Developer Interview – Alblune

“If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.” – Walt Disney

Who are Alblune?

Alblune is a two-person indie game studio composed of Luka Lescuyer and Alexandre Stroukoff. With over a decade of experience in the industry in France and Canada, including work on AAA console games and mobile indie games, they founded Alblune. The pair aim to create immersive and charming 3D worlds that will appeal to players of all ages and have a strict focus on non-violent games.

Games by Alblune

The Spirit and the Mouse

Bring kindness and light to the people of Sainte-et-Claire as Lila, a tiny mouse with a big heart! Explore a quaint French village, make electrifying new friends, and do good deeds for those in need in this lush narrative adventure game.

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home

In this upcoming game, players can solve a variety of nonogram-style puzzles and transform them into furniture with which to decorate the perfect home for a delightful rodent friend!

Developer Interview with Alblune

How did the two of you meet and what made you decide to make a game together?

Luka: This may sound cliché, but Alex and I met at our art school and have known each other for over 12 years! Our bond was formed over games, particularly indie ones. Over the years, we were both very inspired by the indie scene and wanted to make our own games! We had several ideas, but none of them progressed until we committed to The Spirit and the Mouse and made it a reality!

When did the idea for Squeakross: Home Squeak Home first come to you, and was there any specific inspiration?

Alex: After finishing The Spirit and the Mouse, we decided to work on a smaller game. The Spirit and the Mouse was a great experience, but it was a massive project for both of us, so we wanted to scale down for the next one. I had the idea to create a small Spirit-Mouse-themed nonogram game for self-publishing. I love nonogram games and wanted to try programming one myself. Then Luka joined in and added more ideas as we brainstormed, which led to the creation of Squeakross as it is now!

Luka: We’re both nonogram fans! I was playing Picross S8 at the time. Although I enjoy the game, I often feel like I need something more to keep me engaged in puzzle games. Personally, I find that decoration and customization in games motivate me to keep progressing, so I thought about combining that with the puzzle aspect! And of course, it has to involve rodents, because we love them.

What indie games do you enjoy playing and have any of them influenced the creation and development of Squeakross?

Alex: It’s hard to pinpoint one inspiration; we draw our inspiration from many sources of media. I like to try as many indie games as possible. Some of the recent ones I played and enjoyed are Mosa Lina, Animal Well, Luck to be a Landlord, and Aero GPX. There are just too many good games! I also obviously love Nonogram games, with my favorite being the Zelda Twilight Princess Picross, because it has a lot of charm and a relaxing mood.

Luka: Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Fields of Mistria and Horticular! When working on Squeakross, we mainly studied other nonogram games such as Logiart Grimoire and Piczle Cross Story of Seasons to identify features that were missing in those games and could be added to Squeakross.

How did you decide to combine the homemaker aspects of the game with the traditional nonogram puzzles?

Luka: As I mentioned earlier, I am looking for something to motivate me to do puzzles. I believe many others would also appreciate something like this! I enjoy puzzle games, but sometimes I get a bit tired of them and want to do something else while still being in the game environment if that makes sense. Nowadays, many games offer customization options, which people seem to enjoy a lot (I do too!). This is not something we have seen in other puzzle games, so we thought it might be a cool thing to try!

Alex: We also believed that it would complement the concept behind nonograms: the puzzle transforms into the item that you unlock! In most nonogram games, you only unlock a picture after finishing a puzzle. We thought it would make it even more rewarding to have something almost physical at the end of a puzzle.

What made you choose a mouse as the main character?

Luka: The straightforward answer is that we adore rodents; mice make adorable characters! We have three gerbils at home, and I love them dearly. I aim to feature cute little rodents in most of our games!

Alex: Same!

Where did the name ‘Squeakross’ come from?

Alex: We decided to avoid using the trademarked name Picross and instead came up with the name Squeakross by combining the words ‘Squeak’ and ‘cross.’ We thought it would be more creative to create a new name for the game rather than simply calling it something like ‘nonogram + something.’

How do you create the puzzles and how many are you aiming to provide in the game once released?

Alex: We start with the furniture or accessory that the player unlocks (e.g. a chair, a bed, a hat), and use a special tool to create a nonogram puzzle based on the silhouette. Then, we manually adjust and test each puzzle to ensure that they are enjoyable to solve. It’s a balancing act between preserving the silhouette of the object and ensuring that the puzzle is entertaining. In every case, creating a fun puzzle takes priority over matching the silhouette 100% of the time.

Luka: We can’t say for sure how many puzzles there will be, but with our current goal, it will be over 300!

What are the reasons behind including hints and assist systems, and not having timers or other such mechanics? Will players still be challenged?

Luka: The first reason comes from my personal experience of playing nonogram games. I was a bit frustrated with some features and wanted to offer a different experience in our game. For example, in classic Picross games, you can only check your mistakes once per puzzle! I find that too strict and want to have the option to check infinitely. Especially on larger puzzles, it can be quite frustrating.

Another thing was about the hint visuals. In Picross, there is a blue hint color that indicates when there is something logically solvable on a line. However, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the hint states with the blue, black, and gray colors. I realized that this might be even more challenging for people with color blindness. As a solution, I decided to add an outline to the hint numbers to make them easier to distinguish.

Regarding the assist mode, we believe that many people who are interested in trying nonogram games are often discouraged by the lack of in-game guidance. These games can be quite intimidating at first, and we want to ensure that we’re not deterring new players by allowing them to experiment with puzzles without any negative consequences.

Alex: Timers and punishments by default don’t make sense for us. Completing the puzzle is challenging enough; I always found the timer to be frustrating in these types of games. Each puzzle has a variant called “Nini’s Challenge,” which is a harder or different version of the puzzle that unlocks color variations for the furnishing items and allows you to use them infinitely in your home!

Nini’s Challenges will offer the level of difficulty that some players might be looking for. We will also include options to play the game in a way that mimics playing with pen and paper. This will allow players to customize their experience and adjust the difficulty to their preference, while also ensuring that newer players can enjoy the game without feeling frustrated.

To what extent will players be able to customize their mouse and home in the finished game?

Luka: Players will be able to extensively customize their rodent in our “rodent editor” which we are really proud of! We have designed it so that anyone can recreate their beloved past or present pet, while also allowing for some funny designs. There are many options to tweak, such as fur color, fur patterns, tail length, ear size, whisker types, eye color, and more. Additionally, you can unlock little costumes for your rodent through puzzles.

Alex: As for your house, it will be customizable with rewards received after completing puzzles. This means that you’ll need to solve nonogram puzzles to unlock wallpaper, carpets, and even chairs. We’re also adding color variations for almost every item you unlock in the game!

What difficulties have you faced during development so far, and have any problems arisen that you really didn’t expect?

Alex: Everything has been going smoothly. One of the challenges we face is creating the puzzles themselves and maintaining a good balance of difficulty throughout the game. This is our first game of this genre, so we are still learning the tricks!

Luka: Creating a good tutorial for new players is challenging. We are still refining it, but it has been pretty good so far!

What part of the game has been the most fun to work on?

Luka: For me, furniture design is my passion! I’ve always dreamed of creating a decoration game like Animal Crossing, so being able to make one myself is amazing!

Alex: Animating the rodent! It was already enjoyable in The Spirit and the Mouse, but with Squeakross’ art style, rodents are much more expressive, making for great animations.

What game engine are you using to create Squeakross? Is there any other software that has been particularly instrumental?

Alex: We are using Unity as our game engine, Audacity for sound editing, and Trello for project management. That’s pretty much it!

Luka: 3DS Max and Photoshop are used for all art-related tasks, while Miro is frequently utilized for reference gathering.

When in 2025 can we expect to see Squeakross release? Will there be a demo available beforehand?

Luka: We can’t say yet, but we’ll have a public demo available before the end of the year if everything goes well. I hope that players interested in the game will give it a try!

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