Them Games

Factsheet

Developer:
Them Games
Based in Paris, France

Release date:
24 April, 2014

Platforms:
PC / Mac / Linux / iOS / Android

Regular Price:

USD	$4.99 / $1.99
EUR	€4.99 / €1.99
GBP	£4.99 / £1.99

Description

inSynch is an intriguing game, in-between rhythm game and musical instrument. Acting while being acted upon, the players follow the score they compose, expressing their intent and making sense of the music born from their actions.
The game is entirely crafted and animated by hand using traditional stop motion animation techniques, giving a fragile and delicate feel to this musical experience.

Features

Try to catch the shapes coming at you from all four corners of your screen!
Shape the musical landscapes you explore and experience, expressing your intent through play.
Run for high score or survive as long as possible, while the game gets increasingly harder.
All animations and sets are handcrafted from real materials, photographed and animated in stop-motion.
Music loops and complete tracks were composed and recorded according to the unique gameplay.

Videos

Trailer YouTube, Vimeo

History

In april of 2011, La Gaîté Lyrique, where Oscar, our game designer, works as a video games art counsellor invited us to develop a small game to be displayed along other interactive music pieces. We set out to create a game striking a balance between the interactive instruments and sound toys prevalent on tablets and computers, and the music or rhythm games, similar to Guitar Hero in which you merely follow a pre-baked music, bridging the gap between video toys-instruments and video games.

After witnessing first hand thousands of people playing and enjoying our game, we wanted to release it online with updated graphics and sounds. We thought such a simple gameplay would make for a quick release, but a new art direction and much more complexity in the way players interact with the music turned that quick release into a 2 years project.

Graphic research with Le Creative Sweatshop and Sylvain Derosne were long and amazingly rich. The crafting process (making every animation out of paper shapes) also took a long time, but gave birth to the wide variety of fragile and lively animation you will get to see in the game!

The music composed by our player is a creation of qnp, a surprisingly straightforward process since the artist understood our intentions and art direction immediately and produced beautiful music in an incredibly short timeframe.

Something we knew nothing about when we started with this stop motion art direction, the Gaîté Lyrique showcases a stop motion exhibition around our release date, so two years later, we are going to be featured again in a major Parisian art show and will again get to witness people playing our game, this time on a customized controller!

Images

There are far more images available for inSynch, but these are the ones we felt would be most useful to you. If you have specific requests, please do contact us!

Logo & Icon

Selected Articles

"Everything about inSynch's aesthetics is a treat to the eye and ear."
- Lena LeRay, Indie Games
"It's not often you see a game that's both stylish and with all the wonky charm of a handmade kid's toy."
- Leon Hurley, Kotaku UK
"As an experience, an audiovisual experience, inSynch shines."
- IG Enthusiast (Christian), Indie Game Enthusiast
"InSynch est une expérience à faire, si on aime la musique, car ce jeu a le don de vous scotcher"
- Shoop, BacktotheGeek