Last week, I had an early look at the Africanfuturist heist game ‘Relooted’, a new non-violent action/puzzle game developed by the same developers that brought us Semblance.
At face value, the game instantly reminded me of recent Metroidvania hits like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Tales of Kenzara: Zau, but with no violence in the game, it was an interesting twist that I needed to know more about.
Aside from how the gameplay looks, the story evolves around a crew of African citizens from various different African countries, who want to reunite stolen artifacts that were stolen by Western museums. It’s a subject that Nyamakop are clearly passionate about, because, well, in the developers own words, the development studio consists of mostly Black African developers.
Politics aside (which I acknowledge will be hard to ignore for some), the game looks cool, and as the game contains 70 real-life artifacts that the player will be given information about about they are ‘relooted’, it has the potential to be a good educational resource.
So with my interest peaked, I was fortunate enough to have Nyamakop CEO, Ben Myres, to be accommodating enough to answer a few questions I had on the game.
First, I was curious about the new change in direction that the team had taken, which was a universe away from their first project Semblance.
On this, Myres said,
“When we first started working on this concept in late 2018, it was never the intention to make a game of this scale and production value. Yet the concept always felt like it deserved a certain level of effort and budget. It’s a game and story begging to be told, and we just wanted to make sure it was told in the most high-quality and broadly appealing way possible.”
“We’ve sort of made several games while making this game. There are smaller scoped prototypes, completely different genres, and more toned-down narrative, visual, and animation-scoped versions of the game. But over time it just felt like trying to make the story and art to the level we’ve made it was important as part of the broader importance of the game.”
With that change in direction and scope, it’s already been reported that the headcount for Relooted will be much larger than that of Semblance, with the team going from less than 10 to around 30. On the change in scope, Myres said,
“The full-time team of Semblance only peaked at 3! The full credits of Relooted will be much longer than the 30 full-time peak we reached too! The challenges have been constant and evolving on the project. It’s likely the single biggest game project ever made in Sub-Saharan Africa by budget, team size, and scope. Moreover, it’s made in an engine no one on the team knew well (Unreal Engine), by a team filled with folks who hadn’t shipped a game before (at least in their role), making an experimental game; artistically (imagining future Africa), mechanically (non-violent heists), narratively (adapting heist stories to games), and musically (a futurist sound with traditional African instruments).”
“We’ve had almost too many challenges to count or document – it’s been quite the journey. But the game’s concept deserves us taking on those challenges, and we’re pretty happy with the output.”
Looping back to the games design, I ask Myres on the inspiration for the game because again, with an initial first-look, the game seems to be heavily inspired by Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Tales of Kenzara: Zau; two games that I thoroughly enjoyed. On the games inspiration, it was said,
“Interestingly enough when we started development there wasn’t always a ton of readily available reference gameplay-wise. Even today, it’s a weirdly difficult game to pin down references to.”
“We struggled with the design for quite a while – how to make an interesting mechanical adaption of heist movies was tricky (most heist games are shooters, and don’t always feel accurate to the vibe and sensibilities of say an Ocean’s 11). It was only when Teardown came out that something clicked.”
“That gameplay loop in Teardown was a breakthrough. The fact that you pick up an objective and then the alarm goes off forces you to have a great plan thought out before. Our friends at Landfall Games helped us prototype a side-scroller version of that loop and then the game’s direction was set. There were lots of design challenges after that point, but it was only after that breakthrough that the game started having more and more of that fluid traversal. It just made sense to have it as part of executing the escape you’ve set out.”
“So neither Tales of Persia: The Lost Crown nor Tales of Kenzera: Zau were references really, but the comparisons make sense based on where we ended up. I think in our game the fluid traversal is more of a rewarding experience/feeling that comes from a good heist plan, rather than the core mechanical challenge like in those games.”
So what about those 70 real-life artifacts that players can reclaim within the game? Well, I was curious on why they picked 70 specifically and what that learning process was like.
“There are estimates that over 90% of African cultural heritage is in the possession of Western collections. Which is a lot of artifacts. So really the big issue was selecting which artifacts to use rather than finding the artifacts at all.”
“Rather than focus on more functional artifacts, we really wanted to get across the importance of some of the artifacts that are kept in these collections. Some of these are the single most important cultural artifacts to the people who they were taken from, and we just wanted Players to have that information and understand why it might not make sense for those artifacts to be in Western collections.”
“The process of learning about them was quite lengthy! We had fulltime researchers over about 2 years, one 3D artist over 12 months who was just modelling artifacts, and also a researcher who helped us put together an artifact pronunciation guide.”
“The authenticity and accuracy of these artifacts was important to us, so we invested a lot of time and resources in them. Considering they’re in Western museums, it might be the closest an average African gets to one of those artifacts, so it’s important that the experience is as accurate and detailed as possible.
So 70 artifacts is the final number – but how exactly does that translate into gameplay length? Is it one artifact per level? And how does all of this translate into game time? On that, Myres said,
“The game will likely be roughly 10-15 hours, maybe longer. That playtime is split among a variety of different gameplay that the heist story takes us along as it twists and turns.”
“Sometimes you’ll be acquiring crew members, sometimes you’ll be prepping for missions, and then you’ll be heisting. Heists can have anywhere from 1-5+ artifacts per a level, so it really depends.”
I also quickly asked Myres on if the game will come to other consoles or not, because at the moment, the game is only slated for Xbox Series S/X and PC.
Myres said,
No plans for other consoles at this time! But if the game does well, we’d always be interested in supporting other platforms”
What do you think of Relooted? Will you be giving it a go? Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Dying Light: The Beast finally has a release date
Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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