Rising to the stars

This project has come in between other projects we had in 2015. This is the first time we have to work this way, with tight specifications and a short timeline.

The target, mainly children and families, is quite different from our usual audience. this is a challenge for Ludonaute.

However, even if this project has turned our plans upside down in the past months, we have no regret at all to have seized this opportunity. We are very proud of the game we’ll finally release next summer.

In early November 2014, we learnt that an animated feature film about the Little Prince was in production. We contacted the fil company and tried to know more about it.

Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala were in from the beginning. We watched some sequences of the movie and we all were seduced by the quality of the story and the pictures.

In mid-December, after a few work sessions with Antoine, Bruno presented us a prototype inspired from one of his unpublished games: Barback.

The theme of a journey in the stars (one of the strong sequence in the film) seemed us great. The point to point mouvement mechanism offered by our two designers perfectly fit.

We made some settings along the playtesting sessions: we dropped the dice, change the cards.

In mid-January, the game’s mechanic is settled. Players, the film company, the distributor like it. A great part of the job is done!

But the graphics are still to be created. Since the film is not finished yet; we have a limited amount of pictures.

In the movie, there are two kind of graphics: 3d animation mainly when it is about the little girl’s story, and stop motion pictures during the sequences about imagination and the Little prince’s story.

We want to use this two graphic settings. Our challenge is to have them coexisting in one playing area. On Antoine’s advice, we decided to use the stop motion pictures on contents related to the scoring and the 3D graphics in the « mechanical » contents such as cards or board.

We started working on a squared board, with a spiral path. despite all our efforts, we couldn’t come to something satisfying.

Then we thought about a lengthwise board, more coherent with the idea of a journey from the Grand-father’s house to the Little Prince’s planet. This game board was the one played in Cannes’ festival in February.

At this moment, Ian, Maëva and Christine, three graphic designers, came into play. They offered us to work on this project, using their experience in such works.

First change they did: creating a modular game board made of 3 tracks and 2 start and finish tiles. Setting up the contents become playful, and the games are now all different.

Second contribution from them: Maëva and Christine designed a stared background in which the planets arose as diamonds. An amazing art making the  journey enchanting.

We are now close to the end. We make children play on this last version. Each time, they really live the story and enjoy the game.

The box remains the last content to do. It is a big deal. We can’t miss it. The question is: should we keep the dark blue tones as the stared track is, or should we use the golden graphics standards from the movie? Shall we show the Little Girl and her plane (as she is the heroine of the film) or rather the Little Prince? You can see the final choice opposite. What do you think?

We learnt a few days ago that the film will be presented in Cannes’ festival in May. We are pretty sure that the audience will be touched as we were. The trailer has just been released. You can check by yourselves.

Today, the main part of the files are ok to print. We have just received the sample of the wooden plane, and it is cute!

The rules are still to be translated in 11 languages, and we’ll be fine !

We shall make them available on the upcoming page of the game very soon.