Agharta Studio
A small independent team out of Lyon, France, that spent the better part of a decade chasing hand-painted mystery-adventures — then chased virtual reality instead.
Studio emblemillustrated, unofficial
From a Spyro team to a four-person studio
Before Agharta
The studio's creative director, Alexandre Leboucher, spent several years at Etranges Libellules working on a Spyro the Dragon title before deciding he'd had enough of large-team development. He wanted something smaller and more personal to run.
The story he wanted to tell wasn't new, either — it was based on a PocketPC adventure he'd written with friends more than a decade earlier, one he'd always wanted to revisit with more ambition.
A studio of one name, four people
Agharta Studio came together around Alex and a handful of "über-skilled" friends — Val and Aurélien, with Jed joining shortly after. Internally, the core team was known by an in-joke nickname: ALEXVALJEDAURELIEN, a single "quadricephalic monster" wearing four sets of hands.
The studio was founded in the summer of 2008 — the same season the App Store itself opened for business — and the first episode of 1112 shipped that October, right alongside it.
Ten years, two very different genres
Founded, and straight into episode one
Agharta Studio forms in Lyon and releases 1112: Episode 01 for iPhone and iPod touch within the App Store's first months.
Episodes two and three, and a new sideline
1112 continues with two more episodes while the studio begins prototyping Shufflepuck Cantina, a arcade air-hockey game that would later reach Steam as Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe.
An Oculus Rift detour
The team enters an Oculus VR jam with EpicDragon VR, a short dragon-riding demo built with a partner studio, and starts talking publicly about wanting to fund a fourth 1112 episode through the success of other projects.
1112 officially shelved
Creative director Alexandre Leboucher confirms on social media that episode four is not in development and, with the team's focus having shifted to VR titles, is unlikely to happen.
Full-time VR
Agharta's later public output — including work on the PS VR music rhythm title Stardust Odyssey — has been entirely inside virtual reality, a long way from Jalonsville's antique shops.
What it would have taken to finish the story
By the studio's own estimate, wrapping up 1112 with a fourth episode would have needed roughly a $108,000 budget and twelve months of dedicated work — money and time a four-person indie studio was never quite able to set aside once other projects started paying the bills.