17 June 2017

Sherbrooke’s Institut Desgraff released its first RPG (Role Playing Game) video game on June 8, 2017, taking advantage of the opportunity to announce the inauguration of Studio Desgraff.

This Indie (independent video) game is called Legends Of Iona. Some 150 people, including students and instructors at Desgraff, worked on the creation of the video game over the past 10 years.

In leading the work, the General Director of the Institut Desgraff, David Deschenes, realized a great passion: “I’d been dreaming of developing this game since I was really young. We’ve been working on the project for 10 years, more intently in the past three. For me, launching Legends Of Iona is a lifetime achievement,” he said. “The game is a quest full of adventures, during which several battles arise. During the game, questions on many aspects of general culture (history, mathematics, geography) are put to the player, who must answer correctly to win one battle or another. Although there are battles, it’s not a bloody game; it is designed for both the young and the not-so-young to enjoy.”

The Desgraff team has been working in active collaboration with various municipal actors to establish a video-game development centre in Sherbrooke. “Depending on the commercial success of this first game, the Studio Desgraff may evolve and create between three and six jobs in the video game sector in Sherbrooke,” predicted Mr. Deschenes. Studio Desgraff will focus on the fine-tuned production of video games and will limit itself to only three types. “If sales of the game go well, we could support the Studio and create jobs in video games. If not, we will still have had a wonderful experience exploring the different facets of video game creation,” stated the General Director of the Institut Desgraff, who invites anyone who is curious to see the trailer for the game on legendsofiona.com.  The game was presented at Comicon and received excellent feedback from testers.

Designers and developers are already working on a sequel to the first game: a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO), an online game played by many players at once, under the name of World Of Iona.

» See a video demo of the game

» Buy the game

Sources: Sherbrooke Innopole and Institut Desgraff