'Blackhaven' Postmortem: Designing Two Centuries of Difficult History in One Free Game

[Music] thank you so hi my name is James Coltrane I'm the founder and lead developer at a historiated games a studio focused on historically themed games I'm also a history PhD and a former history professor and currently a professor of game art at the University of Connecticut and I'm here to talk to you about the experience I had making our first game blackhaven blackhaven was released in the summer of 2021 and it follows a student named Kendra Turner as she uncovers a trail of Secrets and misdeeds at a colonial Plantation Museum Historia is also tiny on the technical end it's a solo Dev operation I do all the research art coding and audio but as you'll see the most important parts of blackhaven were very much a team effort the game was originally intended to be a small free teaser for a larger game called Cassius a first-person narrative

puzzle game taking place in a colonial American American Plantation estate called blackhaven Hall Cassius came out of my experience teaching American history and I had worked with a team of other Scholars to help craft a story that might teach about the relationship of Slavery to America's founding black Haven on the other hand was inspired by experiences I had researching Cassius in places like Williamsburg Virginia where the history of slavery should be Central in the 18th century enslaved people made up half the population of the colony's capital and about 40 percent of Virginia's population hundreds of thousands of people and yet even though many institutions are attempting to do a better job portraying the realities of slavery there are other places that often obscure it or ignore it entirely and it's a very surreal and confounding experience to be exploring celebratory exhibits at some of these sites while knowing the massive scale of human suffering being ignored I thought it would be really interesting to explore this feeling and a shorter narrative teaser game that visited blackhaven Hall

as it might be depicted in a similar present-day Museum as a tiny Studio working on a sensitive topic for our first game I also thought this might provide a gentle way to introduce the topic to players and I was inspired by the success of free narrative games like Marie's room and the reception that they'd received on Steam in the story of Cassius blackhaven Hall is the ancestral home of the Harwood family LED in the revolutionary era by patriarch Thomas Harwood Thomas is an American revolutionary and an Enlightenment dabbler and like Washington Jefferson and Madison his wealth depended on the hundreds of people he had enslaved black Haven Hall is burned To The Ground by British soldiers during the American Revolution leaving a sight of ruins that look very much like these real-life ones from Rosewell Plantation in Virginia when I get when I began thinking about how to design blackhaven's fictional Museum it was important that this environment feel realistic and grounded even pedestrian without the cost of materials many game museums are like this at Monumental scales but I did a

lot of research on cost-effective architecture and mundane details the dated and Dole Museum design places the structure in about the early 70s or so and I thus began thinking about how to convey an entire institutional history spanning different eras I created backstory for decades of the museum and its directors some of which were added to this in-game sign the sense of time was also reflected in details like marketing posters on display in the museum offices all based on Surviving 20th century designs and the different books for sale in the gift shop by far the biggest contrast between eras in the was in the ruins of blackhaven itself which in the game had recently been transformed into a slick modern steel and glass reconstruction I researched a lot about structural glass projects and trying to get this look right but it was actually directly inspired by a similar project at Manokin another small privately managed Plantation Home Museum players would explore the house while listening to a smarmy audio tour narrated by yours truly and here too I

tried to include a sense of the extended history the tour guide mentions a number of folk legends about different parts of the house and the glass structure attempted to account for realistic structural support and HVAC although as some players had mentioned probably correctly that this space would absolutely bake in the summer aside from blackhaven trying to make blackhaven feel like a real place I wanted to create a sense of uneasiness in the game for players even before they uncovered the Museum's worst Secrets throughout the displays and audio tours enslaved people are euphemistically referred to as servants a family portrait featuring an enslaved woman crops her out when duplicated on a book cover the same Gift Shop features thoughtless marketing slogans like the ones for these very unique dolls and this book cover would show that they don't expect diverse visitors and a fully readable Illustrated children's book not only praises the hardwood family's patriotism and but also the undeserved devotion of their

put upon worker Farmer Joe while totally omitting the president's contributions and hardships of black Americans entirely about halfway through the game players are tasked with scanning documents in the archive after noticing some discrepancies they find a trove of incriminating and disturbing evidence that forms the most important part of blackhaven in this section our narrative team had a set of historical educational messages we wanted the game to convey first we wanted to show the real and meaningful harm resulting from black Haven's involvement with slavery and segregation neither sanitizing this difficult history nor exploitatively dwelling on every gruesome detail second to show that these harms have persisted to the present day and how the museum and the Harwood family have enabled this Legacy third and finally that in every era there were black Americans actively resisting and trying to make the best lives for themselves and their families even if these efforts were not always successful each of the game's documents were based

incredibly closely on existing historical records a missing page of Thomas harwood's diary reveals a particularly cruel incident between him and an enslaved mother and both the violence and his writing style were taken directly from the real-life Virginian enslaver William Byrd II when trying to mimic a historical voice I look closely at sentence structure and a specialty word choice sometimes searching for particular terms in the Google engram tool to make sure that they were period correct and perhaps the game's most disturbing example players read love letters between the Civil War era spouses Gideon and Anna Harwood Anna harwood's writing is full of petty complaints and offensive language about her enslaved house staff taking plenty of attitude from the even more explicit and unsettling Diary of real slave holding wife Mary Chestnut confederate soldier Gideon Harwood at first seems more compassionate of the couple before confessing his role in the grisly murder of black Union prisoners of war with some of the confession lifted from

surviving accounts of Nathan Bedford forrest's role in The Fort Pillow Massacre depicted here the documents also show how blackhaven began rewriting its own history well before the present day players read through a commemorative speech dedicating a statue of Gideon Harwood with trickly floored language and overt affirmations of white supremacy the address was inspired by a real-life one given at the dedicated at the dedication of the so-called silent Sam Confederate Monument which was only recently removed from the campus of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill the game also features a bizarre catechism intended to instruct children visiting blackhaven it contains a series of questions and answers brazenly distorting blackhaven's history but was adapted word for word in some places from similar real-life documents once produced by the daughters of the Confederacy organization but so too do players find evidence of black resistance and perseverance from a newspaper ad placed by newly freed

slaves attempting to reconnect with lost relatives to the mid 20th century inquiries of the fictional Dorothy Mitchell a local activist an amateur historian who applies to research in blackhaven's archives Mitchell believes that she made to be the descended from an illegitimate mixed-race child of blackhaven's William Harwood and this not only gives players a historical mystery to solve but also mirrors the centuries-long pursuit of the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and the underage enslaved Sally hemings to confirm their ancestry which they eventually achieved through DNA testing so now we had a realistic Museum environment with a rich and troubled history but because these subjects were so sensitive we weren't sure we could give players the freedom to explore these places without context we needed instead to have them play as a protagonist who could push back against blackhaven's distortions and it made sense for the character to take on multiple roles as an outsider to that end IBN gained sketching the character of Kendra Turner a young black woman

attending an HBCU or historically black college and university and working at blackhaven as a summer marketing intern often relegated to the front desk as she does in this game serving on a holiday but Kendra's perspective was not one that was part of my life experience nor one that could be uncovered through historical research blackhaven needed to collaborate with people who shared Kendra's real world experiences at this point The Advisory Board I'd been working with on Cassius and blackhaven suggested that I contact Dr Sharon Roberts a media scholar at Xavier University of Louisiana who could help consult on the HBCU experience I talked through the outline of blackhaven with Sharon and Charlene Senegal Decor one of Xavier's historians and we settled on a plan we would convene a panel of women Xavier students who shared Kendra's identity and do a table read of the script of blackhaven these students would not be previously familiar with the museum exhibits or the historical documents and

we would take note of and discuss their reactions to everything the character of Kendra would see and take their input on how they thought she might react finally and most importantly while we would ask the students for their input on every aspect of the game we would specifically give them the final say on the character of Kendra and all of her dialogue What followed was an incredibly rewarding and Illuminating experience the student team consisting of Tyra Johnson Naomi Winston and tia alfons were passionate and vocal throughout the discussion both on small details and big themes on the Lighter Side they discussed Kendra's hair with at least two of the group advocating for the hairstyle that they themselves had this is what we went with there were spirited discussions about what slang and phrasing was accurate for a college-aged woman in one case hashing out Regional differences between that used in New Orleans where many of them went to school and those that would be likely used in Virginia where Kendra had grown up the students also gave very valuable feedback on much more consequential things

they discussed the many micro and even macro aggressions that Kendra experiences as a woman in a primarily white space for instance when Kendra arrives she receives an email from her boss with strict patronizing instructions for her dress hairstyle and speech but players can also find the welcome letter to Catherine the previous Summer's white summer intern in it the same boss is now warm and gregarious showing none of the suspicion that she does towards Kendra the team also weighed in on some of the ugliest parts of blackhaven we had an extended discussion about the use of racial slurs in the game's documents particularly the Civil War letters from the harwoods I mentioned that Mary chestnut's diary often had even more frequently offensive language but equally acknowledged that our future black players of the game might be put off by being bombarded with harsh language they were already far too familiar with when trying to enjoy a video game after discussing a variety of spec perspectives from the students and faculty we settled on the game's current

balance exemplifying this discussion is the final letter from the character of Anna in it she uses one of the ugliest racial slurs possible but because the copy of the player is Reading in the archives has been transcribed from the original letter the slur is dashed out after the first letter sparing the player the full impact but also showing that even blackhaven's typist felt uncomfortable copying the exact text the final piece of the puzzle in bringing Kendra to life was casting the right actress Dr Roberts had suggested that a former Xavier student of hers Darby Farr who was pursuing an acting career might be a possible option I read over Zoom with Darby for the part and was so impressed with her impromptu audition that I offered her the part without reading another actor the decision proved crucial as Darby's performance was one of the most consistently praised aspects of blackhaven giving Kendra the empathy that would allow players to feel the gravity of the situation but also bringing a feisty wit to the character that empowered Kendra as the story

progressed so now we had a thoughtful even timely narrative dealing with some important historical issues but how do we do as a game let's talk about the release some mistakes we made and challenges that we face and in the end where we think we succeeded we released blackhaven last July for PC on Steam because of the sensitivity of the subject we didn't feel like doing a lot of the rah-rah Gorilla Marketing often recommended to new Studios and so the game was released with very little Advanced word Beyond posts on our existing social media and Reddit I sent press releases to probably about 200 journalists seeking coverage and while early on attention from games media was hard to come by we did better initially with traditional media Outlets like NPR and Smithsonian Magazine were attracted to the game's historical significance um one second uh in the first couple of weeks we also were helped by a couple of positive reviews from smaller games

press and overall good reactions from Steam reviewers our biggest media coverage came from a feature story in polygon which contrasted our team's approach to historical gaming with a very mixed reception of fortnite's Martin Luther King interactive experience I should mention that while this media coverage was very helpful with a legitimizing historiated as well as providing some very unique networking opportunities we didn't see a large bump in downloads connected to particular coverage so how did our game do with players as of today blackhaven has been played by over 30 000 players in over 90 countries the game currently holds an 80 percent positive rating on Steam which places it in the very positive category this fell quite a bit short of some of the free walking Sims that had inspired us to release blackhaven but at the same time the game was one of the most publicly successful Humanities themed games ever to come out of the academy finally the game has done very well with

Indie festivals and awards blackhaven was an official indicates election was initially nominated for the impact game and narrative game awards and won a grand jury award for Innovation and experience design blackhaven was also nominated uh or are named an honorable mention in the Excellence and narrative category at igf the independent games Festival which of course is being celebrated this week we saw a slight bump in downloads during festivals and after these announcements but again not enough to make winning Awards a significant factor in the game's numerical success being a first-time Studio we also made plenty of mistakes and the game also faced some unique challenges during its development so let's highlight some of those one difficulty we had with blackhaven was the game's placement in relation to potential audiences Cassius had always been planned as a relatively High Fidelity puzzle game with a Gothic atmosphere something that might appeal to players of games like Soma and Edith Finch blackhaven was a

far more restrained and deliberate game but when it was stretched to over two hours it was less appealing to some of the high-end gaming crowd at the same time many casual players who appreciate slower narratives didn't have the hardware to keep up with blackhaven's graphics another aspect of this dilemma was optimization as we thought about our recommended Hardware we thought our recommended Hardware was fairly accurate but black even being the first game that I developed as a near solo Dev the game was not especially well optimized if player systems could run The Witcher 3 they were often very put off if blackhaven lagged even if their machine fell below our Hardware recommendations both of these problems illustrate one of the contradictions of releasing a free game to boost attention on one hand there is a lower barrier to entry so you can potentially reach a much larger audience on the other hand it means that the game will be downloaded by a large number of players who never would have paid for it thus many of blackhaven's most negative reviews came

from players who clearly weren't fans of the genre but had downloaded the game on a whim this Dynamic also came through in play testing we had limited options with our budget which was essentially just my professor's salary we paid our actors but everyone else on the project worked for free and being at the height of kovid we didn't feel comfortable doing a totally open Beta because of the game's sensitive subject matter so we tested mostly with friends and family and especially students in the game's opening section Kendra tests an interactive quiz in blackhaven's museum Gallery designed to teach players the basics of blackhaven's History when my students play tested they dutifully read the museum displays and had no trouble passing the quiz but when blackhaven was free to download and see first-person shooter fans started blazing through the gallery holding shift and were frustrated often to the point of quitting when the quiz answers weren't in the most prominently placed objects a compounding era which was totally our fault was that there was a

visual bug that made one of the quiz questions misleading but none of our students had ever run into that because it was never an issue if you read the museum displays an order finally a challenge of releasing a politically charged game is that you're going to receive some negative blowback overall we were very fortunate as none of our staff received overt threats or harassment but there were certainly Steam Reviews motivated by racial resentment and even ones more or less constituting in vandalism some of which were taken down either due to moderation or Community reports also although in the end it's never possible to tell for sure there were some support interactions where players were so obstinate that it was hard to believe that they weren't intentionally trolling in all cases the best response was to stay professional offer as much hope as time allowed and ignore the rest all right so let's finish with what went right first was the decision to trust our narrative team with the character of Kendra and essentially every positive reaction

to our game Kendra was a major highlight something that particularly struck with me was how often players referred to their actions in the game in the third person saying not I did this but Kendra did this when streamers enjoyed the game they'd often cheer for root for and even worry about Kendra our student team had put real pieces of themselves into our game's character and players noticed second was our commitment to historical realism blackhaven wanted to confront players with unseemly aspects of American History they might not be familiar with even for the most talented writers leaving historical portrayals to one's imagination invariably results in Clumsy and even offensive inaccuracies instead blackhaven tried to let both the admirable and Infamous historical actors largely speak for themselves one other surprise was that despite the game only being available in English and its american-centric Story the geographic distributions of our downloads were very similar to other more Universal indie games which was an

encouraging sign of that Global audience of global audiences interest in American history finally even though blackhaven's audience wasn't gigantic our player feedback showed us that the game made a meaningful impact on a lot of players we got many positive reviews from all over the world especially from people who found Kendra's experiences reminded them of Their Own one steam reviewer raided the game 10 out of 10 historian approved while another identifying as a black archivist from Virginia joked blackhaven was essentially job simulating job Simulator for them and asked if we had read their emails before writing Kendra's and despite the game not shying away from the darker aspects of History many players from marginalized backgrounds found the game affirming as Dr Roberts pointed out for some black Americans living in the South every day is for Black Americans living in the South every day is lived as a as in as if in a museum of unpleasant history blackhaven could offer players a way to

safely explore places they were often un excluded from and work alongside Kendra to push back against the game's fictional but all too realistic historical wrongs as for historiated we're still hoping to release Cassius at some point but given the positive reaction to blackhaven we're considering an engine switch an expansion beyond the original game which thanks to blackhaven hasn't gotten much attention in the last two years in the meantime we'll be growing our tiny studio and we're working on a small all-ages VR game about Paul Revere's Ride inspired by the American Gothic artist Grant Woods painting of the event and that will release early next year so on behalf of the entire historiated team and Kendra herself I want to thank all of you for listening and don't forget that you can check out blackhaven anytime for free on Steam one final thing I'm a little bit hard of hearing I'm actually deaf in my left ear and

with masks on I'm going to save us all the trouble of skipping questions from the audience but I'm very happy to talk to any and all of you in the hallway right after we finish so thanks so much foreign [Music]