DIYgamer

The Future of Gaming: Ulitsa Dimitrova

February 1, 2010 | Peter Eykemans

The 2010 IGF Student Winners have been announced and 10 different titles landed in the spotlight. At the festival in March the 10 will compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, but to get to this point they definitely had to be special. We’ve dug through them all and contacted their developers in a series of interviews called The Future of Gaming. Because if anyone is going to take over the industry, it’s these bright minds.

After an inquiry written in German through Kunsthochschule Kassel, I was able to get in touch with Lea Schönfelder and Gerard Delmas to talk about their game Ulitsa Dimitrova. If you haven’t yet played the game, you can download a copy here to get a better idea of what we’re talking about. I sent them some questions in English but they were also quite patient with my butchering of the German language in the pleasantries I wrote.

Here is the transcript from our email discussion:

DIYgamer: Thank you guys for taking the time to answer some of our questions, you’ve put together an intriguing game.

Lea Schönfelder: Hello, “wie geht’s?”

Gerard Delmas: Thanks. You speak german, right?

DIY: Can you introduce yourselves and your positions on the project?

Gerard: I study Visual Communication at the School of Art and Design Kassel, Germany with main focus on interaction and interface design for 5 years now. During the project I worked with Lea on the interaction and design parts, also including the programming.

Lea: I study in the Animation Class of the same school and did some comics and short animated films before. I did the concept, drawings and animation for “Ulitsa Dimitrova.”

DIY: How did you first get into game design?

Gerard: 2008 I gave a workshop on adventure game development basics at the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in Chongqing, China. The results in the short one week course where quite nice and formed part of an exhibition at the end of our stay. This is when Lea and I also did our first game “Huong Jiao Ping” describing one street in our Chinese neighborhood.

DIY: Did the school assign you as a group to work together? Or were you able to pick the team to work with?

Gerard: Working together again seemed like the right thing to do after the good results from the workshop in China. Nonetheless the game was part of a group project including several teams and games with an exhibition at the International Festival of Animated Film in Stuttgart, Germany.

DIY: Where did the premise for the game come from? Did you consider any other ideas before putting this one together?

Lea: The idea for the game came to me when I visited my brother in St. Petersburg, who did his civil service there, working with homeless children. He also knew a boy called Pjotr. He told me that he spent much time with him, but one time Pjotr didn’t come back. Maybe he froze to death, like sometimes it happens to homeless children in winter in St. Petersburg. This game seemed to us the appropriate way to tell Pjotrs story.

DIY: For those without a translator, can you explain the title of the game?

Lea: “Ulitsa Dimitrova” is the name of a fictive street in St. Petersburg.

DIY: What other games and developers helped inspire you along the way to finishing the game?

Lea: Working on the concept, we noticed that the game mechanic is similar to the Tamagotchi because you also die when you stop playing. But of course feeding a Tamagotchi is more joyful and you can also improve your state of happiness. We come from the Animated Film and New Media department of an art school, so we’re not so much into the game scene but I appreciate very much the work of Jason Rohrer and David Shrigley (who is not a game-developer, I must admit).

Gerard: Growing up I loved Lucas Arts games, like Monkey Island and Sam & Max. They had this motion picture-like storytelling and you couldn’t loose, just give up. That’s the funny thing about “Ulitsa Dimitrova,” it negates this adventure game principle.

DIY: In both theme, style and content, the game is full of sadness. In my personal experience, I must say the most depressing situation imaginable was leaving your character alone next to your own mother, and watching the poor child freeze to death at her feet. With all of that in mind, what do you want players to take away from this experience?

Lea: Although the idea for the game came from an original and very serious story, the point which interests me most in the project is: The player always moves around on the same very low level of happiness, hoping to improve his situation. After some time playing, he notices that there is no opportunity to improve. You always stay where you are. Even worse: When you give up and stop playing you will not even keep your low level, because you will touch bottom and die.

DIY: Can you talk about the graphical style?

Lea: Blue and white are the colors that represent perfectly the mood I was in when I visited St Petersburg. You know, its a very romantic city with all it’s bitterness. It took me a while to find the perfect blue and I found it when I bought a pencil in a supermarket (it was the cheapest one they had). Then I drew everything the most direct way I could, using Tippex when I made a mistake.

DIY: The game states very openly that you have limited choices in what you can do, and that things will get worse if you stop. Do things ever get better if you continue to steal, beg and smoke cigarettes or does it remain an unending loop?

Gerard: You can try to break the loop but chances are against you.

DIY: Are you going to be able to attend the IGF Festival?

Lea: Yes.

Gerard: Not quite sure yet, but I hope so.

DIY: What’s next for you guys?

Lea: We almost finished our new game “Ute”. It’s about a woman who has to have sex as much as she can before getting married. I hope we will have it finished by march. And after that we will make a new game.

Gerard: I am working on some Internet based services for windsurfers right now. After that I probably will create an innovative news reading system for my final thesis.

DIY: Once again, I’d just like to thank you for your time. Good luck in the final running of the IGF Grand Prize!

Lea: Thank you too!

Gerard: Thanks a lot.

You can play Ulitsa Dimitrova right now by downloading a copy from the school’s website.

Full Series: The Future of Gaming
*Ulitsa Dimitrova
*Puddle
*Devil’s Tuning Fork
*Boryokudan Rue
*Continuity
*Dreamside Maroon
*Igneous
*Paper Cakes
*Puzzle Bloom
*Spectre