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    Aurélien Kerbeci

    Known as Aurelien

    Agharta’s CEO and programmer, Aurélien came from Eden Games and had worked on the engines and tools of Astérix & Obélix XXL 2, Asterix at the Olympic Games, Arthur and the Invisibles and The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon.[2][3]

    He wrote the 3D engine behind Agharta’s games, coded all three episodes of 1112, and programmed Shufflepuck Cantina. In 2013 he was the one trying out the first Oculus Rift kit, and wanted Agharta to be “one of the first to make adventures for Oculus Rift”.[2][4][5][3]

    In 2021 he co-founded and became studio director of Virtuos Lyon, an engineering studio for large games, which grew from 12 to 40 people in its first year.[6][1]

    He is the face of the weird customer in Episode 02, the guest in room 1014 of the Bellevue Hotel who hates water: the studio’s own team illustration draws Aurélien as him, yellow glasses and green shirt, with his name underneath.[7]

    Kerbeci, the expensive bourbon Gordon insists on at Orlando’s in Episode 03, is named after him.[8]

    “One would be shipping one of the first games for the iPhone which I developed with some friends back in 2008.”[1]

    In the game

    The character Aurelien lent a face to.[7]

    On video

    Videos Aurélien appears in, from the archive’s Videos.

    1. 20:44Agharta Studio on Daily VR, 2015Daily VR · 27 March 2015Nick of Enter The Rift talks with Jean-Edouard Fages and Aurélien Kerbeci, just back from GDC 2015: the co-operative game they’re planning for the Gear VR’s VR Jam, where two players with different roles play together (the jam’s entry became SteamCrew VR), bringing Epic Dragon to the Gear VR, and trying the HTC Vive and Oculus’ Crescent Bay. Asked about 1112, they explain why Episode 04 is hard to fund: players now expect longer episodes, and being noticed on the App Store takes a marketing budget. It’s “Alex’s baby”, they say, meaning Alexandre Leboucher, and crowdfunding is being considered. In French, with English captions.Captions

    Sources

    1. “Virtuos Insider: Virtuos Lyon reflects on its first year”, Virtuos, 12 October 2022
    2. “Shufflepuck Cantina: Enjoyable Game vs. Money Draining”, Gamesauce, 1 October 2014
    3. Aurélien Kerbeci on MobyGames
    4. Agharta Studio devlog (Tumblr), 2013
    5. “Agharta Studio will make Oculus Rift adventure games”, DLH.net, 2013
    6. “Virtuos Bolsters European Presence with its New Lyon Studio”, Virtuos, October 2021
    7. Agharta Studio’s team illustration, each member drawn as one of 1112’s characters with his name underneath
    8. The games’ own credits screens