Indie Game Focus: Two Falls

We had the pleasure of chatting with the creators of Two Falls – Nishu Takuatshina!

????Two Falls, a new video game featuring two playable characters: a young indigenous man and a King's Daughter trying to handle a world at the crossroad. Stay tuned! ???????? pic.twitter.com/pE2j1kSmIz
— ???? Two Falls – Nishu Takuatshina ???? (@TwoFalls) November 11, 2021

1. What inspires your work?

One of our major inspirations was The Mysterious Cities of Gold, a cartoon from the 80s. In this cartoon, we follow the adventures of Esteban, a ten-year-old orphan who embarks on a journey to find his father, an explorer who disappeared in the New World in search of the Mysterious Cities of Gold (better known as El Dorado). Through their journey, they will encounter many of the indigenous peoples of Latin America. The biggest influence this series had was the way it portrayed Indigenous cultures. Our goal at Unreliable Narrators is to tell the untold side of history through video games, just like The Cities of Gold did through television. In order to do so, we introduce unusual heroes like Maikan, the young Innu, who was created after numerous hours of consultation with our Indigenous partners. The exploration part is also something in common between our game and the series. By building our game on different perspectives, we want to show the player that each story can have more than one angle. Of course, there are facts, but each character will interpret these facts differently. Just like in real life, pure good or evil doesn’t really exist. As for games, Firewatch (2016) was a huge inspiration. It directly influenced the semi-stylized art style of Two Falls and was also a validation that a game could have an abundance of dialogue and still be interesting to players. A lot of our design concepts started from Firewatch and then grew into their own as the project evolved.

2. Tell us about your game? What can fans expect?

Two Falls is a 3D narrative and exploration game that tells the story of two people from their unique points of view. Jeanne is a 17th century Frenchwoman, crossing the Atlantic to New-France with a heart full of hope to start anew and a thirst for adventure. Unfortunately, on one stormy night, her hopes turn into her darkest nightmare when her boat runs aground leaving her alone and unequipped to face the wilderness. On the other side of the river, a colorful and bright experience awaits Maikan, a young and sharp Innu who notices a change in the background of the air. His instinct tells him that something has been disturbing his native forest and is threatening his beliefs. The game offers a unique experience seen through the eyes of our two protagonists. Each one has their own way to see, hear and feel the world, as represented through the art direction, the game mechanics and the storyline.

3. What are your goals for 2023?

Our goals for the next year are: to offer a new announcement trailer in January presenting the new art direction to release a playable and free Demo for the game in January too to provide video capsules about indigenous culture to launch the game in Autumn 2023 to keep going to big events and conferences around the world

4. What advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?

Don’t underestimate everything else you need to know outside of making games whether it’s accounting, administration, pitches to obtain financing, marketing to make the game known… and all of this in a context where the market is very competitive. Make sure to have (in the core team) someone who will embrace the Business/Admin role as much as the developer role.