Finding our main character
Dear Community,
We’d like to tell you more about THE DIPLOMAT, our main character, and the journey that led us to her.
The Beginning
‘Race for the Arctic’ was born in our university games club. We saw games as the ultimate storytelling medium, and we wanted to create games that told important stories. The spark for the game came from an article highlighting the Arctic as Earth's last frontier and a critical global challenge.
We envisioned a racing game set across three time laps coinciding with three time periods spanning 50 years into the future.
Bringing Real Data
To ground our game in reality, we thrived to incorporate real data and testimonies from people closest to the stories, and reached out to scientists , researchers, and indigenous peoples living and working in the Arctic. We were very lucky to find a lot of support from these communities. This is how we discovered the work of Liviu, who later on played a crucial role in helping us build our demo.
Introducing Characters
To anchor players in the story, we created the Freight Family. Through this family we would unravel the experience of three generations navigating the changing Arctic. The player would step into the role of August, the fourth generation, as she learned about her family. Unfortunately, this seemed like a bigger challenge rather than helping the experience:
A story through three perspectives felt disorganised, especially since they would meet at least 6 other characters with their perspectives — in the short timespan of the game we would risk not getting a real understanding of each character.
The player-character lacked agency, as August would look at the world through others’ perspectives, and her fate began to feel pre-destined.
Refining Our Approach
While developing the demo, we reassessed our direction. We wanted to create a more empowering experience for players. This led to the creation of a new protagonist: The Diplomat.
Our Narrative Designer imagined the Diplomat a special envoy in a near-future world. While her official role is to monitor the competition for Arctic resources, she uncovers a different narrative - the efforts of local people racing to preserve the Arctic. She start her own race to find their stories and chronicle them in her journal before it is too late. The game begins when we receive her notebook, shortly after her disappearance.
Current Focus
We've recently secured another grant to prototype the Diplomat's logbook. Our challenge now is to make this logbook both engaging and immersive. We're exploring ways to transport players to the Arctic through this medium, aiming for an experience that's exploratory rather than linear.
We look forward to sharing more updates as we progress!
Resources
🎥 This weekend I watched the premiere of The Remarkable Life of Ibelin a very touching story of the re-imagined life of a gamer, and the importance of digital communities
🎮 The Palace on the Hill is a beautiful game that lets you experience a glimpse of life in rural India
📖 I am currently reading Up Down Up a great source if you are looking to start your own games studio