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Session Name:

Lore, Don't Tell: A Guide for Telling Culturally Rooted Stories Like 'Venba'

Overview:

When players are unfamiliar with a culture, how do we tell a story that's rooted in it? It's a responsibility to ensure players who play the game leave with a deeper understanding of the culture, society, heritage and traditions we're showcasing. But the game we make has its own story to tell, and there might not be the space to be educating all players. It might also be tempting to explain and point out every aspect of the culture to ensure a player misses nothing, but this can do more harm than good. Thankfully, "Lore" is a very powerful tool that video games are great at that we can leverage to solve this problem. In this talk, Creative Director Abhi outlines various techniques used to follow a "Lore, don't tell" approach that let him not only be laser focused on the story he wanted to tell in Venba but also helped him shine a light on the culture he loves with all its details

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