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Progress showcase!
You can now check out some of the work we've accomplished at this link! Go check out the game!!
About the fundraiser
My name is Zora and I'm building a videogame called I Am This Castle. This is a fairytale adventure to reach the top of a magical castle, and is about navigating your sense of self as though it were a foreign place.
Check out our progress so far at this link, which will be updated from time to time! You can also check out the initial pitch / concept video I made for the game right here, read more about its rationale here, or take a quick look at the environmental concept art reel below! I'm fundraising to pay the incredible creative team supporting me to build the game in stages of funding, like this:
About the game
I Am This Castle is a first-person, single-player story-driven adventure videogame. It is an experiential allegory for growing up transgender, and it is principally about having an experience of navigating the self as a foreign place. Think Alice In Wonderland written for a trans life story. The next stage of development is to build a pitching version of the game to attract publisher funding.
My vision for the gameplay experience is most inspired by games like:
Firewatch;
What Remains of Edith Finch;
Dear Esther; and
The Old City: Leviathan.
What inspired this game?
The idea to make I Am This Castle was inspired after I delivered a community presentation in 2022 about my lived experience as a trans woman, to improve understanding, compassion and inclusivity through storytelling. You can find the recording right here!
I Am This Castle is based on the events and experiences of my own life, and I drafted the game's narrative in a script / screenplay while supported by a grant from Arts ACT, assisted by Canberra creative Ylaria Rogers (actor, director, dramaturg, and more).
What will I do with the money?
I'll pay creatives! This fundraiser will contribute to any of the prototyping costs for:
- 2D concepting of characters and environments.
- Musical composition.
- Voice talent and related costs.
- An assistant game designer.
- A quality assurance specialist.
- My mentor.
- An initial marketing plan and communications strategy
The actual cost of this prototype is significantly larger than the fundraiser, but I want to be reasonable and realistic about what I ask of my communities.
The game's prototyping was grant-funded, which paid for the smallest version of the game I was able to scope while conveying the vision. Any contributions you make to this fundraiser will allow me to hire skilled artists to further bring the game to life.
Why make this game? (further details at the link!)
This game goes to the heart of our shared humanity, showing that trans stories are relatable human stories. It is an adventurous fictionalisation of my life as a transgender woman and my lifelong search for identity.
- The primary purpose of I Am This Castle is to recount my story as a trans person in a safe and mentally stimulating way so that themes, concepts and memories can be abstracted and experienced without trespassing directly on the lived experiences of players, allowing them to interpret and infer what is most meaningful to them. It takes place in a fantasy setting specifically for this reason.
- The secondary purpose of I Am This Castle is to improve understanding of, and compassion for, trans people and so is intended to also be played by cisgendered people: I Am This Castle exists to advance the gender equity and representation of transgender and other gender diverse people by creating a videogame about one of our life stories.
The team (hyperlink!)
This game creates opportunities for more gender diverse creatives than just myself: 35% of the team is gender diverse (including me), and I am joined by trans and non-binary team members. We are members of the LGBTQIA+ community, the neurodivergent and disabled communities, those with English as a second language, Australians born in other countries now naturalised here, people of faith and those without, 3 different States or Territories of Australia, and 3 generations of Australians.
About the story
From the moment you came into existence, you were promised truth and freedom, life and identity, at the top of a magical castle tower. Helped by other adventurers on their own quests, you are guided towards the top by shards of your future and past self that wander the castle, and you are always kept company by the sentient (and talkative) castle itself. You and the castle share an existence, and your path as the adventurer shapes and changes the castle as you traverse it; your body and mind are intertwined with your progress as you navigate thought-provoking conundrums along the way.
Your growing understanding of yourself and the castle begins to draw out existential faults in the world, causing the castle, and you, to deteriorate. Journey through surreal environments that imagine the human body and mind as a foreign landscape influenced by your perspective and experience, where you will navigate the self as a place, an ongoing process, a separate individual and a cohesive whole, becoming estranged from yourself before succeeding in your quest for self-actualisation and truth.
Organizer
