Paris, March 5th 2025 - Wednesdays takes the form of an interactive visual novel strip and a memory trail, helping players to decipher the silence of victims and recognize the signs of sexual abuse in the people around them. Through the fragmented memories of a victim, this real-life game combines storytelling and the management of a theme park, a symbol of the world of childhood, to raise awareness and help make amends. Wednesdays will be available on Wednesday March 26th 2025 on PC and Mac via Steam and itch.io.
The Pixel Hunt and Pierre Corbinais, figures of narrative video games, who have already moved audiences by collaborating on such unique, innovative and committed titles as Bury Me, My Love (published by ARTE France) and The Wreck, are behind this new project.
In a retro 2D style, as a tribute to the video games of the 1990s, an empty island awaits Timothée, the main character of Wednesdays. Orco, the orca-headed mascot and guide, invites him to build a theme park on the island. In each of the attractions, Timothée recovers a memory, from his life as a young boy to his first steps as an adult. All these fragments of memory are linked to the incest he suffered each Wednesday afternoon for many years.
He rediscovers his past twenty years later, and with it an endless stream of questions: How could this have happened? How could anyone have seen and spoken? How was he affected when he grew up?
Other scenes resurface: afternoons at school, a funeral, a first time, a bus ride with his best friend, a confession that's been postponed and postponed... In each of these, the player takes on the role of a new character from Timothée's entourage, in an attempt to unravel his memory. Fragmentary, non-chronological memories, reflecting the way traumatic memory works.
“I really wanted to create an artwork, but with the aim of raising the players' awareness. Incest is one of the rare subjects where simply talking about it is already a step forward. I've seen it all around me: the effect is immediate”, explains Pierre Corbinais, the game's creator.During the memory scenes, brought to life by the beautiful drawings of illustrator Exaheva, the player navigates through multiple-choice dialogues, according to his or her sensitivity, by playing the role of one of the people around Tim: “I wanted to enrich the narrative and avoid linearity. If the player wants to know everything about Timothée's incest, one scene will give him all the answers. But he can also move on, skip some scenes, choose what he wants to hear about.”
Not recommended for players under 18, The game contains no scenes of sexual assault, and content warnings are available for each memory you explore, and each can be viewed in summary form. Wednesdays breaks the silence against which victims of incest struggle, and sheds light on a possible path to reparation.
The game features two graphic styles that are deliberately poles apart, yet share the same clean lines:
- The souvenir universe, designed by Exaheva (Mekka Nikki, Still Heroes), draws its inspiration from independent comics and graphic novels;
- The universe of childhood games with Orco Park, designed by Nico Nowak (There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension), embraces the colorful pixel-art of 90s management games.
Beyond its clever gameplay and original art direction, Wednesdays is also a game that has given many of its developers the opportunity to make their voices heard, not only as video game artists and creators, but also as victims for some of them.
The game is available in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
© ARTE France, The Pixel Hunt, Pierre Corbinais, 2025
About ARTE
European public cultural media, ARTE’s mission is to bring Europeans closer together through culture. Its rich and diverse editorial line-up (cinema, series, documentaries, news, digital creation and video games, podcasts...) contributes to nurturing a democratic space and a European vision. For more than ten years, ARTE has been co-producing and publishing independent video games such as Type:Rider, Homo Machina, Vectronom, Inua, Bury Me My Love, 30 Birds and Looking for Fael, which have won awards at some of the biggest international festivals. More information on the official website, the X page and the Bluesky of Arte Interactive
About The Pixel Hunt
The Pixel Hunt is a studio that designs and produces reality-inspired games, pieces at the intersection between journalism, documentary and video games. Their productions aim to be as distinctive in their artistic direction as they are in their storytelling. For further information: https://www.thepixelhunt.com/fr/.
About Pierre Corbinais
Author and former journalist, Pierre Corbinais is renowned for his work on numerous video games. In addition to his work with The Pixel Hunt, Pierre Corbinais is known as the narrative designer of Haven (The Game Bakers) and the translator of the French version of Road 96 (Digixart). Through Wednesdays, he lends his delicate writing to this autofictional tale, to raise the subject of incest and intra-family sexual abuse in an authentic way. For further information: https://pierrecorbinais.com/fr/.
About Exaheva
Exaheva, a comic book artist, illustrates the narrative vignettes in Wednesdays. Her style, which is somewhere between comics and manga, gives an authentic and delicate treatment of the still-too-taboo subject of sexual abuse against and between minors. For further information: https://linktr.ee/exaheva
About Nico Nowak
Talented pixel-artist, Nico Nowak deploys her unique know-how in Wednesdays by creating the visuals of Orco Park. After working on successful projects such as There is no Game: Wrong Dimension, Nico applies her artistic flair to help make Wednesdays a game of hope.
