Guck, a Naarm/Melbourne-based and Aboriginal-led studio, has officially lifted the curtain on its debut title, a mobile game wholly inspired by the art and culture of Australia’s First Nations people, titled Blaktasia.
According to the announcement post, Blaktasia is slated to launch for mobile platforms later this year, and will see players working to defeat a corrupting force known as the Murk while the restore the bush, rescue animals and play through a variety of mini-games. The game will be released for free.
We don’t have any footage or screenshots of the game just yet, but you can already see some of the incredibly-striking art in the reveal post below:
The wait is finally over!??
65,000 years in the making…the #Blaktasia game is coming to mobile late 2024??Restore the bush
?Find animals
?Unlock mini games
?Defeat the corrupting force of the Murk
??All set in a Blak world inspired by Country ???? 100% Aboriginal-Led pic.twitter.com/cIjvWI2R2c— Blaktasia (@blaktasia) July 8, 2024
The studio said back in May that, aside from some post-launch support, it doesn’t plan to continue work on Blaktasia long-term and that development staff will continue on to work elsewhere once it’s out. In the thread, which I’d encourage everyone to read in full, it explains in no uncertain terms the amount of hard work that its team has put into both the game and its efforts to educate and elevate the local industry around its treatment of First Nations people and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, often at nobody’s expense but its own.
I was able to chat with Hayley and Kati from Guck back in 2022 about how their game isn’t just about taking inspiration from Australian First Nations’ people and multitude of cultures, or checking a diversity box, but actively creating spaces and setting a framework for the wider industry going forward. Now, it’ll be a case of them putting Blaktasia out there, stepping away, and seeing how the rest of us respond.
Our current project, an Aboriginal-led video game is going to be free.
Therefore, once the game is released (and some post release support), there are no plans for the “project” to continue; all staff will be moving on to new roles at new companies. This has always been the plan— guck™ (@guckhq) May 15, 2024
You can keep up with development on Blaktasia by following the official account on X, and find out more about Guck along with a heap of resources and links to reading around working with and supporting indigenous teams and projects, and initiatives like Pay The Rent, at the studio’s Linktree here.
