These 5 characters were developed for a personal interactive fiction project called Lost in the Rain. The project required a group of children who could believably find themselves staying together after getting lost under quite an unnatural bit of rain, but with enough tension within the group for the kids to split up, one by one. I chose to focus on class differences and set the story in 1887, during the Northern French Industrial Revolution, in a region where both the mining industry and textile factories allowed for a lot of population movement and social injustice.
Name: Marielle
Age: 6
Background: Marielle comes from this town’s own local high society. Her father owns several textile factories here, and half the town is basically his employee. She doesn’t know much about the world, let alone the real world: her education is provided by private tutors and she never had to worry about the next meal. Still, she has a kind heart. She got lost in the rain because, when her father let go of her hand to shout at one of the factory workers who was in the street rather than at work, she got frightened by a horses’ hooves during a cart accident. She then hid in a corner to cry… and couldn’t find her way back to her parents afterwards.
Relationship with other characters: No direct relationship at the beginning of the game, but her father owns the factory where Eugénie works, and Eugénie knows this.
Art is courtesy of Karriguelle
Name: Eugénie
Age: 9
Background: School being mandatory only up until primary school certificate, and her coming from a big family, Eugénie had to leave school at the end of last year. She now works in a factory owned by Marielle’s father as a dyer. She and Louise used to be best friends, but this year, everything changed betwen them. Louise is still studying and incorrectly assumed that Eugénie left schol because she wasn’t good enough at it. Eugénie felt extremely insulted by this assumption, and now thinks of Louise as a spoiled brat who never had to provide for younger siblings. And anyway, with factory hours, she doesn’t have much time to play or exchange secrets anymore. She got lost in the rain despite trying to take the precaution to leave work early: the air smelled like rain, and every kid here knows that you don’t want to be outside when the rain starts to fall. The countermastress wouldn’t listen to her and had her stay even more late. When she finally got out, the sirains were ready to blur her way home…
Relationship with other characters: She saw Marielle a couple of times, enough to be able to recognize the girl. Louise and her used to be best friends, but now they hate each other and miss each other at the same time.
Art is courtesy of Coralline Charrier
Name: Louise
Age: 9
Background: Louise used to be Eugénie’s best friend. She’s an only child, and kind of a tomboy – what that looks like in the year 1887 anyway. She’s still in school. Up until last year, she would always sit next to her neighbour and games companion Eugénie, but now she feels alone in school, and her former friend seems so very mad at her all the time. Her parents started to teach her some home-cooked version of finishing school, which only adds to her despair… and widens the social divide with Eugénie. She got lost in the rain because she took advantage of a cart crash to steal a few hours of freedom from her parents. She wandered in town, losing the notion of time… until she realised it was night and she was lost. Then rain started to fall.
Relationship with other characters: Eugénie and her used to be best friends, but now they hate each other and miss each other at the same time.
Art is courtesy of Édouard Noisette
Name: Thomas
Age: 8
Background: Thomas lost his family a long time ago. He survived off of petty jobs, and currently works as a newsboy. A newsboy who is quite good at picking locks. He’s always carefully watching the people in the street, and that’s how he noticed Louise one day ; he sometimes dreams that some day, she’ll notice him too. He didn’t get lost in the rain per se; let’s just say he doesn’t have a home and when the thunder cracked, none of his usual hideouts were close.
Relationship with other characters: He has a massive crush on Louise, who has no idea – he doesn’t even know her name yet. And Louise isn’t extremely interested in boys anyway.
Art is courtesy of Édouard Noisette
Name: Amin
Age: 12
Background: Amin and his father arrived in the town a few weeks ago; they don’t know a lot of people yet, apart from the miners they both work with. He got lost in the rain because he usually sleeps at the mine to save time: the hours are long underground. But today, there was an accident. A canary died in the mine and there was talk of a gas blast. He was told to leave, and to come back tomorrow, to start working on a new tunnel, but he couldn’t find his dad. He still waited for him… until the rain started to fall. He tried to go home but it was too late: he never found his way.
Relationship with other characters: No relationship at the beginning of the game.
Art is courtesy of Karriguelle
