Interview with Isabelle’s Creator: Thomas Cheysson

An Interview with Isabelle’s Creator: Thomas Cheysson

By Natalia Dubrovskaya

The following interview was conducted, but never published, by Natalia Dubrovskaya for Game.exe, a popular Russian gaming magazine. Ms. Dubrovskaya resides in Moscow, and besides being the former assistant editor of Game.exe, she is currently a freelance story and dialogue writer for two new Russian adventure games. She is also working on an article focusing on Russian adventure games for Just Adventure. This interview is presented with her gracious permission.

Isabelle is obviously a game “out of a genre,” although it seems it would appeal to adventure gamers in the first place. Adventures are in a crisis now: don’t you think you take a big risk working on this game?

We took the problem from the other side. Our purpose was not at all to create an adventure game. When I started to work on Isabelle I just wrote a script. My main goal was to tell a story. We are all coming from the motion picture world. Interactivity, gaming joy, were additional tools to reach this goal. It indeed ended as an adventure game. Which is surely risky, but we really think that the “out of genre” touch and the rich and subtle story line will seduce adventure gamers and also non-gamers.

Couldn’t you tell us a bit more about the plot? It seems to be very unusual and well worked-out. Couldn’t you give some details of inter-character relationships?

More, a former quack, helped by a gang of vile flunkies, has taken over the village of Crison. The activity of the place centers on the rock mine. Rocks roll down from it towards the village, constantly threatening the people of Crison. Paul takes care of the mine, protecting the village from eventual rockslides. After being attacked he winds up in the hospital, under the close watch of More’s goons. His absence opens the way for More’s domination, making him the undisputed master of the village. George, the hero, was also hurt in the attack: he was blinded. His mother takes care of him, but she wears him out with her endless talking. However, he’s really worried about the situation in the village, and he tries to make the people around him realize how dangerous More is. But they are delighted by the way More brought muscular law enforcement to the town, even George’s fiancee Isabelle. They even see advantages to this occupation. George realizes then that he will have to act on his own. Luckily, his brother Raymond decides to help him, although he is only a little kid whom nobody takes seriously. In his sleep, George dreams of his little village, seeing the people and the places in a distorted way. He soon realizes that his actions in that dream world have an effect on the real situation. By acting in both universes, the two brothers will solve the problem, little by little, and convince the villagers to fight More.

We took a real pleasure to conceive the whole story based on character’s relationships. The two brothers discover, all through the game, what’s happening in the small town by observing how the villagers take advantage, each in a different way, of this strong new order settled in the village. To solve this awful situation will be a matter of making some of the villagers change their mind and react against More’s presence (by making them witness of aggressions, by putting them in situations where they can do anything else but react).

How will the plot be connected to gameplay? Couldn’t you describe a puzzle or two in connection with the characters and storyline?

It was really important for us that all puzzles are directly connected to the plot. No puzzle is there gratuitously. Almost no puzzle is solvable if you don’t follow or understand the story line. To give a very simple example: in the accident (which occurs at the beginning of the game), another character was hit. It is Paul, the mine keeper. He is now at the hospital unconscious. The two brothers will discover that one of the reasons why the villagers support the acolytes is that they need the mine to continue working. The acolytes actually take care of the mine while Paul is still injured, so they are in a way needed. Hence the two brothers at this particular stage will have to stop one of the acolytes who comes to drug Paul. They will have to use trickery, working with the photographer who is in love with the nurse and can help them to enter the hospital.

How much freedom the gamer will have switching between the two main characters? Will we be able to “swap personality” at any moment according to our own will, or the game will switch the characters by itself?

The user has absolute freedom to switch from character to character at any moment. Switching from the little brother to the blind one (or to the dream universe as soon as he found how to get in it).

What about nonlinearity of gameplay? Will the game be truly replayable? How do you manage the balance between “puzzles” and “action” in the game?

All 60 characters in Isabelle are really self-governing. They are living their lives, even when off-screen. The direct consequence of this is that the player will never see things happening twice in the same place or at the same time. Even the “critical” scenes of the story will never happen in the same location, and will never involve the exact same set of characters, depending on when it happens. A lot of situations can be solved by trickery or by action (running away, fighting, jumping).

Is Isabelle everybody’s first gaming project? In which fields and on what projects did team members work before?

Isabelle is indeed everybody’s first gaming project. Here is a list of the fields team members were working in before: Thomas Cheysson, scriptwriter; Christian Vallerin, painter and set designer; Laurent Cerveau, electroacoustic engineer; Michel Coste, specialist in security systems on boats.

Isabelle’s graphics are beautiful! You can see it even from a few screenshots you put on your site. The way you work with color, arrange 3D constructions–everything is splendid! Please tell us about the authors’ artistic background! It seems there is a bit more than just working on a computer game.

Christian Vallerin was mainly a painter. He had never touched a computer before. When we started to work, his very fresh look helped us to make good choices. We were not interested, for this story, to reach any kind of realism. So we tried to take advantage of what was interesting and beautiful in the 3D esthetic without trying to hide it.

The France release of the game is planned for October. Have you found a European/US publisher yet? When may we hope to see it on the world market?

Releases outside of France will be handled on a per country basis. Each country in which the game will be released in will have a fully localized version. Release in Japan and South America will take place next autumn. We are currently in discussion for the Russian market.