Meet Franz
Franz is a mobile game for both IOS and Android. It has been developed by Nikolay, Anna, Oleg, Vasily together with a programmers’ team for one and a half years already.
This game is a hybrid between an SMS novel and an angry version of tamagotchi. A stranger will appear on the players’ mobile. At first they won’t have an idea about who it is or where it came from, as well as what it needs from them. To figure it out players will have to mend fences with it. They will be able to do this through a direct exchange of replicas, solvation of linguistic riddles, different types of touches to the Franz itself and the time spent in the game. It is worth remembering that Franz is a rather contradictory being with a difficult character. It will change its behavior depending on the way players communicate with it. It might wake them up at 3 am sending them hundreds of notifications only because it feels lonely. It might become offended and block the application for a while as well. At the same time, it can be kind and courteous. Each player is endowed with full power over the Franz and decides for themselves whether it will obey their rules or subordinate it to its own.
The stranger inside a mobile? Sounds weird. Who he really is?
Well, it’s her, not him. Franz is a young lady, a main hero of the game. Players will spend the majority of time in the game face to face with her. The whole gameplay is based on interactions with her. It’s well known that some people have a really complex and complicated nature. Believe me, Franz is truly one of their kind. Playing with her is like playing with a wild animal. She may seem cute and funny, but there will always be a feeling of anxiety in the background. At any moment something can go wrong.
Franz can be called a fiend, an antagonist to some extent. Players will sometimes have to stand against her toxic influence on them, but it still will be a choice of each person to do it from a position of strength or kindness. Yet, it is a question of players’ personal attitude to the game. Franz’s behavior is diverse, and her provocations are more of an ethical test. So the players may not even notice becoming an evil themselves while fighting against it.
Will you tell us something about the team that works on «Franz»?
Anna Pimonova is engaged in development of the project together with Nikolay Dybowski. She is an author of a wide range, who specializes in the horror genre. Previously Anna has been working as a script writer on a range of films, such as Tseh (stands for the workshop) and Otrazhenie (stands for the reflection). Then she started to develop games. Nowadays she works on her own psychological thriller «Flower shop» together with her team. Originally, Anna came to Ice-Pick as a script writer for Franz, but then she became responsible for the narrative design of the game together with Nikolay Dybowski. Last, but not the least, Anna Pimonova is a project manager of Franz.
Oleg Pashchenko is an artist and designer, who offered us his own unique view of the visual component of the game and created art for the project completely by himself. Vasily Kashnikov, also known as Mushroomer, wrote the soundtrack, reflecting the mystical and disturbing flair of the game.
The game still has a signature vision of Ice-Pick Lodge. Its dark and mysterious atmosphere, as well as allegorical vibe with a space opened for theories and guesses reminds all the previous games of the studio. The one thing changed in Franz. Now all the riddles that you will have to solve are related not to the game or its characters, but only to you as a player. The inner dialogue with yourself or a dialogue in the game — who said those things could not be the same thing?
Yet, Ice-Pick games are not about an atmosphere, but an artistic utterance. Any mobile game may become an empty shell, if there is no main idea in it.
Franz is a really important project for the studio and its authors. It is devoted to the topic of toxic relationships and reveals several stories whose value for us is great at once. First of all, Franz tells a story of difficulty in finding a common ground with surrounding people. Arranging an agreement with a lady living in your mobile won’t be that easy. After all, she is an attempt by Nikolay and Anna to create a full-fledged living personality. That is only one of the reasons why her volatile behavior is difficult to predict. Secondly, the game is about how difficult the path to this very mutual understanding is and how people change along the way. And it may sound trite, but the main driving idea of «Franz» is love. She wants it from the player, but acts as if she has been learning this feeling by spying on dysfunctional families.
Perhaps the most important feeling that Franz evokes is moral disorientation. You will have to test the strength of your value structure and think carefully about whether you can call yourself a good person.
The idea is clear now. What about the gameplay?
Player’s communication with Franz is based on searching for inscriptions. There are four different locations in the game, which change over the process of the player 's rapprochement with Franz. And players will have to find four types of inscriptions in those locations: visible ones; invisible ones (inscriptions that could be found by listening to sounds and looking for visual effects); inscriptions on the screen; partly visible inscriptions (to open the invisible part players will have to tap on it several times).
But communication with this young lady can not only be verbal, but tactile as much. Franz is commensurate with the phone. She feels like a doll the size of your mobile. The mobile itself becomes Franz when people open the application. So that is why the tactility of the phone transmits to the character. Therefore players can influence Franz and show their attitude to her using affectionate or aggressive interactions. The speed of touches affects the young lady as well. Depending on how frequently players will interact with her, she can become more or less aggressive.
And yet there is always the thought that the main character is alive, reasonable, even if with a difficult character. She is endowed with the will to choose when to get in touch with the player, which is why the pauses between sessions can vary from one minute to six hours. The duration of Franz's silence is influenced by the scenario decisions and her individual reactions to the players’ actions.