In order to complete my education, I joined Gamabilis for a 6-month graduation internship, which was followed by a contract during the first weeks of 2019. This start-up focuses on "Games for Change", a type of serious games that pushes players to question their habits and the way they live, to initiate global changes toward a better future. However, since the company is still young and have to make a living, it also develops more traditional serious games following a business-to-business model.
In order to complete my education, I joined Gamabilis for a 6-month graduation internship, which was followed by a contract during the first weeks of 2019. This start-up focuses on "Games for Change", a type of serious games that pushes players to question their habits and the way they live, to initiate global changes toward a better future. However, since the company is still young and have to make a living, it also develops more traditional serious games following a business-to-business model.
Romain Trésarrieu
Game Designer
In order to complete my education, I joined Gamabilis for a 6-month graduation internship, which was followed by a contract during the first weeks of 2019. This start-up focuses on "Games for Change", a type of serious games that pushes players to question their habits and the way they live, to initiate global changes toward a better future. However, since the company is still young and have to make a living, it also develops more traditional serious games following a business-to-business model.
GAMABILIS (Internship & Contract | July 2018 - Jan. 2019)
Games for Change | Mobile/PC/Concepts
Engine: Unity
Roles: Game Designer, QA Tester
In order to complete my education, I joined Gamabilis for a 6-month graduation internship, which was followed by a contract during the first weeks of 2019. This 10-person-large start-up focuses on "Games for Change", a type of serious games that pushes players to question their habits and the way they live, to initiate global changes toward a better future. However, since the company is still young and have to make a living, it also develops more traditional serious games following a business-to-business model.
"Gamabilis develops video games for public or private organizations which want to meet change expectations (personal behaviors, consumption, environment...), transform their communities experience (employees, customers) and contribute to general interest."
Through my stay, I have taken part in 16 different projects and concepts, to various extents. Here are some of the projects that have been announced and/or published yet:
Summertime : L'été des choix
Narrative, Game for Change | Mobile
Published (500+ downloads on Android; unknown on iOS)
Summertime is currently Gamabilis' most publicized game. Developed in partnership with CRIPS Île-de-France (a group working on AIDS prevention and young people's health), this game tackles topics like sexuality, self-confidence, relationships and health through simple choices and a branching narrative.
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The game had already been published when I joined the team, but I was in charge of QA-testing the upcoming versions and suggesting improvements. We also had the opportunity to have a booth during the Paris Games Week 2018, which I managed several times through the event.
L'Odyssée DSI
Narrative, Serious Game | Mobile
Proof of Concept, access restricted
First project I have taken part from the start to the end, L'Odyssée DSI is game created for and with Pôle Emploi (France employment's assistance). It's a narrative game about the on-boarding steps in its Information Service Branch, to put in a funnier and more friendly way all there is to know when entering this department. The narrative progression is assisted with several mini-games for the most complex concepts or information that are hard to remember.
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I have been through a lot of tasks for this project. The hardest part was reading the massive, complex documentation provided by Pôle Emploi and turning it into branching scenarios and dialogs, that I later integrated. I have also been in charge of the design, level design and balancing for the mini-games, and I overviewed the global game's implementation, as long as its playtests.
Chou'Time
Narrative, Cooking, Serious Game | Mobile
Published (200+ downloads on Android; 150+ on iOS)
This game was ordered by Prince de Bretagne, arguably the biggest vegetable producer in France, who wanted to give a new, modern image to cauliflower (yup, you read it right). The game is split into two parts. This first is a narrative part, where the player can grow his own virtual cauliflower depending on the choices they make. The second part is about cooking: it is a combination game, where selecting the right ingredients unlocks cauliflower-based original recipes, so players can try them in real life.
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My tasks on this project have first been to come up with concepts (based on constraints imposed by a tight budget) and documents redaction. Then, I was again in charge of creating the complete structure for the scenario and writing its dialogs before integrating all of them. I also created and balanced the progression system, and carried on playtests.
Other tasks
I also took part in a lot of unannounced projects or concepts, so I had many tasks at hand:
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Concept design: out of the 16 projects, I came up with the concept of 10 of them. These concepts were always based on constraints and questions raised by the team or by a business partner.
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Game/System design: for 5-6 projects, I conceived and sometimes developed an extensive version of their game system and gameplay. They could be narrative games, but also management, city-building or even collaborative games.
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Documentation: I have been in charge of writing and updating the design document for most projects, and I quickly came up documents templates in the process.
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Overwing gameplay implementation, by regularly interacting with programmers and artists, giving them guidelines and regularly testing prototypes.
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Writing: scenarios, dialogs, structures... for branching, narrative-based games, then integrating everything in the engine.
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Testing: mainly for Quality Assurance, this made me come up with testing protocols.
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Establishing data-tracking rules.
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UI mockups.
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Benchmarking.
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Carrying extensive researches regarding the next games' topics.
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Organizing and managing teambuilding events.