The Wreck is filed under games, but it’s also been called a visual novel, an interactive experience, and a playable movie. Florent Maurin is OK with all of it. “I like to think we’re humbly participating in expanding the idea of what a video game can be,” he says.
Maurin is the co-writer, designer, and producer of The Wreck — and here we’ll let you decide what to call it. The Wreck tells the tale of Junon, a writer who’s abruptly called to a hospital to make a life-changing decision involving her mother. The story is anchored by the accident that lends the game its name, but the ensuing narrative is splintered, and begins to take shape only as players navigate through seemingly disconnected scenes that can be viewed multiple times from different perspectives. The Wreck is far from light. But its powerful story and unorthodox mechanics combine for a unique experience.
“We tried to make a game that’s a bit off the beaten path,” says Maurin, who’s also the president and CEO of The Pixel Hunt studio, “and hopefully it connects with people.”
ADA FACT SHEET
The Wreck
- Winner: Social impact
- Team: The Pixel Hunt
- Available on: iPhone, iPad
- Team size: 4
Maurin is a former children’s journalist who worked at magazines and newspapers in his native France. After nearly 10 years in the field, he pivoted to video games, seeing them as a different way to share real stories about real people. “Reality is a source of inspiration in movies, novels, and comic books, but it’s almost completely absent in the gaming landscape,” he says. “We wanted to challenge that.”
Founded in 2014, The Pixel Hunt has released acclaimed titles like the App Store Award–winning historical adventure Inua and the text-message adventure Bury Me, My Love. It was near the end of the development process for the latter that Maurin and his daughter were involved in a serious car accident.
“It was honestly like a movie trope,” he says. “Time slowed down. Weird memories that had nothing to do with the moment flashed before my eyes. Later I read that the brain parses through old memories to find relevant knowledge for facing that kind of situation. It was so sudden and so intense, and I knew I wanted to make something of it. And what immediately came to mind was a game.”
Junon's interactions with the hospital staff drive the narrative in The Wreck.
But Maurin was too close to the source material; the accident had left a lasting impact, and he separated himself from the creative process. “I think I was trying to protect myself from the intensity of that feeling,” he says. “That’s when Alex, our art director, told me, ‘Look, this is your idea, and I don’t think it’ll bloom if you don’t really dig deep and own the creative direction.’ And he was right.”
That was art director Alexandre Grilletta, who helmed the development team alongside lead developer Horace Ribout, animator Peggy Lecouvey, sound designers Luis and Rafael Torres, and Maurin’s sister, Coralie, who served as a “second brain” during writing. (In a nice bit of serendipity, the game’s script was written in an open-source scripting language developed by Inkle, which used it for their own Apple Design Award-winning game, Overboard, in 2022.)