An Uncanny Knack

Q: First of all, how did the team come together - because, in fact, at this point you're not actually a company just yet?

Romain Leprince: Well, in fact it was a student project, that we developed last year during our school time - between October and June - but now we've decided to create our own company based on this game. The synergy within the team was great, and everybody had the same way of thinking about the game - so we decided to create Uncanny Games.

After June we decided to polish the prototype we developed for the school, to participate in various events and competitions, and as the CEO and production manager on the game, I'm in charge of the creation process of the company.

It's been a very long way since the end of our studies, but I hope that the company will open in January - I hope we make it.

Uncanny Fish Hunt is the student team's first game.

Q: So Uncanny Fish Hunt is the game - tell us about where the ideas for the project came from.

Romain Leprince: At first it was the idea of one guy - the art director of the game. I can tell you a little bit about his personal life - he lived on an island, very close to Vancouver in Canada, when he was a child and saw the local fishermen exploiting the sea's resources in an abusive way. Over the years there were fewer and fewer fish, and people lost their jobs. There was no money, but the government was giving them subsidies - so they were still living there, but there was nothing to do and nobody had a job.

So during his childhood he saw the fishermen going out to sea, and then no activity any more - and the game comes from that feeling that you have to go to sea to feed your population. The other part of the game is based loneliness - the feeling that the sailor is all alone on the sea, and that on the island you feel like you're in a cocoon.

That's why on the island we use 2D textures - it's a very closed environment, and the inhabitants all know know, and count on you to bring back food. Then, on the ocean, we're using a 3D environment to enhance the sensation of feeling lost, and lonely - things like that. Those are the two sides of the game.

Q: The art style is very distinctive - what were the inspirations for that?

Romain Leprince: Well, at Uncanny Games we want to make games as universal as possible - so kids, older people, my brother or sister, they can all play and enjoy them. We're trying to touch the emotional side of players by creating a naïve atmosphere, based on childhood symbolism.

We saw in the late Nineties an artistic movement born called Lowbrow - it's a pop art surrealist movement that uses childhood symbolism in an adult world. You have some cartoony graphics in very realistic situations, sometimes quite gory, or strange situations like incest. Something uncanny, in fact...

But that was the main inspiration - to have a naïve atmosphere, but present to the players some mature situations. You're on an island and everybody seems to be happy; but there are no fish, no food. In the cartoony way you feel like it's okay - although it's not.

Q: So talk a little bit about the structure of the game.

Romain Leprince: Well, at the start you've lost your captain, so you have no idea about the structure of the world - you have no map. The sailing is based on navigation, and you have to take information to the inhabitants to unlock new areas on your map. So when the player is travelling on the boat the player he can discover new environments - he can fish bottles which contain new pieces of map, and thinks like that.

When he discovers a new island there are always inhabitants, and they'll give you information on the area you're in - there are some shortcuts that way, and it gradually builds up.

Sailing in real life consists of multiple actions to take care of your boat - at first you have to prepare, and work out where you want to go. There's a compass that will show you where you need to go.

The game won the GamesIndustry.biz Choice award at this year's Game Connection event.

Q: So as a student project, when did you actually start working on games?

Romain Leprince: It's been four years now, working on games. When I first started at the school I wasn't the production manager, but after some time people told me it was something I was good at, and in the end that's what the team selected me to organise it.

To begin with we started working on board games - the very basics of gameplay mechanics. Then we worked a lot on visuals, and the look-and-feel of games, and in game design to make some concepts only with pictures. So we were thinking in very sensitive ways - something we're quite fond of.

It has to be intuitive, but you don't have to make a complete game to make people think. In fact, if you're designing for feelings, people will continue to think about it after they stop playing the game.

Q: The company is being formed around the game, but as a student project, who actually owns the IP?

Romain Leprince: That's a very interesting question. In fact, at this point the prototype is owned by the school, because we developed it there. But the idea belongs to the team; so if we want to commercialise the game we have to reproduce all the stuff in it.

It's a bit like this year in school was a big pre-production process, to prepare us for all the difficulties we could encounter in the development process.

Q: And you've been working on that reproduction process since June?

Romain Leprince: We've actually been looking for investment first, because we don't have a lot of money. We're creating a project that isn't Uncanny Fish Hunt, a smaller project we can develop in three months, to make some money - and then invest into the bigger production.

But hopefully, with Game Connection and other competitions, we might be able to make it with investors.

Q: So as a company, what's the best result that you'd be looking for from an investor? If somebody comes along with money, what's the next step - do you grow the company and add more staff?

Romain Leprince: I think we have a very good energy in our group of six people. It could be difficult for an outsider to come into this group, because we've got a particular way of working, a particular way of thinking, producing documents and so on. It might be tough for someone.

So for me, the ideal way for us to develop our games is to have just the six of us, taking a bit more time - working as we used to.

Q: And what's the potential for Uncanny Fish Hunt, do you think? It's creative and distinctive, but it won't sell Call of Duty numbers... What does success look like, for you?

Romain Leprince: I'd be happy if it was something like the key indie games nowadays, like Braid or Limbo. 300,000 units we'd be very, very happy with - but with 100,000... we know there's a lot of hacking on the game platforms, so I hope the game will become known. If people don't play it I'll be sad - because it's a lot of energy that goes into making something. 100,000 would be a good number for us.

Q: It could be the product that then secures the company's future, and then opens up a lot more options. Do you have a sense of what might come after Uncanny Fish Hunt?

Romain Leprince: Well, we want to explore various ways to make people feel emotions when playing games, and we think this medium has a lot of potential. I hope, after Uncanny Fish Hunt, that we can continue to make sensitive games to stimulate various emotions.

The next step probably isn't to make another adventure game, because although we love them and know the structure very well. But a first-person game, for me, is the best method of inspiring emotional responses - with Uncanny Fish Hunt here we are in an atmosphere of innocence, and the player can maintain a certain distance from his avatar. But if you want to generate strong feelings you have to go into the first-person perspective.

The next step for us in my mind is to make a big survival horror game with a first-person view.