Sure, here’s a rewritten version:
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I mean, ever tried writing a novel? It’s mostly you alone, with your laptop probably at 2 a.m. and three cups of coffee deep. For film scripts, it’s usually about 120 pages—unless you’re hanging with Scorsese. But video game writing? It’s like, hours and hours of storylines, bending and twisting the script to suit the game, and then you have to team up with others and make it all fit together. Imagine hitting a deadline at 3 a.m. sometimes—just tossing words at the screen, hoping something sticks. Kinda chaotic brilliance, right?
Anyway, there’s all this French flair in Clair Obscur that’s really got players hooked. Especially this character, Esquie. So there’s this fun campfire chat about François with Verso. Verso thinks François is the ultimate grump, but Esquie’s like, “Franfran used to be all ‘Wheeee!’ But now he’s all ‘Whooo.’” The dialogue lets players pick their path through this ridiculous whee/woo thing. It’s silly, can’t lie.
So, the writer, Svedberg-Yen, laughs about it. Late-night creativity, they said. They needed seven different relationship dialogues for Esquie. Seven! Imagine crafting 800 pages of script like they did for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. And that’s minus all the NPC gab or the crazy lore stuff buried in it. They took inspiration from everywhere. Picture this: Monoco, another character, is literally based on their dog. Oh, the dog needed a haircut? Well, Monoco’s story suddenly had a haircut scene thanks to that. Real life sneaks into fiction sometimes, eh?
And that “whee whoo” scene—it was even zanier in the early morning delirium, but it fit. Svedberg-Yen wanted to stir those deep feels—joy mixed with sadness—and was just…tired. So “wheeeeee!” made it in there.
In the end, for Svedberg-Yen, it’s all about creating something raw and real. Fantasy, sure, but born from genuine thoughts and moments. They trust their gut even on the wacky stuff. Clair Obscur is mostly tragic, but life needs those light spots, right? Did they overdo it? Who knows. When stuck, they just reflect on their current mood and boom, it goes into the game. That’s authenticity for you.
