Raoul Barbet is a director working at DONTNOD Entertainment and at DONTNOD since 2011. He is one of the two Creative/Game Directors responsible for the DONTNOD-developed Life is Strange related installments, the original Life is Strange (2015), The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit (2018) and Life is Strange 2 (2018). He is also supervising the music department of the developers team.
Career[]
Raoul Barbet has a background in film and audiovisuals and worked in Canada on projects that were unrelated to the video-gaming industry.
From 2008 to 2010, he worked on Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain as Game Designer/Builder and Motion Capture Technician. This was like a dream come true for Barbet as one of his favorite video games was Fahrenheit by the same studio (released in the United States as Indigo Prophecy). Barbet states: "When I played [Fahrenheit], I knew I wanted to be part of the games industry. It was quite cinematic, and talked about very important social issues. It was a real shock for me."[1]
Joining Dontnod Entertainment in 2011, he worked on their first game Remember Me as Game / Cinematic / Narrative Designer.
Starting from 2013, he's been working on the Life is Strange games as Writer, Co-Director and Designer.
During Game Developers Conference in March 2019, Raoul Barbet and Audio Director Sébastien Gaillard held a presentation called "'Life is Strange': Music in a Narrative Driven Game", presenting a case study on the use of music in narrative driven games and its functionality on a cinematographic, narrative and design point of view. In this talk, they reveal Dontnod Entertainment's creative visions and how they approached turning them into technical solutions in their games Life is Strange, Life is Strange 2 and The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.
Trivia[]
- Raoul has a background in film which heavily influenced the appearance and execution of Life is Strange Season 1.[2]
- Raoul on interactive storytelling: "I find it a lot harder to make a game than a movie, because you have to keep that in mind: interactivity makes things difficult."[3]
- Raoul's cute little dog signature is present on Max Caulfield's pencil case that we first see in Episode 1 in Mark Jefferson's classroom. It is unknown whether he drew it on the pencil case texture himself or whether somebody on the art team drew it on his behalf.
Gallery[]
![Raoul Barbet at the E3 2018.[4]](/wiki/File:Captainspiritinterview_raoulbarbet.jpg "Captainspiritinterview raoulbarbet.jpg (115 KB)")
![Jean-Luc Cano, Raoul Barbet and Michel Koch at Gamescom 2018.[5]](/wiki/File:August_22_2018_Gamescom.jpg "August 22 2018 Gamescom.jpg (175 KB)")
![Raoul Barbet and Sébastien Gaillard at GDC 2019.[6]](/wiki/File:Raoul_Barbet_GDC_2019.jpg "Raoul Barbet GDC 2019.jpg (55 KB)")
![Raoul Barbet, Sébastien Gaillard and Rone, the musician behind "Parade".[7]](/wiki/File:Sound_team_Captain_Spirit.jpg "Sound team Captain Spirit.jpg (67 KB)")
Videos[]
Interviews[]
- "Max and Chloe's story is done": Life is Strange devs talk the future, success, and the importance of diversity (January 22, 2016)
- A Completely Spoilers-Filled Interview with the Makers of ‘Life Is Strange’ (January 22, 2016)
- Life is Strange 2 creators explain why they won’t shy away from politics in games (April 21, 2019)
- Co-creative director Raoul Barbet and lead writer Jean-Luc Cano discuss the series' educational themes, its personal inspirations and politicians placing the blame for mass shootings on their medium: "Video games don’t make people violent, our society creates the violence." (August 22, 2019)
External Links[]
References[]
- ↑ From Chaos: The Aspirational Storytelling of Life is Strange (May 13, 2020).
- ↑ Charity Live stream that mentions Raoul's background in film at 01:44:24.
- ↑ Jeu vidéo : « L’émotion est plus dure à amener, mais l’interactivité peut la décupler »(June 25, 2018)
- ↑ Japanese article (June 19, 2018)
- ↑ DÉCOUVREZ NOTRE INTERVIEW DES DÉVELOPPEURS DE LIFE IS STRANGE 2 (August 26, 2018)
- ↑ Famitsu feature (March 22, 2019)
- ↑ Famitsu interview with the Life is Strange sound team (April 9, 2020)