thoughts on orientalism

hey guys. it's been a while. today i'm going to talk about some things that have been bothering me for a while + news regarding the current progress of tod.

first, what is orientalism?

orientalism was an artistic movement in 19th century where European painters decipted the "east" through paintings without any knowledge about the cultural aspects of what they were representing. it's the epitome of eurocentrism, if you ask me. but that's not the worst part - the worst part is that this way of doing things is still well and alive, living through many other artistic pieces (one relatively modern example is the alladim animated movie, but there are many others.)

when I had the idea for talisman of dawn, I had the vague conscience that orientalism is a bad thing. east isn't solely deserts, belly dancers and arabs. it is a whole other world, a real one, with real people, vastly different cultures, individuals inserted in much more diverse landscapes than what we are feeded through western mainstream media. so when I made it, I tried researching and making it not as obviously stereotypical as possible... but I'm still not really satisfied with it.

I'm not gonna lie to you, my research wasn't THAT good to begin with. I was in a hurry because of ouat at first - most of the jam time I was busy with personal life things -, and when I finally could put my hands on the script, I had basically 2 months to complete everything (which means, research + write + assets + code). the second chunk of tod was even worse - I used the whole month I had to basically write as much as I could, without really researching anything. this lack of accuracy kept haunting me every time I would think of the game. and still did until yesterday.

okay, what does that have to do with the game?

I watched this video about orientalist music, and yeah.... yeah. you could say that the current version of talisman of dawn is still very much orientalist. I'm not proud of it. I'm actually sorry if I offended anyone of those cultures with this game, it was not my intention. it's a mistake I'm willing to fix.

so, for the next version of talisman of dawn, I'll focus on one culture. instead of the whole "muslim + indian + iranian + arab + persian + zoroastrian" nightmare this game is currently, I'll stay true to persian culture. so expect that some (maybe many...) aspects of the final game might be changed (especially script wise... though I'm not changing the plot/ending itself).

for the meanwhile, i added a disclaimer on the game page, emphasizing that this game is NOT an accurate portrayal of middle-eastern culture. it was already on the "about" section in the extended demo, but i felt the need to repeat it there.

what's next, then? 

the script is pretty much finished. emotionally wise, it is perfect. I love the journey these characters went through and I'm proud of what I achieved with them. it means a lot to me. for now, I'll go back to the work bench, research things properly, take my time reading/listening about persian culture and implementing it in the game. that means editing scenes, polishing characters and reevaluating my artistic choices (especially the musical ones...). 

I don't know how much it will take, but I'll just hope it doesn't take too long. I have a short idea for myth jam (which starts next month, btw) and maybe that will clash with the current production of tod. I'm not happy delaying the finished game once again, but I gotta do things properly. culture is a very important part of the human identity and should be represented with care. 

and honestly I don't want to release tod as yet ANOTHER orientalist piece in this world. i wouldn't feel at peace with this at all. enough with those,  for god's sake. if I can do better, I will. even if it takes more time. 

thanks for reading this, and hope you have a good rest of your day. see you!