Hey everyone,
Greetings from beautiful Kyiv! Valerii here, the studio head at Twigames.
Probably some of you know (and somebody definitely doesn't) that we send newsletters sometimes. We send it every 4-6 weeks to share our updates. Also, as the project is very personal for us, we make different people from the team to write that letters as personal ones. We just want to tell to our community more about our personal feelings and reasons to work on the project about the war. Hope it would be interesting for you.
Feel free to subscribe at the game's website: https://www.hollowhomegame.com/
I also thought that would be nice to keep these letters somewhere, so I decided to post them here. The first letter was written by me and was send in July before we released the teaser. So it is a bit old. But all the following ones we'll post here in time.
So who am I
I’m the studio head here at Twigames and serve as a Lead Producer on Hollow Home. I started as a programmer more than 10 years ago, gradually shifting to managing and producing roles.
In 2015 I founded Twigames, where we developed lots of games, both on our own and as an outsourcing outfit: mobile projects, PC, console, VR/AR, you name it.
In 2017 I also started the Kyiv Indies Meetup, which sadly is currently on pause because of the full-scale russian invasion
How did we come up with the idea of Hollow Home & why did we decide to develop it
The idea of Hollow Home was born last spring when we were reading about the brutal russian onslaught on Mariupol. The heroic defenders of “Azovstal” were still holding the steel plant. The shocking events were all over the news but we still felt that more people around the world should know what horror is happening there and all over Ukraine.
As a game development studio, we felt we should stick to what we do best and transform our grief into a game. And as games are the biggest media form out there, we can reach people’s hearts around the world.
How are we handling the sensitive theme of the ongoing war
We are fully aware that we’re dealing with an extremely hard theme. People in our country are killed by russians each day, almost everyone in Ukraine lost somebody in the war. So our top priority is the utmost respect for the victims. That's why we don’t make Hollow Home an action-packed entertainment piece. We can’t create a “fun” experience out of others’ suffering. So instead we’re focusing on the toll that the war puts on ordinary people.
Thankfully, modern games are a mature enough medium to handle such themes.
What sources of information do we use to accurately portray the war
So the main reference for Hollow Home is Mariupol and its people. We gathered a 600-page document with reports, evidence, and even last spring’s weather data. We read the diaries of survivors – and talk with them. Their stories, as horrifying as they be, are an invaluable source of information for portraying what it’s like to survive in the besieged city.
What is our goal with Hollow Home
We want people all over the world to “feel” what’s happening in Ukraine. The longer Ukraine stays in the news, in the hearts and minds, the more help we get, and the more Ukrainians will live.
We’re openly political here. The war isn’t just a tragedy, it’s a crime of colossal proportions committed by russia. With Hollow Home, we’re reminding everyone that this crime is still happening and the offender is still not punished.
What’s next for Hollow Home
Our team is actively working on the game’s new build, which will feature the first two playable game days. Our current plan is to finish it in the next few months, and then, hopefully, we’ll be able to show it to you.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe!
Valerii
Twigames