#fens2015

[agenceondine]

NOTRE COMPTE RENDU DE FUTUR EN SEINE 2015

Que retenir de l’édition 2015 de Futur en Seine ? Nous avons réalisé un magazine numérique retraçant les temps forts de ce festival du numérique. 

Source : Facebook Futur en Seine

[m13-sonjabloch]

Click on the picture for further information.

[oniri-game]

Prototype #2 – Futur en Seine 2015, Paris

Those past four months were a bit crazy, we worked super hard to complete a new prototype for the french digital festival “Futur en Seine”. So what changed since the first prototype ?

Scenario

First we imagined and built all the world of Onirigami with David Calvo (author and narrative designer / game designer). The story was written for parents and kids and talks about universal themes like life in community and our relationship with animals and Nature. The twins Mina and Tim are led by a mysterious chant into Onirigami, a magic river that connects universes. Stranded on an island, they soon realize that their shadows are gone, preventing them from leaving this strange place. The twins meet soon two animals from the island, who give them their Shadows before returning to the river. Since their Shadows are now animals, Mina and Tim receive a mask that grants them powers : swim like a shark, fly like a falcon.

In the prototype Mina and Tim just left the caracal’s kids tribe after receiving a new mask and a new power. They’re now heading towards the chameleon kids. Before meeting them, the two kids need to find an offering for the chief chameleon : Eggs from the green Gura . So the twins have to find those eggs as they progress in the mangrove.

Figurines

We worked on a major update of the toys. veesdumpingrounds gave life to Tim & Mina with 2D sketches, so we had to adapt their design in 3D for the toys. We designed them with our 3D designer, Manon, then she modeled the kids and their masks with z-brush.

Then we asked our toy expert Nicolas to bring them to life. Because time was running out, we decided for that version that masks will be attached to the toys. For the final product we’ll design a clip-based system, so kids can take-on  / take-off all the masks on the figurine.

Nicolas printed the two toys in 3D with resin and hand-painted them. Here the final result, what do you think ?

Gameplay

A festival is a great opportunity to test your game with your public and get feedbacks, for us it was gold. With that prototype we wanted to test a few things : 

1 – The cooperative gameplay

We met parents who said they want to teach fundamental human values such as respect or teamwork to their kids. Since we design a game with figurines on tablet for families with young kids for us the cooperative aspect in the game was something meant to be. 

We designed a puzzle where the twins have to help each other to progress in the mangrove. Tim can fly under the sludge and can help his sister to move forward by interacting with a local creature : 

Later in the prototype kids have to plan and coordinate their moves : one of them have to interact again with the creature to distract the Gura while the other steals the desired eggs.

2 – The interactions with the powers from the masks.

Kids have masks which grant them powers. In this prototype you can use 3 of them : Shark, Falcon and Caracal mask. The Shark one allows you to swim or dive in the water. With the Falcon mask power you can fly and sometimes you’re allowed to reach some high places which is cool when you want to spot something. Finally the Caracal mask lets you see things you usually are not able to see.

The Shark is Mina’s totem as the Falcon is Tim’s totem. In the game they can’t switch those two masks. However they can share the Caracal mask since this one is a gift from the Caracal tribe. So in the game, players can switch powers with a wheel : Tim can switch Falcon to Caracal and Mina, Shark to Caracal and vice versa.

3 – Narration

Narration is something important for us. The entire story is told by a narrator who is actually the grandma of our Twins. She provides clues, advises the kids and gives useful information about the island. Since we want only few texts on the screen, the narrator will be a voice-over. 

Music & Sound design

We asked our music composer @itsokep to create a mood for the ingame sequence in the Mangrove as well as the cutscenes at the beginning and the end of the prototype. The Mangrove is a hot, wet, mysterious place filled with aquatic creatures. Sounds of animals like toads and frogs were used as instruments, as well as wooden percussions to evoke the chameleon tribe. Some variations were created for specific moment in the game : when the players are on top of the tree some pan flute was added, to create an aerial atmosphere. And in the underwater scene, sounds of waterdrops were added as well.

Our sound designer Léa had to create distinctive sounds for local creatures and the Gura, she mixed some snake, frog and toad sounds together, as well as her own voice !

Our switch from 2D to 3D assets

The first prototype was made entirely with 2D assets which was problematic for us since we want to play with lights, shadows and need to animate things with a perspective topdown view. We decided to switch to 3D and had to find a relevant and beautiful art direction. The universe of Onirigami is as poetic as unusual. Our two heroes are in an unknown and wild island where fauna and flora seem to come from another planet. We decided to realize the game with a cartoon colorful low-poly 3D look, with a particular work on lights and simple textures inspired by the work of artists like David O’Reilly, Heather Penn, Zerbamine but also of famous games as : Monument Valley, Below, Zelda Wind Waker.

Another challenge was to keep the unity between what it will be in 2D, like cut scenes, and the render in 3D in the game. chelseasaunders who worked with us on the 3D production realized an amazing work to preserve the essence of the initial concept arts.

— 2D concept

— 3D render

The Festival

After few months of work and, let’s be honest, a bit of stress : here comes the festival !  We had a lot of fun to prepare all the communication for the booth : posters, paper bookmarks, badges, stickers... A LOT OF THANKS to Nicolas who created for us big cardboards of Mina, Tim and few little island fellows and to Manon who helped us set the booth and greet visitors during 4 days. We still have tons of goodies here, so if you want some, please email us or give a shoot on Twitter ! 

Overall, the festival was a great experience. Families, professionals and visitors gave us positif feedbacks. Of course we also had a lot of advises to improve the game, change things that still not work yet or stuff we should probably put aside. There is a lot of things to do to polish the game, but all suggestions were constructive. We are really excited to get back to work after a well-deserve few days break :)

We hope you enjoy this article, we’ll come back soon with a video of the prototype :)

See you  Marion & Kami Tourmaline studio

[elyxyak]

#Elyx en pleine réflexion dominicale... @Futur_en_Seine @GaiteLyrique #ElyxYak #Fens2015 #ElyxParty #Paris (à La Gaîté Lyrique)

[dagautier]

#fens2015 a la #GaiteLyrique AR et VR everywhere :) ! #futur (at Gaité Lyric)

[flochau]

Générative Smoke #DigitalArti #InteractiveInstallation #FENS2015 #Interactive #LED

[matchic]

[eye-tracking]

Matchic Eye-Tracking - Futur en Seine 2015

Quoi ? Matchic Labs développe un système de tests d’applications mobiles, basé sur l’eye-tracking, qui détecte rapidement et efficacement les défauts de l’expérience utilisateur. Comment ? Basé sur une technologie innovante et exclusive d’eye-tracking sur smartphones et tablettes …

Quoi ?

Matchic Labs développe un système de tests d’applications mobiles, basé sur l’eye-tracking, qui détecte rapidement et efficacement les défauts de l’expérience utilisateur.

Comment ?

Basé sur une technologie innovante et exclusive d’eye-tracking en situation de mobilité réelle, sur smartphones et tablettes, le système de Matchic Labs permet de :

·       réaliser ses propres tests en toute autonomie,

·       observer de vrais utilisateurs en situation d’usage mobile,

·       tout en vérifiant leur niveau d’engagement, soit : leurs interactions physiques et visuelles avec l’application testée.

Pourquoi ?

Nos récents résultats clients en tests agiles ont montré que notre solution divise par 10 le risque d’échec d’un projet mobile.

L’objectif est de booster la performance utilisateur, et donc in fine l’adoption des applications et des services qu’elles proposent.

Matchic Labs vise un marché en forte croissance

d’agences de développement d’applications mobiles, d’agences de publicité et de media.