[There are some corners of the world where the video game development scene isn’t spotlighted quite as well as others, and that’s a shame. There’s so much cool stuff being put out into the universe from really unexpected places that we don’t hear about nearly enough. Community member Nior is here to tell us about a game called Dandara, which was created in their home country of Brazil, and why it means so much to them to see their culture represented in this industry. – Kevin]
The Brazilian gaming industry has made quite a lot of progress in the last ten or so years. Part of that stems from the rise of a new generation that grew up playing video games who have now become developers themselves, and partially thanks to Steam and other methods of online distribution, our games have finally been allowed to reach a much wider audience. One side effect of that upbringing is that the majority of games coming from these lands are nostalgia-fueled rides.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, since without that nostalgia we wouldn’t get titles such as Horizon Chase, Blazing Chrome, or Knights of Pen & Paper. Fantastic games for sure, but to me, they lack that cultural touch that just screams “this was made in Brazil.” Kinda like how you can look at STALKER and tell that it was made by a team of Slavs using TI-84s. Still, sometimes I get my wish and some developer comes along to explore a facet of my culture, be it the Amazon Forest, the local folklore, or just the uh, crude humor, to put it lightly (yeah I’m saving Bad Rats for a distant future, don’t pressure me). Today’s game falls very much in that latter category. It’s a beautiful little gem called Dandara.
Source: Destructoid Brazil of Games: Dandara is a cultural metroidvania