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I’m making a videogame

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August 28, 2023

Whether you are a gamer or you’ve never played a game, I’d like to tell you about something I’d like you to play. Once I’m done making it, that is.

A little introduction, first. My name is Bansuri. I’m a trans woman, I’m a 1.5 generation Nepali-American, and I come from a family of worriers. Right now, I am very, very worried about very basic things: water, air, soil. Climate stuff. More on that later.

Image of a popular comic panel showing a dog wearing a hat sitting at a table with a cup of coffee. The room is on fire. The dog is wearing a blank expression.

The last game I worked on was anything but worrisome. It’s called What The Bat?, and it’s about growing up with baseball bats instead of hands. The biggest threat in that game were seagulls stealing art. It’s a wacky minigame adventure à-la-WarioWare and you should totally play it if you’ve got a VR headset.

Cover art for What The Bat? In the foreground: a cheerful, bespectacled girl wearing her baseball cap backwards; she has baseball bats instead of hands; there is a baseball right next to her as well as a bulldog wearing 3D glasses sporting a golden trophy on its head. In the background: a rocket heading towards a ringed planet, from which a robot elephant is shooting lasers out of its eyes; there is also a UFO using a tractor beam to suck up sheep from a meadow.

After working on that game, however, my life took a dark turn. I went into hermit mode in a medieval village in the hills, and I got in touch with my shadow side. That’s the part of my psyche that wants to drown my feelings in chocolate while watching the world burn. The thought pattern is: I want to save the world, but I feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, so I choose to do something fun instead. Can you relate?

I got a bit closer to this shadow — a frightening creature in the mirror — and I heard it saying: Let the world burn. We deserve it.

A portrait of Kali by Abhishek Singh.

During my meditations, Kali ma came to mind. She is the destroyer of the universe, the mother of time, darkness embodied. With her guidance, the shadow took form in the mirror: neither a useless dark blob nor a terrifying monster, but an unworried, angry woman who is ready to change the world.

How?

By making videogames, of course. Choosing to make a game was, by no means, a foregone conclusion. If you want to save the world, wouldn’t it make more sense to plant trees instead of staying on the computer all day long? I genuinely asked myself that question, and the answer was: Yes, but the world isn’t that simple and neither am I. So, instead of doing the very important, potentially world-saving work of planting trees, I’ve decided to make a videogame.

So, what’s the game about?

A sketch board. From top left to bottom right: A brown woman in blue overalls holding grass in one hand and a sickle in the other; graffiti saying “stop the massacre”; a character with violet hair and a bindi; a jinn-like figure; a map showing a reservoir with pipes connected to an aquifer; a bicycle; a stone house; and a tree with eyes, lips, and hands.

It’s about adventure. Intrigue. Truth. Courage. Community. Sabotage.

A sketch of a chapel on a hill, under which there is a church, a temple, a sanctuary, and an aquifer.

It’s about what history has to tell about the future.

A sketch of a two-story stone townhouse. The balcony on the second floor looks withered. “Asha’s mother’s house” is scribbled at the bottom.

It’s about migration, and a place to call home.

A sketch of a map. In the south, there is a village on a river. In the north, there are farms and a reservoir. Pipes from the reservoir reach into the mountains in the east as well as into the hill beside the village, where there is an aquifer. Sketches of two separate locations are shown in bubbles beside the map: the one on the left shows a big city, showing a building and a crane, and the one on the right shows stars in space.

It’s about water, air, soil.

The fire in our hearts.

The wisdom of darkness.

I’m at the concept stage, doing research, gathering references, sketching, and writing the game design document as well as the story. My hope is that what I’ve shared here resonates with you, fires your neurons, and makes you feel things. If so, I’d love to hear about it. My email is bansuri.bashyal@gmail.com and you can find me on Twitter or Instagram at @ban.su.ri.