Meet 4 Edges, The stuido who created two games on FrenchCows:The BlobMinute and LavaPools.
1/ Tell us about yourself(ves) : how did you get involved in video games?
We are 4 friends from the same bachelor in game and level design. After failing the entry contest of the ENJMIN, we took a look at the french industry and saw there would be no job for us. We decided to do indie games for 1 years, the time needed to publish one or two games. We donât have unlimited money and weâll have to find a job to pay the bills soon or later.
2/ What does âindieâ mean to you? Why did you make that choice?
Indie is, for us, an opportunity to make cool games and train. We may have found a job in the video game industry with our Bachelor, but Iâm sure itâs an illusion. We are young, we only need a few hundreds o bucks to live, for the rent and the food. We have no family to sustain⊠why not ?
3/ How many of you are there in your studio? Are other people contributing to your work?
Four of us are part of the core team and four people are helping us.
Thomas Goffinet, game designer, level designer, graphic artist,
Bastien Nanceau, game developer, level designer, a little graphic art too
Paul Lagarrigue, Sound designer et musician
And I, Yannick Elahee, game designer, game developer et project manager
The four side kicks are :
Ludovic Servat, game designer et graphic artist, I work closely with him on Lavapools
StĂ©phane Damo, musician who help us on game jams and stuff. Heâs the maestro for the musics of Blob minute
Julien Lebon, level designer on Blob Minute.
Julien Commerenc, composer, the rocking guitar on Lavapools, itâs him !
We are splitted in two between Lavapools and Blob Minute, because I wanted to do a duo with Ludovic and our games are quite level driven.
Sadly thereâs no women in our whole team...
4/ Where does your name come from?
Our name comes from the fact that weâre 4 and wanted a simple name⊠weâre quite convinced the name doesnât matter this much, it must be easy to remember and say. But besides that, I have a deeper explanation. When we speak of 4 edges, we usually see a rectangle or a square. But you can also see a weird rhombus. We see things as simple as theyâre said, but after we get used to them, we see something different, deeper.
5/ What makes a great video game according to you?
A great video games is for us surprising and reveals his potential over time. We have the specificity to go quite deep in the games we play. Would it be for mastering or discovering more about the background, things can be simple at first and then get surprising, full of potential.
6/ Why did you decide to join FrenchCows? What do you expect from this adventure?
We decide to join FrenchCows to extend our network and have quite precises deadlines on our schedule. Itâs really helpful when youâre indie, young and have few experience. Another good thing is the community it has : we love having feedbacks from the players. Itâs essential for us.
7/ Can you tell us a few words about your games ?
Blob Minute is a plateformer where the same level is twisted every time you play it, keeping the core design but with different mechanics. Itâs not that much original and a little hard to say why itâs fun, but we see a potential in this one. The thing is that you need to keep some patterns in your head, but change some other. We heavily rely on the quality of level design, because weâre mainly game designers. When you take a look at Super Meat Boy, the core mechanics are quite conventionnal, but the pleasure relies on controls and level design.
Lavapools is very different. Itâs somehow a game about dodging things and understanding routines, while new pattern appears. The biggest inspiration for it is the Escape mod of Warcraft 3. People also refer it to Pacman, and I sometimes wonder what a new Pacman would look like. There are many things to say about itâs underlying signification and why itâs an important game to me⊠but itâs a secret :)
8/ What are your hopes for both your game (s) and your studio?
We donât have many hopes, because weâre young and inexperienced. Then we hope to level up fast during this adventure, and build a portfolio that recruiters will like. Itâs quite unusual from indie, but weâre as passionnate as they are. Other indies often come back from the industry, but today itâs hard for young people to break through. We aim to make games that will be a good experience for the player and for us. Will we manage to manage ourselves and publish games on our own ?
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