Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is an upcoming puzzle-platformer that is set in a world of light and darkness. The player controls a young girl named Emma, who must solve the case of a missing magician. It’s in the magician’s mansion that her teddy bear, Fenton, comes to life, and two must work together to uncover the mansion’s secrets.
The main gameplay loop of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows involves controlling characters on two planes. The player controls Emma from a top-down perspective, while Fenton works on a 2D plane. Fenton has the ability to walk on shadows, which leaves the player with the task of guiding Emma and her lantern so that the light can create shadow bridges and platforms for Fenton to travel on. They must do this while surviving the dangerous environmental hazards and traps that litter the mansion.
Screen Rant recently spoke to Monochrome Studios Creative Director Guillaume Nicollet – who also composed all of the music for Tandem: A Tale of Shadows – about the game’s inspirations, and plans for future entries in the series.
How did the idea for Tandem: A Tale of Shadows come about?
Guillaume Nicollet: First, we’re a studio focused on virtual reality experiences, so we’ve been working with a lot of brands and museums, and artists. The more we were diving into it, we went back to our first passion, which was video games.
We released the first video game in VR in 2018, called Singularity 5, which was a wave shooter. After this, we really decided to work on a first game; a real first game. So, this is basically our first real game.
We brainstormed all together about what we wanted to do. We are a small team; we are eight persons in total. Basically, we were debating between making a platformer or a puzzle platformer, so we decided to make two in one. That’s how we thought about this concept. We also had this obsession with the notion of duality, so we really wanted to play with two different gameplays; complimentary, but totally different.
What are the inspirations for the world of Tandem: A Tale of Shadows?
Guillaume Nicollet: We were really inspired by all the dark childhood universes – and I would say from Tim Burton, and also Sherlock Holmes. We wanted to make a game happening in the Victorian era, which I think is a really good base to develop a surrealistic experience. We really wanted to follow Alice in Wonderland, as in we wanted to make a game that can talk to children but also to adults, with a little bit of a dark side in a way.
There’s a real notion of Tandem in the concept of the universe also. What I mean by this is that this universal has an appendix – for example, we have a whole world happening in [hidden rooms], which after levels and after levels transform themselves. We were also obsessed about this duality between the childhood and adult world, and between our real world and the Tandem world.
What were the inspirations for the puzzle gameplay? Did you have any game references in mind?
Guillaume Nicollet: Yeah, we really enjoyed playing Portal 1 & 2. Why? It’s a totally different game, but the gameplay stays on simple mechanics, which stays the same all along, but which is extended with additional elements. And we really wanted to focus on a simple mechanic, and to use our elements to make it get bigger and bigger. Also, I should mention the first Zelda games because of the top-down approach, which gives another view of the puzzle that you have to solve.
Basically, I think those were the two main inspirations we had in mind when we started thinking about the concept.
Who came up with the game storyline? Was this an internal creator process, or was the narrative part of the project outsourced?
Guillaume Nicollet: At the beginning, it was a really thorough scan. To be totally honest, we started to work on a prototype of a concrete narrative. We really wanted to work on some kind of blueprints and mechanic; we had a lot of ideas in mind.
We knew, for example, that it was a little girl stuck to the manor. She was searching for somebody and accompanied by the teddy bear, which was stuck to its shadow dimension. A woman called Sybil Collas was involved in conception and story mechanic, and we learned a lot from her. We realized at this point what narrative represents in games.
We supplied the idea, but as it was a first game, we developed the narrative and the story while producing the game – even if we have solid ideas that we basically conserved until the end. This woman [Sybil] gave a lot of hints about narrative in video games, but mostly we we talked about the storyline based on each of the employees’ ideas, because we’re a small team with passion.
Did the concept of the game change at any point during development? Did the main characters or stages look different at any point in production?
Guillaume Nicollet: Not that much. We changed the design of the main character, Emma, because we wanted her to fit more with the universe and especially the design of the levels. Also, we wanted to make her more alive and cartoonish at the same time. We did a lot of work on the animation, which we are still finishing right now.
But all the rest basically stayed the same. It’s more the assets around that we evolved, and we changed a lot of the time, but the main characters basically are the same since the beginning of the production.
What is Monochrome’s specialty as a video game studio?
Guillaume Nicollet: As I was telling you, we come from virtual reality. Before diving into video games in 2018, we were working a lot with architects, museums, and artists – so it’s a vision we’d like to bring more and more into our next games.
But we want to keep on creating universes that call back to childhood, and this parallel between adult and child worlds. We think it’s a really good summary of what video game is as a medium; it can really mix all the generations and be as fun for adults as for kids in a way.
Are you planning a sequel or any post-launch content for the game?
Guillaume Nicollet: We are finishing the game right now, so half of the team is excited to prolong the story and half of the team is exhausted. There’s a lot of gameplay mechanics and universes we would like to explore, but it will depend on the welcome for the game. If you like it as much as we liked to craft it, we will grow to keep going, that’s for sure.
We have a lot of ideas still to push the narrative, because we really want to develop this universe and bring ideas. But we need to focus on the now – we are still in this hesitation; we’re just focusing on finishing the game first. But I think it would be a good idea to continue it gradually. Actually, most of us would like to.
Tell us more about the soundtrack. What were the inspirations for the game’s creepy fairytale type tunes?
Guillaume Nicollet: Well, I was in charge in the soundtrack. I’d never made music as a professional before, so it was just a hobby. I spent a lot of time also on the art direction of the game, and it was kind of obvious at the end to know where I wanted to go to for the composition. Somehow, I would say that the mechanics of visual and sound are the same.
I discovered and learned a lot about making music for video games, which is something really specific. You have to think about the design, and about echoing the enigmas. The point is, we have small elements that get bigger and bigger by the end of the game, so it was kind of easy to master the atmosphere.
I remember when I was starting to work on the soundtrack, I watched a master class of Danny Elfman – which wasn’t the best idea at the time or the most reassuring stuff when you see all that it involves. But he said that everything is mostly about emotion; about what we have to feel for a movie or for an interactive piece. I had the luck to work on both art direction and music, so I started to spend a lot of time reworking tracks on some levels. But I would say Danny Elfman’s course is the closest to what we had in mind.
How long does the average playthrough based on the team’s experiences?
Guillaume Nicollet: It’s between five and eight hours. We have something like 45 levels, so we are surprised to see that there’s somehow a replayability in the game because you cannot remember everything. But it’s between five or eight hours to complete the full adventure.
Are there any plans to bring the game to mobile phones or streaming platforms in the future?
Guillaume Nicollet: Streaming, certainly. We are totally open to that. Mobile, no. We really crafted it for actual PCs and consoles – so I would say, for now, no mobile.
Was there any thought given to adding hints in each level, in order to give players who were stuck an extra nudge?
Guillaume Nicollet: We really designed the levels so that it’s the secrets that give the hints themselves. On some levels, there are some visual hints that can guide the player. But most of the time, you have to first explore the full zone, and then the solution comes by itself. We really wanted the world to show the idea without putting too many signs, actually.
In our preview, we encountered several secrets stages. Is there a reward to finding them all, or are they just Easter eggs?
Guillaume Nicollet: They’re more for curious players, actually. In the final version of the game, we reveal all the secrets rooms and locker-specific artwork in the menu, like a narrative collection. These artworks tell a little more about the storyline and the past of some of the characters, but they’re not essential to understand the story or to complete the game.
Are there any plans for PS5 or Xbox Series X upgrades in the future, or is the team satisfied with how it runs for backward compatibility?
Guillaume Nicollet: As we’re a small team, at this point, we prefer to keep on optimizing for the lowest configuration. We are satisfied about the render of the biggest device, so we didn’t plan to have an upgrade for the next-gen. But it’s something we have in mind and something that we mention quite often.
Are there any Easter eggs or references that you’re particularly proud of in the game?
Guillaume Nicollet: I think there’s a drawing of our lead developer’s younger sister, which is hidden on the fridge somewhere. So, go and get it!
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows will be released for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 21, 2021.
