Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.
Journalism is not the most glamorous job.
It can be thankless work and involve poor coffee shop Wi-Fi, low-nutrition makeshift lunches and long stretches of sitting.
Ben Gelinas hopes his video game about journalism is interesting and fun.
“Times and Galaxy,” due for release June 21 on consoles and PC, puts players in the shoes of a robo-intern analog for the eponymous publication, “the solar system’s most trusted holo-paper.”
Gelinas left high school to be a journalist and studied at the University of Regina, with his first job being an internship for the Edmonton Journal.
After stints with two newspapers in southern Ontario, he got a call from the Journal’s editor asking if he wanted to return to Alberta.
The job, unfortunately for him, was for a crime reporter.
“I hated so much crime reporting,” Gelinas said in a recent interview. “I’m shy at best. As a journalist, I wore my hat … but writing about crime was the hardest thing.
“There’s so much trauma, other people’s trauma, that you want to make sure you do everything and justice for everyone and still stay very true to facts and hold power to account.”
However, Edmonton lost and it was pretty much a permanent job in journalism right out of school, so away she went.
Gelinas spent three years at the Edmonton newspaper as a crime reporter, covering “all kinds of murders” — probably more than 100 killings, he estimates.
“After a while, I was starting to burn out on it,” he said.
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He took a break by writing artsy stories like concert reviews, but he also missed “the meat of the latest news.”
“It was a difficult place to be,” he said.
One day, an editor at Edmonton video game studio BioWare called with a job opportunity that they thought would be a good fit.
“They needed someone to take their fantasy tale in the ‘Dragon Age’ series and turn it into something that can be referenced internally” — like Wikipedia, he said.
It was a six month contract offer.
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Gelinas, who was in her mid-20s at the time, faced a choice: stay in her permanent journalism job or jump into a potentially temporary gig in an industry she always loved.
“I took the risk and never looked back,” he said before correcting himself. “Well, sometimes I look back. (“Times and Galaxy”) is looking back, right? And I miss him, but I’m not a journalist anymore. I’m a game developer.
“It’s so strange. I’ve been doing it for so long and I still feel like an impostor.”
His journalistic experience was an asset in his burgeoning career as he brought new ideas and perspectives. Eventually his contract was made permanent.
“I was bringing a lot of – not specific stories – but realism into this game we were making,” he said.
“Apparently, this person has suffered a great loss or been traumatized, but in space. Or a dragon eat their loved one. How do you make that ring true in a piece of fiction, right?”
When his wife got a job in Toronto, Gelinas quit BioWare and moved east again. Eager to expand his skill set beyond writing and editing, Gelinas connected with the local indie developer community and created “Speed Dating for Ghosts,” which was billed as a “healthy horror game.”
After doing contract work, including writing for “Control” from Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment and “Gotham Knights” from WB Games Montreal, Gelinas eventually moved back to Edmonton, where his wife is a reporter .
“Times and Galaxy,” his first major project, took years with the help of a group of creative people he had met over the years in Edmonton and beyond.
“My only goal with the team I built was, are you weird and aren’t you a jerk,” he said of his studio, Copychaser Games. “And creatively, will you make a gel with us.
“We’re a bunch of weirdos from across Canada and one person in New Jersey making this game.”
Weirdness is everywhere in “Times and Galaxy”, a comedy adventure game where the player, as Reporterbot, is sent to cover all kinds of stories, including intersolar cat shows and space ghost funerals.
The game features 2D characters in 3D environments, like the Nintendo series “Paper Mario.”
An early assignment sees Reporterbot sent to a shuttle crash on a dry planet. Policebot greets our brave intern, who offers a technical explanation that is not incorrect: “There was an incident. That incident is now under investigation.”
Upon further questioning, the Policebot gets a little more specific: “A shuttle impacted a rock-like object.” (Reporterbot is later advised to speak to the police Mediarelationsbot.)
It is up to the player to interview any witnesses, officers or experts at the scene to gather information, then construct a story.
Gelinas says players get a “toe in the water” experience of the kinds of challenges reporters face in gathering information.
One of his favorite parts of being a journalist, he said, was trying to capture what he had learned and write a story that was accurate and worth reading.
“I’m trying to make that a video game, with aliens and robots.”
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://globalnews.ca/news/10575854/edmonton-video-games-times-and-galaxy/
