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Jusant
Climbing to New Heights - Jusant Interview
We spoke with Don't Nod about their upcoming climbing title, Jusant, all during our time in Cologne of Gamescom 2023.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor.
You might be able to infer by the climbing wall behind me.
Right now I'm standing with two of the incredible developers who've been working on Jusant."
"This is Mathieu and this is Kevin.
We've had a chance to check out the game recently.
There's been a preview opportunity recently.
I think it's actually going up today, not when you'll see this interview."
"Tell us a little bit about this game.
What was the inspiration behind wanting to make this climbing adventure game?
The inspiration was just doing an action puzzle game.
We wanted to have just a powerful entrance with a gigantic tower."
"This was just powerful to see that in front of us.
It was just like you have to do one job, you have to climb and this is a climbing experience.
We wanted to have the tools of the character at the beginning of the game.
Using them to try to reach each area."
"Also what I can add is mainly the inspiration was to create, not a little game, but some kind of indie vibe game with one simple gameplay mechanic.
Like we can find in Journey which is one of the main inspiration for our game.
Or that you can find also inside and stuff like this."
"We've been working on Life is Strange franchise.
For example, in Life is Strange 1 you have this rewind mechanic that is both a narrative and gameplay mechanic strong.
That tells a lot about the story and also about the gameplay."
"We wanted to try to do something differently, but that keeps the Dark Knight DNA as well.
The game revolves around the main character who does the actual climbing.
To me, one of the biggest roles, characters and personalities in Geasson is the mountain itself."
"How have you gone about incorporating the mountain into the world and building a narrative almost around that?
You're absolutely right. One of the main characters is the tower.
It's actually the tower telling the story."
"We didn't need any dialogues and stuff, but to create it we had to write a lot.
You will see when the game is out, but there is a social constriction."
"You have different biomes or levels, you name it, whatever you want.
You'll see different gameplay approach.
This is how we build it.
We wrote each level, each biome differently."
"We tried to combine them together to tell a story as a whole.
Just to add, we have multiple collectibles.
Each collectible tells a different story.
There is the shell one, it's an additive capsule."
"You can hear the path of the tower and the inhabitants who are living there.
We have the altars, which represent the cycle of the tower and nature itself.
We have also the frescoes and the letters.
The letters are the main point of telling the story by the protagonists who are living there and who are talking to each other by the correspondences."
"I don't know if this is the right word.
Another thing that I've always noticed with Dontnod games is that they like to tell a message.
It's more than just a narrative."
"For Jeusson, it feels like environmental stewardship.
Taking care of this place, bringing life back to this desolate environment.
Was that something you wanted to cover again in Jeusson?
Yes, that was since the beginning of the project when we wrote it, when we tried to create it."
"Ecology was one of the main themes, but more than ecology, it's more like how do we need to reconnect with the nature and what surrounds us.
That's actually the reason that we didn't set up our game in a realistic world."
"For us, it's more powerful to have some kind of a metaphor.
It's easier to have our own universe because we can tell whatever we want through the metaphor.
Also, the allegory of the metaphor, what represents climbing, overcoming something."
"It could mean anything to anyone.
The main theme is reconnecting with the nature.
After all, if people want to see something else, if they want to chat about it, if they want to have a debate about what they understood about the game, that's a win for us because we don't want to have any moral or we don't want to judge people."
"We just want to send a message like a bottle in the ocean.
Just for the gameplay also, Kevin said earlier that the gameplay was the principal mechanic of the climbing and how to reach a point."
"But in the core gameplay, there is another mechanic.
There is a companion with us and this is a ballast.
The ballast is our bond to the nature.
It connects us to the nature."
"The gameplay of the ballast is an echo.
Each echo will bring back the nature, the fauna, the flora.
We wanted to connect also to the rock and to the nature by the gameplay."
"It was our way to put the message in the end of the player.
Let's talk a little bit about the gameplay as well.
It's a climbing game, you have to do a lot of climbing.
How have you built that system to make it feel rewarding and also engaging for players?
For the main part, we knew that the gameplay was a climbing stuff."
"We wanted to have something quite instinctive.
We have the trigger.
Each trigger is one hand for the player and for the character.
We just needed to have a certain amount of gameplay because our gameplay remains on the climbing."
"It's like in Death Stranding.
The principle mechanic is to reach a point to point B.
It's planning the climbing, analyzing the environment.
It was really important for us because it was the main gameplay."
"We didn't want to do a climbing simulation so we needed to keep our gameplay and the game accessible to most of the people.
That's the reason we can't die in Juzan."
"As long as your rope is on, you can jump, you can fall, but you won't die because you have a length limit for your rope.
You will always be held by your rope.
We wanted to make sure that people can climb at their own pace."
"Each wall for us was designed as a puzzle in itself.
For the approach of the gameplay, we had a lot of iterations as you can imagine.
For some times, we tried controlling the legs and controlling the hands.
The result that you have in the game now is the best that we could find so far."
"We are very happy with it.
When you were creating this climbing mechanic, how did you research it?
Did you go to a lot of climbing walls yourself, get to test it out, run through things?
We did some climbing."
"I climb as well each Monday now.
We looked at a documentary, a YouTube video and all kinds of stuff.
We wanted to see how a climber does the choreography on the rope.
It was important to have the same feeling of a dance with the elements."
"It was important for us.
We did a lot of research.
What was more important for us besides the climbing was the mindset of the people doing this.
Also for alpinism or people that are also at sea."
"It's a climbing game but you also have a lot of ocean and maritime stuff inside.
What we brought back in our game was all these people are very humble towards nature.
They actually understand how little we are when they are among the mountains or whatever.
We fell in love with this kind of mindset."
"We tried to bring this kind of meditative vibe, this is what we say about our game, into Juzan.
We just read, played of course and saw a lot of documentaries.
The main point was that we made the choice to have one character going solo.
The solitary aspect of it was just powerful."
"To see a tower abandoned and the character going up against the will of the people.
We are going to do it once more because this is not against the will.
Everyone of the tower abandoned the tower because of the nature and the ocean was retiring.
This character is going back to the tower and is trying his best to understand why the tower is like that for now."
"If you want to check some thoughts out on Juzan, there is a preview up on your local GameRadio region.
To cap off this interview, what sort of time frame are we looking for Juzan?
When can we expect the game to launch?
We don't give much time frame because that would depend a lot on how you play."
"If you want to explore a lot, if you take your time and stuff.
What I can say for sure is that it's less than 10 hours.
You have like 5 levels.
It's a very short experience."
"Is it coming this year?
Yep.
Juzan is coming this year, be sure to check it out when it arrives.
As we said, you can find more thoughts and opinions about the game on your local GameRadio region."
"Until then, we'll see you all on the next GameRadio interview."
Gamescom
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