En Garde!: playing the Lackey for Fireplace Games
Today I feel like talking about an incredible little studio called Fireplace Games, and a game I had a wonderful time working on: En Garde!.
I played the Lackey. The lowest-ranking enemy you keep bumping into, usually with rather more confidence than his abilities justify. There are loads and loads of him. Which means there is quite a lot of me making a nuisance of myself throughout the game.
From a student project to this
The funny thing is that En Garde! started as a student project. The original version was made in 2018 by eight students at Supinfogame RUBIKA. The team regrouped to found Fireplace Games in 2020, then rebuilt and expanded the idea into the full game released on 16 August 2023. The released game's director is Anaïs Simonnet.
I've seen footage of that initial prototype since. Honestly, looking at where it started and what the team eventually made is impressive. The finished game is wonderfully beautiful. The colours, the spirit, the humour, the rhythm of it all. It's just pleasing.
For a small team, the scale and quality of what they achieved really struck me. En Garde! went on to win Best Debut Game at the 2024 Pégases. Fireplace Games has since closed, but I really wanted to take a moment to talk about what they made.
Getting into the room
I came into the project through Morgan Dufour, Light Fader (at the time working for Audio Workshop). He got me into the room with Adrien Poncet, who worked on the game's design and narrative, and Maïna Le Dantec as voice director.
I have a vague memory of being considered for Alejandro, Adalia's rather wonderfully wimpy brother (spoiler alert: El Vigilante). That role went to Julien Masdoua. He did a brilliant job, so I'm very happy with it. And, looking back, I'm very pleased with the role I ended up playing.
The joy of playing the Lackey
The Lackey is a recurring enemy. He's at the bottom of the food chain. But then you put several of him in a room, mix in some tougher enemies, and suddenly you've got quite a lot to deal with.
That mixture is part of what makes the fights interesting. You might be dealing with a boss, but there are still other people coming at you, getting in the way and commenting on what's happening. And the Lackey is everywhere.
The writing was great in the first place. They had me saying these incredibly funny lines, and Adrien gave me room to play with them. It was a wonderful experience. What makes me laugh now is hearing how those little lines pop up in the middle of everything.
I remember a clip of a streamer and his friends laughing at a line along the lines of, “Ha ha, she dodged your attack!” You're supposed to be fighting Adalia, but apparently there's still time to enjoy a colleague's failure. That pretty much sums up the spirit of it.
The main characters have their dialogue and their story moments, naturally. But all those small reactions from the enemies help make the whole game feel alive. Looking back at it, that was such a fun thing to be part of.
A game with colour, humour and rhythm
It had been a while since I'd played a swashbuckling game that gave me quite this feeling. Adalia de Volador, an entertainingly awful Count-Duke, colourful streets, sword fights and a rather lovely Spanish flavour. The setting is a playful, imagined version of seventeenth-century Spain.
And I don't mean that the gameplay is easy. It's easy to get to grips with. Those are different things. The game can be difficult. You die, try again, and that's fine. You start to understand the rhythm, how the different enemies work together and how much you can do with the environment around you.
For me, there's something very satisfying about a game that knows the kind of good time it wants to give you. En Garde! has that. The comedy and the fighting belong together.
The people behind the voices
I loved the actors they chose. The main English-language cast includes:
Clara Cantos as Adalia de Volador.
Julien Masdoua as Alejandro de Volador (spoiler alert: El Vigilante).
Mathieu Lagarrigue as the Count-Duke.
Angela LeBlanc as Zaida.
And then there are the people giving all those other characters their voices:
Julien Fenoglio as the Soldiers and Secret Intriguant.
Élise Pettigrew as the Grenadier.
Ana Melillo as the Captain.
Théo Le Perron as the Duelist.
Adrien Poncet as the Secret Conspirator.
Jules Feydy and Olivier Penchenier as the chickens.
And myself as the Lackey.
Yes, the chickens have credits too. Quite right.
And a big mention to Morgane Bello for recording all of us.
And that soundtrack
I couldn't remember the composer's name when I started talking about this, so I went back to look it up. Jean-Claude Charlier, naturally. And he deserves the mention because the soundtrack is a big part of why the whole thing works so well for me.
It has that adventure-film energy and Spanish musical flavour that fit the game beautifully. If you fancy listening, the full En Garde! soundtrack is on YouTube, with other listening options here.
Montpellier was already making wonderful games
This took me to Montpellier, a city it's always a joy to visit for a recording. En Garde! came out in 2023, a couple of years before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. There was already a lot happening there.
You have Ubisoft Montpellier, DigixArt, The Game Bakers, BlueTwelve Studio and Sandfall Interactive, among others. The local games ecosystem has been building for years, with very different teams making very different games. It's lovely to have reasons to go down there and work with some of those people.
En Garde! remains one of those productions I look back on with a lot of pleasure. A small studio made something full of character, and I got to be one of the idiots you knock over along the way. I'm very happy about that.
You can also explore my video game and animation voice work.
Images: official En Garde! game screenshots, © Fireplace Games. The Lackey cutout was extracted from an official game screenshot. Development credits, cast and roles: the game's published credits. History: the original student project's page and Fireplace Games' announcements.
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