Category: Our Projects

Reality-inspired games we’ve worked on.

Posted on

Inua wins “Cultural Impact” award from Apple and “Best scenario” from Google Play!

This Tuesday, Inua – A Story in Ice and Time, the game that The Pixel Hunt co-produced with IKO and Arte France, won the cultural impact award from Apple. And yesterday, it was Google who gave it an award for the best scenario, in the Google Play Best Of 2022. What a week!

Of course, we’re very happy because it’s always nice to receive awards, especially from Apple, a rather selective brand. But it’s even truer when the category you win in is particularly valuable in your eyes. Working on Inua – A Story in Ice and Time was an opportunity for us to meet with Inuit Elders, writers and actors, to immerse ourselves in their History, and to reflect on our own. So we’re not going to lie, winning a “cultural impact award” or a “best scenario” award is precious. In fact, it’s to shake up that part of the video game industry a little bit that The Pixel Hunt exists.

By the way, our next game, The Wreck, is coming up very soon: next March, if our calculations are right. In the meantime, if you’re interested in this story about grief, family relationships and hope, don’t hesitate to add the game to your wishlist on Steam, it helps us a lot to tame the algorithm.

See you soon!
The Pixel Hunt team

Posted on

Mystery in Poppy Land

Pitch: Mystery in Poppy Land tells the story of a young teenager named Zélie. Upon her arrival in Albert, she receives a letter from her grandfather Zébulon, in which he details the progress of his time travel project and asks for her help. Zébulon is, in fact, stuck in another space-time, and Zélie must find him. Her mission: to search for the seven keys that will reactivate her grandfather’s time machine. And for that, you must help her solve a series of puzzles and close the time portals that have accidentally been opened in several towns of the Poppy Land: Bouzincourt, Thiepval, Carnoy-Mametz, Bray-sur-Somme, Beaumont-Hamel, and Albert. Of course, the strange is ever-present.

https://mystere.paysducoquelicot.fr

Client: Le Pays du Coquelicot
Code: GoToAndBuzz
Date : May, 2022

Posted on

The Wreck, The Pixel Hunt’s new game!

Today’s a very special day for us at The Pixel Hunt. After keeping quiet for a time that honestly felt like forever, the moment has come for us to share our new project with the WORLD!

So here’s The Wreck, a mature 3D visual novel about sisterhood, motherhood, grief and survival.
In it, you’ll follow failed screenwriter Junon as she attempts to make it through the most pivotal day in her life. Relive the past, alter the present, and embrace the future… or watch Junon’s story end in a wreck.

At The Pixel Hunt, we’re commited to making games that stand out by the way they are written and the stories they tell. So what can you expect from The Wreck? Well, hopefully interesting dialogues, lovable characters, harrowing reveals and a whole lot of feels. But if you’ve played our previous title, Bury me, my Love, that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Also get ready for an incredible art direction, great sound design, and a score that should stick with you for a very long time.

We’re still working hard on finishing the game – we’re recording amazing voice actresses as we speak actually! If all goes well, you’ll be able to play The Wreck by the end of this Spring. In the meantime, we’ll keep you updated either here or on our socials.

We hope you’ll love playing The Wreck as much as we loved working on it!

Posted on

Inua – A Story in Ice and Time

Inua is a mystical point & click adventure about three protagonists with intertwined fates, living decades apart in the Great North. Explore Time & Space, gather ideas and manipulate their minds to change the course of History.

A mystical game in Canadian far north

Inua is a mystical narrative adventure spanning several time periods in the Canadian far north.
Follow the story of Taïna, Peter and Simon, three characters separated by more than a century but whose destinies are mysteriously intertwined with Nanurluk, the great polar bear.
10 000 thousand years ago, nanurluk lived peacefully with her cubs? One day, motivated by ambition and their desire to show their superiority, humans attacked her. After a long and dire hunt, Nanurluk was slain ,disturbing the balance between man and nature.
Navigate through time and instill ideas into the minds of characters to bring back harmony to the world.

Of time and space

Travel to the Canadian far north, navigate between the ages and interact with the past to change the present. Inua, will have you unravel space-time to solve puzzles and guide the characters. Each level is made up of several scenes that take place in the same location, but at different times. As you move from scene to scene and era to era, you will uncover events from the past. You will be able to breathe new ideas into the characters to help them overcome the obstacles that stand in their way and change the course of history.

An epic of historic proportion

The original and supernatural scenario of Inua is based on a very real story: that of the Franklin Expedition, a British mission in the 19th century set to explore the then unknown Arctic. Shipwreck, illness, mutiny: by gathering clues, you can shed light on the tragic destiny of this expedition, whose fate is still largely unknown..

Inua – A Story in Ice and Time is :

  • A supernatural tale based on incredible historical facts.
  • An extraordinary story inspired by Inuit spirituality, based on extensive research with Inuit artists and supervised by an Inuit author
  • Original puzzles based on space and time manipulation

Inua is a coproduction by The Pixel Hunt, IKO and ARTE France.
The game will be accessible in early 2022, on PC, Mac, iOS and Android.

Posted on

The Kingdom of Istyald

Pitch : You were invoked by a powerfull witch named “The Guide”, and now are discovering a strange world, The Kingdom of Istyald. Istyald is the name of the great tree of knowledge, and the tree’s in danger: dark forces try to destroy it and seize control of the whole world. You have to stop the Empire of Shadows from spreading!

If you think you’re up to the task, you’re going to have to explore this Visual Novel, meet its inhabitants, find its treasures and fight its monsters. You’ll have to use diplomacy, might, ruse and witchcraft… And if you’re good enough, you’ll have a lot of allies by your side by the time the big fight against the Dark Lord begins.

The Kingdom of Istyald actually isn’t just a game. It’s designed as an initiation to Fantasy as a literary genre. So you’ll get to meet its main tropes: Elves, Dwarves, Warlocks, Dragons… They’ll either become your allies in your quest – or ennemies you’ll have to fight. But as this is a literary game, you’ll have to use observation and wit way more than sword and shield.

The Digital Editions service of the French National Library commissionned The Kingdom of Istyald as a playful introduction to a tremendous ressource website about the Fantasy genre. A simple yet engaging way to enter this universe, masterfully illustrated by the work of Anato Finnstark.

Producer: BNF
Publisher: BNF
Code: GoToAndBuzz
Release date : Jan. 10, 2020

Posted on

The Moral of the Story

Pitch : It’s easy to be convinced that we know perfectly well what is right and what is wrong. We’re all convinced we have strong moral intuitions. And then, sometimes, all it takes is a series of moral thought experiments to challenge – alter, even, maybe – those intuitions.

Of course, The Moral of the story doesn’t intend to decide whether you’re good or evil! But this program takes inspiration in the work of modern philosophers such as Ruwen Ogien to give you some food for thought, and, maybe, challenge some of your positions on BIG ethical decisions. It does so by taking you through an interactive story that starts with a fairly candid event: it’s your birthday and you just won croissants, that are waiting for you in the closest bakery…

But as you may expect, things are not going to go as planned. You’re in for a wild ride, involving an old lady, a fancy sportscar, and maybe even your death.

The time will then come to listen to the famous youtube philosopher Monsieur Phi gice you detailed explanations on what really happened, and why we had you face such strange dilemmas.

And because we don’t want you to feel too lonely in your introspections, you’ll be able to – anonymously – compare all your decisions with the ones made by other players before you!

Produceur : Point du Jour
Broadcaster : Arte
Code & dataviz : WeDoData
Date : June 10, 2019

Posted on

Mu: Dive into the Mucem

Pitch : what is a “museum of civilisations” about? Why would someone want to collect – let alone exhibit – trivial items from people’s everyday life, be it past or present? In order to explain the interest of such an endeavour to the public visiting the Mucem, in Marseilles, France, The Pixel Hunt has created an app of a new genre. Designed to be used inside the museum, it’s an interactive visit application that proposes a fictional and poetic stroll.

L'application s'utilise exclusivement au Mucem de Marseille.
A free iOS/Android app, to be used only inside the museum.

With their smartphone in hand, and a holographic pyramid sticked to it, players walk in the museum pretending they are an archeologist from the future, investigating the remnants of a long forgotten civilisation.

Mu, plongée au coeur d'un musée magnifique... et englouti !
A fictionnal, poetic and funny dive in a sunken museum.

Scanning markers all around, they try to discover who the “Musiens” were, how they lived, what they believed in…

The markers, to be found all around the museum, give access to mysterious items.

Client : Mucem.
Code : Paztec
Date : 2018-2019

A screen shows the discoveries players made in the museum, in real time!
Posted on

Bury me, my Love

Pitch: A mobile interactive fiction that tells the story of Nour, a Syrian woman trying to reach Europe, and Majd, her husband who stayed behind and uses a messaging app to provide her with support and advice.
Client: self-produced in a co-production with Figs and ARTE France.
Date: 2017

Publisher: Playdius .
Platform: mobile/tablet (iOS/Android), desktop, Nintendo Switch

Total production budget: over €200k.
The Pixel Hunt’s tasks: creative direction, writing, game design, illustration, production management.
Project link: http://burymemylove.arte.tv

Key facts: The Pixel Hunt’s first full-scale independent game. Selected, nominated or winner in more than 20 events or awards, including The Game Awards, the GDC Awards, the BAFTA Game Awards, Google Play Indie Games Contest, IndieCade Europe.