On not compromising your creative vision

Let’s start at the beginning, tell me a little bit about Take Us North and how it came to life.

So, the whole ethos of my studio, Anima Interactive, is focused on socially conscious storytelling, and trying to harness the power of interactive media and video games for good. I really believe that video games are the most immersive art form and, with them, you can foster empathy and shift hearts and minds around specific topics.

When I was thinking about the debut game that I wanted to work on, I settled on “write what you know.” Migration is something that has always interested me as a first-generation immigrant here in the US. My father’s from Guatemala, my mother’s from the Philippines, and my father actually made the border crossing and a lot of my family did, so this was always a subject matter I was interested in.

I had played games like Bury Me, My Love and there was also this VR experience called CARNE y ARENA, which was done by the Mexican filmmaker, Alejandro Inarritu. That was a really powerful experience, too, which reinforced this possibility that we can use this medium to try to humanize stories and be able to capture the nuance that you can’t capture in other platforms or mediums.

Before the game took shape or form, what was the feeling or atmosphere you were trying to chase? Was there a moment when you knew this was the kind of story you wanted to tell?

I’ve always been interested in audiovisual immersion and creating an ambiance—the vibes, essentially. I know that might be a take that not that many game designers focus on. Traditional game designers focus on mechanics and that kind of thing, which is obviously essential. But I think I like living in a world, and so I want people to feel what that world is and what is the emotional impact created. So a lot of the pillars that we focus on are rooted in emotions, since that’s what we’re trying to get the audience to take away from the experience.

How did you and your team decide to utilize the video game narrative to tell such an important story specifically? I know you spoke a little bit about how great of a medium it is, but whenever you were deciding, even just the style of video game as well, how did you come to that conclusion to use it?

I definitely wanted to focus on making sure that this was sensitive and authentic. And I felt like photorealism—given the constraints that we’re indeed developers—we didn’t really want to go the photorealistic route. Because there’s a lot of abstract ideas and emotion, I really like abstract art and I think there’s a lot that—going back to the emotional impact piece—you can take away from it.

When we were thinking about the style, the art style, for example, we knew that we wanted to focus on the beauty of the natural landscapes because the settings of this journey are actually really beautiful. You go through these deserts, but they’re very lush, so there’s a lot of beautiful vegetation, the jungle, like the Darién Gap, the rivers, these places in Latin America that aren’t captured much in video games. We really saw that as an exciting opportunity.

Then beyond the actual art style, the characters, for example are faceless, and that was intentional. The 3D models are faceless because there’s this poetic intention behind that, which is that unfortunately a lot of these migrants have to be in the shadows, and so they are faceless, but at the same time we do want to show the humanity that they have. That’s why we have voiceover because that connects people. I think voice translates emotion really well. And we have 2D character portraits as well, so you can see expression.

I think it’s interesting that there’s a juxtaposition between the beautiful atmosphere that’s captured in the art style as far as the terrain that’s traversed and such a challenging endeavor that so many people face, but at the same time, the general public doesn’t really understanding all that well.

Yeah, that’s a theme that’s really been a through-line in a lot of the research I’ve conducted. There is always this juxtaposition of this harrowing danger, the trauma, but also the beauty and spirituality is a huge part of it as well. So we lean into surrealism and magic realism, and those are the more artistic elements that we can include. We’ve talked about the things like the shrines and the more meditative aspects of the experience, and juxtaposing that with the physical adversity of what’s happening is the intention.

I know that you drew from lots of sources, but you also interviewed people who had experienced migrating. How do you protect your creative vision while also keeping those real elements at the emotional core of the story? How do you stay open to that feedback while also collaborating with the team and then also making a narrative that has to follow certain plot points and beats?

That’s why we got a lot of the folks with lived experience and the experts involved very early in the process—we’re co-evolving and co-writing the story, essentially. I had a vision of what broadly I wanted to cover as far as the themes, but the nuance and the granularity and the detail of it I think is very much informed by the stories.

And, as far as compromising creative vision, it hasn’t really had to happen yet. Truly, the research piece has only been additive, because that’s part of what we’re doing that I think is a little bit unique to other experiences. Obviously, it’s been done before, but we are really drawing real world artifacts and real world environments and real world stories and translating them into this game. It’s fictionalized, but it’s inspired by real world. The story has written itself in a way because they exist.

It’s interesting that you said that you haven’t really had to compromise your creative vision at all, which I think is great to hear, but was that something that you anticipated or are you surprised of how smoothly it’s gone?

Oh, well, it hasn’t been smooth. Indie game development is very challenging. And one of the reasons why we launched the Kickstarter is because we’re hoping to build community and get feedback from the community. I think one of the reasons why a lot of indie developers end up having to compromise their creative vision is maybe because of external forces like publishers.

And certainly, in some of those conversations that I’ve had with publishers, people have been like, “Well, why aren’t you scoping it differently or considering different genres? Why isn’t it a roguelike because of replay ability?” And intriguingly, this type of story can lend itself to a roguelike, but again, because we want to be sensitive to it, I think having a more linear authored experience and taking people on a journey that is a little bit more controlled so that people can’t just run around and abstract themselves from, again, that emotional impact that we’re trying to create.

So with that in mind, too, games often go through a long period of iteration. What’s stayed the same from the very first beginning, and then what has changed dramatically

Well, this game has evolved so much, honestly. It’s been really cool to watch, but I think the core ethos and philosophy behind it is really what’s stayed the same. It’s been nice to check in with the team, because we’ll do these intermittent check-ins, like, “Are we all aligned on what the vision of this game is and the direction that we’re taking?” In game development, it’s kind of like baking, you never know what you’re going to get, what’s going to come out on the other side.

As far as what’s remained the same are the general themes like, “Okay, well, we know that traversing this desert is a core part of this experience that we want to capture because the Sonoran Desert specifically is one of the deadliest migrant trails in the world, and it’s really fascinating because of the demographics of the migrants that come through this desert.”

And then initially we were like, “Is it just going to be in the desert?” But there are all of these other parts of the migrant trail that we think are important and enrich the story. And so, I always had the vision to include aspects of the trail, like The Beast, which is the freight train that runs through Mexico, and the Darién Gap, which is another very dangerous but beautiful trail.

But I think that desert piece was really important as well as the walking aspect, because even though you’re on a freight train and you take this long journey, there’s something about the challenge of walking for miles through a desert and having to face extreme heat and extreme cold. And that impact, it’s biblical in a way.

Do you and your team have a core takeaway or just experience or feeling that you’re hoping people will experience whenever they play Take Us North?

The primary goal has always really been empathy. And I know that’s maybe a cliché response, but that is truly what I think we need, an understanding. I take for granted, obviously now, the fact that I possess a lot of this understanding. And I’m still learning every day, there’s so much to learn about these things, but because I’ve been so deeply rooted in research on the subject matter for a few years now, and have personal ties to it, I know a lot about it. That said, I’m mindful that the broader population might not. And even people who are first generation immigrants don’t really know that much.

One of the things that’s come out of this development process has been the fact that some of our team members have been able to become closer to their families because they start talking about it and then the stories come out. My father didn’t tell me about his border crossing story until I was an adult because he was ashamed of it. And I think it’s opening up conversations. That’s been an interesting thing that’s come in some of our research, where people are like, “I want to play this game with my parents or even my grandparents,” and that’s exciting. We also did a showcase in London and it was just fascinating to see the reactions.

Because it’s a culture that’s so far removed, people in the UK?

Exactly. Which means it is validating and encouraging because it means that it’s being conveyed. Obviously, there’s still a lot of work to do, but at the bare minimum, people are learning and they are opening their hearts and minds to what’s happening.

Take Us North is kind of a story that never ends really, because there are always going to be people that are experiencing this.

I’m curious how have you and your team come up with an ending point for the game? What did that look like and what did that process kind of feel like? How do you decide when a story that never really ends is finished?

Well, I think there are ways and motifs to show that it hasn’t ended or this is not a finite thing. So in the game, you play the role of a migrant guide, and so it’s literally their job to do this trip multiple times and to go through this journey multiple times. And so, this is just one journey, but then obviously I don’t want to spoil things for the ending, but it is hinted at that it doesn’t really end necessarily.

And that is something that we do want to show, because migration, even if you make it to your dream destination, the adversities that you experience, and what we know about what it is to be an immigrant and the challenges, that doesn’t end. And sometimes you have to go through this, right?

That’s been, going back to the whole biblical thing, humans have been migrating for centuries. It’s an interminable journey. It’s just a part of humanity and society, and I think being able to highlight that is certainly something that we want to focus on. And then there are potential multiple endings that are in play, but there is an overarching kind of end note that we want folks to take away from it.

There’s always this challenge of perfectionism in game development, and people sometimes don’t want to show early, because what you show the audience, they’ll react to. And you’ll get these reviews immediately, and it’s a binary response. People either like it or they won’t. And if they don’t, then that’s it.

But in our case, especially with Kickstarter, a lot of creators are showing their work early and showing work in progress.

There’s this Japanese philosophy, wabi-sabi, it’s all about finding beauty in imperfection. And I embrace that, because I decided even though it is hard, you have to just know that. There’s also a quote that I’ve seen where it’s like, “Just make the art exist and then you can improve it later.” And so that’s been the approach to the development process. And with games, it’s always iterative.

Really, I don’t think anything is ever truly finished, but I like setting this external accountability structure and having deadlines, because otherwise we will get stuck.