In Exographer, two types of character were to be distinguished: the Natitans, repositories of knowledge and inspired by real scientists who discovered elementary particles (see devlog #4), and Ini, the player character, an exographer sent to investigate a mysterious distress signal emitted by the Natitans.

Ini's design had to be completely different from that of the Natitans. It was quickly decided that he would be smaller than them, and therefore evolve in a world too big for him. This is both a metaphor for our limit-conscious scientific knowledge, and a reference to the titanic machines built by scientists today, for example at CERN (see devlog #1).

In our early versions, Ini would look like a robot, or even an exploration probe sent to analyze the distress signal and explore an abandoned world.

In the end, we opted for a biological character, a sort of repairman or astronaut, to give the player a stronger sense of identification with the character... New graphic explorations took shape.

One constraint was that the design had to remain fairly simple, since Ini obtains equipment as it goes along, which had to be represented and animated in pixel art, a considerable challenge.

Another constraint was that we wanted the character to be gender-neutral. On this point, we're disappointed with the result. For us, Ini could be anyone behind his helmet, but we've noticed that many players are convinced that he's a boy, in keeping with the stereotype of the astronaut profession? We'll do better next time!

In the case of the Natitans, we wanted to convey the idea of a highly advanced civilization, ancient enough to have accumulated a wealth of scientific knowledge. Our graphic designer Thomas Vaulbert took inspiration from very ancient animal species, such as arthropods, which have existed since the Precambrian period. The first concepts were based on this idea.

But as Exographer production progressed, we felt the need to diversify the look of the Natitans, to better characterize them. So we decided to take inspiration from more recent species, such as a gorilla or an elephant, for the youngest Natitans, in a kind of mini theory of evolution.

Exographer’s music was scored by Yann van der Cruyssen, author of the Stray and Seasons after Fall soundtracks, among others.

Yann confesses that producing a soundtrack for a game with retro graphics is always a tricky business. The sound has to be neither too old school nor too modern. In fact, this isn't the first time Yann has worked on this kind of game. Over the years, he has accumulated a number of tools to meet this goal. For Exographer, he used a mixture of FM synthesizers, emulations of old machines, wavetables from retro games and, sometimes, more HiFi samples passed through effects to degrade them.

Yann's sequencer, hard at work.

Among the 22 tracks produced, there are several recurring themes or patterns:
Yann first wrote the main theme, The Natitan Academy, with its chorus that worked very well on piano but took a long time to adapt in retro mode. This was the basis for the rest, with the same synths, and bits of melody taken up here and there.

Yann's favorite theme wasn't the easiest to produce: Cathode Rays was initially composed in a rather static way, with an organ echoing the level, reminiscent of a church. It didn't work, and the track was almost thrown away. Until Yann replaced the organ with a more rhythmic LoFi pattern. Finally, after a few tweaks, its five-beat melody became the game's most recurrent leitmotif.

The Natitan Academy track is played in the game's largest level, a village and its mausoleum.

Another track that was almost thrown away was Gelma's prayer. On receiving it, the team was dubious. What place would this quasi-medieval track have in our universe? But Yann didn't give up, and it wasn't until the track was mounted in the game that everyone embraced it.

Composing music for a game with a wide range of moods is never easy. The specificities of each level must leave their mark: flutes and percussion in the cosmic mount, glass sounds for the underwater levels, unstable harmonies in the absurd world, electrical artifacts for the most technological moments.

A final subtlety: several tracks have been exported in separate layers to vary the intensity according to what's going on in the game.

Overall, Yann tried to produce a quiet universe for Exographer, because despite the platformer aspect, it's more a game about reflection.

Fun fact: one of the 22 tracks produced didn't make it into the game. Can you find out which one?

We have good news for all those users of Valve's handheld consoles, Steam Deck or Steam Deck OLED, who want to play Exographer. This 2D exploration adventure game is fully compatible with the Steam device. Enjoy Ini's adventure on an alien planet and discover all the secrets that this science-inspired metroidvania holds on the go, with all the original game's features, controls, text and resolution adapted.

Exographer has a 2D gameplay, full of puzzles and platforms, with pixel art graphics and an evocative soundtrack composed by Yann Van der Cruyssen (Stray). The powers we get, the characters we meet, the locations throughout 6 atmospheres and more than 20 levels and the particles we must discover are based on particle physics.

Why is Exographer not yet listed as verified for Steam Deck?

At the moment, the SciFunGames title only appears on Steam listed as compatible. However, the game is fully optimized for the handheld console. This means that all controls have been adapted, the screen resolution is perfect for the game, and the texts have been revised to improve readability, both on the regular model and on Steam Deck OLED.

Valve is verifying games for Steam Deck progressively, and we cannot be sure when it will be Exographer's turn. However, we can guarantee a 100% compatible and optimized experience on this machine. And let us add that enjoying this exploration adventure anywhere is a plus.

If you do not own a Steam Deck, you can also enjoy Exographer in portable mode on the Nintendo Switch version. Remember that the game launches next September 26 and you can already add it to your wishlist, and enjoy the free demo.

In Exographer, you'll spend a (small) part of your time searching for new elementary particles in images closely resembling those manipulated by physicists at CERN or elsewhere. And you don't even need any prior knowledge! The game is designed to help you gradually get to grips with these seemingly complex concepts.

In the example above, a cosmic ray cascade, you'll need to find a muon and an antimuon, thanks to the chain of decay of the pion into a muon and then an electron. But you'll just have to let the visual aspect guide you, and to use your selection tools, in order to achieve this.

To design these puzzles, our scientific director, Raphaël Granier de Cassagnac, took direct inspiration from the history of particle physics. In fact, muons were first observed in cosmic rays, and this came as quite a surprise. Other experiments, such as the discovery of the neutrino by Reines and Cowan, are hidden behind most of the levels.

To design the various analyses, game designer Pierre-Alban Ferrer drew on this history and came up with tools for selecting different properties of the particles and their interactions. Together with Raphaël, they exchanged diagrams such as the one below, before implementing these puzzles and testing them on novice players to check progress and learning.

At the end of the game, the player finally discovers the Higgs boson, by solving the four decay modes that led to its discovery. Above, the Higgs boson decays into four leptons, via a pair of Z bosons. It's up to you to find all these particles!

Bonus! While we were designing the game, our intern Basile de Lamberterie designed a stand-alone application that lets you make a few collisions, disintegrate a few particles, and contemplate cosmic rays. This generator was very useful for visualizing interactions.

On the other hand, the idea of procedural interaction generation had to be abandoned in favor of total control over the complexity offered to players.

To repair the giant machines of the Exographer world, you'll have to solve puzzles. To design them, our game designer Pierre-Alban Ferrer had to meet various design objectives: simple or advanced learning of a power (see devlog #3), checking players' skills, using the camera, illustrating mechanics specific to science…

Puzzles based on ray redirection, for example, meet the latter two objectives. The first (scientific) inspiration are the electromagnets of particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. These are used to bend particle tracks as they travel through the tunnels to serve various experiments. In play, this curvature is greatly exaggerated to allow right-angle redirections and beam separations. This brings us close to some of the puzzles in Half Life: Alyx.

LHC superconducting magnets (Image: CERN)

These puzzles also require the use of a camera: electric rays are not visible unless photographed. This again echoes science, and adds a little memorization challenge. Finally, we've added a little difficulty by blurring these beams with one of our absurd materials.

Other puzzles focus more on learning the mechanics of the game. The "code lock" type puzzles, inspired by escape games, require a good understanding of the character's movements in order to explore the levels and collect clues by taking pictures.

Another learning puzzle: in the muon sanctuary inspired by the Kamiokande mine (see devlog #1), the character must pass "light bulbs" to "turn them back on" and restart the machine. This mechanism, very similar to Mario's gold coins or Sonic's rings, allows us to show the way, but also to make massive use of a newly acquired power (the zediacal boxes), combining them with other powers. The challenge is: how do you deploy this box in the right direction to reach this precise point in the level?

Other puzzles will test the handling skill of the acquired powers. Such is the case with the time-limited passages. By adding the time constraint, we're calling on reflexes rather than thinking, ensuring that Ini is capable of meeting the challenges ahead.

Exographer has a number of other surprises in its gameplay mechanics, which will put your thinking skills to the test. For example, where did InI get lost on his ascent of Cosmic Mountain?

In Exographer, your enemies are four materials with strange properties. One of our challenges was to represent these so-called "absurd" materials. Inherent to the gameplay, they block progress, and some are even deadly! Progressive mastery of the powers (see Devlog #3) enables you to overcome them. To ensure that they conveyed the right visual message, our graphic designer Thomas Vaulbert had to go through several iterations, striking a balance between "beware, I'm potentially lethal" and "don't hesitate to use me if you want to continue exploring the level".

Graphic research to represent absurd materials

The first constraint was that they had to stand out against the backgrounds, whatever zone the player was in. To ensure a strong contrast with the backgrounds, Thomas opted for materials containing a lot of dark gray or black. The second constraint was to use a light, bright color to emphasize the interactive nature of our absurd materials. Initially, we opted for red, fuchsia or violet tones, but these turned out to have too "dangerous" a connotation, whereas we wanted the players to be encouraged to use them. To ensure maximum strangeness across all levels, and following feedback from players during playtests, we decided to go for yellow and gold tones...


The 4 absurd materials in red and yellow.
The most complex was the action of the photon sphere on the rock, a kind of brick amalgam. The gameplay called for the sphere to repel this material. In other words, the same amount of matter, but it would contract and recombine. The primary inspiration was the scene where Hagrid reveals the passageway to Diagon Alley in the first Harry Potter film. The shader coded by our technical artist Léonard Allain-Launay creates a disc which, thanks to UV manipulation (2D projection of a 3D element) and posterization, produces a higher density of bricks around the player.

For the tar, we chose to make the material liquid and organic by having it move slowly and vertically by one pixel. Then we added bubbles, and snapping effects as the player moves in and out of the material. It sticks! So much so that when the photosphere is activated, the sludge sticks to the character like magnetic iron filings!

In Exographer, you follow in the footsteps of nine enigmatic academics from a forgotten civilisation. These ‘Natitans’ once built colossal machines to discover the inner structure of matter... But they all seem to have disappeared, leaving a kind of testament behind.

Like absolutely everything else in the game, these characters are directly inspired by science. In this case by real scientists, whose names have been changed. Our Dirca above is a reference to Paul Dirac, feminized for the occasion.

Among the hundred or so physicists who helped establish particle physics, we had to make a difficult choice. Our scientific director, Raphael Granier de Cassagnac, has chosen the nine shown below, but 81 names are mentioned somewhere in the game, as a discreet tribute to all the others.

Above: Concept art of Liaup, Waber, Shgig, Dirca, Gelma, Fenma, Rucie, Rofur and Tosom. Can you find out who they match?

Another tribute is paid to science through the Natitans' timeline. Spanning more than 220 years, their discoveries are not randomly dated. Each entry in their logbook corresponds to a real event in scientific life, simply shifted, with the Natitans' year zero corresponding to the discovery of the Higgs boson. So if it took 30 years to build a machine and make a discovery in our world, the same applies to the vanished civilisation that our Exographer is investigating.

Above: 15 of the 100+ dates used in the game.

All this is a bit hidden behind the scenes, but we hope it will trigger interest for real science in a decent proportion of our players.

Watch developers play Exographer, an exploration adventure based on science with beautiful pixel art.
Steam Next Fest demo includes the first levels of the game; arriving to an alien planet, discovering new particle physics based powers and solving puzzles to access new areas.
Wishlist Exographer now on Steam. Coming 2024.
https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/app/2834320/Exographer/

Watch developers play Exographer, an exploration adventure based on science with beautiful pixel art.
Steam Next Fest demo includes the first levels of the game; arriving to an alien planet, discovering new particle physics based powers and solving puzzles to access new areas.
Wishlist Exographer now on Steam. Coming 2024.
https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/app/2834320/Exographer/