« ONE TRUE PATH marks the beginning of a new cycle for the studio» – Balthazar Auxietre (Innerspace VR)

French studio Innerspace VR celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Ten years of exploration of the immersive medium, between video games for platforms (A FISHERMAN’S TALE and its sequel, in particular) and the production of LBE museum experiences with Asia. This dialogue was recently renewed with the presentation of Hayoun Kwon’s GUARDIANS OF JADE MOUNTAIN in competition at Venice Immersive 2024, and the release of the first chapter of ONE TRUE PATH, a virtual reality action puzzle game. We take a look back at this new chapter, and why not look ahead to the next ten years, with studio co-founder Balthazar Auxietre.

ONE TRUE PATH, an action game full of geek references

Balthazar Auxietre – With ONE TRUE PATH, we’ve reached a kind of turning point: we’re still one foot in the dynamic of the studio’s first ten years, but we’re also opening the door to what Innerspace VR can become in the future. It’s the start of a new cycle, for several reasons. ONE TRUE PATH is a kind of synthesis of our narrative desires, our gameplay explorations and the studio’s know-how. At the same time, it’s a project with which we’re trying to get closer to what’s working in virtual reality on the more mainstream gameplay side, notably by offering an adventure game with shooting and combat. But in our own way! We rely on a strong narrative, as always, and a second degree that brings a critical perspective and another dimension to gameplays.

B. A. – Our past experiences, notably with FISHERMAN’S TALE 2 (available on Quest, Steam and PSVR2), enabled us to gather a lot of feedback on what could and couldn’t work in VR. ONE TRUE PATH was already in production, but inherited a few lessons from our previous releases. It’s still a narrative game, but with plenty of action, puzzle games, investigation, mystery…

ONE TRUE PATH is a title with a generous ‘lore’ that draws on many references, and is inspired by the books we were fashionable heroes of thirty years ago. We’re exploring a strong cultural trend of today, that of vintage. We’re looking for a rather adult audience, who are sensitive to the references and, for some, continue to carry this culture. But in the game, it remains a support for the atmosphere, in which we bring an innovative form of exploration that really engages the user, where we reinvent the archetypal universes of these fantasy, SF and other books.

From an artistic and technical point of view, ONE TRUE PATH adopts a very pop and stylized graphic approach. This was a conscious decision on our part, not only to be able to run the game on standalone headsets, but also to offer something visually different. This assertive graphic style can also be found to some extent in GARDIANS OF JADE MOUNTAIN, as we use the same approach that moves away from realism. We embrace visual constraints through an artistic prism. Each time, we look for an approach that serves the subject, without hesitating to move closer to illustration or comics, even when we’re working on an immersive documentary subject – where this can be jarring.

Fun, interactive worlds to reinforce the story

The game is inspired by the principle of branching narratives, but this is not the heart of the experience. There are several sequences to explore in an order in which the player is free to choose where to advance, but in reality the game proposes a precise dramaturgy in which we want to guide the player, and the players’ trajectories won’t differ much from one game to the next. And that’s also for obvious budgetary and technical reasons: interactivity and branching are expensive to develop! Our guiding principle has always been to maintain a captivating, fast-paced story, while allowing players a certain degree of freedom. It’s a precious balance, which is also a legacy of our past productions. What’s original is that we had to come up with a gameplay for each book, in keeping with the principle of our story of an author who has written several books in which you are the hero, and through which the player navigates. In a way, we imagined our own VR multiverse!

What’s more, it was quite fun to develop the investigative aspect of the story in an immersive medium. There’s a “detective story” tone that was one of our original motivations. It’s not the raison d’être of the story or the writing, but it’s what holds the whole thing together, the structure of the narrative. It’s also an alibi for entering the story, and connecting with narrator Jack Stephenson. During the writing process, I thought a lot about Billy Wilder’s SUNSET BOULEVARD, which begins with a narrator who is also dead and who takes us into his past to discover the reasons for his death, giving us his thoughts with a kind of detachment, irony and humor.

Embark on a thrilling adventure mixing action and puzzles across fictional worlds featuring a wild mix of visual styles, genres and gameplay. These worlds are the creation of gamebook author Jack Stevenson, a best-selling but embittered writer whose mysterious murder kicks off a fantastical journey across dimensions to uncover the dark secrets behind his final masterpiece… Are you ready, adventurer?

The idea of an investigation and a murder means that you’re quickly drawn into the more “Cluedo” mechanics. That’s what motivates you to explore the different worlds, pass the tests and so on. But the player quickly realizes that the real story lies elsewhere… At the start of the project, we had envisaged making several games based on different books that we would have adapted, but in the end it was too ambitious, so we pivoted to integrate them into a common story, around this fictional author we discover in his office at the start. Basically, our aim is to offer a nuanced portrait of this character, with his light and shadow zones.

Thinking about the independence of VR design studios

In terms of distribution, ONE TRUE PATH is a studio release without any distribution partners. We put a lot of thought into the right approach, designing promotional material, managing communications, and then putting the first chapter online. And it’s stimulating to be able to move forward autonomously on this subject, testing a distribution strategy in our own way. However, our hands are not completely free with regard to platforms, and there are still many limits to reaching a really large audience.

The first chapter is a 90-minute pilot. From here, we’ll be looking for the means (and funding) to envisage further episodes and finalize the story we have in mind. This first chapter is a desire to offer a different experience on VR stores (Steam, Meta), in the hope that we can find supporters who share the same vision as us. We continue to believe in the narrative VR format, whose mechanics and grammar are now better known, but which unfortunately remains under-exploited – while AR or MR will take hold in parallel, with increasing interest from manufacturers for the latter two.

https://www.innerspacevr.com/one-true-path