Hexagonal

What goes around, comes around. The buck stops here. I can find enough platitudes to end nicely this podcast so better rip the band aid. This is the final episode of Hexagonal, a podcast I hosted and maintained for a year. What started as a fun and weird challenge became more and more a boring task. After 24 (good) episodes, I prefer to stop there. See you on the grid.

Should I really insult you by presenting the second most sold bande dessinée of all time? A little Gaul fighting hordes of Roman legionaries and having a hell of a time. In today's episode, I'll try to explain why this bande dessinée is so important to French people before ventering in the not so great video game legacy of the IP.

The video game industry has grown yet its direction is still a mystery. Diversity is easily heralded by PR and the big dogs but money is still the color of the game and micro-transactions and bloody NFT seem more interesting to the powers-that-be than caring about what the darker shades of that wonderful capitalist system. Yet, there are some exceptions. Some older than many and Muriel Tramis is one of those. Join me as I sketch down the career of one of the very rare female game designer "issue des minorités" as a tasteless politician might say. Coming from the Guadeloupe island, she has a long and interesting resume, vaulting over missile tracking system and anti-colonial video games.

The ride does end, even for the mavericks collectively known as Darkworks. But what an ending it was: successfully pitching a game to Ubisoft and working on a AAA project for six long years. It's not about the destination but the journey. Follow me as I ponder about the final years of Darkworks, the chaotic production of I Am Alive and the many aborted projects which almost came out. This is the second part of a two-parter.

Studios come and go, some rise while other fall. It's unfair, cruel and quite random. Yet tenacity and diligence are the key for each and every single one of them. Darkworks tried, pitching a dozen of games yet only releasing... two. Following me at the dawn of a new year as I retell the genesis of Darkworks; Parisian lone gunman responsible for the revamp of Alone in the Dark and a lot of unfufilled dreams. This is the first part of a two parter.

 That's it folks, pack up 2021 and make way for the brand new year 2022 around the corner. But wait since you're here, why not listen to one last episode for the road? Join me as I ponder one final time about Hexagonal and what brought me to create this podcast, teasing new topics and reflecting on this past year. Warning: bad case of the flu on the air.

  Here it is, the first episode where I tackle with grace & respect the tremendous landscapes of the French-Belgian comic-books aka "bande dessinée". Instead of trying to chart every link between the two industries, I'll make, from time to time, an episode focusing on one specific aspect of the intertwined relation. In this episode, after a long, very long, introduction about bande dessinée history, I will talk about Jean Giraud aka Moebius, one of the true genius of the medium and a strong inspiration for many games in the industry: Panzer Dragoon, Gravity Rush, Sable and many more. Join me and taste a little bit of French art.  

Love them or hate, kids are part of our daily life, hell, they even carry our DNA, those little whipper-snappers! The "spawn" (as used to call them my always so evocative economics teacher) love video games but surely they NEED to be watch over lest they become psycho-killers. Let's just BAN those horrible video games, that will save their nascent moral code! Join me as I look back on the "Familles de France" polemical crusade in 1999 to ban the corrupting influence of Unreal, Quake, Resident Evil 2, Sanitarium & GTA from ever reaching innocent minds.

"Gee, wizz, I wonder what will happen if I make my character drink this CYANIDE labelled bottle that I found in this medkit." I was ten, young and gullible and playing Deus, so you can't blame me for this innocent blunder. I'm still gullible but not so young and this week I'll take a look at the last nine years of Silmarils and how things went south pretty quickly for them. But fret not! Plenty of weird and interesting games & concepts will be tackled before we reach the ending of our journey.

You have been chosen by the gods to go on an epic quest to murder the evil local sorcerer. Your companions are the strongest of the realms, your swords are sharp and your will unshakeable. Yet after a good night's rest, you found one of your brothers-in-arm dead. Caught in a paranoid fever, you keep accusing each other and soon... everyone is lying dead in the grass. What went wrong? Nothing, you were just playing Silmarils' Ishar. This week, follow me as I retell the origin story of a long gone (but not forgotten) CRPG French Studio with some curious ideas about democracy and players' pain tolerance. This is the first part of a two-parter episode. We will cover Silmarils' story till 1995.

You feel it too, don't you? Days becoming shorter, nights longer. Something wicked is coming this way and it would be wiser to stay under a blanket and play video game as we enter Halloween season. But we don't celebrate this event in France and the podcast deadline is going up. Unless... yes... *that* will do. Join me as I peer into the past and retell the story of Hydravision's Obscure, a survival-horror series with a two-player mode and a permanent death system! Revel as I barely explain prejudice against the north of France and the division between Jacobins & Girondains.  And please, clean the blood on your shoes before coming in, you're making a mess. 

You just came out of the theatre, removed your mask and fondly ponder as your partner is asking you what you thought of Villeneuve's new movie: "Man, wouldn't that be great if they made a video game about Frank Herbert's masterpiece?" Well Hexagonal can't make the game for you but still got you covered!  In this episode, I jump back to nostalgia lane retelling the story of Cryo's original DUNE game, a crazy cult classic hybrid game quickly erased by Westwood Studios' tremendous legacy. Or you can skip this episode, type Behind the Dune in your search engine but be sure NOT to play it next to your better half. ;) Trigger Warning: WORM SIGNS (or washing machine?) heard around the latter half of the episode in the background.

Remember when you were a child, already infected with a passionate love of video games but with only a couple of pennies in your pocket? What emotions went through your head as you entered you favourite brick & mortar shop? Wonder, envy, hope? It's okay you can tell us, you're among friends. The Boulevard Voltaire shop trigger all of those in little old me. Join me as I explore the (in)famous retro shops of Boulevard Voltaire in Paris, den of collectors and gaming pilgrims of all sorts. But be sure to bring a lot of cash, you never know.

Let's continue our journey through the year of adulthood of Nanterre-based Cyanide Studio. With age come new responsibilities and new challenges for the cycling-enthusiast: a huge IP to handle, two subsidiaries to open and, eventually, a buyout. Come and join me as I retell the story of the studio's last ten years.

I want to ride my bicycle with the charming fellow from Nanterre. Join me as I go back to the inception of 21-year old Cyanide. An established developer which started in sports simulation before reaching for board game adaptations and role-playing games. Game Workshop! Game of Thrones! Discover how eight ex-Ubisoft employees crossed easy street the hard way. To keep an acceptable size, this episode is a two-parter. This one (episode 11) covers the story of Cyanide from 2000 to 2010. What can I say? I like proper decades.

Can passion stay pristine through a twenty-year career in video game development? Can one man stay through to his forbidden love for the SEGA Master System through thick and thin? Omar Cornut is the proof that those two questions can both be positively answered. Join me as I follow the path of a French wiz kid who ditch senior positions in AAA companies to remake his very own childhood in the ages of streamers and gacha hell. WARNING: Major digression about Japanese Anime. You've been warned.

Time is running out for your host as real life catches up to him. What can he do to solve his problem? Take a French leave? "Filer à l'anglaise ?" Funny, those two idioms mean the same thing and yet they mock a different side of the Channel Sea. Join me as I pull out from my hat the tricky subject of video game localization in my beautiful hexagonal country. WARNING: this episode might not pass your usual quality standards.

We can also be heroes just for one game and that game was Omikron aka The Nomad Soul aka the birth of David Cage. Crazy, ambitious, bloated, and so on. Adjectives are lacking to describe Quantic Dreams games. So come and join me as I discuss the studio's inception and how a composer for hire became a promising game director with quirks that would follow him for years and years to come.

"This dream again?" Will you be able to escape the cycle of guilt created by the horrible actions of your character? Not by murdering every civilian, you won't! E.Y.E is a strange beast (dare I say "strange streumon"?) born from the mind of talented modders who aimed for the stars and beyond. Join me as I retell the story of a French cult classic open-world(ish) FPS and Streum On Studio.

Your company is doing well. It's doing BETTER than well thanks to your new killer game selling like hotcakes. After ten years of navigating between a rock and a hardplace, you're finally out of the frying pan, ready to go public. The sequel is a no brainer! Everything will be alright. Except... that after the end of quarter party, the architects of your success left the company and you're left wondering how to deal with this mess. This is the story of Alone in the Dark 2, the troubled sequel of survival horror's O.G game and one of the international success created in France.