Albatross flight game on the way for Dunedin studio
A SOUTH Dunedin gaming studio, Atawhai Interactive, makes games with a focus on te reo Maori ¯ and the natural world.
Codirector Mickey Treadwell said their studio was started by a team of four friends in 2020 — a combination of industry veterans and experienced artists and engineers.
Their upcoming debut title
Toroa, slated for release this year, is a flight adventure game about the journey of an albatross from the Pacific
Ocean to Taiaroa Head.
‘‘The player plays as an albatross on her return home following Tawhirima ¯ ¯ tea, the god of the wind and weather, and meets and interacts with various fauna along the way.
‘‘It’s a story about family and pollution — and being an albatross, really.’’
The studio qualified for Code’s startup and kickstart funding pools, and received a financial contribution from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Manatu ¯ Taonga, which funded the game’s production. While their studio was only three years old, ‘‘in Dunedin, we sort of feel like almost like veterans,’’ Mr Treadwell said. There had always been a latent game development scene in Dunedin which had only recently become a commercially viable opportunity, with Code being the catalyst. But Dunedin’s supportive gaming community dated back before the days of Code.
Informal Dunedin game developer meetups, which often attracted the attention of students from Otago Polytechnic Te Pukenga, ¯ had offered ‘‘a really steady gathering’’ for people to playtest their games and interact with others from the industry. ‘‘Before I worked in games, and when I was sort of considering it, I started coming along to these meetups.’’
Fast forward to today, Mr Treadwell said the Dunedin gaming community was equally excited to work on each other’s developments, with companies merging and collaborating in an already tightknit scene.
‘‘I want to stay in Dunedin and see what that looks like 10 years from now, absolutely.’’ As well as the development side, being involved in the gaming business industry at the moment felt ‘‘quite historical’’ he said.
‘‘Especially in Dunedin where there’s suddenly all these games on the comeup — some of which are hitting really big numbers.’’