Interview with Elkir (Lonely Me)
The interview took place with the founders of Mr. Six Studio:
– Marc Berthet (3D art director);
– Sylvain Incrociati (programmer);
– Vincent Lacoste (programmer);
– Jessy Rochdi (3D artist).
Our project, called Lonely Me, is a free puzzle/thinking game for mobile phones. We play as Élise, a little girl trapped in her own dreams, who can escape by destroying the platforms in her path by jumping on them.
(Sylvain): The gameplay is taken from a flash game I played a few years ago. I couldn’t find the name of the game, so I thought it might be interesting to recreate it and add some new mechanics.
(Marc): The artistic direction was inspired almost exclusively by Genshin Impact, with a user interface and cel-shaded 3D models based on the codes of modern Japanese animation. The shaping of Élise’s different worlds and appearances was guided by various sources and themes: American McGee’s Alice; Ori and the Blind Forest; Celeste; the Magical girls, particularly the Precure series; Japan; gluttony; music; reading; alternative clothing styles. This is a non-exhaustive list.
Unlike many puzzle/thinking mobile games, the player takes on the role of a character and moves around, making it more like an adventure game.
The way in which the puzzles are solved is also new: as mentioned earlier, Élise has to jump onto each platform with a number, which decreases as she leaves it, and once she reaches zero, the platform is destroyed. So you have to find the right path to destroy them all.
As you progress, you’ll come across new platforms offering a variety of rhythmic challenges.
The game is designed to be as accessible as possible. However, for players who are looking for a challenge, we have incorporated a difficulty system that pushes them to complete the levels with as few changes of direction as possible, giving more rewards. The same level can be solved in several different ways.
Different bosses also appear in the adventure, changing the rules of movement, for example.
The platforms themselves can completely change the way you approach the levels, with some teleporting Élise or making her bounce in a certain direction, and even changing the type of gameplay for reflex-based levels.
For players, the aim is to complete all 160 campaign levels (plus 100 bonus levels).
For us, this is our first game after graduating, and we wanted to gain experience in publishing and selling video games.
We’re not looking for profitability, but a more enjoyable way to play mobile games. So our game is free to play, with a system of advertising that is not intrusive and, above all, not compulsory: every five levels, the game will ask players to watch an ad to multiply their rewards by five, without committing them.
Players can also customise Élise’s appearance using the rewards they obtain in-game or by paying, but this does not hinder their progress in the game.
Initially, the game will be released on Android. Depending on feedback, the next logical step would be to release it on iOS, then Steam, but the latter will require a complete overhaul of the game.
Ideally, we’d like to design a level editor so that players can create and share their own levels, giving the game a long lifespan.
If the feedback is positive and numerous, we’ll add levels and skins.
After so many years working on this project, we’re keen to discover other types of game, and we’ll certainly start designing the next one when Lonely Me comes out.
We were pleased to be able to count on the work of Jean-Gabriel Raynaud, a film/game/trailer composer, for some of the tracks in Lonely Me (Main theme and boss music).
Generally speaking, the music doesn’t feature too prominently in the levels, but are rather Hammock-style layers.
As well as ensuring that these ambient sounds don’t distract players from their thoughts, they also add a heavy tone, similar to a near-death experience.
The work done on the sound effects is designed to bring satisfaction to the player.
The game is due for release in June 2023.
There are four of us:
Marc (3D art director);
Sylvain (programmer);
Vincent (programmer);
Jessy (3D artist).
We use a wide range of tools, but in general the work breaks down as follows: a mechanism is devised, then a consensus must be reached, then Sylvain and Vincent do the programming, Marc does the artistic design and Jessy carries out the work.
When we left school after a final year project on Unreal Engine, three of us were working on another very ambitious project, again on Unreal.
Sylvain then joined us, but as he was mainly trained on the Unity engine, we decided to move on to a shorter project (which lasted 3 years in the end) in order to train him on Unreal Engine.
This choice of engine brought its share of complications: even if it is possible to develop a game on mobile, the documentation is cruelly lacking, the engine’s default settings are too greedy for a simple phone, and finally making the link between Google, Android and Unreal was a real challenge.
(Sylvain): Implement your ideas before creating new ones. We often tend to want to add things at the expense of others.
We’d like to do more and more and add lots of things, but that’s not always a good plan. Our project, for example, was only supposed to take 6 months, but it took 3 years because we didn’t always know when to stop.
(Marc): Have a little money aside and be patient, think ahead and take a broader view of your schedule: we can quickly get into the bad habit of not meeting deadlines, sometimes with good reason.
Don’t feel guilty about the idea of regularly revising your creations: it’s the natural process of a project that spans several years. Take advantage of this to mature your thinking on elements that seemed unclear at first.
Don’t neglect your relationships with those close to you, and don’t isolate yourself. Take care of your diet and take the time to treat yourself by preparing tasty dishes, which will help to keep your mood up.
(Vincent): Always start with a well-written script, even the simplest story for a game with no story must leave no room for doubt or interpretation, because the whole team will be relying on it at some point during production.
As for the pre-production part, it’s never long enough.
Even if it’s very tempting to start creating the game, it’s going to go through at least two iterations on each part anyway. It’s useful to make a reference bible, or a two-minute video montage, full of references, to make sure everyone is moving in the same direction. Finally, the U.I. (User Interface), however simple, takes a lot of time, so don’t put it off until the very end.
