Indigenous represention?

[Pirateguybrush]

I'm curious as to whether this game includes any acknowledgement of the first nations people of Australia, or if it's primarily about colonising an "empty" land?

[sapling]

The story is lightly post-apocalyptic - you can find old relics like smart phones, wires, etc in the ground, and the characters mention how in the past the people before 'destroyed everything'.

So it's not set in a timeline it would make sense for there to be historical indigenous people.

You can choose the skin/hair of your character; there's no other mention of race.

[Bad Cookies]

Originally posted by Pirateguybrush:

I'm curious as to whether this game includes any acknowledgement of the first nations people of Australia, or if it's primarily white people colonising an "empty" land?

The starting lady is black/brown for me. Not sure if she is related to the main character and is brown because I those my character's color that way or if The old lady is just Brown. If she is black or aboriginal i'm not sure. Same for the researcher. The other 3 characters i've met seem to be white but this isn't Australia just loosely based off of it. The animals seem to be the only thing related to Australia.

[SQQisMommy]

You can make your player character dark skinned and that's as far as it goes. No one wants to pay for a game that makes them feel racial guilt. Not everything is about you.

[ituNik]

bruh

[Teralitha]

This topic was inevitable.

[Nemo]

Others have already commented about the post-apocalyptic context and the apparent lack of a racial structure. I think if you were to include an indigenous population in the game that's still present on the island, you would end up in a situation where the player is actually colonizing and pushing them off their land. You could argue this is an accurate representation of what happened in real life but I don't think it needs to be simulated and would be more problematic than just not including them in the first place. The in-game world is supposed to be different than our world so I think it's ok and wouldn't consider it erasure of history or anything.

[V.V.]

Make your own indigenous character.

[Pirateguybrush]

Ah, making it post-apocalyptic does sidestep that issue a bit. Thanks for the clarification.

[Teyore]

that's a bit racist isn't it? why does that matter?

[Pirateguybrush]

Because if it was set in a modern/historical context without acknowledging that Australia had a native people and culture pre-colonisation, it would be sidelining the fact that white settlers genocided the native population when Australia was colonised.

However if it's a post-apocalyptic setting, that does sidestep the issue a bit. That said, perhaps some acknowledgement of indigenous culture would be worth including regardless. If western culture/building techniques/etc are carried forward in the post-apocalypse, it makes sense that our indigenous cultures would also survive.

[Teyore]

it's this kind of mindset that sucks the fun out of stuff. Why does everything need to be a political statement? its a game not a documentary. Not everything needs to be "wokesplained"

[Pirateguybrush]

Representing Australia as an empty land devoid of native people or culture erases our rich history and it's people. If representation is a "political statement", consciously leaving out important details is surely a political statement as well?

Many people absorb cultural knowledge through media, so that kind of presentation rewrites history in a negative way. When you use a real place as the setting for your story, the way you present it is important.

To be clear, I'm not claiming this specific game does this (the post-apocalyptic setting changes the context). My initial post was simply asking for more information.

[James]

I think that including elements from the many different Indigenous Australian cultures would make the game more interesting and unique. However, I don't identify as Indigenous Australian, so I thought it would be inappropriate for me to incorporate them into the game.

I developed the game on a shoestring budget, by myself for 4 years. I did reach out to my local elders but due to covid and my inability to adequately compensate them for their time, I was unable to get someone to help me incorporate new elements.

I hope that in the future I can find a way to include more Indigenous Australian culture like some of the Dreamtime stories for example.

[Pirateguybrush]

Thanks for replying! It's awesome that you looked into it, and I think you made the right call on holding back on those elements without proper consultation. Hopefully you're able to work some of that in later.

In case there's any confusion, I didn't mean any of this as an attack on you or your game - I was just interested after seeing the trailer, then got caught up arguing with a few racists here.

[thetoe]

Dude, it's a game.