J'ai vu le Soleil (I saw the Sun) J'ai vu le Soleil is a first person puzzle and labyrinth game, with a strong anti-consumerism message and a very dark disposition.

Writing

History

From poem to movie, to game

This game was not a game at first, it was a poem. (translation to come)

This at first led to the idea of a short film, with a shadow as a hero, in a metaphorical city, with a fishing boat in the middle of the street... and from there, the idea started to evolve so much, it became a notion, not a story, not a medium, but a feeling of loneliness and abandonment that had to be told.

A game is a game is a game

The moment I started trying to make a game, I tried to create J'ai vu le Soleil. The game, then, was very different, it was only an infinite street, that played with time a little (may be, this will be in the final game, who knows), but it was something far too complex for a first game.

It became a vague idea of a supermarket about a year later, and then, after starting development on the Beta of Cutie, this is starting to take form, shape, and a structure for an actual game... possibly a good one.

The fire crying to know me standing

There are a few events that coincided with my envy for doing this, both as some sort of blog/wiki thing, to help me remember all the ideas, the good, the bad, the ugly; but also, to jump start the process of thinking about actually making this game. Right now, I'm wrapping up coding on Cutie, and the game itself lacks levels but is otherwise mostly good to go. So, as every indy who's ever lived, I'm thinking about totally something else instead of finishing the first game.

The game in itself

First, I'd like to make a game that I would love to play. Me, not being a gamer, I come to this game designing business a bit of a nooby-know-it-all; and truth be told, that's often were I find my own creativity.

A moral game

As a rule, I try never to make a game about killing. To me, games, like movies, are a good place to offer the opportunity for introspection and for a-priories bashing.

J'ai vu le Soleil should not be an exception to the rule. It will not feature zombies, but shall feel like it does. It shall feel like you're walking on your own grave, and ask the difficult questions of consumerism, modernism; the questions about the future (I heard David Wong say once, that we, as a people who watches to many post-apocalyptic movies, have turn into people who do not believe in a positive future at all), of course, matters of ecology both environmental and internal.

I would like this game to fuck with your mind so hard, it will make you change not the way you see games, but the way you live. It will make you question truths, politics, authority and mainly yourself.

One of the core ideas of this game as always been and shall remain the question: "Are you playing the game, or is it playing you?"

There be dragons

Path of least resistance

Zugzwang

Environments

The Mall

The Home

The Dump

The lost Forest of your dark thoughts

The first person gig

The mind puzzles

Playing with time

System

Art