In this adventure, which takes the form of a 3D platform game where you play as Noa in a third-person view, no fewer than eleven ESMA students showcase their skills and expertise in a graduation game that is now available free of charge.
How did Maëlle Alliou, Julien Brizou, Aïden Garaud, Quentin Izadpanah, Orion Leclerc, Lancelot Lucas, Maëlys Lucas, Mathieu Julie, Jolan Saint-Georges-Jouan and Sébastien Salmon manage this project?
Take a look behind the scenes.
An adventure of nuances and brushstrokes
Noa, the protagonist imagined by this team, is introduced to an environment that combines fantasy and dream with a lack of colour. With the help of her companion, Chroma, who gives the game its name, the player is led to evolve in a world where life seems to have left the fauna and flora of this rich universe, and where your mission (if you accept it) will be to restore to this universe all its lost colour and beauty.
For Sébastien Salmon, Game Designer and Level Designer on this project, this narrative platformer aspect was essential to immerse the player in an adventure full of emotion and poetry.
“If I had to sum up Chroma, our game, in three words, they would be recolouring, imaginary and artistic.”
The first, because it’s this term that lies at the heart of the game’s mechanics.
The second, because it is this imagination that has guided the entire creative process.
And finally, art as the very essence of the game, around which both the game’s universe and its narrative have been built.
And it was with the whole team that this storyline was constructed, the fruit of numerous iterations, all the while bearing in mind the technical constraints and deadlines available to these students, who (it should be remembered) have less than a year to deliver a complete and functional game.
A strict, efficient organisation to stimulate creativity
“In concrete terms, we started the project in October,” recalls the now-graduate student, who already has a complete game under his belt.
In an intense work rhythm, ideal for preparing for a sector where production rates and quotas can be very high, the work structure adopted by the different teams is essential for the successful completion of the project. The same goes for respecting the key stages in the video game development process. “During pre-production, the brainstorming and reflection phase is the most important. This is where we lay down the concept, and establish the beginnings of what our project will become.”
Then comes the prototyping phase, where the mechanics that will guide the game will be defined, as well as the camera movements, the view, the controls, and all those key parameters that will make the game not only playable, but also attractive and enjoyable for the future player.
Notorious technical challenges due to the very nature of the project
“We encountered some technical difficulties in re-colouring the sets,” recalls Aïden Garaud, Narrative Designer on Chroma.
This is a natural part of this type of production, where students combine theory and practice in a constantly evolving project that often forces them to push themselves even further and master the tools and software they have assimilated during their first years of study.
“On the one hand, we had to bring this colouring to the universe, while at the same time having a black and white world with a look reminiscent of the pencilled side,” adds Aïden Garaud. “This sketchy feel, reminiscent of the lines in our protagonist’s notebook, was important to give this universe an identity, and its uniqueness to our production.” It’s a world that recalls the wide open spaces of Zelda, but also the friendly forests of Smurfs: Mission Malfeuille, produced by Lyon-based Osome Studio and published by Microïds.
A long-term project, but a high-level collaborative result
In any case, that’s what you feel when you move through Chroma‘s settings, over and above the satisfaction of restoring colour to a world tinged with grey. In this accomplished platformer, you get the sense of a close-knit team, working meticulously and rigorously. Sébastien Salmon, too, has fond memories of the experience. “What I learnt during the production of this game”, the former student tells us, “was teamwork. Being able to make compromises, being able (or at least trying) to adapt to everyone’s desires and styles to create a coherent experience and game, that’s undoubtedly what was most rewarding.”
This view is shared by Aïden Garaud, who concludes: “Even though we’ve hit a few bumps in the road, I think we’ve still managed to retain the essence of our project, and come up with a result that’s in line with our initial vision”.
It’s a rightful satisfaction, and a game that will enable the students who took part in its design to start their career with a solid portfolio, and an ideal business card to land an internship or a first job in one of the many studios that are still recruiting in France and abroad.
If you’d like to enter the creative world of Chroma, the game is available free of charge in its entirety on itchio.