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CONTENTS

05 – Press release

06 – A Blind Legend: an epic tale of chivalry

07 – An innovative action and adventure game

07 – The game design

07 – The gameplay

09 – Binaural technology: innovation at the heart of the game

10 – A real game accessible to all

11 – The crowdfunding adventure

11 – The production team: sound and video game professionals

13 – Supporters of A Blind Legend

13 – Co-produced with France Culture

13 – Key support

14 – The DOWiNO team.

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Paris, 6 October 2015

Headphones on! DOWiNO launches

A Blind Legend

A little over one year after its crowdfunding campaign on Ulule, Lyon-based mobile

applications and serious games creator DOWiNO is launching A Blind Legend, the first

mobile action adventure to replace image with sound thanks to its 3D binaural technology.

Transported to a chivalric realm inspired by the medieval age, the players must rely entirely

on their sense of hearing to succeed in their quest. While guiding their hero by using their

smart phone or tablet as a joystick, they move through a 3 dimensional audio universe. This

is made possible by the integration of a binaural technology, which is still in the early stages

of development within the video game industry.

Designed by a team of sound and video game experts, A Blind Legend opens the way for a

completely unique and immersive gaming experience devised not only for the visually

impaired and blind, but for anybody seeking an unprecedented sensory experience via

through video game.

Co-produced with France Culture, a Radio France channel and expert in binaural technology,

this project was supported by over 1000 contributors during a crowdfunding campaign on

Ulule last year. This campaign was decisive for the project and generated a tight-knit

community around the project, culminating in a genuinely collaborative production.

The project is also supported by France’s Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée

(CNC), the Rhone-Alpes County Council and Humanis-CCAH, along with associations, such

as the Federation des Aveugles de France, the Valentin Haüy Association and Point de Vue

sur la Ville.

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The player takes the role of Edward Blake, the legendary blind knight. Guided by his daughter, Louise, he must save his wife, Lady Caroline, who has been kidnapped by Thork, the mad king of High Castle. During his epic and perilous journey, he must find his way, navigate the traps and ambushes and confront the many enemies that make up Thork’s army. A Blind Legend is a chivalric adventure, set in a familiar world - inspired by the medieval era and its literature (King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) - with a touch of fantasy. The tale takes the form of journey during which the hero must traverse a wide range of landscapes and meet characters that will help or obstruct his quest.

The main characters Edward Blake This is the character taken by the player; a living legend who has fought a number of battles. Nobody really knows how Blake lost his sight, but he is no-less of a force of nature for it. An excellent swordsman - he is rapid and impressive. He doesn’t talk much. He loves his wife and daughter wholeheartedly. He is often tough on his daughter, but is an attentive and protective father. Blake is not a superhuman: during the journey he is sometimes afraid and has doubts, but he overcomes his fear. Louise Louise is the 10-year old daughter of Blake and Lady Caroline. Lively and mischievous, she embarks upon this adventure with her father and is of vital support to him, watching over him as much as he watches over her. She is brave, though still a young and impressionable little girl, who fears she won’t be as great as her father and who misses her mother terribly. Louise is the player’s companion. Thork Terrorising the inhabitants of the realm that he controls (these same inhabitants will aid Blake and Louise on occasion), he reigns with an iron hand through force and violence. Thork is human, but he has superhuman strength; his numerous transgressions and cruelty have led to rumours about him.

A Blind Legend : an epic tale of chivalry

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The game design The game design is composed of three elements:

- Phases of free exploration in which the player can explore at will. - Phases of combat - Cinematic sounds and dialogues during which the player is a spectator.

The game has five levels. Through each of these levels, the player will traverse various 3 dimensional sound spaces as varied as:

- A medieval hamlet - A whistling wood - A fishing village - Ice mountains - Drylands - A Citadel and port - Downtown and rooftops, - A dungeon (jails, guards room and supervisor’s room).

The gameplay A Blind Legend is an action and adventure game with epic combat scenes; the kind you’d find in a hack and slash game. The gameplay was designed simply to enable the rapid and intuitive immersion of the player. The hero’s movements and gestures are controlled by Multi-Touch Gestures using the touch screen of the player’s smartphone, which also serves as a joystick (see below).

An innovative action and adventure game

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Movement

To move, simply touch the screen and slide your finger slowly in the chosen direction.

Attack A rapid gesture with your finger (sweep) from point A to point B will make a stabbing action in the direction chosen.

Defence A ‘pinching’ motion (as if reducing text size) will achieve a defence mechanism. Counter attack and combination moves Sliding the fingers apart (as if enlarging text size) will deflect an attack. It is possible to perform a combination of moves to attack the enemy, once destabilised, several times.

When attacked The smartphone will signal that you have been hit by vibrating slightly. Try to avoid getting hit too many times!

MOVE FORWARD OR BACKWARDS

TURN LEFT OR RIGHT

ATTACK OR MAKE COMBINATION MOVES

COUNTER OR AVOID

DEFLECT YOUR ENNEMY

OUCH! TAKING A HIT

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While the game relies on sound alone for its narration and action, visual feedback does appear on the player’s screen. This is not a visual representation of the audio environment, rather an abstract graphic image that behaves like a continually-changing particle cloud. This visual feedback is completed by the telephone’s vibrations and ‘traces’ of gestures on the screen. An option in the menu enables the player to deactivate this function and therefore to play completely in the dark!

Binaural technology: Innovation at the heart of the game

In order that the game be as realistic as possible, the sound is three dimensional, thus enabling the player to evolve within it and to find their bearings by interpreting the sounds recreated by innovative binaural technology. Binaural technology makes it possible to translate the variations of intensity related to distance, and the time delay between the ears’ (left and right) perception of sound, as well as spectral variations that make it possible to determine the location of the sound received (in front, behind, above etc.) All of these different parameters make it possible for the auditor to situate and locate each element within this three-dimensional space, enabling a sensation of near-perfect immersion in a three dimensional ‘soundscape’.

Normal state Red Flash and vibration signals that you have

been hit!

Gestures (here a sword strike)

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To find out more, click on http://nouvoson.radiofrance.fr/

« The Virtual Barbershop » is

one of the most impressive

demonstrations of sound

spatialisation to date. 9

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Video games have become the #1 cultural object

in the world, overtaking books, cinema, theatre and

television. Mobile devices have made widespread

use possible. However, video games are not

accessible to everybody, everywhere, all the time.

In France, 1.7 million people are visually impaired;

207,000 suffer from severe visual impairment or

are completely blind. Less than 1% of visually

impaired people (approx. 8000 people) use

computers (vocal recognition, touch screen, vocal

synthesis) but 24,000 have expressed their desire

for greater access*. Currently, there are few

games accessible to the visually impaired,

particularly in the hack and slash or FPS (first-

person shooter) field.

This observation led to the creation of A Blind Legend.

Owing to its well-researched scenario and adapted game design, created by a team of sound and video game professionals, this game is entirely accessible to the visually impaired, and to any person seeking an immersive, sensory experience through the medium of video game. It also raises awareness of this disability, by enabling the player to walk a mile (or several hundred) in the shoes of our Blind Legend. * Source: http://www.webaccessibilite.fr/les-chiffres-du-handicap-en-France-2009-

08-17.php#vis

DOWiNO received the OCIRP

award 2014, which

recognises innovative actions

led by economic actors to

improve the social integration

of people with disabilities.

2014 qui récompense les

actions innovantes menées par

des acteurs économiques au

profit d’une meilleure insertion

sociale des personnes en

A real game, accessible to all

Source: eCap Partner & AFJV – January 2014

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The game is available free of charge and contains no

advertising

Free to play

The crowdfunding adventure In addition to our own funds and subsidies, this project was part-financed by a crowdfunding campaign that ran during May 2014 on the Ulule website. This campaign was decisive for the project and generated a community of over 1000 people; companies and associations that were interested in the creation of an audio video game. This culminated in a genuinely collaborative creation and enabled us to develop a direct link with the final user (beta testing, collaborative scenario writing, voice recordings etc.). With A Blind Legend, DOWiNO is one of the first serious games studios to mobilise the public through crowdfunding.

The production team: sound and video game professionals

Nordine Ghachi (the game director), Jérôme Cattenot (artistic director) and Pierre-Alain Gagne

(producer), DOWiNO’s three founders, put together and directed a team of professionals with

complementary talents.

Magali Pouzol (Scriptwriter: passionate about cinema and television, Magali Pouzol joined the

Conservatoire Européen d'Ecriture Audiovisuelle in 2008. An avid animation fan, she reads and

writes scripts for various Tfou and Piwi series, and also works on various feature-length and

short films.

Alexandre Rocca (Technical and Artistic Sound Consultant): a specialist in 3D sound

spatialisation and binaural sound, Alexandre Rocca creates audio scenes and events at his

studio CreArtCom.

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Bruno Guéraçague - TABASKKO (Sound Designer): Bruno Guéraçague has been working as a

sound editor, designer and mixer for 20 years. After ten years creating sound tracks for AAA

video games (Outcast, Amerzone, Syberia…), he began specialising in animation, television, on-

line and institutional films.

Studio Miroslav Pilon (sound design): Lyon-based post-production sound studio. The experts at

Miroslav Pilon engineer sound for the moving image; be it cinematic, televisual or for video game.

Da Viking Code (interactive development and video games): a graduate of the Gobelins

School, Aymeric Lamboley founded Da Viking Code, and was later joined by Thomas Lefevre.

They are specialised in cross-platform development in the broader sense of the term (Mobile,

Web & Desktop).

Marc Dutriez - Ampoule Production (Game Designer / Level Designer): Marc Dutriez has worked

in the video game and animation sector since 1999. He has worked on over 15 games (including

Alice in Wonderland, Spyro, How to train your Dragon, Asterix at the Olympic Games among

others) as a 3D animator and modeller, artistic director, game designer, consultant game design,

techartist, director / producer and creative director.

Christophe Roth (Level Designer): after training at ARIES video game school, Christophe became

an Independent Game / Level Designer.

Radio France Digital Department: Since the creation of the nouvOson website in early 2013, this

department has been focused on sound innovation and new forms of narration using 3D sound in

collaboration with the expert team of Hervé Déjardin.

France Culture’s Fiction Department: France Culture produces and broadcasts 7 hours of fiction

per week. These works take the form of plays or films for radio in various formats (series and 60-

minute features). Each work of fiction is developed from a text – new or adapted – and it is given

to a director who then selects the actors and directs the piece. Musicians are often involved and

compose original music for the work. France Culture’s works of fiction span a range of genres:

crime, adventure, science-fiction, literary classics, adaptations of comic strips, theatres,

literature, poetry and youth literature. Some of the productions are recorded before a live

audience and co-produced with the Radio France Orchestra (such as the Fiction Concerts).

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Co-produced with France Culture

Video game is a new genre of 3D sound innovation for Radio France and France Culture. France Culture, a channel that promotes learning and creation, provided their expertise in the form of Director Baptiste Guiton. As a member of France Culture’s Fiction Department, he supervised the casting and directed the actors in the French version of the game. The 3D audio-effect production of A Blind Legend was provided by Cécile Quéguiner of the Digital Department with the team of multichannel sound experts from Radio France under the supervision of Hervé Déjardin. From 6 October, you will be able to try this unique experience by downloading the first level of A Blind Legend for Mac and PC at www.franceculture.fr

Key support The project is also supported by France’s Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Rhone-

Alpes County Council and Humanis-CCAH, along with associations, such as the Fédération des Aveugles

de France (French Federation for the Blind), the Valentin Haüy Association and Point de vue sur la Ville.

The members of these associations were able to test the game and provide input throughout the

production process.

Supporters of A Blind Legend

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Lyon-based creative studio, DOWiNO, designs

serious games, mobile applications and educational

animation films for public and private organisations

to educate and train people in the fields of

sustainable development, social corporate

responsibility, public health and solidarity.

DOWiNO is a cooperative and participative company

or ‘SCOP’ as it is known in France. As such, it

subscribes to the values of social economy and

solidarity. It combines economic performance with

social responsibility through a democratic and

participative management model. These principles are what oriented the company’s activity towards

social issues and matters of public interest, such as health, the environment and citizenship.

Nordine Ghachi (Co-Founder / Technical and Creative Director): A gamer, programmer and game

designer since he was a teenager, Nordine has a Masters degree in Digital Editing. He has 11 years’

experience of video games and serious games as both a designer and a supervisor. Before founding

DOWiNO, he worked for key actors such as Sécurité́ Routière, M6 Web, la DIRECCTE, INTERFORA-IFAIP, le

SYNTEC and Arrow ECS.

Jérôme Cattenot (Co-Founder / Artistic Director): A graduate of La Poudrière European School of

Animation Film, Jérôme gained 11 years’ experience as a director and production director of animation

film and video games before co-founding DOWiNO. He has worked with key actors such as France’s

Ministry of Health, TNT (Handicap Unit), Disney Interactive, TF1, Canal+, Arte, LEGO, l'INPES and

Folimage. He was also a teacher of animation and storyboard and has led educational workshops in both

schools and prisons.

Pierre-Alain Gagne (Co-Founder / Manager): A graduate of IESEG (Business School), before creating

DOWiNO, Pierre-Alain worked in the communication and marketing of consumer goods, for SMES and

major multinationals alike.

www.dowino.com

The Dowino Team

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www.ablindlegend.com

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