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[muppetWolf]

Le Loupgarou is a story-driven stealth game where you play as a terrifying monster being hunted through the hallways of his own memories.

Background


This is a game about the Caribbean.

The Loupgarou is a Caribbean mythological creature. He is the blending of cursed shapeshifter and traditional werewolf, drawing from both African and European mythologies. It’s the way the island’s have skinned the werewolf character. These stories fixate as much on the human as on the monster; concerned with the soul within the beast as much as his claws. That’s what we’re making here.

This is a narratively heavy game; think Transistor or Bioshock. We’re aiming for that level of complexity because the character’s we’re creating deserve that. They’re pulled from a region and a place that doesn’t see much mention in video games. There’s a history there, a culture, a story. Our stories. So we’re going to do right by them.


Gameplay


You will not play this game and feel all-powerful. This is a game about desperation. This is a game about being vulnerable.

In Le Loupgarou the player pilots the lycanthrope through a world that is scarier than he is. A world that grows more unhinged as he does. As a stealth game most of the designed mechanics and gameplay centre around puzzle solving, trying quickly and efficiently to dispatch some enemies, evade others, and knowing how to navigate an environment that is toxic to you.

The first level will be a twisted recreation of 1930s Bridgetown - with chattel houses, ports and colonial style buildings. As the game progresses, as he grows more delusional, the world’s depiction changes and gameplay shifts. An example of that is how militiamen appear as Charred Men - the Loup’s hatred of fire manifesting itself in an enemy that is as primal as his experience. The more insane the beast; the more insane the world.


In Le Loupgarou the player pilots the lycanthrope through a world that is scarier than he is. A world that grows more unhinged as he does. As a stealth game most of the designed mechanics and gameplay centre around puzzle solving, trying quickly and efficiently to dispatch some enemies, evade others, and knowing how to navigate an environment that is toxic to you.

The first level will be a twisted recreation of 1930s Bridgetown - with chattel houses, ports and colonial style buildings. As the game progresses, as he grows more delusional, the world’s depiction changes and gameplay shifts. An example of that is how militiamen appear as Charred Men - the Loup’s hatred of fire manifesting itself in an enemy that is as primal as his experience. The more insane the beast; the more insane the world.

We’re going to jump right into the nuts and bolts, so here’s a quick shortlist of mechanics, environment and gameplay we have planned:

• Le Loupgarou is an isometric stealth-adventure game. We chose a stealth game simply because we like stealth games. We enjoy the feeling of being sneaky. However, in the arc of stealth games where you have Mark of Ninja (be super sneaky but also be a badass, very dangerous assassin) and [insert punishing stealth game here], we’re aiming to be in the middle, but closer to punishing-y end of things. We want a player to be able to comfortably complete puzzles, but we don’t want puzzles to feel like a secondary game - where the original plan is just to wig out and maul 1000 guards. That being said, the Loupgarou will have combat mechanics (which we’re in the process of hashing out). It’s a delicate balance that we’re looking forward to getting your insight into.
  
• Our approach to boss battles will be terrifying nightmare monsters that you have to escape or defeat using the environment to your advantage. This isn’t exactly a pacifist approach to playing the game, it’s more to force us to create really intriguing and engaging puzzles that players haven’t seen before.
• The environment will get increasingly more chaotic over time. This will alter mechanics, change the rate of play and just generally make things more spine-tingly uncomfortable.
• A story that focuses on folklore and history. We’re not trying to create something that is 100% historically accurate - but rather something that takes this history and transmutes it. This is the formula we follow: history + folklore + badass characters.

Working concept for actual gameplay aesthetic

Current actual gameplay

Links

www.couplesix.com
https://twitter.com/CoupleSixInc
www.facebook.com/couplesix

[muppetWolf]

Some Concept Art!

Main character concept sketches

Wallpaper for one of the basic monsters

Centipede Boss Monster planned for later levels.

Chattel House Concepts

Bertha and her daughter Rachel, two important characters in the game

More enemy concepts

[Jasmine]

No comments? 

This game sounds wonderfully terrifying. I'm a huge weenie and can't make it through a scary thing of any genre, so this would definitely be something I avoid playing.

At least, by myself.

Looking forward to more.

Also, a game with a similar theme (a game where the character's shifting insanity effects the visual aspects of the game): Masochisia

I started it too (and chickened out), but it's rather lovely!

[muppetWolf]

No comments? 

This game sounds wonderfully terrifying. I'm a huge weenie and can't make it through a scary thing of any genre, so this would definitely be something I avoid playing.

At least, by myself.

Looking forward to more.

Thank you!

To my shame, I too am a big weenie. I tried and failed to finish the first Bioshock because I got too weirded out. Our writer, Mark is a huge fan so I watched him play it instead.

Thankfully the horror aspect to Le Loupgarou extends only so far as the art. No jump scares or anything like that. Just good old-fashioned nightmare art with a nougaty stealth-action centre. Although the boss fight we have planned where you're chased through the city's streets by a two-story tall centipede monster as your mind frazzles might be just a little scary. 

Also, a game with a similar theme (a game where the character's shifting insanity effects the visual aspects of the game): Masochisia

I started it too (and chickened out), but it's rather lovely!

Oh this looks terrifying in the best of ways. I'd probably have to play it with one hand over my eyes but I don't know how far I'd get since it's a point and click!

Checked out your portfolio by the way. Ace stuff!

[muppetWolf]

Our artist Josh has been working on some updated keyframes for the Loup's walking animations. We're working with someone to get the animations done and he made these for them to have something to work off of but they make a nice little two-frame animation that gives a decent idea of how the Loup will be moving. For 4/8 directions anyway.

You can also see a bit of one of the enemy charred men and its vision area. He's uh...totally facing the wrong way on purpose, I swear. 

[Jasmine]

I tried and failed to finish the first Bioshock because I got too weirded out.

Yeah, I remember playing a demo of Bioshock. I didn't get past the opening chamber. You want me to go through a scary door that opens to reveal yellow, beady eyes darting back and forth in the darkness? Nope to the nope.

The centipede boss sounds like fun! Nothing like a carefree game of tag! Masochisia is pretty psychological, too, from what I gathered from the demo. It's sad, I can watch the movies all day (psychological horrors are one of my favorite genres), but put me in a game of the same vein... *shudders*

Loup is coming along nicely, though! Really looking forward to what else you and the crew have brewing.

Also, thank you for the kind comment!

[Christian]

Wow, this sounds so cool. A very interesting mythology to use and I'm always down for a stealth game

[muppetWolf]

Wow, this sounds so cool. A very interesting mythology to use and I'm always done for a stealth game

Being from the Caribbean we have a vested interest in showing off as much of our folklore as possible. Le Loupgarou is just one of the creatures we'll be exploring. La Diablesse, Soucoyant, The Douen and a bunch more will all have their screen time. If not in this game then definitely in another!

For those interested, La Diablesse is a female devil with one human foot and one cow hoof she keeps hidden in the grass. She lures unsuspecting victims into the forest where they are never heard from again.

Soucoyant appears by day as a regular young woman or old woman. At night she sheds her skin and assumes her true form as a ball of fire, streaking through the night sky in search of victims. She can squeeze into a victims house through cracks in the walls and keyholes and sucks the souls(blood in some tales) from her victims as they sleep. 

The Douen are one of my fave. Legend tells that they are what becomes of the souls of children who died before being baptized. They appear as normal children but their feet are turned backwards. They play by rivers and entice normal children to play with them, laughing and calling them by name. When the normal child is close enough the douen pull the child into the river and drown them...

There's lots more characters like this in Caribbean folklore that we can't wait to include and show to you guys so stay tuned!

[Bakuda]

Very interesting concept for a horror game.  I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of horror, but this one looks pretty neat.

[muppetWolf]

Very interesting concept for a horror game.  I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of horror, but this one looks pretty neat.

Thanks! Everything we've posted so far has been pretty horrific so far so I can understand why you'd assume it's a horror game. But Le Loupgarou is first and foremost going to be a stealth game seasoned with scary visuals. You'll spend the majority of your time scaling walls and skulking over rooftops while figuring out how to get from point A to B without alerting any monsters. 

With that said here's a gif of where our climbing mechanic is at currently.




Clever observers will note that the jumping and scrabbling sprites are a bit different from the walking sprites. We haven't updated those yet and are working towards hashing out a final look for the loup before we start updating all the old sprites and rigging animations. 

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

very interesting concept here and it's cool to learn more folklore, i always thought that werewolf were more based on northern culture (presence of wolf in the wild).  In Asia for example, shapeshifting takes mostly form of tigers in certain country as it used to be the apex predator there.

It seems like a normal human by day, but this creature takes on the form of a man with no head, who roams the night with a wooden coffin on its neck. On top of the coffin are three lighted candles and the long loose end of a heavy iron chain, noosed around its waist, trails behind him. Often, it is seen with chains around its neck, which change size.[1] One appendage is said to be turned backwards.

It can shapeshift into various animals, including horses, pigs or goats, and said to often take the form of a creature similar to a centaur; is also thought to be a blood sucker which is less than particular about its food source, making do with such animals as cows and goats.

read this about the loup-garou (Lagahoo) , is it part of the caribbean mythology? Seems like interesting for your gameplay.


Good luck on this project.

[Lagahoo]

read this about the loup-garou (Lagahoo) , is it part of the caribbean mythology? Seems like interesting for your gameplay.

Hey Bakkusa - I'm Mark, the writer for this game. You're indeed right. The Lagahoo and the Loupgarou are the same mythological creature - the islands just have different creoles and dialects which alter the names based on a shared, or divergent historical path. The Lagahoo is something you'll commonly hear in Trinidad.

The mythology is a huge part of the game - what we're doing is taking the mythological creature of the Loupgarou/Lagahoo and kind of turning it on its head. So there will definitely be werewolf-esque mechanics like leaping, stealth killing, devouring etc. but there will also be a narrative thrust that focuses on the person behind the monster. We hope that both are equally exciting to players :D

We'll definitely be infusing the game with all of the awesome and unique things that show up in Caribbean mythology - you can search online for the Doeun, Papa Bois, Jumbees, Duppees and the Baccou.  

[muppetWolf]

Update:

Hi Everyone! Here's an update for the Loup's in-game look. Our animator is currently working on redoing all the existing sprites in the animations with this look starting with the walk cycle.

It's a good opportunity now to talk about what we were trying to achieve with his design:




At the start of the game something has been taken from the Loupgarou, something representing one of the last shards of his humanity. He has already been going insane at this point. He is old, extremely old. Almost blind in both eyes and with the curse eating away at his body he is nowhere near the all-powerful wolf beast he was before although he's not completely helpless either. We wanted something that said 'monster out of his prime' while also displaying his burgeoning insanity. It was interesting to see how much of this design concept we could maintain in an isometric sprite but we're pretty happy with the result.

We'd love to know what you think!

[tankorsmash]

Man if you can work in that he's going insane and blind in his old age to the mechanics somehow, that'd be super interesting. Like somehow do fog of war where objects outside his range of vision turn into these terrifying sillouettes, and only when you get closer that you realize that its like a little innocent kid or something. As the game goes on and on does it get harder to tell the different with that fog.

Looking forward to see the entire animation set worked out, it's looking pretty cool already.

[muppetWolf]

Man if you can work in that he's going insane and blind in his old age to the mechanics somehow, that'd be super interesting. Like somehow do fog of war where objects outside his range of vision turn into these terrifying sillouettes, and only when you get closer that you realize that its like a little innocent kid or something. As the game goes on and on does it get harder to tell the different with that fog.

Funny that you mentioned that because we toyed briefly with a 'fog of blindness' mechanic a while back in an early prototype where the only thing that was visible was a scent trail you were following and footsteps of enemies. Mark actually wrote up a blog post about our exploration of that. You can read it here. But we've learned a lot since then and will definitely take another look at mirroring his blindness and infirmities in the mechanics.

Looking forward to see the entire animation set worked out, it's looking pretty cool already.

Thanks! Incidentally our animator, Blaize is doing a live stream of her working on the walk cycle today at 3:00 PM EST. You can watch it at this link https://picarto.tv/blaizikin

[TonyManfredonia]

I honestly think my only frightening video game experiences have been recent, 3D FPS titles (like the aforementioned Bioshock). I will admit --- the isometric feel mixed with some terrifying qualities is a unique and nice surprise. Looking great. Awesome concept art, too, by the way. Very very strong concept art, I should add!

[oahda]

Oh, here's the thread. Sorry, I've barely been online for weeks on end and I haven't done gamedev stuff at all.

I guess the name of Wolfire's game 'Lugaru' was also based on this creature, now that I think about it?

Just slightly disappointed to see all the French. Would be neat if you could reference indigenous languages of the Caribbean too — in general they seem to be in grave danger of extinction. Wikipedia says:

Many indigenous languages (actually spoken with the mainland Caribbean rather than the islands) have been added to the list of endangered or extinct languages—for example, Arawak languages (Shebayo, Igñeri, Lokono, Garifuna of St. Vincent, and the one now labeled Taíno by scholars, once spoken in the Greater Antilles), Caribbean (Nepuyo and Yao), Taruma, Atorada, Warrau, Arecuna, Akawaio and Patamona. Some of these languages are still spoken there by a few people.

Any thoughts on that?

Anyway, this level of three-dimensionality in an isometric game is quite interesting. Isometric parkour jumping?

I've already seen some of the concept art before, of course, but this new stuff is cool. And eerie.

[muppetWolf]

Oh, here's the thread. Sorry, I've barely been online for weeks on end and I haven't done gamedev stuff at all.

No worries! I'm glad you got to responding at all. 

Just slightly disappointed to see all the French. Would be neat if you could reference indigenous languages of the Caribbean too — in general they seem to be in grave danger of extinction. Wikipedia says:

Many indigenous languages (actually spoken with the mainland Caribbean rather than the islands) have been added to the list of endangered or extinct languages—for example, Arawak languages (Shebayo, Igñeri, Lokono, Garifuna of St. Vincent, and the one now labeled Taíno by scholars, once spoken in the Greater Antilles), Caribbean (Nepuyo and Yao), Taruma, Atorada, Warrau, Arecuna, Akawaio and Patamona. Some of these languages are still spoken there by a few people.

Any thoughts on that?

We've taken a lot of care and consideration in the story we're telling with this game and it's great to see someone who is also concerned about the same things we are, namely representation of underrepresented cultures and stories. That said, this is a game about the post-colonial Caribbean. While the indigenous peoples deserve to have their story told, the Caribbean we're talking about is as much European as it is African.

Not to mention that "in danger of extinction" is far from an exaggeration. Personally the only language out of that list I've even heard of is Garifuna and that was a long time ago in a textbook somewhere. I have no idea what it sounds like let alone be in a position to include it in the game. Languages like that are largely the subject of theses and we don't have near enough resources to do them justice were we to include them.

Currently we're sticking to more readily available resources like folk myths, legends, music and stories. The sorts of things we grew up with and know intimately. In fact the earliest influence for the game comes from a poem of the same name by Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott. He's from St.Lucia which has a much greater French influence than most of the other islands.

It's pretty short so I'll just post it here, I hope you don't mind.

LE LOUPGAROU by Derek Walcott

A curious tale that threaded through the town
Through greying women sewing under eaves,
Was how his greed had brought old Le Brun down,
Greeted by slowly shutting jalousies
When he approached them in white linen suit,
Pink glasses, cork-hat, and tap-tapping cane,
A dying man licensed to sell sick fruit,
Ruined by fiends with whom he’d made a bargain.
It seems one night, these Christian witches said,
He changed himself to an Alsatian hound,
A slavering lycanthrope hot on a scent,
But his own watchman dealt the thing a wound.
It howled and lugged its entrails, trailing wet
With blood, back to its doorstep, almost dead.

Anyway, this level of three-dimensionality in an isometric game is quite interesting. Isometric parkour jumping?

I've already seen some of the concept art before, of course, but this new stuff is cool. And eerie.

Thanks! We'll be posting more in-game stuff soon like details on how the mechanics will work and animations. 

[muppetWolf]

Here's a look at all eight directional sprites for one of the main enemies in the game, the charred man. This is his dormant state, when he is alerted to the player's presence he lights up with an inner flame and unholy glow. For his main attack he shoots fire from his bone gun at the player.

EDIT: Used one of the newer sprites of the Loup from the soon to be released walking animation

[muppetWolf]

Here'sThe first direction from the loup's walking animation set. This first animation took a little longer than expected as our animator was acclimatizing herself to Josh's unique style. I'm pretty pleased with the result, what do you guys think?


Here's a timelapse of the progression of the animation from sketch to finished product!




And here's the Loup swiggety-swooting between the charred men sprites to show off the animations in-game. We just flipped it to make the mirrored side.



2 down, 6 more to go!