As part of the EPIC-WE project’ s goal, two games from each Cultural Hub are to be selected and developed into a playable cultural game. And the first game from the Aarhus Cultural Hub has been selected: Congratulations to Team Puzlerne, Maren Valentin, Oliver Oak, Abtin and Gaia Mikkelsen, whose game for culture has been selected as the first to represent the value and potential of games through/for culture with their game Metamorphosis! The game is now in a design process where the game studio Mothworks are collaborating with the original team to finalise and actualise their cultural game.
On the collaboration, Maren Valentin, who is part of Team Puzlerne, appreciates the inclusion in the process:
“It has been very exciting to be included in the design process and see how an actual game studio functions. It gives me hope that our game can become an actual game.”
The cultural game was selected by our Aarhus Cultural Hub and included representatives from the Youth Advisory Board as equal members of the selection process together with representatives from the game industry, cultural heritage, and the academic sector. The game was chosen based on its multiple qualities of both craftmanship in the artistic expression, for its interpretation and actualisation of the EU-value of freedom as the “freedom to choose who you are”, and for its integration of multiple cultural heritage art-pieces from both Olafur Eliasson, Andy Warhol, and Sif Itona Westerberg as part of its mediation of cultural heritage through playful interactions with prisms, colours and gender motifs.
When asked about the design-process, Amalie Kae, Director, Producer and writer at Mothworks answers:
“The best part of this project is working directly with the original jammers, hands down. Their drive and engagement has been absolutely infectious, from the start! Not to say that the original creators’ perspective, as unapologetically young and awesomely expressive new designers, mixed with the influence of the art pieces that inspired them, has led to a game that we personally think is both charming and quite unique. Those two forces – the jammers’ voices and the cultural heritage artworks – have been a beautiful storm. We’re ecstatic to be the vessel that brings it all together.”
The game for culture will be exhibited as part of Next-Library on the 27th of May at Dokk1 Denmark and will be available at the EPIC-WE Resource Site for all to play and explore.
Thanks to both Mothworks and to Puzlerne for their collected efforts in this EPIC process!
Team Mothworks
- Troels Windekilde (He/Him) – Programmer, Game Designer
- Amalie Kae (She/Her) – Director, Writer and Developer
- Anne Eva Schulin (She/Her) – Art Lead and CG Generalist
Team Puzlerne
- Maren Valentin (She/Her) – Gamemaster
- Gaia Mikkelsen (They/Them) – Artist
- Oliver Oak Stauenberg Urth (He/Him) – Storyteller and Crafter
- Abtin (He/Him) – Designer and Sound-Designer
Additional statements from Amalie Kae:
What has been the most unforeseeable challenge?
There’s a few challenges, but none of them have been particularly unforeseeable. The biggest challenge, is – of course – to introduce people who aren’t used to the games industry to what’s possible in such a limited timeframe. Game development is quite time consuming, and therefore we’ve had to crush a few dreams, unfortunately. But lucky for us, the original jammers have been eternally understanding, and they’ve been brilliant at adapting, and working with us, on what’s possible in the very narrow timeframe we have.
Can you see a potential for this method of including cultural heritage or youth in a work process in the future?
We are a quite artistically driven game studio, and may not necessarily represent all game developers, but art is always part of our creative process at Mothworks. That being said, taking such direct inspiration from very specific cultural heritage works at ARoS has been a very interesting creative constraint, and we personally think it’s made the design of Metamorphosis better. It’s a nice reminder, when you need an extra boost of inspiration, to look at your source material, and let that guide you onwards.
