The world of upcoming sandbox MMORPG The Wagadu Chronicles has piqued a lot of interest, particularly because its afrofantasy setting isn’t something we get to see a lot of in our genre, let alone gaming entirely. Tackling that challenge was the subject of a video presentation from Twin Drums founder and game designer Allan Cudicio, who spoke as part of an event held by Games for Change.
In the presentation, Cudicio talks about representation of the African continent and Black people in gaming, how Wagadu is trying to break many of those design stereotypes, and the impact of colonialism on Black and African culture, which has erased most traces of ancient civiliations and thus made designing the game difficult in a very unique way.
“Colonialism has done so much damage to the African continent, to Black people, and then literal slavery, that as a game developer working on a Black and African-inspired game, we have to deal with these legacies all the time. It’s so much more work because we have to fight against centuries of destruction.”
While we’ve been following development of Wagadu for a while, the wider MMORPG gaming world might not be quite so familiar with the title, which is why the MMORPG subreddit gave the game a full feature, introducing the game’s world, its development team, and scads of artwork and design. As for Cudicio’s presentation, that can be viewed in the embed below, which is set to play right as the presentation begins.
