What do you get when you cross old Québécois myths and a PC game?
You get Sang-Froid, Tales of Werewolves. A video game PC Magazine praised for its “wonderfully vibrant art direction”. The game is the brainchild of Yan Pépin, the founder of Artifice Studio. It follows the story of two brothers, Jacques and Joe, defending a cabin and their fever-ridden sister Josephine from wolves, werewolves and, behind it all, the Devil himself.
The Toronto Star’s Adam Kovac wrote this about the game: “The twist to French Canada’s lore of loups-garous, or werewolves, is that they are based on a mixture of Catholic and aboriginal myth that emerged during a time of economic uncertainty in the 19th century. The terrifying stories told to children about half-man, half-wolf beasts that lurked in the dark were both a metaphor and a caution to any precocious youth who might have been thinking of leaving the family farm to seek work in a logging camp. Losing one’s soul (to say nothing of a potential mauling) was a very real fear in the Catholic-dominated culture of 19th-century Quebec.”
There are other examples of how popular French-Canadian tales have been used by marketers. The Chasse-galerie, also known as "The Bewitched Canoe" or "The Flying Canoe" is a tale of voyageurs who make a deal with the devil. That’s the image on the label of one of Québec’s most popular microbrew, La Maudite.
This taps into what we call the Chez Nous Connector; Quebeckers’ concern for tradition and pride in all that’s local. Our What Québec Wants™ study asked 3,030 Canadians how important or unimportant this statement is to them personally: Preventing regional customs or traditions from disappearing. 33.2% of Canadians in the ROC said it was important compared to 42.5% of French Quebeckers.
Quebeckers might not want the werewolves to return to their neighbourhood but they’ll enthusiastically shoot them in a digital world.
For more about our What Québec Wants™ study, click here.
Comments