“ Game development is the task of building a new world, and games are the window to the artist”
“Developers should never stop asking themselves…”
[What is a game?]
Fun, play, kill time, relieve stress…
Gorgeous graphics, thrilling action, solid story…
Shoot, hunt, get items, level up, quests…
[What is the game business?]
do you have money Who is your target audience? what genre? development cost?
How about market analysis, SWOT, STP strategy and IMC? Overseas market?
Any user who likes games or anyone in the industry who develops and services games will answer questions and answers that cannot be avoided. In particular, in the current game market, where large corporations account for more than 90% of the total size, it is clear that this is a keyword that can only be sympathized with if you are a developer who has to work hard to increase the chances of ‘success’ or ‘survival’.
However, Somi, a single developer, has been trying to break away from this one-size-fits-all planning and development, and to empathize and discuss with gamers the values of life that she wants to convey through games. Let’s hear his philosophy and story, who has been able to express the autonomy of the subject that only indie games can express without being constrained by anyone, away from the commercial ‘numerical approach’.
A study on political and social issues occurring in reality
‘Reflica’, a representative work released by developer Somi in 2016, is a mystery game in which gamers pick up an unknown cell phone and spy on social media accounts, messages, and photos to find the suspects of terrorism.
The developer was inspired by the main character of his favorite novel ‘The Talented Ripley’ and started planning, but the subject was changed to reflect the social times that appeared at the time of development. At a time when critics of government policies were blacklisted and suppressed, and when it was revealed that the National Intelligence Service had turned innocent citizens into spies and suppressed them, the government imported cyber weapons from Italian criminal organizations, and the ruling party at the time He also proposed the Anti-Terrorism Act, aiming at the authority of lawful monitoring and control.
“ Bystander = accomplice ”, expressing guilt over oneself through a game
Developer Somi said that in these times, she thought a lot about how she would eat well and live well just because it had no direct impact on her life. Others are raising their voices for democracy and justice on the streets, in parliament, and in the workplace, but they don’t speak out and feel rather noisy, asking themselves, ‘Have I lost my ability to think?’, ‘I am an accomplice with them. Is it?’, and the game was developed to express the guilt from the bystander position on these social issues.
The Beginning of the Guilt Trilogy ‘Replica’
In the beginning of the game, the protagonist and his friend are imprisoned by the national intelligence agency and hold each other’s cell phones. In order to prove your innocence, you must first prove that your friend is a terrorist.
The main character starts with no information about the current situation, and then the game unfolds with choices and judgments based on the user’s own conscience through text messages from national intelligence officers.
In the end, ‘Replica’ has a tragic ending when the protagonist, who is designated as a terrorist suspect, and the latter of an innocent high school student are revealed to be the real terrorist. The developer said that after the game’s release, users asked many questions about whether this ending was true even though the game’s theme was to criticize the government’s oppression or control.
However, the developer Somi did not intend to define good and evil through this game, and even if the culprit was eventually found after ignoring human rights and procedures within the cause and cause and suppressing the individual, the censorship and evil actions carried out in the process can it be justified? He said he wanted to convey the values, questions and feelings he felt about whether it is right to use all means and methods for the sake of results.
‘Replica’, which was criticized as a ‘red’ by some gamers due to its political meaning, won a number of game awards from indie game-related organizations at home and abroad after its release. It was a big issue with good results.
‘Legal Dungeon’, the absurdity of the judicial system created by the era of all-round performance
‘Regal Dungeon’, released after ‘Releka’, deals with the story of the judicial system. The game proceeds in the form of a user becoming a police officer and writing an investigation report, and through a total of 8 criminal cases, read the 7 to 40 page investigation report and decide whether to prosecute or not.
In the case of ‘Regal Dungeon’, it was developed with the motif of an actual incident related to the self-inflicted assault of police officers at a local police station several years ago. They arrested an innocent person and confessed to the crime, and it was revealed that they had tortured in the process. What is even more surprising is that not just one or two people, but the entire detective team, including the team leader, took part in the crime.
The developer started from the question of ‘what really made people like this’, and through an interview with the chief of police at the time, he realized that this incident was a tragedy of the age of performanceism. For example, if you arrest a murderer, you get 15 points, and if you catch a thief, you get 2 points. A few years later, the incident was gradually forgotten from people’s minds, but the performance-based administration that occurred at the time was extended to the whole country and still serves as a barometer for police officers’ activities. It is said that various personnel policies such as promotion and salaries of police officers are all composed of these performance-oriented performance grades.
A world in which some police officers arrest old people who pick up waste paper in order to increase their arrest record for thieves, or use them as bait to catch thieves and hairy criminals rather than immediately rescue them even if they find someone who has fallen on the road. The developer said that he wanted to ask people through the game. If you became a police officer in the same system, would you have any other choice?
In this motif, the game proceeds in a format in which the player creates a new structure by recombining meaningful information through extensive investigation documents. Every moment the gamer finds and selects clues changes the narrative, and through this, gamers can compare and experience how different and the same the results of the investigation they completed are the same as the real police.
It is said that while making this game for over two years, the developer went through many difficulties and sorrows during the development process. Because it was created based on actual events and precedents, it is possible that the developer himself is not consuming the pain of others for personal creative activities, whether this act is another secondary harm, and defining a specific person as a victim. I have been thinking a lot about whether or not it will put another stigma on people and create a prejudice that they are vulnerable to crime.
Developer Somi vowed to at least make a game that would ensure that the suffering of the victims in the game would not be in vain. He said he wanted to create an opportunity.
After ‘Regal Dungeon’ was released, incumbent police officers who played the game received opinions that it would be good to use the game as a textbook for new police officers at the Central Police Academy. The developer said that he was very proud because the police, portrayed in a rather negative way, seemed to understand the meaning of the game better.
A story about prejudice and hatred toward the marginalized and marginalized, and the way people look at them.
‘The Wake’
‘The Wake’ is a game about the history of love and hate, passed down from grandfather to father and son through a diary. The diary deals with the story of a father he met at his grandfather’s funeral, and the story of the pain and emotions of childhood being replayed by the protagonist meeting his father. The storyline unfolds to understand
‘The Wake’ is a game designed to talk about people who do not belong to the mainstream or normal categories, such as prejudice and hatred toward them, and the way they look at them. As the developer was a topic that was becoming an issue in society at the time, there were a lot of requests from fans to deal with these topics, and it is said that they naturally dealt with issues such as sexual minorities and gender. In addition, it is said that through this game, the contents of the unhappy childhood, the scars, fears, and lifestyle that have not changed to this day are also contained in the game.
Developer Somi said that he had a new experience after reading user reviews of the game after its release. Usually, game reviews are called ‘god game’, ‘dung game’, ‘fun or not’, but in the case of ‘The Wake’, evaluation of the game is excluded and each gamer’s memories, experiences, and family It is said that there were many stories about In this game, which was conducted as a beta test for domestic and foreign volunteers, the testers talked about personal histories of the past rather than mentioning things that need to be fixed or corrected.
Developer Somi said that while reading the review of each gamer’s life, he felt that the basic distinction between ‘I am the creator’ and ‘You are the viewer’ disappeared, as well as the boundary between the two collapsing and intersecting each other. He even thought that each user’s review was a sincere literary essay, and he said that he felt very grateful to some testers after reading and re-reading their pain for a long time.
In ‘The Wake’, there are stories drawn by the author and stories left by gamers, and I thought that the stories of each other could be combined to form another new work. It made me think about empathy and solidarity again.
“ Game development is the task of building a new world, and games are the window to the artist”
“Developers should never stop asking themselves…”
Developer Somi, while developing the Guilt Trilogy, tried to express the aspects and aspects of the subjects she was interested in and worried about, the country, society, and workplace, etc., through the medium of games, social absurdity, structural inequality, and the marginalized due to it. People, it is said that he took the guilt of not doing what he could do in these circumstances and neglecting it as a trigger for the production.
The reality is that it is not easy to recognize evil disguised as anti-communism and patriotism, but rather is confused by terror and anger disguised as good. It is hoped that it will be an opportunity to think once again by making users realize their guilt within these unclear boundaries and experiencing doubts about ‘Am I really a good person?’
Somi believes that game creation is about building a new world, so she has put a lot of effort into not losing specificity and unity. In the creator’s own worldview, the rules for the movement of the world are made, and I believe that the work of giving personality and narrative to the lives within it is inevitably reflected in the creator’s own ideas and values. In the end, you will also take your hate and prejudice with you.
“It is hard to find people around me who say, ‘I purposely discriminate against or hate others’. However, unintentional hatred, prejudice, and ignorance… There are so many people who suffer from these things. I acknowledged that I was not a good racist, and thought that the game I made could cause pain to someone, so I thought I should think more about it.”
“I think the most important part is that the developer has an idea and philosophy that he is not ashamed of as the process of studying more, thinking more, asking questions and realizing himself is repeated. I think these are the most essential and fundamental ways to make a good game that we call culture.”
