Gloomy Eyes: a Tim Burton style universe and a Belgian studio on the move

Article author :
Taking it upon oneself to develop a cover version of a videogame work is a perilous exercise. Adapting that creation to a different format is even more foolhardy. And yet, that is the decision Fishing Cactus has made. The Belgian studio is working on ‘Gloomy Eyes – The Game’, and the first images to have been released are particularly promising.
A sparkling and dented moon emerges from the dark night. Under it, a peculiar character wearing a long black hat is putting his spade to use and digging in a desolate landscape. On his departure, the camera drops below ground, beneath a tombstone, where a little boy of spectral appearance opens his large yellow eyes.
It is with this trailer as mysterious as it is inspired that ‘Gloomy Eyes’ was revealed to the general public. The game, in principle planned for release in 2025, recounts the adventures of Gloomy, a little zombie child, and Nena, a young human girl. The two of them live in a world in which the sun has decided to never rise again. In this persistent darkness, death itself has ceased to reign as the deceased have risen from their sleep whilst the living desperately attempt to hunt them down.
An adaptation of an award-winning VR experience…
‘Gloomy Eyes – The Game’ is an adaptation of a garlanded series which was released on February 14, 2020, and which created a buzz for several reasons. The first is the quality of its writing, entrusted to the Argentinians Fernando Maldonado, Jorge Tereso and Santiago Amigorena (who notably worked with the French director Cédric Klapisch on ‘Le Péril Jeune’ and ‘Ce qui nous lie’). Blending melancholy, poetry, gentleness and profundity, the tale, narrated by Colin Farrell for the English version and by Tahar Rahim in French (no less!), revolving around little Gloomy and his travelling companion Nena, has been almost universally acclaimed as a magnificent ode to love and difference.
The second reason is the experience it offers. ‘Gloomy Eyes’ is a VR experience based on 6 DoF (six degrees of freedom) technology, which allows the gamer to move around six different axes. This freedom, in the context of virtual reality, brings a great deal to the lived experience and permits even greater immersiveness in the universe depicted. And let’s talk about this universe! ‘Gloomy Eyes’ is a superb tribute to Tim Burton, and in particular to his work ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’. The backdrops draw their inspiration from stop-motion techniques and caricatural characters resembling strange dolls, with all of it illuminated by quite simply magnificent plays of light.
Short (taken together, the three chapters available are wrapped up in a shade less than half an hour), ‘Gloomy Eyes’ is nevertheless a marvel which has won prizes on very numerous occasions, including the 2019 Festival d’Annecy, the 2019 SXSW, the 2019 Infinity Film Festival and at the 2019 New Images festival.
…and thus particularly ambitious
As will have become clear by now, Fishing Cactus is therefore taking on a much-vaunted gaming monument. Especially as the Belgian Studio is intending to change the point of view. VR has been dispensed with, with ‘Gloomy Eyes – The Game’ shifting into classical 3D mode and into a ‘point and click’ style. The gamer’s goal will be to solve creative and ingenious riddles and puzzles and to interact with this strange world’s various protagonists.
The style for its part will not be changing. The graphic design is inherited directly from the original material, and in light of the first glimpses of the game we have been presented with, the ensemble remains equally sublime, even with a camera placed further from the action.
The story itself will also resemble the initial tale, but it is highly likely that it will be expanded and fleshed out, and that is very much to be welcomed, given that the basic outline deserves to be made much more of.
To ensure that no harm is done to the initial work, the Belgian studio is operating in tandem with none other than the creators of ‘Gloomy Eyes’. Atlas V, 3Dar and Révolution are thus working alongside Belgian developers and artists, whilst Arte, already a publisher of VR experiences, is adopting the same role. Everything is thus in place to give Fishing Cactus every opportunity to express its trademark touch and its qualities in terms of gameplay and game design.
Fishing Cactus, a surefire entity from the Borinage
Because obviously, when one talks of Belgian studios, thoughts immediately turn to Larian Studios (and even more so since the release of Baldur’s Gate 3), but Fishing Cactus is also a part of the furniture in terms of videogame creation in our fine country.
Founded in 2008 by Bruno Urbain in Mons, the studio properly started its activities in 2009. At that time, the studio’s first goal was to grow and prosper. A particularly difficult challenge, as the Belgian landscape did not lend itself to the creation of video games. Fishing Cactus thus gritted its teeth and patiently bided its time, whilst working for firms such as Samsung and on the porting of licences, some better known than others. A strategy which paid off, since the studio grew from 3 to 10 people within scarcely two years, before expanding to 40 people in the following years.

In 2016, on the strength of this growth, Fishing Cactus finally got to do what it was created for: developing its own video game projects. And not just any old games, because the Borinage studio loves to go off the beaten track and try its hand at particularly exotic styles. From these games, one was to enjoy particular success: ‘Epistory: Typing Chronicles’. Released in 2016, it follows the adventures of Muse, a heroine sitting astride a fox, sprung from the imagination of a writer. The world she meanders around on the back of a three-tailed fox is, at the beginning of the story, almost completely empty. Everything is to be written. And this latter term is not a metaphorical one. Because in ‘Epistory: Typing Chronicles’, you literally have to type the appropriate words on your keyboard in order to progress in the story. Add to that a particularly inspired artistic direction and you obtain a video game acclaimed by the press and streamers alike, and above all by the general public.
And whilst this success is the largest the Mons studio has known to date, that is not to say that it hasn’t brought out other excellent games, amongst them in particular the very beautiful ‘Nanotale’, which came onto the market in 2021.
A future hit?
Fishing Cactus is therefore not lacking either experience or know-how. And, working with partners as talented as Atlas V, 3Dar and Révolution, the studio might well bring out a pretty little gem with ‘Gloomy Eyes’. All the more so in that Arte is not just any game publisher. The European cultural platform has for several years been implementing a spectacular shift in terms of its audiovisual formats offer.
Amongst them videogames are in particular placed at the forefront. Its experience and the heft of its reputational clout could enable the Belgian studio to make a major breakthrough and, why not, establish a much bigger name for itself than it currently has here in Belgium, such as on the international videogame stage.
A story, projects or an idea to share?
Suggest your content on kingkong.