Artist Statement

The Festival: Hemmingward is a narrative game about helping a grieving village bring a war criminal to justice. Set in the fictional nation of Eastoria, the player takes the role of Nishma Mauranyan as she visits the village of Hemmingward in pursuit of a secret recipe, but is roped into helping the villagers solve a decade-long mystery, and put their trauma to rest. Doing so culminates in a moral choice for the player: should the criminal be made to answer for his crimes in a potentially lengthy trial, or should the villagers be allowed to extract revenge on him through mob justice?

The Festival: Hemmingward is designed to have players confront the issues of large-scale trauma from wartime atrocities, and ask them what ought to be done when seeking justice for these historic crimes. It is also intended to engage the player with a compelling narrative, robust cast of characters, and expansive worldbuilding. This game is the prototype for a much larger game, where Nishma is organizing a food festival in a country that just got out of a civil war. This project draws from many inspirations. The central conflict is directly based off the plot of Snow (2008) by Bosnian director Aida Begić, and the larger fictional world draws heavily from real life conflicts, namely the Bosnian War and Syrian Civil War. Alongside conflict politics, The Festival draws heavily from various other narrative games, namely ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium and Obsidian Entertainment’s Pentiment.