Gary Et La Forêt Infinie
Open the game- Brand
- Garance
- Year
- 2025
- Objective
- Other
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Merci-Michel
Objective
Garance, a French mutual insurance and savings group, wanted a way to make the basics of saving feel approachable rather than abstract, as part of its 2025–2028 strategic plan built around financial education. The game was designed to reach "petits et grands" alike — not just students in a classroom — so the brand needed something playful enough to hold attention outside a lesson plan. Its risk/reward mechanics were built deliberately, with harder-to-collect items paying off more, to let players feel the link between risk and return rather than just read about it.
Solution
Gary, a small bear, climbs an endlessly generated forest, and the player guides him upward, bouncing off insects and balancing across logs and beams as the path scrolls by. Along the way they collect berries, the game's single currency, and at any point can duck into a shop to spend them: six temporary boosts — a magnet, a protective heart, a rocket, an arrow, a parachute, a multiplier — that only help for the current climb. The alternative is to plant a tree instead, which locks in a permanent change for every future run: a birch adds new objectives, a fir lowers shop prices, a coconut tree grants extra lives. Each session ends when Gary falls, and the trees planted carry over, so the next climb starts a little different from the last. The same build doubles as a trade-show attraction, with visitors steering the giant screen from their own phone.
- 1
The game opens on play.garance.com with a title screen showing a loading bar and animated plants, reached via the "Jouer" button on Garance's financial-education section.
- 2
In the core run, the player guides Gary the bear mascot upward through an endless forest, jumping across tiers of horizontal log platforms while the camera scrolls up, collecting glowing red berries as the in-game currency.
- 3
Insects along the way double as bounce points: jumping on one launches Gary higher and defeats it, triggering an on-screen "Cool!" praise.
- 4
The platforming carries risk and reward — some berries sit in precarious spots that are easy to miss and fall from, and those harder-to-reach berries pay out more.
- 5
Temporary pickups alter movement mid-run: a rocket grabs Gary and rockets him upward past several platform tiers, while a parachute opens on a fall and lets him drift safely down between logs instead of dropping.
- 6
Between runs, the player spends accumulated berries in a shop on temporary boosts: a magnet, a heart for enemy protection, the rocket, an attacking arrow, the parachute, and a berry multiplier.
- 7
The central decision is whether to spend berries in the shop or invest them instead by planting a tree, trading immediate gains for lasting ones.
- 8
Planting offers a choice of tree, each granting a different permanent perk: a birch adds new quests, a fir lowers shop prices, and a coconut tree grants extra lives.
- 9
Planted trees persist across sessions, making later runs through the forest easier and longer, and the loop of running, collecting berries, and choosing to spend or invest repeats indefinitely with no fixed end.
- 10
At Garance's physical event booths, the same experience runs as an offline variant: visitors scan a QR code to turn their phone into a controller for a large-screen version of the game.
