A mobile game has just been created by the puzzle shop based in Lodève, NKD Puzzle. Their wooden pieces have been scanned in 3D on this Aenigma Venatorum application. The first level is free and you have to pay five euros to access the other three. The goal is to reach new customers to convince them to come and buy them in physics afterwards. The prices of the puzzles vary between around sixty and hundreds or even thousands of euros.
Interview with the co-manager of NKD Puzzle, Julien Vigouroux.
This mobile puzzle game takes over the ones that already exist for real in your shop?
Exactly. We wanted to put in digital and virtual version all the boxes that we had created in real life. The idea was to find an audience that we didn’t have. And then it was also to tell people who played this game that these boxes really exist. Because our primary vocation is to get people off screens. Even if the application is very well done, it’s still more fun to have the object in real life and to be in the material.
Where are you with this project?
It’s still being created, but the goal is also to make arcade cabinets with the game inside for stores. With our games in real life, stored in their box, in the arcade machine. To serve as advertising at the point of sale on the corner, a kind of totem. Our problem is that a box like a Mecanica requires 150 to 200 hours of work to build.
Toy stores often ask us for demo models. And in fact, we don’t have time to make demo models for all the shops. This virtual application could be made available to toy stores so that people can test the boxes in the virtual world and grab them for real in the store.
What do these virtual puzzles look like?
It looks the same as the real thing. Afterwards, we really tried to work on the sounds, on the playability. We don’t have the box in our hands since we’re on our phone or tablet. But we tried to reproduce all the movements and still be as immersive as possible in the application. We can turn around the box. But actually, we are not in reality. On the textures, we were able to highlight what should move, but which is not yet moving. There are small clues to the touch that allow even in the game, to see if we are there or if we are not there in fact.
How much does it cost ?
The objective, as you said, is to reach new customers. But the price is different. That is to say that with the application, you have access to all the puzzles for five euros While to buy one from NKD Puzzle, you have to put at least thirty euros and sometimes even up to to hundreds of euros.
Do you really think that the people who will download the application will go to the store to buy something real with this price?
We’ll see each other again in a year and then we’ll take stock. I cannot know in advance. It’s a somewhat crazy bet somewhere, it’s one of the problems. We have very nice boxes that are expensive. I’m thinking of the Mécanica or the Architecto where there are a lot of movements to open them, which are very interesting puzzles but which are also too expensive for certain budgets. There, the idea is to also allow everyone to discover what we do or to make them more accessible. And then also to reach a new audience.
Interview by Morgane Guiomard
Pictured: Aenigma Venatorum is a mobile puzzle game. – NKD Puzzle.
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