The Production Process Behind "There Is No Game"

The President of Draw Me A Pixel Pascal Cammisotto discussed the studio's non-game "There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension", talked about sources of inspiration, and explained how the team managed to get their non-game noticed.

Introduction

Hello. I'm Pascal Cammisotto, president of the French studio Draw Me A Pixel and author/director of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. I started in the video game industry in 1995. I was then a Music Composer for the game Knight's Chase from Infogrames. Then, thanks to a degree in film direction and a passion for video games, I managed to get a job as a Game Designer in a small studio in Lyon. I worked mainly on Disney and third-party Ubisoft productions for about ten years. It was very formative.

Then I co-founded in 2010, with former colleagues, an independent studio with which we released Shad'o on Steam, a dreamlike tower defense. Then the studio closed and I started to think about other projects but on my own.

Draw Me A Pixel Team

Draw Me A Pixel is a small French independent studio created in 2017. Currently, we are 5, spread all over France in telecommuting. Sophie Peseux is in charge of the management of the company. Guillaume Vidal takes care of the code/technical part. Gerault Soulie is our new art director and Pauline Chauchot is in charge of marketing and social networks.

As for me, I am the author/director of the productions.

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

The starting point of this non-game comes from a Gamejam organized by the site Newgrounds in 2015 whose theme was "Deception". I then asked myself what could be the biggest lie in a game and ended up writing a title on the screen: There Is No Game. Then I added the game's voice, Stanley Parable style so that I could guide the player through this weird universe. And then I created the puzzles in an iterative way, having fun breaking the usual video game codes.

The concept was born and the critical and media success of this little non-game jam convinced me that I had to make a bigger version.

Parallel Worlds

The Gamejam was only 10 to 15 minutes of gameplay. I wondered how to increase this time without repetition. And that's when I had the idea of dimensional travel, like in the TV show Sliders: visit very different video game universes.

This has two advantages. First, it allows to drastically change the visual and sound universe avoiding redundancy. Secondly, it gives a lot of material to parody and has fun with known video game codes. About the sources of inspiration, I simply took from the genres that rocked my childhood and on which I had something to tell.

Production Challenges

Changing the video game universe was indeed complicated. It felt like we were making 6 different games! Each chapter is quite different from the others and the vast majority of the puzzles are unique. This required a ton of specific gameplay code because each chapter has its own concept.

For example, the Lucasarts adventure game tribute chapter offers the ability to turn around the TV screen and see the back of the scenery.

The fake credits allow the player to swap names and change what's on the screen. The final chapter uses an interactive FMV (full motion video) system. Each chapter has a unique flavor. However, no matter what genre it is, it's still a Point&Click game in its mechanics and interactions. You do not control the characters on the screen. You have to find a way to interact with them or their environment to help them. And this is where the fourth wall is interesting. The whole game design revolves around the fact that you can't play the game in front of you. You have to think outside the box and it was fun to make!

Finding the Audience

The Gamejam was a huge success thanks to big influencers. It was an unexpected stroke of luck. And it was because of that exposure that I decided to make it a commercial game. I thought it was an experience that had the potential to reach a large audience and especially streamers. However, when we launched the Kickstarter, it was a huge flop. Nobody knew about the project. We wrote to over 100 gaming media but hardly any of them picked up the story. We wrote to all the YouTubers who had tested and liked the jam game but no response. In short, it was impossible to reach the millions of people who have seen or played the game.

Despite this, I financed the production with my own money and we managed to release the game in 2020.

The press was shy at the beginning and it's mostly the influencers who, again, put the game in the spotlight without being asked! For the second time, we were extremely lucky. I think that the game, with its humor and its offbeat side, offers a very fun experience for the streams and that really helped the communication. But if the game had been a more traditional Point&Click, I don't think it would have had this success.

Conclusion

Every studio works a little differently and everything depends on the job. But I think what matters most is the experience you get. And I don't necessarily mean professional experience. It can be personal. School is optional too. There are fantastic self-taught people.

The important thing is to be able to show your abilities in a portfolio, no matter what your job is. For example, if you are going to be a game designer, show some gameplay prototypes that you have created. It will help your application to get attention. But if you're just starting out then roll up your sleeves and develop your skills. There are tons of tutorials on the net that I didn't have in my day. Making a video game has never been as accessible as it is today!

Pascal Cammisotto, President of Draw Me A Pixel

Interview conducted by Theodore Nikitin

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