The hope is to introduce more people to Ojibwe culture.
MINNEAPOLIS — A new video game is helping to teach people about Ojibwe culture.
Reclaim! Azhe-giiwewining was developed by Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia. Lead Developer Anangookwe Hermes said this game has been in the works for five years.
“Started with community-led brainstorming workshops that were conducted in the Ojibwe language. The idea was to be kind of be immersive from the very start,†Hermes said.
She worked on the game with her mother, Mary Hermes, a University of Minnesota professor. Mary started Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia to help revitalize her culture.
In the game, you play as Miskwaa, a teenage Ojibwe girl.
“The idea is that she's from the city and she's visiting her grandma on the reservation, and her grandma sends her out to pick berries. She picks some berries and kind falls asleep while picking berries and then wakes up in the game, in this mysterious forest area where the seasons are kind of shifting and everything can talk to you in Ojibwe,†Anangookwe said.
Miskwaa needs to use Ojibwe to reunite with her grandmother.
“The idea was to be able to present the language in a context that wasn't formal,†Anangookwe said. “We wanted to create more accessible entertainment that used the language and showcased the language.â€
She said the goal is to introduce people to the language and culture in an entertaining way.
“Throughout the game, we have references to traditional ecological knowledge, traditional subsistence activities,“ she said. “This game could be in classrooms, but there should still be some other classroom work happening to kind of support the game, right, it's not a textbook, it's a video game.â€
She said it's tricky to get into classrooms, so they're working on making the game more accessible by working on a mobile port option for iPads, phones, and Chromebooks. Right now, the game can be played on a desktop or laptop.
Anangookwe said she never intended to be so heavily involved in the game. The COVID pandemic disrupted her research on virtual reality, and then this game came up.
“Originally, I had just signed on to facilitate the workshops, but the person who was originally co-signed to that grant and to develop couldn't, so I wanted to still make sure the work we did in those initial workshops eventually became a game,†she said. “I ended up playing more while working on it.â€
She said the most interesting part of the game is the active translation and how certain lines have changed from English to Ojibwe.
“So, a lot of this was pretty tricky because of the differing word lengths, so Ojibwe is a language that has long words, but a long word could be a whole sentence on its own,†she said.
Anangookwe said the characters in the game have so much personality and emote so much of the language.
“I didn't realize how much of my community would be reflected in the work until we added the voice acting and music; it really brought everything to life,†Anangookwe said.
They also used traditional instruments, but she was cautious not to make it sound too stereotypical.
“I think typically when you hear something marketed as Ojibwe music, or its trying to signify that it's a lot of wood, flutes, and hand drums, and then it doesn't go much further than that but we really wanted to make sure that the guitar and violin and all of those instruments were included because that's the music that we see in our communities,†she said.
This is the first game Anangookwe has finished developing, and he said each scene is a different season.
“We wanted it to authentically represent those seasons, so we went through and identified specific birds to specific seasons,†Anangookwe said.
She said she's proud of the game they created and hopes people will give it a try.
“It's for anyone who wants to see an authentic view of Ojibwe culture,†she said.
Anangookwe said the game is for people of all ages. She said people can demo the entire first level.
