Hi all! In this blog post I thought I might share a bit about how this game really came into being, and maybe tell you a bit about the original vision for the game and how it’s evolved. Let me wind the clock back a bit for you.
I mentioned in a previous post that this game represented sort of… well, a road out of darkness for me. After my daughter’s death, and then, one year later, the major fire that wiped out our home and entire town, and our close escape…
My wife and I were living in a hotel for 7 or 8 months, and I would take long introspective nighttime walks. It was during those walks that the story for Dancing with Ghosts, and the shape of the game emerged.
Oddly enough though, Dancing with Ghosts began as a different game. It actually started as a game called Thai River, about 6 months before the big fire hit. The fire of Aug 8, 2023 put everything on pause, and it was at that time that I did some deep soul searching and said to myself, “Tomorrow might not come. A secure future, with plenty of time is a fantasy. An illusion. If I can only make one more game in my life, what do I want it to be? What do I want to say, or need to say?” That’s when the story of Dancing with Ghosts started to form in my mind, and Thai River became Dancing with Ghosts. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked what we were doing with Thai River, but I realized some new, important messages were pressing on me to be let out.
You might be interested to know that Thai River was first inspired by a beautiful piece of artwork by a talented young Thai artist named Tanta Vorawatanakul. (I dare you to say that 5 times fast!) Ferrari Duanghathai is the other talented young artist who did the art for Dancing with Ghosts. I had worked with both of them before on my previous game Kimono Cats, and even on a game before that too. The two of them are so passionate about their artwork. You can easily see the love they have for their home, and the pride they have in their culture in every bit of the Dancing with Ghosts artwork.
Ferrari and Tanta are a joy to work with, and they have become dear and valued friends. While I’m at it, I want to mention the other team members here. Ferry Halim, is the engine pulling the train. He is the one-man show, programmer, artist, art-director, and co-designer, and he’s created over 40 mobile games. Ferry and I worked on a number of projects in the past together, including Kimono Cats and Kung Fu Panda World. Ferry and his wife Sylvia are from Indonesia. The other Ex-Kimono Cats team member was Rylie Lallo, our producer, and Jr. Engineer, who has lived his life here on Maui. This whole team is filled with heart and positive good-nature, and sadly, because I’ve been financing this all myself with a personal loan, I’ve had to let Tanta and Ferrari and Rylie go for the time being, so I can keep the project afloat. That’s a truly painful part of being an Indie Developer. I’m hoping if I get funding I can bring them back on again. (I love you guys!)
That’s the team, plus we are working with a great group in Bangkok, called Bit Egg who has been doing a lot of our animation.
Anyway, perhaps you would like to see where it all started. This is the original image that Tanta created.
When I saw this image I remember thinking “Wow, what an adorable world, filled with life, and heart, and beauty, and struggle. It might help you to understand that this is my world too… because it is the world my wife is from. Here are a few pictures of me with my wife’s family in Thailand. I speak Thai and have gotten very close to all of these wonderful people. I think you’ll see why Tanta’s image touched my heart so profoundly.
As you can see in the pictures, her warm and loving family is not what anyone could call “well off” by any stretch. They all struggle to get by, living day to day, and when I dug deep to think about the story and the messages I wanted to deliver, these wonderful people were in my heart and mind. I asked Tanta if I could build a game based on her artwork and she graciously said “of course!”. Here is what happened next with some of the concept art. The original idea of Thai River was to focus on creating a “living village” Sim-game, and teach people about Thai Culture.
There was a bit of a ghost element in the original idea but it wasn’t central, and the game wasn’t as narrative/story focused as it was to become in Dancing with Ghosts.
I will stop here for this post. It has gotten pretty long. In the next post I will tell you about the Story of Dancing with Ghosts… how and why it took the shape that it did.