UQAM - L’Emerillon


A century after the King Arthur's reign, an old knight goes on a thrilling quest, to sear for La Dame de la Foret, an enchantress that he had once loved, but has not seen since childhood. Guided by a magical bird called L'Émerillon, the old knight will walk the dark paths of the mythical woods of Broceliande, leading him to the inextricable depth of the Vale of Sorrows.

University of Quebec in Montreal

Yan Pepin decided to work on L'Émerillon as its major project in the multimedia program at the University of Quebec in Montreal . Gregory Bony, Laurent Gosselin and Stephane Lariviere's experiences in 3D animation, sound and design also helped the project to be borned. This young Canadian team of 3D artists is still searching for publishers. Find more information at: www.emerillon.net.

Application

This adventure game with a philosophical aspect is an interactive personal readaptation of the myth of the Grail, a part of the Arthurian legends. Indeed, L'Émerillon is an interactive tale about an old knight undertaking the quest to find the Lady of the Forest, an enchantress he loved all his life but from whom he was separated since his youth. Led by a blind Merlin falcon (Émerillon in French), the old knight travels across the Brocéliande forest in Brittany and becomes captive of the Vale of Sorrows. There, he is haunted by old memories and has to confront or help many people from his past in order to find inner harmony, key to any true love.

The challenge

The main challenge was to create a professional looking game with only minimal means and a student's budget. Moreover, the philosophical concept behind L'Émerillon needed to be highlighted by quality graphics and gameplay.

Solution

As 3D artists, the the team goal was to focus on the story, design and gameplay. Finally they used Virtools technology as it was a great compromise of powerful technology and ease of use: Dev's easy visual scripting enabled them to concentrate on the gameplay and artistic aspect of our game. Yet, when it was time to build complex mechanics, it supplied them with depth and fl exibility.

Key Benefits

Thanks to a student version of Virtools, they benefited from a powerful professional tool to create their game at a low cost. Benefiting from the powerful and robust development environment, Yan Pepin and his team succeeded in creating a captivating game by concentrating on the design and the gameplay. Virtools' revolutionary interactive 3D technology makes learning and creating complex game easier, whether students have a foundation in programming or not.

Find Out More on L'Emerillion (in French only.) or See Screenshots