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.
