The creators of the project seem to lean a bit lefty. The developer likes to say this about themselves:
located on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations of the Coast Salish peoples
As far as I can tell, the game is about generational trauma and teens dealing with their parents’ unprocessed grief. It deals with children of diaspora parents fitting in to the new host country. (Don’t @ me if I’m wrong, I couldn’t get far in the game).
One thing that hits me hard is “why fucking choose the Hong Kong diaspora?”. As Canadians, they had a fuck-ton of diaspora communities to choose from. Klanada has a rich history of indigenous genocide. They could have chosen Palestinians or Iraqis, war refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, S. America, etc. But they needed to pick Hong Kong and do more social chauvinism. And why am I especially annoyed that they’d showcase teens kids of the Hong Kong diaspora.
It’s mathematically impossible to be a teen kid of the Hong Kong diaspora
Even if one swallowed all the VOA shit about Hong Kong, forgot about the British flags flows at demos and sinophobia being thrown around, they’re still writing a game about an impossible demographic.
I think we all know what would happen if the devs made a game in Canada about the diaspora from Chile or Syria: chuds would absolutely revolt and there’d be truck convoys heading their ways. So libs are gonna play this game and support the US military bases in the Pacific just a bit more. Good job, fucking liberals.
its one of those games that’s Fucking Compelling in terms of being a well thought out high-stakes interesting sci-fi malaise story where you learn bits and pieces as you go on like you’re actually learning about the setting as you go. also with plenty of twists and emotional beats but it had a shitty pointless choose-your-own-ending that sort of threw me for a loop and i couldnt quite grasp what the larger ideas it was finally putting its mark on were meant to be. it should have had one ending because a few of them were like absolute fearmongering over the idea of anyone having any political power. but based on the strengths of the compelling-ness of it throughout, it did deserve any and all praise the narrative got.
i dont fully understand what you mean about it being impossible to be a teen kid of the Hong Kong diaspora but basically i think it’s probably because the creators are the type of expats that are rich enough to have been involved in the HK protests or know people who were and they just want to 1. write what they know and 2. launder anti-communist sentiment in the guise of anti-authoritarianism or criticising “left fascism”. the main creative director is a key figure in a post-modernistic sort of art collective from what i can tell. not an inch of grunge or subversiveness or anything of the like in them https://www.hongkongexile.com/about
i dont fully understand what you mean about it being impossible to be a teen kid of the Hong Kong diaspora
The protests were in 2019. The oldest one could be is 5.
I heard good things about the game. I’m not saying that no one should play it. I guess I just ran out of patience for what’s basically a walking novel. (really it’s fine to enjoy those games.) Also I’m in my 40s, so I’m a bit past parental angst. (again, no hate if that speaks to someone else).
I saw that a few of the ex protest leaders are now doing pro Western or pro Israel NGO stuff, which irked me.
The protests were in 2019. The oldest one could be is 5.
That’s when the parents leaving for Canada is set. The teenager living with her parents stuff is set in the near future, and then the clones stuff is all in the distant future.
I’m not sure where the confusion is.
Anyways, I recently played the game. I wanted to like it, but it really fell flat for me. I like games that are narrative focused with minimal gameplay if the story is compelling, but this one just didn’t get there for me lol.
I finished the game, but didn’t care to bother with the different endings. The devs come off as some strain of liberals - probably some kind of western chauvinist social democrats or whatever
the main creative director is a key figure in a post-modernistic sort of art collective from what i can tell. not an inch of grunge or subversiveness or anything of the like in them https://www.hongkongexile.com/about
God, this all makes so much sense now lmao
I came across this game myself recently and a few Steam reviews mentioned that the developers are from the Hong Kong diaspora in
and that the game was a metaphor for the events of 2019, which killed any interest I had in it.
The first big wave of immigrants from Hong Kong to western Canada was in the late 80s/early 90s. Are you sure the game is about response to the 2019 protests?
I think some of the developers are immigrants or kids of immigrants from that 80s/90s wave, but the story explicitly has a section set in 2019.
The whole story is told out of sequence, and I think that may be why OP has some confusion about the teen character. She’s the child of immigrants that came to Canada in 2019, but the sections where you’re experiencing her adolescence are set in the near future.
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I see
If you want a different version of this story, check out the dim sum diaries. It’s a play that is comprised of a bunch of monologues/dialogues from interviews with Chinese immigrants to Canada about integration, mostly people from Hong Kong who moved in the late 80s
maybe the story is about how all the adults are saying China Bad but all the teen’s friends are talking about how afforded all the food/housing is in mainland?
kind of like how in the US all the adults insist American Greatest but we’re noticing that the average age of a first time homebuyer is almost aging faster than we are.
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Those kinds of land acknowledgements are really common place throughout BC too, and aren’t a great indicator of someone’s politics, sadly. Most small businesses have something similar, and if you study at a uni or college, your instructors will (often thoughtlessly) read one off the script at the start of every class
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
