The first one “international guest” do Controles is the developer Amanda DuarteBrazilian who currently lives in Toronto and works as a project manager at Achimostawinian Gamesan Indigenous studio focused on Canadian Indigenous stories and characters.

This name, Achimostawinan, is a Cree word and can be translated as ‘tell us a story’. “But it has a more imperative meaning, it’s like demanding that you tell us a story”, said the developer during the 25th episode of the podcast. And how cool to see a Brazilian developer present in a studio like this, also led by a woman and interested in telling not so traditional stories and from an even less common point of view within the universe developers.

What would the universe and the planet look like today if there had been no colonization in the past? What would be the future reality of these colonized peoples expelled from their lands, even erased from existence? Here are some of the questions Acimo seeks to answer in its debut game, Hill Agency: Purity/Decomposition.

The future is indigenous, they build prolific, technologically advanced cities and maintain their relationships, lifestyles and cultures unlike corporate-sponsored floating capital that is home to a white male elite. Hill Agency, in particular, features characters and stories from the Cree, one of Canada’s largest Indigenous peoples.

The game puts you in control of Maygeen Hill, a private detective living in the somewhat forgotten suburbs of this advanced world. As Hill, you must investigate from the disappearance of your cousin’s toy to the involvement of the elites in cases that go to the foundations of these two new companies. And it’s literally the player who decides whether the investigations were effective or not, by investigating every detail of the game and its characters.

Hill Agency is a complete noir detective experience. Each interaction with objects or other characters can be noted in a notebook and, in the role of a detective, it is you who accuse the suspects, who can be arrested or caught even without being really guilty. In the game, an arrest made early in the story may or may not affect your progress later, closing doors to locations or hampering future investigations.

“He has that detective feel, but that’s not really a goal. We want to convey that investigative experience, collecting evidence, talking to people”said Brazilian developer working at Acimo, Amanda Duarte.

A player not so curious about exploring each iteration of this universe might have a faster, more direct experience until the end of the story alone, but a true investigator goes all the way in every instance of Hill Agency to show that the Detective Maygeen is really in the middle, top of the know-it-all chain. The game has multiple ways and paths to reach a single end, and it depends on the player which path will be taken.

Hill looks like Carmen Sandiego, complete with her overcoat and hat, set in a black, cyberpunk polygonal world, in black and white tones, with artwork drawn from each character. Visually, the game is impeccable in its style and its proposal, which marries a mysterious and calm ambient track, but with secrets – as well as the futuristic indigenous world of Maygeen and the other characters of Cree origin.

“She’s tough-headed, but she’s got a heart. She’s got the will to make things right and go to the ends of the earth to solve problems. She puts both feet in the door, but that doesn’t mean that she is a bad person.”added the project manager, who moved to Canada to study game development and quickly landed the job at Acimo on a narrative game, one of her favorite genres.

In addition to being a project manager, dev is also one of the main organizers of the Women Game Jam Brasilthe world’s largest genre-focused game jam, having hosted over 1,000 developers and 150 games developed since 2018.

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