Benoît Sokal

Developer BIO

Benoît Sokal (b. 1954) is regarded today as one of Europe’s comic strip pioneers. After graduating from St. Luc School in Brussels at the age of 20, he took part in the comic strip boom of the 80’s and participated in the success of a few magazines.

Eager to extend the horizons of his creativity, he adapted quite naturally to computers. He was among the first to colorize his drawings with a computer. He discovered 3D graphics in 1996 and got involved in the "L’Amerzone" project (Pixel-INA Award recipient in the game category at the Imagina 99 festival). His publishing house Casterman and the French video games publisher Microïds supported him in this endeavor. Benoît Sokal was certainly the first comic strip author to envision, carry out and supervise the production of a video game in its entirety. As a matter of fact, he devoted 4 years to the project. "Le testament de l’explorateur" (November 99), a collection of astonishing unpublished drawings, took us back to the captivating imaginary world of Amerzone.

In 2001, he returned to directing with a new title, "Syberia", published and produced by Microïds. Just like L’Amerzone, its success was immediate and international. Syberia collected awards worldwide. More than any other author, Benoît Sokal took part in all the stages of the game’s production - directing, graphics, and dialogues - this time in an international production, mainly carried out in Quebec by Microïds Canadian team.

Websites

• Interview with Benoit Sokal from May 2008 -- Sokal talks about all his past game projects, his storytelling methods, and his movie project Aquarica (on adventuregamer.pl)
• Benoît Sokal - Wikipedia -- article in the open encyclopedia
• Indepth Interview (Feb. 2005) -- Przygodoskop's 4 page interview with Benoit Sokal about past, present and future games.
• Benoît Sokal Interview -- on Adventure Classing Gaming (27 June 2008)

Games Credited

• Sinking Island (2007), Micro Application, S.A.
• Paradise (2006), Easy Computing B.V.
• Knight's Apprentice: Memorick's Adventures (2004), XS Games, LLC
• Syberia II (2004), XS Games, LLC
• Syberia: The Collector's Edition (2004), MC2-Microïds
• Syberia (2002), Microïds
• War and Peace: 1796 - 1815 (2002), Microïds
• AmerZone: The Explorer's Legacy (1999), Casterman, Microïds