The shipwreck is filed under games, but has also been called a visual novel, interactive experience, and playable movie. Everything seems fine to Florent Maurin. “I like to think that we are humbly participating in expanding the idea of what a video game can be,” he says.
Maurin is co-writer, designer and producer of The shipwreck — and here we’ll let you decide what to call it. The shipwreck tells the story of Junon, a writer who is abruptly called to a hospital to make a decision that will change her mother’s life. The story is anchored in the accident that gives the game its name, but the resulting narrative is fragmented and begins to take shape only as players navigate through seemingly disconnected scenes that can be viewed multiple times from different perspectives. The shipwreck It is far from the light. But its powerful story and unorthodox mechanics combine to provide a unique experience.
“We’re trying to create a game that’s a little out of the ordinary,” says Maurin, who is also president and CEO of The Pixel Hunt studio, “and we hope it connects with people.”
ADA FACT SHEET
The shipwreck
- Winner: Social impact
- Equipment: pixel hunting
- Available in: iPhone, iPad
- Team size: 4
Maurin is a former children’s journalist who worked on magazines and newspapers in his native France. After almost 10 years in the field, he moved into video games, seeing them as a different way to share real stories about real people. “Reality is a source of inspiration in movies, novels and comics, but it is almost completely absent in the video game landscape,” he says. “We wanted to challenge that.”
Founded in 2014, The Pixel Hunt has released acclaimed titles such as the App Store Award-winning historical adventure. Inua and the adventure of text messages Bury me, my love. It was near the end of the latter’s development process that Maurin and his daughter were involved in a serious car accident.
“Honestly, it was like a movie trope,” he says. “Time slowed down. Strange memories that had nothing to do with the moment flashed before my eyes. I later read that the brain analyzes old memories to find relevant knowledge to deal with that type of situation. It was so sudden and so intense, and I knew I wanted to do something with it. And what immediately came to mind was a game.”
Junon’s interactions with the hospital staff drive the narrative in The shipwreck.
But Maurin was too close to the source material; The accident left a lasting impact on him and he became separated from the creative process. “I think I was trying to protect myself from the intensity of that feeling,” he says. “That’s when Alex, our art director, told me, ‘Look, this is your idea and I don’t think it will flourish if you don’t dig deep and own the creative direction.’ And he was right.”
That was art director Alexandre Grilletta, who led the development team alongside lead developer Horace Ribout, animator Peggy Lecouvey, sound designers Luis and Rafael Torres, and Maurin’s sister Coralie, who served as a “second brain” during writing. (In a nice coincidence, the game’s script was written in an open source programming language developed by Inkle, who used it for his own Apple Design Award-winning game. to the waterin 2022.)
Junon’s sister might not be an entirely welcome presence in The shipwreck.
the story of The shipwreck It is divided into two parts. The first, what the team calls the “last day,” follows Junon in the hospital as she deals with her mother’s situation and reveals interactions with her sister and ex-husband. Maurin says the “last day” was pretty straightforward from a design standpoint. “We knew we wanted a cinematic look,” he says, “so we made it look like a storyboard with some stop-motion animation and framing. It wasn’t really anything too fancy. The part that was much more challenging was the memories.”
Those “memories” (and the backstory they tell) employ a clever mechanism where players view a scene like a movie and have the ability to fast forward or rewind the scene. These flashback scenes feel very different; they are dreamlike and inventive, with swooping camera angles, shifting perspectives, and words floating in the air. “I saw him for the first time in What Remains of Edith Finch” says Maurin. ‘I thought it was a neat way to suggest what a character’s brain is activating at that moment.’
Junon’s thoughts are often conveyed in floating phrases that surround her during stressful moments.
Successive viewings of these memories can reveal new details or cast doubt on their legitimacy, something Maurin wrote about from his experience. “I’ll give you an example,” he says. “When my parents brought my little sister home from the hospital, I remember the exact moment they arrived in the car. It’s incredibly vivid. But the strange thing is that this memory is in third person. I see myself tiptoeing to the window to see them on the street, which is impossible! I rewrote my own memory for some reason, and only my brain knows why it works like that. But it feels so real.”
Throughout the development process, Maurin and the team stayed close to the idea of a “poignant and mature” story. In fact, the first prototypes of The shipwreck They were more gamified (in one version, players grabbed floating items), but testers found the activity distracting. “It took them out of history,” Maurin says. “It broke the immersion. And that was counterproductive to our goal.”
Articles in The shipwreck – like this tin of mints – often have a broader meaning.
Maurin admits that approaching games with this mindset can be a challenge. “Some players are curious about our games and they love them. Some people think, ‘These don’t fit the perception of what I think I enjoy.’ And maybe the games are for them, or maybe they’re not. But this is what we’ve been doing for 11 years. And I think we’re getting better at it.”
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Behind the Design is a series that explores the design practices and philosophies of Apple Design Awards finalists and winners. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their extraordinary creations to life.
