Pierre Corbinais does not hide the situation. Incest and sexual violence in a minor, he also knows very well for being a victim when he was a child. “Having the idea of dealing with such a subject, does not come from night to the morning. I am worried about the subject, because I have been incest, so it is something that has always been there,” he told Tech & Co.
Far from him the idea of making a therapeutic game. He overcame this phase and the anger that has accompanied him for a long time. From the cavid himself. “The first stone of the game was placed somewhere in 2020, during the confine Wednesdaythe first game that manages from one end to the other with The Pixel Hunt studio (Shipwreck). “There was more anger at that time, it was something emotional. I don’t have that anymore.”
However, it will be the “first spark” that makes him want to go further in the treatment of the subject. Especially because the comments he receives touches him and encourages him to keep this in a corner of his head. Without work, it is immersed in the project Wednesday A few years later, after seeing a puppet show that deals with the issue of incest with lightness and humor to better transmit the message.
Sensitize without showing
Accustomed to narration (Haven, I buried my love), Pierre Corbinais then opted for a colorful and retro artistic direction to talk about strong themes: intrafamily violence, incest, moving sexual, they never show. If they suggest strongly, implicit, the idea was not to put explicit images. It is still a game and the message is only stronger. As a precaution, warnings are shown when sequences can affect players and vulnerable people. All are free to continue the narration.
Wednesday He is in the form of a comic strip that begins on Wednesday between Tim, then a child and his grandmother. We opted for dialogue elections, actions and accompany the narrator in their history. And then, suddenly, the game is made of pixels and we discover, on an adult’s computer (the head in the form of cardboard, as if to hide), a game called Orco Park in the form of a amusement park to build.
The amusement park, which serves a little spiritual refuge and childhood memory, symbolizes sometimes painful memories, buried in the depths of us. It is a metaphor, but also a way of reliving your memories differently. We build its park little by little and every cheerful, each area refers to a situation of the past that we cross in the desired order. A childish aspect that voluntarily contrasts with the serious issues addressed.
And yet, the park could not see daylight, because Pierre Corbinais had censored. “I had ruled out the park when I went to present the project to Art (who produced the game, an editor’s note). There was only one man in his office with many objects that remind his childhood,” he explains. “They were not excited and even told me it was ‘a little zero’. So I left the idea of the park and lifted it.”
Video games to open the discussion
When asked why he chose the very cheerful, brilliant and cake style of the illustrators Exaheva and Nico Nowak, Pierre Corbinais explains that he wanted a visual approach “that is less intimidating for the players” to “calm the dramatic aspect of the subject.” “I wanted to cause a space where the subject, shared, appointed,” summarizes the creator of the game, who looked at an emotional language and interactivity to transmit a sensation, a memory, but also an discomfort. Wednesday He is not there to surprise, but to make the victims aware of who do not dare to speak their loved ones who do not necessarily realize what is happening.
Everything is based on suggestion, evocation and everyone will interpret it. We understand without the game having to explain and also create a slightly more palpable discomfort. But never Wednesday It is not shameful or demonstrative. He wonders, look around and think about what the past takes into account. Twenty years later, Tim the hero realizes what happened to him in his youth and the adult in which he has become. He understands the difference between what was “normal” and no.
Incest, child sexuality, pleasure or pulse phobia, the game almost does not have a delicate theme. Pierre Corbinais admits to having found a form of well -being over time. Wednesday The aura, without a doubt, also helped refine everything and he especially expects to help free the speech of the victims. “The same existence of the game encourages talking,” he says. “My intention was to do a job to speak for the subjects, create awareness and encourage to talk about it.”
Video games can be this necessary catalyst. It often works very well for games that deal with mental illnesses, exhaustion or other psychological concerns. So why not for more difficult situations crossed by others? That the creator of Wednesday Hope, above all, is that the game is a pretext and helps open the conversation. Let you touch the victims, but not only. Effects without pretensions or style, the game has the media, with sincerity and seriousness, a touch of humor and human sometimes too. The best arguments to address a taboo that releases memory in the form of a strong and powerful act for a painful and fragile issue.
Wednesday: Available on PC and Mac, demonstration available in Steam and Itch.io.
Source: BFM TV
