Submissions are open for the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid on itch.io. This fundraising effort is the indie games community’s solidarity action with Palestine.
Game developers are showing their support for Palestine through the upcoming Indie Bundle for Palestinian aid. The bundle has already collected over 700 games, and is still open for submission. The fundraising effort began in response to the recent 11 days of Israeli rocket attacks on Gaza which left 253 Palestinians dead, 28,000 injured, and as many as 58,000 displaced.
According to organiser Alanna Linayre, the Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid currently includes over 700 games. The bundle is built around the game Liyla and the Shadows of War by Palestinian game developer Rasheed Abueideh, which tells a story of a little girl who lives in Gaza during the war in 2014 in which 1,462 Palestinian civilians died, including 495 children. Released in 2016, Liyla and the Shadows of War was showcased at A MAZE in Berlin, IndieCade in Europe, garnering several award nominations including a win in Excellence in Storytelling at the International Mobile Gaming Awards Middle East- North Africa.
Foregrounding the creative work of Palestinian game developers was important to the organisers of the bundle. In the bundle announcement, Linayre said: ‘We pour our life experiences into our games and share a piece of ourselves with the world. Palestinian game developers are no different in this aspect, but have the added challenges of limited access to basic services, like clean water, electricity, medical care, and food security. They live under Israeli authority that discriminates and subjugates Palestinians to the point of persecution and apartheid, simply for being Palestinian. Furthermore, they develop games without all the resources that come with being in a western hub for game development.’
Read the article by Jini Maxwell on ArtsHub.