Le Royaume: The Bet
For this Supa Dupa Intensive Week of 2 weeks at SupInfoGame, the challenge was to develop a game prototype based on the licence of the partner of the event: Dupuis Editions.
Dupuis is one of the most famous editor of french and belgian comics, publisher of Lucky Luke, Spirou and Fantasio, Gaston, The Smurfs, Billy & Buddy, ...
Our team was in charge of the comic book series Le Royaume by Benoît Feroumont:
Synopsis: In the quiet kingdom of… Le Royaume (The Kingdom in English), a peaceful little place where nothing really happens, François the blacksmith is in love with Anne, maid at the castle who can speak to birds, but doesn’t really care about him.
Le Royaume is colorful and joyful comics, full of typically french jokes and outspokenness.
Our game had to remain simple and easy to learn. It had for objective to satisfy both fans of the comics (with various references) and the newcomers with its gameplay.
The team:
- Management: Julien Gratz, Gautier Laudren, Moi-même
- Programmers: Paul Clarissou (également Artiste 2D), Valentin Heutte
- Artists: Xavier Brunet, Sophie Conchonnet, Nathanaël Fis, Tiffany Joud, Luc Leture, Heloïse Lozano, Loic Perillier, Théo Rasimi
- Game Designers: David Bailly, Franck Fitrzyk, Louis Gauthier, Dante Medina, Olivier Pompili, Julien Ronnaux, Clément Taisne
The Concept
With the objective to produce a visually accomplished and faithful to the original comic book, we quickly went for the idea of a runner game, where Anne tries to run away from her annoying suitor.
BUT, to offer an interesting twist to the basic gameplay mechanics, the player doesn’t control the maid. Using the mouse, he portrays a small bird (whose friend with the girl) and has to trap François during his run.
This way, during Anne’s escape, various interactive elements appears on the background. If the player clicks on them at the right moment, he can slow down François. If he triggers it too soon, he risks to slow down Anne. If François catches up Anne, game is over.
Dupuis has been pretty satisfied by the final prototype, finding it respectful of the original comic book, and offering an addictive gameplay (despite a lack of clarity about interactive elements). On my side, it has been the more interesting Intensive Week at SupInfoGame. Working as Project Manager with a team that big so far (21 people) with various talents has been extremely enriching.
