Did Kristin Cakallari go to Europe? Yes of course she did. She is now living in Denmark, which she loves. She is an adventurous traveller, and her new home in the Danish countryside is a perfect place to explore the many sights, smells, and sounds of this part of Europe.
As part of a series of video essays on the video game industry, Kristin Cakallari makes an appearance in our top ten. I have to say, as interesting as Cristin is, I was more impressed by the fact that she is actually a game designer instead of an “in-house” gamer. But what I found most interesting was her assertion that she went to Europe to study, and that she’s been in the video games industry for over a decade.
She just seems to have a knack for the games industry and the graphics in the game industry. And, as the title suggests, she’s very open about her own work and how she has “seen” the world. She is a genius at creating games.
I don’t know if I’m being too harsh on Cristin, but I think it’s important to remind those who want to make a career out of game development that, unlike Cristin, you are not going to be making games for the sake of making games. You are going to be making games for the sake of making money. There are a lot of people who, like Cristin, have a knack for creating games that are just so good that they can make money.
Cristin was actually the first person to be hired to work on the game I am going to write about. I was hired to make a game that I, and I am sure a lot of other game developers, will look at and say, “Hey, we could have done that.” But if she had had full time employment, she would have made the game that I will be writing about. Instead, Cristin worked on the game for five years full time.
Cristin does seem to be a talented game designer, and you can almost hear the sound of her voice in the game I am going to write about. But that’s a side note. She actually went to Europe to play an exhibition called “The Other World: A Gathering Of The Worlds”. Her game was designed for her to play as a person of color. And what she experienced during the exhibition was pretty horrifying.
The exhibition was organized by the international art collective In The Game. Some of the games were in fact designed by people of color, like one by a woman of color who identified as Asian, and one that was designed by a woman of color who identified as African. But, the games all had one thing in common: they were violent, often rape-based. Cristin’s team made a point to try to make it feel as real as possible, and they succeeded.
I was really shocked and shocked, because she was the only woman in the exhibition. So many games had no women in them. And one of them was a rape simulator. So, yes, she was in the exhibition.
Cristin was also one of the creators of the game’s graphics, and the game’s art style is the same as the games in the exhibition. But I’m not sure she was in the exhibition that much. Cristins team was very concerned with trying to make the game feel real and authentic, and they succeeded.