Brazilian breathes new life into French video game hero Twinsen

A whimsical French computer game that captured imaginations around the world in the 1990s is now being remastered for a new generation. The adventures of Twinsen, an unlikely hero on a magical quest to save the world from an evil dictator, will gain new graphics designed by art director Paulo Torinno, a 34-year-old Brazilian who now lives in Paris.

Mr. Torinno’s path to illustrating the adventures of his childhood hero is as unlikely as Twinsen’s odysseys themselves. Despite being highly rated by gaming magazines at the time, Twinsen only ever starred in two games: Little Big Adventure (1994) and Little Big Adventure 2 (1997). On the U.S. market, the games were called Relentless: Twinsen’s Adventure and Twinsen’s Odyssey, respectively. 

For decades, fans in online forums expressed their hopes for a third game, but the dream never seemed likely to come true.

A few years ago, Mr. Torinno drew a piece of fan art featuring several characters from Twinsen’s world and posted it online. In the center was Zoé, Twinsen’s girlfriend and damsel in distress in the first game, wearing the protagonist’s wizard’s tunic and wielding his main weapon, the Magic Ball. 

At her side was a child, presumably Arthur, her and Twinsen’s son, born at the end of the second game. In the upper-left corner, Mr. Torinno wrote “LBA 3,” as if teasing the concept for the long-awaited sequel.

Mr. Torinno tried to get his fan art to the game’s original creators, to no avail. “I looked for the emails of [designer] Frédérick Raynal and [animator] Didier Chanfray,” he tells The Brazilian Report. “I probably found the wrong ones.”

About two years later, however, Mr. Torinno did...