Less Miserables - Presskit

Description

A point-and-click parody of Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables, with all hand-drawn art, live voice acting and guillotine jokes.

Play as Claude Van Claude: imprisioned for 14 years for stealing a loaf of bread, just released and on a desperate quest to find his daughter before she's caught in a violent revolution gripping the streets of Paris.

Part 'Monkey Island', part 'Allo 'Allo, LESS MISERABLES aims to do for 'Les Misérables' what 'Life of Brian' did to The Bible. As a very unfaithful adaptation, no previous experience with Les Misérables is required, but fans will find much to laugh and groan over. Thankfully, the whole game is not in song, but there are a few set pieces. Beautiful locations across Paris and surrounds taken from our field trip, together with colourful historical characters of the time including the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alexandre Dumas, and manic composer Hector Berlioz.

All brought together with a modern interface and graphics, unique hobo-powered hint system, and to be released for PC, Linux, iOS and Switch, in English, German and French.

History

After the success of our first short game in 2024 'The Protagonish', an adventure game where you don't control the adventurer, we are busy completing a full-length point-and-click parody, Less Miserables. Bringing back the same team for gorgeous hand-drawn art, live voice talent from stage and stand-up, and officially British humour. We are a group of 4 all from Edinburgh, who started hanging out in cafes, but now beavering away in our beautiful Leith office, with a 'no-crunch' rule. Less Miserables is the game the studio was founded to make.

With the exception of our award winning developer, none of us have worked in the game industry before, but bring experience from commercial TV animation, childrens shows, and business software development.

The team will release a early demo in Feb 2026, ahead of a Kickstarter in April, aiming for a release before the end of 2026.