To Hell With the Ugly now available on Switch

La Poule Noire, developer and ARTE France, co-producer and publisher are proud to announce that their game, To Hell With the Ugly, is now available for Switch for 19.99€ / $19.99. Imagined with La Poule Noire, the sixteenth video game co-produced and edited by ARTE adapts Boris Vian’s classic novel of the same name, which mixes murder, investigation and humor.

To Hell With the Ugly is the first of ARTE France’s games to be released on all consoles at the same time, celebrating its 10 years of involvement in the French independent video game industry.

Adapted from the novel by Boris Vian, To Hell With the Ugly is an adventure game that follows the story of Rock Bailey, a young man whose only redeeming quality is his remarkably handsome looks. When he is mysteriously kidnapped and tortured outside a jazz club, he sets out to uncover the truth behind his abduction, with turn-based fights and investigations along the way.

Players must explore LA’s darkest corners, gather clues by interviewing locals and interact with the environment. But sometimes, the only way to get the information they need is through fist fights, involving timing and precision.

In the City of Angels in the 1950s, the handsome Rock Bailey refuses the advances of women, saving his virtue for his 20th birthday. At a party at the Zooty Slammer, a club known for its glamorous clientele and jazz sets, he is drugged without his knowledge and kidnapped. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a strange hospital.

Why was he kidnapped and by whom? Rocky goes in search of his abductors. In his quest for revenge and truth he finds himself involved in a horrible machination. In the blaze of an incredibly red sunset, the summer weighs on the city, and organized crime seeps in everywhere, even in the back rooms of the most exclusive jazz clubs.

Provocative and burlesque, To Hell With the Ugly is a game that navigates between thriller and anticipation, denouncing superficiality through its body-built hero and a disturbing clinic with eugenic practices.

As a detective but also as a fighter, the hero has to engage in numerous battles against the various opponents who stand in his way. The player will have to investigate 1950s LA and gather clues to solve Rocky’s kidnapping.

Investigation, street fights, chases: all the ingredients are gathered to recreate Boris Vian’s vision of Los Angeles. Daring to be anachronistic, the soundtrack borrows from Hitchcock’s as well as De Palma’s.