Khoi Quest

The development of this game is situated within a National Research Fund project that is based on the understanding that stories create connecting points to the collective memories of cultures and access to these stories support the development of healthy individual identities. However, these old stories are told less and so the meaning of this heritage is often lost on younger generations - who are now drawn to digital forms of communication.

This project aims to meet young people in their IT-supported worlds, by creating platforms for storytelling via electronic games. The story for this game, Khoi Quest, was collected during a story telling event on a farm near Stellenbosch. A Khoi story teller and poet told a story to a multi-generational group of Khoi people. This story was transcribed, and with continuous input from the Khoi representatives, visualised by a graphic artist and coded into a game, using Unity.

The hope is that by giving Khoi youngsters opportunities to play the gamified version of a Khoi story, they will also have opportunities to reconnect with their cultural identity, while gamers from other cultures will be exposed to how this Khoi community wanted to be represented in the 21st century.