If you've not heard of Jordi & Oslo, it's a comic strip that's been running weekly for a decade in the Catalan-language newspaper Diari Segre. Given that its titular characters are a little boy and his stuffed dragon friend, an easy way to describe it would be the Catalan Calvin and Hobbes, which the comic's creator, Guillem Ruiz, takes as a compliment. "I wish it was half as good as that!" he says humbly.
When I meet him, however, it's not to talk about his comics but rather to play his very own game of these characters, Jordi & Oslo: The Lost Tail, a point-and-click adventure. It's not actually Ruiz's first game, as he had previously worked as a 3D animator on AAA titles, including 2023's Lords of the Fallen. After making the move to solo development on a much smaller, gentler game, he couldn't be happier. "Honestly, it's been so nice, because when you are just one more animator, you don't treat it in the same way," he tells me. "Other creative artists have started the same way, doing their projects part-time while doing their day job."
The Lost Tail has been a labour of love for almost eight years, though Ruiz has only committed to it full-time since last August, while you can also factor in the disruptions caused by COVID. It's also been a project he's been adamant about doing himself rather than letting another developer work on it, except for the game's music. But then, as the creator of Jordi & Oslo, he knows all the details of getting the characters and world right. But since this is adapting the comic into a game, he's also not necessarily sticking to one set style and wants to have fun with it too. "The tutorial will actually start with Oslo in pixel art," he teases.
Based on the demo I played, you primarily play as Jordi, who begins searching for his dragon pal, taking you from his bedroom, around the house, out to the garden, and, naturally, beyond. Ruiz talks about being a fan of minimal UI, on par with Macs' clean design. Instead, you can just take in his gorgeous hand-painted watercolour backgrounds, the paper texture also visible in the game if you look hard enough, while there's also the odd touch of foreground elements to give some scenes more depth.
Of course, he's not just importing these paintings into Unity; he's also animating the assets, which he's creating in Procreate Dreams. "I import the backgrounds, but then you almost have to redraw it because you have to cut it out, then go to Photoshop to remove other parts, and then it creates this parallax sensation," he says. "Funnily enough, my pipeline actually involves the iPad. When I'm not at home in my studio, I have a portable setup for both comic strips and animation. 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to do this while being on the move, but now I can go back to the hotel and keep working."
Encountering some puzzles with a bit of peculiar logic, we inevitably discuss the point-and-click classics, but Ruiz also wants to make The Old Tail appealing and accessible to young children, so he doesn't want players to be stuck on any puzzle for long. One example came to mind when I was trying to reach an object that was blocked by a spiky cactus, and then I found a razor, prompting Jordi to remember a time when he shaved Oslo and thought his fur reminded him of a cactus.
It's been an elegant solution for providing hints to players and has been brought to life with authentic Catalan voice-acting, although Ruiz is also hoping to find a publisher that can fund other voiceover languages. While a more charming and humorous approach would involve having visual feedback with different interactions, he's also conscious of his limitations as a solo dev.
"A lot of people who start making a point-and-click want to have different endings and different solutions, but just making one timeline is so hard, let alone having objects that have different responses," he concludes. "Voiceover does make it more expensive, but it's worth it if more people will try the game. In my opinion, point-and-click games are making a comeback!"
Jordi & Oslo: The Lost Tail is coming to PC in 2027, and you can wishlist it on Steam.
