What is Penguin colony about?
This is a sincere attempt to bring a Lovecraft renaissance into existence. The game is reminiscent of the PS2 era of experimental and weird games. It’s been difficult to explain to people what the game is without them playing it. There’s some genre bending and direct homage to things that, for me, encapsulate Lovecraftian horror, but also new elements that are my own.
The central idea is to examine and re-evaluate themes present in all works: the game focuses on Lovecraft’s inherent colonial themes (invasion, annexation, indifference, etc.) and the author’s problematic history of racism and pseudo-science. We read not only Lovecraft’s works of fiction but also his political readings in The curator. Some might say it’s possible to separate the art from the artist – but with Lovecraft, is it really surprising that an author who popularized the “fear of the unknown” would be a xenophobe? Rather than reinterpret Lovecraft into something he is not, we want to go back to the past that inspired the writing and examine those themes.
There is a tendency in Lovecraft adaptations to do historical denialism to make them palatable to today’s audiences, because the assumption is that the narrators are the protagonists. For our game Penguin colonythe Penguin is a neutral vessel for the story, but the narrator is not – we learn of the expedition through the point of view of a man who is complicit and oblivious to the point in history to which he belongs. We then see a dueling perspective of the Kaitiaki, which presents a different story that has been passed down for generations.
How big is the development team?
This is a primarily solo project with additional contractors and guest artists consisting primarily of Indigenous people.
How long have you been working on it?
Two years full time.
What is the origin story of Penguin colony?
The original sketch of Penguin colony was created after watching Happy feet with my daughter. The concept of letting players slide on the ice was very appealing.
Why reinterpret Lovecraft? Talk about your goal of reframing queer fiction through the lens of Indigenous storytelling.
Lovecraft has a cultural osmosis that has reached a point where characters like Cthulhu appear in children’s shows. This creature of unknowable cruelty reduced to a cute Easter egg for dads to smirk at. The stories themselves are vaguely known, but often never get beyond the gills and tentacles. The concepts of insanity and insanity rarely scratch the surface.
Ten years ago I played Transmitted by blood and I became aware of what the genre could be. At the time, I was quickly learning what colonization was, where it came from and how it was orchestrated. I seemed crazy to some people – a raving lunatic. I learned a history that is not taught in schools and the true intentions of all empires. It made me think about how cosmic indifference resembled colonial indifference. How colonial empires would destroy centuries of human knowledge without concern. The ancients in Lovecraft’s mythos are said to conspire to destroy or enslave humans without caring about humans. They would do this through the use of brutal force, religious ceremonies and cruelty. Lovecraft unknowingly captured the horror of colonization and the indifference of empire.
When we hear about Lovecraft’s non-white characters, they’re usually cultists who worship blood magic and crescent moons. For me, it made me think of how British explorers made presumptions about indigenous medicine practices. Before Europeans understood sanitation, they viewed Māori burial rights as primitive spiritual affairs, not realizing that washing the body in a river – or not using one’s hands to eat when touching a corpse – was done to prevent disease.
Let’s assume that Lovecraft’s stories are real. Would non-white people know more about these creatures than the Europeans who learned about them last week? What if, just like those Europeans who looked at our culture and got it wrong, so did Lovecraft’s protagonist?
DIGITAL ORIGAM
What lessons from Umurangi Generation are you applying to your current development process?
We learned with Umurangi the most important thing is to move forward quickly. To plan ahead. We spent too much time porting the game and it didn’t leave us enough time to focus on what we wanted to do next. Our project that we tried to juggle was about the Biden era of complacency. Well, it happened too quickly to be relevant.
With Penguin colony we’ve put together a trilogy of games that will borrow the deities and lore of Lovecraft’s mythos. We want to explore these concepts which do not seem to come to fruition quickly. The second game in this trilogy explores the decadence of small towns and the secrets hidden at the end of the road, behind a closed door.
We wanted to start slowly in this trilogy and not go to easily recognizable places. No, Cthulhu. No, Dagon.
Why are video games your preferred form of expression?
Video games are the greatest art form humanity has ever known. There is no dispute for anyone who has practiced multiple art forms. Video games are the only art form where participation in the work is compulsory.
Cinema has followed a similar trajectory to video games in its struggle to achieve artistic legitimacy. Cinema was known as the 6th great art form. Gaming is known as the 10th great art form and should never lose sight of this inevitable acceptance. We should not make games safely with the times, but always move the medium forward like these films did 50-70 years ago.
DIGITAL ORIGAM
What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve faced as a small developer?
As a small studio, we are considered risky. As an indigenous studio, we are considered even riskier. As an Indigenous studio making work that reflects contemporary political realities, we are considered too risky for anyone. This is why we realized that the doors do not stay open for long. We must seize these opportunities. True independent sustainability is about comfortably setting up your studio where you can create art indefinitely. That you understand how to distribute your games and present them to an audience. So that your works can stand on their own two feet.
What can big companies and publishers do to better support developers like you?
Large companies that can take risks should do so. I’m not a fool, I know why shareholder value is all they look at. But if these major studios want to survive into the future, they need to look at the history of cinema and realize that film has only survived because of the risks it carries. Big companies should create small, risky studios where they hire two to four freelancers to experiment – treat it like an art residency. They should go see who was on the shortlist for every independent awards show and send them a DM. Give them a deadline of one to two years to create something for 10% of the budget of one of the big AAA games, then sell it with the vast resources and distribution available.
This is just wishful thinking, they won’t do any of that. I don’t believe that the AAA game industry, mainly American, is capable of learning anything.
Let’s take him home. Sell Penguin colony in one sentence:
You won’t know until you do it and then it will be too late.
DIGITAL ORIGAM
Penguin colony comes to PC and Switch 2 in 2026, developed by ORIGAME DIGITAL and published by Fellow Traveler. It is now available as a wishlist on Steam.
