Some of the friendliest and most excited faces I saw at PAX this year were at the booth for Blaktasia, Australia’s first ever Aboriginal-led mobile game. GUCK, the team behind it, were showing off the game for the first time ever during Melbourne International Games Week this year. Set in a Blak world inspired by Country, in Blaktasia you have to save your home from The Murk, a force that drains the life from the land.
The gorgeous visuals drew me into the demo straight away, and you can feel the love for the natural world dripping off of this game. The beauty of native Australian plants and animal life is on full display, and drives the anti-colonialist message. All of the plants you unlock to help drive off The Murk are Australian natives, and I was reminded how special the natural world of our home is as I scrolled through the list of available flora.
The overworld section of the game has a very scrapbook-esque feeling to it, reminiscent of titles like Don’t Starve (but with a much brighter and happier tone). You drive back The Murk by collecting seeds and unlocking native plants to reclaim more of the land, with the end goal being to save the bush from its corrupting spread.
I got to play through several of Blaktasia’s minigames as well. My personal highlights included an anteater game, where you drag your long, seemingly endless tongue through a maze of underground tunnels seeking out those delicious, juicy ants. Then you sit back and giggle in delight as the tongue retracts, ricocheting its way back through the path you traced. Another favourite was a gay love story between two Rainbow Lorikeets, requiring you to collect delicious goodies to impress your love.
According to an interview with the National Indigenous Times, the team has taken a lot of inspiration from their own personal experiences. “We’ve all got our own stories that we carry with us, and that comes through in everything we create.” They also found that the game resonated immediately with Blak players – “One thing we’ve noticed is when the mob that play it, it seems to make sense to them.”
Blaktasia will be completely free when it’s released, with the entire team set to go their separate ways once the project is completed and initial post-launch support is done. GUCK have also been doing consultation and lobbying work for years, paving the way for radical change in how First Nations people are represented and how their voices are platformed.
This team are trying to create real, tangible change in the wider industry, and when this project is done and dusted, the team’s expertise will hopefully spread with them.
About the Author
Douglas Rintoul
he/him
Douglas is a writer, comedian, performer, and software developer who enjoys procrastinating any and all responsibilities by playing and replaying games. You can find him performing at the arts festivals around Australia, both solo and with his sketch comedy group Bits Akimbo.
