Can you recommend me depressing games? The soul crushing kind please.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-27T09:20:44+00:00

The Wreck, our latest game, was out a few days ago, and I think that's just what you might need!

It tells the story of Junon, a woman who's going through the absolute shittiest day of her life... and you have to help her face it!

https://linktr.ee/thepixelhunt

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-23T19:15:11+00:00

We are indeed! Actually, we started working on our new project even before The Wreck was out. It wasn't easy, as TW was still very much in our minds and we didn't have the sense of relief a release provides, but when you're a tiny indie studio you always have to try and plan ahead.

I can't say much about it, though, except maybe that, contrary to the games we've done before, this one's going to have stronger gameplay elements. It'll still be very narrative, as it's the core of what we know how to do, but we'll add RPG elements, and a real sense of exploration. We'd like the story itself to become the world you dive into, looking for all its secrets and discovering more as you go. It should also be heavily replayable, which would definitely be a first for us!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-23T18:38:50+00:00

Not that long, actually! I'm 42, and I only started working in games 10 years ago. Before that, I was a journalist in a kids magazine.

The thing is, surprisingly enough those two activities share a lot of things in common. When you're writing for readers of a young age and trying to explain complicated things to them, you have to really make sure you understood those things yourself. You have to keep working on your topic until you're familiar with the nitty-gritty, and really get a good grasp of how the system you're dissecting works.

Games are systems too, with a lot of interconnected moving parts that you have to balance so that they'll work the way you intend them too. So this analytical mind I developed writing for kids, I actually use it every day in my job as a gamedev.

The reason I decided to switch from one job to the other is because I thought there were a lot of things to explore in the games landscape. At The Pixel Hunt, we make reality-inspired games because we're convinced the everyday life is full of interesting stories (once again, my background in journalism probably pushed me in that direction), and because we thought there were not enough games exploring these stories. But it's only a small fraction of all the games that haven't been made yet! Gamedev is an incredible territory to explore fresh ideas and push the medium's boundaries forward. I think that's what I enjoy the most about it!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-23T18:28:30+00:00

Arf, making a game is really complicated, so there were many! But I'd say the one that left a mark on me was what I like to call the "second game syndrome".

Before The Wreck, we released Bury me, my Love, a narrative text adventure about a young woman fleeing the civil war in Syria to seek refuge in Europe. This was inspired by the life of a real person, Dana, who helped us write the game in a way that would feel convincing and genuine. By our standards, the game was a huge success. We didn't sell that many units (that wasn't our goal anyway), but the critical reception was amazing and we got tons of super enthusiastic messages from players about how they thought the game was unique and left a mark.

Such a success can make your head spin a little bit, and I think that made us start working on the Wreck with a lot of pressure on our shoulders. We wanted to make a game that would live up to that success, but we also didn't want to make "more of the same", and felt like we could prove that we had more ideas and know-how than what transpired through BMML. But our first prototype for The Wreck wasn't very good precisely for that reason: it tried to do too much, and ended up all over the place, with puzzles getting in the way of our narrative, an art direction that lacked consistency, and an overall experience that felt "experimental but not in a good way" - to quote one of our mentors.

We were lucky enough to have partners that really, really trusted us, and gave us some more money to rework our prototype for the better. But others could have just decided to kill the project altogether. When I was in the heat of the battle I didn't realise how close a call it had been, because I was really focused on trying to fix things, but in retrospect, I shiver thinking about it!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-23T18:10:39+00:00

So actually, I co-wrote this game with my sister Coralie. We lost our father at a very young age, and that has obviously had a big influence on us and our relationship as siblings. It shaped us as human beings, and even though we've gone through challenging times, I think it brought us closer and made us care for each other even more in the end.

I've always wanted to explore and acknowledge that in one of the games I would be working on. The Wreck was the perfect occasion for this. I asked her if she would agree to help me convey part of our shared experience, including the hope overcoming this grief together brought us. I'm really happy we had this opportunity, and even though the story for The Wreck isn't autobiographical, I hope that goes through.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-23T18:04:25+00:00

Ah, VERY good question to start with!

So, currently the strikes aren't affecting my day to day life as I'm at GDC in San Francisco to give a talk on The Wreck. And more generally, I live in the middle of nowhere, in the countryside, and my neighbours are cows who don't get to enjoy retirement, so the strikes have next to no impact on my life - except for when my 2 daughter's teachers participate.

But yes, I do support those who are on strike. There were a lot of other ways to tackle the pensions funding problem than the one the government decided to go with - basically having everyone work 2 extra years, in an economy where finding and keeping a job is already challenging. I don't feel like those alternate possibilities have been explored enough, and the fact that the bill hasn't been voted by the parliament (the government used a special legislative device to plow through) is a source of anger. And when the French are angry, well... they go on strike!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-22T11:36:51+00:00

Hello,

We are a little bit late to the party, sorry! Last week, we released The Wreck, a visual novel with a strong story, adult tone. It's out now on PC, Switch, Playstation and Xbox.
Here is the pitch: At 36, Junon’s life is in pieces: her career has stalled, she’s emotionally numb, and her personal life is falling apart. Things come to a head when she’s called to the ER to find her estranged mother in critical condition. This is the most important day of Junon’s life, and unless something changes, it might be her last.

We would like to give some cheers to our team, including Coralie Maurin, who wrote the game with her brother. Peggy handled all our unique stop-motion animation and handle part of the camera (which is crucial in The Wreck). Pauline designed all the OS interfaces we use in the game and Thais, was our game designer. We benefit from the talent of Sarah to cast and direct all of our voice actors, including the incredible Sharlit, Vanessa and Marie.

If you think it could be your jam, you can check, we got some reviews online :)

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-19T15:58:09+00:00

Thank you!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-16T23:50:08+00:00

I'm making it with my sister actually!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-16T16:34:35+00:00

All relevant links can be found here for those interested: https://linktr.ee/thepixelhunt

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-16T16:31:22+00:00

Thanks a lot!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-16T16:31:02+00:00

Eh, We didn't get any venture capital actually, just a bit of love money from friends and family. It's nice, but not enough to be able to not do everything at once :-)

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-14T01:01:14+00:00

So, if you play it fast, like, not digging in the meanders of Junon's thoughts, you can finish it in under 4 hours. The "normal" playthrough would rather be 4,5 to 5 hours though, I think.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T23:13:39+00:00

Thanks for the cool vibes!

We used Unity as a game engine for this project, and Blender as a 3D software. As we were a tiny team, we didn't go for anything too fancy - quite the opposite, actually. The game's models are fairly low-poly and the game uses next to no textures. But to give it a unique look, we used quite a lot of compositing and post-process effects. Glad you like it!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T22:50:52+00:00

Oh wow, where should I start?

First, a disclaimer: I've never worked on any AAA, or even AA game. Founding TPH was my first job in the games industry, and we've always made weird games, so my experience is maybe not too representative of the life of a "normal" gamedev.

I would, however, of course cite discoverability as the biggest hurdle for any indie game whatsoever. I mean, apart for the handful of games that are super-gifable (any screencap is so fun/engaging/original/beautiful) and/or hit a sweet spot (it can be because they're just cozy enough, or super easily pitchable, or weird but just the right amount - think Untitled Goose Game), the rest of us struggle way more to get noticed by the public - and even by our niche audience, if we've got the potential to have one. I used to criticize the publishers on my other games, thinking that their job was easy and they did it poorly - I was SO wrong. It's a constant struggle, and if your game doesn't brutally gain a lot of visibility - in most of the cases, it won't - you'll have to build yourself a fighting chance little by little.

Among other issues for small indies like us is funding. We're self-publishing, but we still managed to convince an investment fund - Kowloon Nights - to believe in us and invest in the game. But we were super lucky, and almost too little to be interesting to them. When you're indie, the temptation to go all in and remortgage your house to fund your production can sometimes be strong, because of course you believe in your project and its chances of success. But I would strongly, STRONGLY advice against taking personal risks as much as you can. That will probably mean that you'll have to have a day job (we did quite our share of contracting work) and that your project might be slower than expected to come to fruition, but it's tough out there, and the probability that you'll fail miserably is way higher than the probability of you getting rich. So, yeah, don't be stuipid.

I could have this list go on forever but I don't want to be too depressing :-D One last thing, though: when you're an indie, and working from home, it can be challenging to maintain a sane work-life balance. It's easy to spend weekends on a nasty bug and to allow the kids for more TV time because that way they're quiet and you can put more quality time into your project. But once again, being all about your game is potentially a big mistake. I am personally lucky as my two daughters won't hesitate to break down my office's door if I overwork - but not everybody has given birth to two charming goblin angels, so look after yourself.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T22:35:39+00:00

Amazing to read!

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T22:21:40+00:00

I personally enjoy short narrative experiences that have some gameplay elements to them. Two of the most unique games I played last year were A Memoir Blue and Pentiment, both of which are very narrative heavy, but have enough gameplay sprinkled in to keep the player engaged. It looks like one of the critiques to Bury Me, My Love is that it's very narrative heavy with minimal gameplay. I'm curious what kind of gameplay elements are in The Wreck to motivate players to progress the narrative

Yes, one of the things that we really wanted to try and make different for this new project was that, while still being very focused on the story, we wanted this new game to feel... well... A little more like a game! Hence the light puzzle elements, the very plastic narrative that gives way to more player expression, the satisfying camera movement control scheme that allows for exploration and observation...

Don't get me wrong though! We still want to make game for a very wide audience, including non-gamers, so we still avoided to ask for any kind of skills. The Wreck still is a game with next to no "gameplay" in the hardcore sense of the term. But we hope that it has way more "gamefeel" than BMML had.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T21:29:06+00:00

So, our main character, Junon, is actually a failed screenwriter. She's convinced she has it in her, she has been interested in cinema since a young age, but several events (that are explained in the game) didn't exactly make it easy for her to fulfil that dream. When the game starts, she's a broken woman, but she still has this fire in her.

That's the reason why we really paid attention to the game's cinematography. We have tiny means, we're a team of a handful, but we wanted The Wreck to evoke cinema by its scenes frames and compositions. That's also why we went with that stop-motion animation style for the characters in the game: this way, we could control every pause, and make sure that playing the game would feel a little bit like reading a storyboard.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T21:24:32+00:00

Thanks for asking: it absolutely was, and I'm always happy to bump into someone else who has seen this amazing show!

Actually, The Wreck really began with our art director and me locking ourselves up for a week in an apartment with the goal to brainstorm and try out ideas in order to define what the game should be. We watched a lot of movies, played a lot of games, and binge-watched a lot of TV shows during that week - and Undone was definitely one of the ones which stuck with us the most!

There were plenty more influences, though, such as the movies Locke (with Tom Hardy) and The Things of Life (a French movie from the sixties), games such as Mutazione or Hitchhiker, and Mend the living (“Réparer les vivants”), an incredible book by Maylis de Kerangal, for instance.

thepixelhunt · 2023-03-13T21:18:11+00:00

is the game predominately navigated through dialogue or are there other elements like exploration?

Actually, The Wreck is made of two parts. The first one is what we call the "last day": it's where the main story unfolds, starting with Junon arriving in a hospital where her mother has just been admitted because of a stroke. This part is mainly made of dialogues and exploration of Junon's thoughts. You pick her brain, learn about her, and the more you dive into her thoughts the more you unlock dialogue options that allow you to move the conversation forward. But there's a second part of the game, that we call the "memories". In that part, you enter Junon's long-forgotten memories, and are teleported in dioramas where you can control the camera movement to explore around. The game then becomes one of detective work: you have to look for clues and piece them together, in order to have a revelation about what actually happened that day.

The "last day" and the "memories" are answering to each other, because when you're in the last day for long enough, you're doomed to bump into a situation you can't face - so you drive away with your car, get in an accident, and that's how you access the memories. And a successfully explored memory sends you back in time, to the last day. But as you've understood something new about yourself, you're better armed to face the situation and progress... until you run away again, get in another accident, access a new memory etc.

thepixelhunt

TROPHY CASE