The game features a young bird, inspired by the Petrel of Barau, an endemic species of the island classified in critical danger of extinction. The player embodies a nestlery trying to join the ocean, in a course strewn with obstacles reflecting the difficulties encountered each year by hundreds of disoriented chicks.
At the origin of the project, Rodolphe Bax, 2D artist, and Thierry Brochart, developer, designed the prototype during the Volcano Game Jam, an event organized with the support of the Reunion ornithological Studies Society (SEOR). The concept was then developed in a complete game mixing narration, puzzles and address gameplay.
The production of Jack Barau is part of a dynamic of local game creation. Pixel Sunset Studio, active since 2015, already has more than fifteen mobile games to its credit. This new project marks their orientation towards wider platforms, with a desire to carry committed messages.
Reunion is the only tropical island in the world to host two endemic petrel species and these are in danger of extinction: the Barau petrel and the Bourbon black petrel.
In order to react to their decline, the European project Life+ Pétrels piloted by Reunion National Park and dedicated to the conservation of the two endemic petrel species, started in 2015 for a period of 5 years.
This project brings together historical actors in the conservation of petrels in order to develop and implement appropriate, demonstrative and innovative conservation strategies and conservation tools in a strongly urbanized island.
Thus, the Reunion National Park, the Seor, the National Office of Hunting and Wildlife, the Indian Ocean Nature Brigade, and the University of Reunion committed themselves alongside Europe, the Deal and the Reunion department, to act in concert for the safeguard of this unique natural heritage.
Damien Chaillot
