As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's our last interview. This time, it's with Florent, who co-wrote the game with his sister Coralie and also took care of the game design. Florent actually was in a car accident in 2017 (luckily without any bad consequences apart for a totalled car), which gave him the initial inspiration for The Wreck!

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
My name is Florent, and I co-wrote The Wreck. Plus I tried to pretend I'm a game designer.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
My favorite moment was when I cut my hair! When we started working on The Wreck, in 2017, I made he weird wish not to cut it until the game was released. Little did I know, that would take us over 5 years! It was fun to begin with but at some point the mere sight of an hair brush would give me the creeps. I really admire people with long hair now!
My least favorite moment was when after working on the game's prototype for over a year and spending quite a lot of money, we realized it just wasn't working. Prototyping narrative games is hard - so much relies on the mood and atmosphere that you can't use crappy placeholder graphics to get a picture of the game you envision - you have to push further. But when you push in the wrong direction, well... It's hard to land back on your feet! Luckily, we had great partners who believed in our ability to turn the boat around, and after a few (hard) months of extra work we came up with a second prototype - which was way more convincing this time! But I feel guilty and I regret having caused that stress for everyone.

What was a thing you learned about your craft making the game that you'd like to share?
Hire a producer! Seriously, when you're a tiny team working with very limited means, it can be tempting to imagine that the game designer or the creative director will also be the team's producer. But the truth is, it's already hard enough to take care of either creative tasks or organizational ones alone - doing both will burn you out. Producers are saints, they work in the shadows for the well being of everyone. Just hire one.

As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's an interview with Coralie, who co-wrote the game with her brother, Florent. Coralie is an artist and a videographer, and The Wreck was her first experience working on a video game.

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
I am Coralie and I co-wrote The Wreck.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
Fave moment: taking all of Florent's briefs, getting inspired, gathering sensations, feelings, memories... Then letting all this material brew for a while, and finally putting the scenes together.
The one I liked the last: the last piece of script I worked on. I knew I would be almost done, and I wanted to spend more time with Junon, Diane and the others so bad! And as soon as I wrote the last word of the last scene I had to work on, I felt like: "that's it? That is really it?"

What was a thing you learned about your craft making the game that you'd like to share with other writers out there?
You can work with family without it ending in a bloodbath!

As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's an interview with Mylène, who worked tirelessly to spread the word about the game and help release it on lot of platforms and digital marketplaces.

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
My name is Mylène, and I was helping with the Marketing & Communication aspect of the game.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
I really loved to see players discovering the game on Twitch. It always feels really special to see concrete things coming from your work. I also really enjoyed brainstorming, to see all the idea you could get to promote the game. Finally (it's hard to not write down all the stuff I liked about The Wreck!), I really enjoyed chatting with the team, whether it was during meetings or doing event (parties!!!) face to face. I feel very lucky to be part of this adventure. The worst past was to not win The Pegases (French video game awards - The Wreck was nominated in three different categories but lost each time) :D. Joke aside, for real, it was difficult for me to read reviews which sounded unfair, even if all opinions are valid of course!

What was a thing you learned about your craft making the game that you'd like to share with other Marketing peeps out there?
Never stop trying to promote a game, even months or years after the release. It's always worth it!

As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's an interview with Peggy, the game's animator and cinematic artist.

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
Hey ! I'm Peggy, An animator and graphic designer from Brest, France. My pronouns are they/them and I enjoy mashups and rabbits. When I joined the team on The Wreck, my role was first and foremost to handle character animation. I ended up extending my stay, and did a variety of tasks, from cinematics, framing most of the game's camera shots, to doing a bunch of cool visual effects. For instance, whenever you see a text hovering in the air,it's me who did the font did the font !! it was hand written in with an ink brush then scanned ! I then did some shader magic to animate it in a variety of ways.

What was your favourite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
I don't want to spoil the story too much, but there is a scene on a rooftop with Junon and another character that's very emotional. I got a lot of freedom at animating and directing the scene, and I'm very proud of the end result. It looks vibrant, dynamic, intimate, and I'm happy I was able to stay true to the vision that both Alex and Florent had for that scene. Whenever I replay the game this sequence always gives me the chills.
As for my least favourite moment, I distinctly remember spilling my soda and breaking my laptop in the middle of the production ToT. I had to build a new computer in emergency, and I worked on a temporary setup in the meantime. It was so stressful, and I lost a lot of precious time. Hopefully, the old laptop is doing fine nowadays. It regularly glitches, but it's good enough to watch tv shows in my room.

What was a thing you learned about your craft making the game that you'd like to share with other animators out there?
I think my biggest takeaway is that it's good that we didn't go for realistic animations. By distancing ourselves from industry standards, we made a statement that what we were trying to achieve was different, more intimate. I think players got what we were going for, and agreed to see our game for what it was instead of projecting their expectations onto it. Allowing ourselves to look for inspiration outside of video games played a great part in this decision. I personally fell in love with Makoto Shinkai's feature film "5 centimeters per second", which is a masterclass in limited animation, and helped so much in defining how to animate, frame and edit the cinematics. If I had to redo a project like this I would probably spend even more time looking for references and carefully documenting them.

As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's an interview with Horace, the game's lead (and, most of the time, only) programmer. Horace loves to work for the team and provide others with the tools that will make their life easier!.

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
I'm Horace Ribout, I was the main programmer on The Wreck.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
I really liked to work on the game's gamefeel. "How to make a narrative game feel more alive?" was a challenging but interesting task. The least fun part was the bug correction. Even if a game that seems this "simple", bugs are legion and never ending. And some of them are just weird!

What was something you learned about your craft while making the game that you'd like to share with other artists out there?
I learned many many very specific lesson, but in general : communication is key, and always think about the player. Basic stuff, but it's real in every way. As a programmer, what you do really defines the game (or experience) in the end, so you have to perfectly understand what the writer or game designer intend or want. And sometimes, you need to improvise within the limit when something didn't work, make a proposal to replace it, while staying true to the idea behind the game. It's a weird balance that takes time to find, and will change depending on the team you're in.

As part of a series celebrating The Wreck's first anniversary, here's an interview with Alexandre, the game's art director. Alexandre has been involved in the project since its inception, and his talent and creativity have been instrumental to its success.

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
My name is Alexandre GRILLETTA and I am the Art Director for The Wreck.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
The thing I enjoyed the most is definitely the pre-production phase, where ideas flow and all possibilities are within reach. Especially the phases of conception and creative direction with Florent (the game's creative director), where we discussed staging ideas around each of Junon's memories. The part I liked the least is certainly those little moments of wandering at the beginning of production where we had to make mistakes (necessary) before knowing exactly what we wanted.
What was something you learned about your craft while making the game that you'd like to share with other artists out there?To avoid constant references and homage to works that have influenced you... don't hesitate to seek your references OUTSIDE of the video game medium. Everything is so codified, the only way to create something truly original is to be YOURSELF.

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Another great news: The Wreck is nominated for Excellence in narrative at the Independent Games Festival, and to celebrate, we teamed up with all the other already available nominees to come up with an amazing bundle, the Excellence in Narrative - IGF 2024 bundle!

Hope you'll love playing those gems!

Funny how time flies: it still very much feels like yesterday, yet somehow, today marks the 1-year anniversary of the release of The Wreck on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox.
It's been a wild ride for us, with incredible player and press feedback, awards and nomination, and - more important than anything - the satisfaction of delivering a labour of love to the world.
Speaking of love, The Wreck would never have come to be without the passion and dedication of its team. That's why, to celebrate our anniversary, we would like to share with you a series of short interviews with some of the game's team members.
It starts today with Sharlit Deyzac, the actress who lent her voice to Junon, and it will continue for a week. We hope you'll like it!

Who are you and what was your role on The Wreck?
I am Sharlit Deyzac, a French actress living on a farm in Portugal, and I had the honour of voicing the role of Junon in The Wreck.

What was your favorite moment/thing to do during the production of the game, and what was the one you liked the least?
Oh there were quite a few things I loved about this production! Firstly, I loved the complexity of the role of Junon, playing the ups and downs of her journey, and I particularly enjoyed that Florent decided we would record the game almost in chronological order. This meant I discovered the character and storyline in the same way the gamers do when they play the game, which made for honest emotional responses and created a real attachment to the character for me. Most of the recording was done remotely from my home studio in Portugal, and I was grateful that the team was particularly positive and upbeat. The director Sarah's trust and guidance was pivotal in helping me explore the different facets of Junon, Florent's encouraging feedback and deep knowledge of the story kept us going from our separate rooms and made it feel like we were all together and Max's audio quality control made the sessions run super smoothly. A dream team! I guess the thing i liked the least was that the wrap party took place in Paris, and I unfortunately couldn't go, so i didn't get to meet everyone in person to celebrate our hard work!

What was a thing you learned about your craft making the game that you'd like to share with other voice over talents out there?
I was fortunate to work with Sarah Elmaleh, a very experienced voice over actor, who, as a director on this occasion, imparted a lot of wisdom, had a lot of patience and had a good gut feeling as to how to help me hit the right emotional balance with the role of Junon. It's simultaneously humourous and also pretty dark, as the character goes through depression, grief, bewilderment and self realisation. I think what was most striking to me in terms of a learning curve, was how one line can be toned in so many different ways, and how much fun i had trying to propose different riffs on each separate line, to see which version Sarah and Florent would choose to fit the situation best. Voicing a game character, is very different from acting on film or on stage, almost like you can be the character in 2 or 3 quantum universes as you play around vocally with different ways the lines can be delivered. It's very fun to be able to explore and surprise myself and the team with subtle tones or breaths that make all the difference!!

(Photo © Sue Terry Voices)

Come and join Coralie and Florent, The Wreck's co-writers, as they play the game and discuss their shared creative process.

Let's face it: we're not very confident about our chances of winning a Steam Award. We're not popular enough to hope for enough votes. But as tradition dictates, we have to make the most of it... If we could count on your support, we'd be delighted and flattered!