will disclose further material from Grotesque - Heroes Hunted from Silent Dreams, where it will become obvious how Grotesque can be distinguished from the monotony of Action RPGs. Indeed, Grotesque will be a treat to the RPG community and also encourage and attract new players to join this unusual saga with the hero of Grotesque"!

In order to be able to implement this also from the technological point of view, Silent Dreams works together with some famous Gothic graphic artists. This includes the Lead Artist of the Gothic series, Horst Dworczak.

Players and RPG fans are encouraged to actively contribute to the Grotesque forum, where the developers are always available for contact.

Grotesque - Heroes Hunted is announced for release in 2008. The publisher for the Russian territory is Akella. Licensing partners for Europe and world-wide are under consideration.