#Typerider game series#
Up to now, the Franco-German channel had run various experiments in gamification, particularly Hotel, a hybrid project, part animated series and part artistic experiment. It’s the first time that ARTE has invested in an actual video game. A first for ARTE: Production of a video game And finally on Facebook we highlight the composition of words and phrases,” says level designer Charles Ayats. With the installation, we’re interested in letterforms as such, their shapes and serifs. “In the game, we cover the entire history of typography. The project team, which included members of the Specialized Masters in Interactive Digital Experiences program at the Gobelins media school, insisted that the media supports should complement one another, making Type:Rider a transmedia project through adaptation of its gameplay to the different supports. We couldn’t make either a pure video game or a straight documentary, we had to position ourselves between the two – and that’s how the concept of a ‘gamedocumentary’ came about.” “The fact that it was produced by AGAT Films/Ex Nihilo and by ARTE Web prevented us, in a way, from running to either of two extremes. A game containing documentary features in the gameplay, which can be accessed in the game and in the instruction guides (one for each level). “Our idea was to create a ‘gamedocumentary,’ ” the project’s creative director, Théo Le Du, explains. This part of the project allows people to “own” typography in a tangible way, once again in the form of a game (the point of which is to move the points on an illuminated source moving on a screen by creating a path with the oversize letters.) A hybrid transmedia “gamedocumentary” Interaction is both virtual (video projections) and real (manipulation of large magnetic letters). The player can then send this as a challenge to friends online.Īn interactive installation has likewise been designed to go with the project. There’s also a social media game available on Facebook that lets players compose a level of their own by writing a word or sentence integrated into a generative gameplay. A final “Bonus” level takes the player on a tour of Comic Sans MS, a well-known typeface widely used on the web. The game’s 8 levels are completed by a playable tutorial entitled “Origins,” covering the history of writing: prehistoric designs, Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Greek alphabet and more. These documents include accounts of inventors like Gutenberg and famous type designers like Claude Garamond or Étiennne Didot. The player must guide the colon through a given level from start to finish by collecting the asterisks that block the documents posted concerning typography and its history. The game is quite easy to play and operate. First, there is a video game (accessible via web browser, smartphone or tablet) which spans the history of typography, with each level to a different typographical style, from “Gothic” to “Pixel.” Three gaming experiences are presented to explore the world of typography. In all of its media support formats, the game has a common point of departure: a typographic colon embarks on a discovery of its own story through the history of movable type, from its invention by Gutenberg to its pixelation in today’s digital print media. Type:Rider is a multiplatform game whose name evokes its basic plan, a mix of mechanical writing (“type” of the typewriter) with the idea of a race (the “rider”). Among these, Type:Rider is an outstanding example – both in its subject matter and its auteurist vision of video game design. Oriane Hurard TYPE:RIDER Video Game, Documentary and TransmediaĪRTE France and its associated producers continue to explore web documentary, participatory fiction, online magazine and many other transmedia creative formats. Pilot Program for Racialized Communities.CMF-Quebecor Fund Intellectual Properties Program.CMF-Quebecor Fund Export Assistance Program Partnership.