“Kai UnEarthed is an afrofuturistic 3D game where you explore a unique world in a new way. You play as Kai, a person training to become a Wildtender — someone who helps fix the broken connection between humans and other living beings… The game is set in an imagined future where humanity is healing from climate change. Your journey is not just about playing, but also about thinking and feeling deeply.”
“You can open yourself and go on and embark”
“Every single choice that I had is right there crystallized in the journal…. like an analog save cache.”
— Gabriel Soares, a teacher and game designer giving feedback on a prototype of Kai UnEarthed during an Afrofuturist critical game jam in 2021
“I feel like there’s like a lack of hope right now… before like playing the game, I definitely felt like there was almost no hope. And I felt like now after playing there’s a glimpse of something, like we can probably still create something… if this was real, I feel like I would be very happy. I feel like I’m peeking in to the future and getting a glimpse on what might happen. And I'm like that's exactly what I wanted”.
“I kind of feel motivated to actually create a better future…this game inspired me to view it differently and to actually act different ‘cause I feel like it reminded me that there's different types of media and there different types of inspirations behind how people lead their life. And I'm like this can definitely be one of the inspirations behind how I lead my life.“
“I learned the importance of… setting your own boundaries and holding them.”
“I feel happy that everyone believes in me in this game.”
— Jomih Che, a community organizer giving feedback on a prototype of Kai UnEarthed during an Afrofuturist critical game jam in 2021
“The game clearly was developed very thoughtfully. It was poetic. It was fun to play”.
“It was a trip to see the care and work put into building a world”
“This just seems very trauma-informed”; “Abolition Playfield used to have trauma there and the Earth had just grown over it eventually.”
“There's a transformative justice lens in Kai UnEarthed that I really appreciated.“
“You can change things by pointing out the beauty in things, while maintaining your critical lens. That’s some really excellent stuff and it’s sort of where I’m hoping that I can take myself in the coming years, that I’m doing truly sustainable work that is informed by global justice and intersectional feminism, that is also just, like, beautiful. And by the way, Kai UnEarthed is an example of that”.
— Light Bird, a college student giving feedback on a prototype of Kai UnEarthed during an Afrofuturist critical game jam in 2021
“The game helped me reorient the ways I want to think about the future. Something I think about, but it’s not in the forefront when I think about Black liberation is the specific tie in to the environment.”
“I’ve never been like ‘oh climate change is not happening’ but now I’m like “oh, actually these are all the ways anti-Blackness actually really makes climate change a lot worse.”
“It made me think about the relationship between the environment and anti-Blackness, and how anti-Blackness structures the Earth and the resources of the Earth and I guess this specific focus on animals”
-Cam Wade, a college student giving feedback on a prototype of Kai UnEarthed during an Afrofuturist critical game jam in 2021
