Welcome to the very first post on our Devlog. We could start by telling you about optimisation constraints, vertical slices, or Basque voice acting — we’ll get there, we promise. But before any of that, it felt right to start at the beginning: who is Kabengo! Games, and why that name?
Where does the name “Kabengo!” come from?
The name comes from a 1980 American documentary, Poto and Cabengo, directed by Jean-Pierre Gorin. It tells the true story of twin sisters who, as children, developed a secret language that only the two of them understood — they called themselves Poto and Cabengo. A private, two-person language, passed on in a way no one really understands, and incomprehensible to anyone outside it.
That image speaks to us directly. It sums up, even before the first line of script, what Adur: The Disappearance is about — a bond between a child and his grandfather who understand each other without ever crossing paths on screen, carried by a language that is itself precious and minority, Basque. That’s the idea the studio’s name carries with it.
What also matters is that this name keeps its exclamation mark — not by chance. There’s energy and drive behind this studio, and we wanted that to come through from the very first letter.
A studio rooted in the Gironde
Kabengo! Games is based in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, on the outskirts of Bordeaux. The South-West and the nearby Basque Country feed directly into our first game, Adur: The Disappearance — in its landscapes, its legends, and even in its language. Working from this land, rather than telling its story from afar, changes the way you write a story.
A conviction: video games as living memory
Our studio was born in 2026 from the meeting of very different paths — visual arts, immersive entertainment, serious gaming, storytelling, video games — brought together around a single idea: video games are today one of the most powerful mediums for bringing a collective memory to life for as many people as possible. Not like a museum you visit, but like a story you move through, that you feel, and in which you make decisions.
It’s this conviction that guides every choice, from writing to art direction: our games draw on very real stories, landscapes and languages to build fiction that rings true.
A close-knit team, shared convictions
Around the project: Myriam Gallo, novelist and Narrative Lead, who gives the studio’s stories their literary depth; Rémi Lonca, a Basque-Landes musician, who treats our games’ music as a territory in its own right; and a technical team with a background in major international productions, guaranteeing the robustness of our pipeline. We’ll introduce them one by one in future posts.
Two stories to tell
Our first title, Adur: The Disappearance, is currently in pre-production: a narrative adventure game that follows, in parallel, the nighttime flight of a six-year-old child and the quest of his grandfather searching for him, set among the landscapes and legends of the Basque Country.
Our second universe, Channig, is still being written: 1918, a Breton coastline, an amnesiac girl washed ashore with the tide. We’ll tell you a lot more very soon.
Why this Devlog
We chose to open the doors of production rather than save it all for launch day. Here, you’ll find our research, our choices, our doubts, our small victories — all without impenetrable jargon, because we’re writing this Devlog for anyone curious about a good story, not just for developers.
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