Friday, February 23, 2018

Games Manifesto

I previously blogged about Australian made games that feature Aussie themes, characters and locations. Florence, TY the Tasmanian Tiger, Golf Story and Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze are juts a few examples.  However the majority of games made in Australia are location agnostic or set in other places. Very few include Australian themes or characters.

I made two Aussie themed games back int he early mid 2000's - TY the Tasmanian Tiger and it's sequel Bush Rescue. I did the initial design on the 3rd instalment before leaving Krome in 2005. I've also tried to set up new projects that have a strong Aussie bent.

Steve Stamatiadis and I created a concept called Kat Burglar, staring Aussie Kat Kelly as a free spirited adventurer who specialised in re-acquiring cultural items that had been taken from the original native owners. Her catch phrase was "It doesn't belong in a museum!" and was an anti-Indiana Jones.
Kat Burglar took relics from museums and returned them to the countries of origin


We designed the game and built a prototype but sadly we couldn't find publisher interest.

Like many Aussies, I also wanted to make a Mad Max game, and over time produced many pitches for games inspired by the movie. We even got to pitch EA on doing the official Mad Max game back in 2003 before Fury Road was put on hiatus.
Desert Riggers - a Mad Max inspired game design from 2003


Right now Pete Mullins and I are slowly building out Billy Carts, an Australian themed racing game featuring Aussie animals - it kind of follows in the footsteps of TY with a humorous take on the genre with a larrikin sense of humour.
Billy Carts

So, with a renewed interest in making games that celebrate Australia I thought it could be useful to create a manifesto as a set of guidelines to help myself and others make these games. Then it occurred to me that this just isn't about Australian games - it's about making personal games - and that could apply to anyone, anywhere.

Some of my favourite creators, no matter how otherworldly their content is, have always infused their art with their DNA. George Lucas drew upon his experiences growing up in Modesto, his love of cars and the serials he watched as a kid and put those in Star Wars. The Empire and the Rebellion were also inspired by the Vietnam war which affected him and his generation.

Likewise JK Rowling took her very real life experiences of poverty and depression as inspiration for themes in Harry Potter as well as drawing upon people she knew for characters and places she lived as settings.

Of course these are just two famous examples - so many great writers draw upon their own lives for inspiration.

So, here is my first pass at a manifesto. It's no longer about making Australian games but about making personal games.

Games that can only be made by you.
Games Manifesto 1st Draft


So, what do you think?
Is this a manifesto that you could use?
What would you change?

- Johnno




2 comments:

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Unknown said...

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