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.

Influences

Gameplay

The gameplay is heavily influenced by Amnesia - A Machine for Pigs. I liked the puzzles as well as the mood of the game. I'd like J'ai vu le Soleil to be set in a more modern setting, to be creepy, but with everyday life occurrences and contexts.

There is a good part coming from Everybody's gone to the Rapture especially once you're outside the mall. Its open world carefully crafted for you to follow a specific path.

It's also influence by The Stanley Parable in this that it is a simple gameplay. There is no tedious task to accomplish.

Narrative

Undertale has a great narrative story. Takes the counterpart of what's usually expected of the gamer.

Music

• Olafur Arnalds

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

The space of the game is important. By that I mean, there is a physical space of the game.

It starts in the supermarket, when the doors close, at night, and you're trapped there and it turns into a maze. It might feel like the whole game is happening in this supermarket, but once you're done with the maze, you discover the mall.

The rules that have led you here, do not apply any longer. You are now in another space, with other rules. You are for all intent and purposes in an other game. There are different shops, with various purposes, they interact with you and you interact with them. Even the toilets are the place for a lesson and will make you think. The mall is a surrealistic place (see below).

Then, when you have found the exit, you are in the industrial zone. That a whole other game again. Open wide space. Shops every where. Neons off. Night time in the worst place humanity as come up with. It feels an looks at times like the ruins of a concentration camp. There is, a tower, a transmission tower, looking like a water tower from the seventies. Looking like it's going to fall appart. From there, you can see the nuclear plant, spewing its vapours into the night. If you won, you can now see it just shut down, and all the lights of the distant city go dark... after a moment, you will find the beauty of the night sky will be the only thing left and you can still play the game, go down the tower, walk the parking lot, while the end credits are playing and the music is telling you that may be, humanity can survive now.

But if you lost, you'll be the witness to the explosion of the nuclear plant. You'll now be able to walk the everything while the end credits are playing, but this time, under an nuclear winter snow. The music will be more dramatic.

Path of least resistance

Zugzwang

The first person gig

The mind puzzles

Surrealistic space

In this game, I'm looking for a principal space, the space of the mall, to be a starting point, an anchor to the real.

But behind some doors, down some escalators, you will find the unexpected, the unexpectable: Fields of grass and lumber with a shed-house in the middle, in which the mall leaves, landfills of perfectly functional products, polluted tropical beaches.

Some playable video-games in the game store, will impact the actual space of the game.

Even the maze will change shape when you're not watching.

Playing with time

Environments

The Mall

The mall is a labrynth.

The loop home

The Dump

The broken Forest of your dark thoughts

Shell Beach

Pripyat

Yggdrasil

Puzzles

System

Art