Survivance (www.survivance.org) is an indigenous social impact game that honours storytelling and art as self-determined pathways to healing from historical trauma caused by colonization in Turtle Island (North America). Survivance is adapted from the multimedia health and wellness project Discovering Our Story, which was developed by the non-profit organization Wisdom of the Elders alongside indigenous storytellers. A playtesting study of the prototype was conducted with urban indigenous players living in Portland, Oregon, to determine the impact of Survivance. This paper describes the development process, design, playtesting, and outcomes of playtesting the game in the context of biskaabiiyang methodology, an Anishinaabe approach of “returning to ourselves”. Playtesting shows that intergenerational exchanges of traditions, stories, and art practices are pathways to wellbeing that influence the player's self, various forms of community, and the greater world, while also fostering a reciprocal relationship with spirit.
Games offer a space for Indigenous artists to reify the connections between tradition and technology since Indigenous games can directly engage players in Indigenous ways of knowing through design and aesthetic. The social impact game Survivance, the musical choose-your-own-adventure text game We Sing for Healing, and the mobile game Invaders exemplify games as self-determined spaces for Indigenous expression. And yet, these examples still merely hint at possibilities of self-determined Indigenous games as access to technology expands and the potential to design systems with Indigenous perspectives from the code up unfolds.
When the Indian Land Tenure Foundation saw the need to actively respond to concerns regarding the lack of Indigenous-led land-centered knowledge in schools, they collaborated with Indigenous educators and knowledge carriers on the Lessons of Our Land curriculum. With the goal of supplementing this curriculum with an interactive way of engaging in knowledge, they collaborated with the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab at Michigan State University to design and develop a game aimed at middle-school and high-school students in both public and tribally-owned schools. The resulting 2D adventure game When Rivers Were Trails has since been play-tested by middle-school and high-school youth across the United States during a pilot study. Results indicate best practices for implementation, including specific discussion topics as well as the role of the game as part of an Indigenization of education.
Video games can be dynamic sovereign spaces for Indigenous representation and expression when the self-determination of Indigenous people is supported. Where games are concerned, self-determination involves the autonomy and right of Indigenous people to make key decisions regarding the process of how a game is developed as well as what that game entails. A game is sovereign when self-determination is a respected practice throughout all phases of development from conceptualization to distribution. In what ways can games be sovereign and what challenges may be faced? Utilizing comparative case studies of the self-determined games Lost Memories, Terra Nova, and When Rivers Were Trails, this research identifies possible approaches and challenges for sovereign games looking at development as well as the resulting designs.
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