Umurangi in Maori means both the red sky and the extinct species of Huia bird. It is not by chance that it appears in the title of an independent video game by a New Zealand author with the nickname Veselekov. Her world is plagued by alien invasion and military oppression. The remarkable work comments on colonial violence or the threat of a lost future in the face of global crises. When graffiti tells stories
If you don't like slow intros, you will love Umarangi Generation. You are thrown straight into the action without any exposure - instead of a weapon, which would be typical for first-person games, you get a camera in your hand. As a messenger of a delivery company, you have ten minutes to deliver in each of the levels, during which you have to earn extra by documenting the surroundings. The game rewards you for composition, color or theme, and at the beginning of each level you are given a list of what you need to record to complete it: five birds or a detail of a grenade launcher, a whole street party in a closed neighborhood or ten posters advertising a job with United Nations troops. There is only one rule - no p[censored]os of blue squares that lie scattered on the ground, on roofs or among colored sprays.
In Umurangi Generation, you have no weapon to change the course of history or events. You are only witnesses of all injustices, but also of small joys, one of those who try to somehow persevere.
In the world of the Umarangi Generation, the jellyfish represent a harbinger of the impending apocalypse, an unknown threat outside the land that has engulfed the New Zealand city of Tauranga. While the opening sequence presents an idyll on the top of a block of flats (with boomboxes, skateboards and a swimming pool), in the others it gets a little more intense each time. Peace Corps soldiers walk between the retro-futuristic backdrops, checking on residents or blocking off entire neighborhoods. And in the middle of it all, you, with your camera, interchangeable lenses and a group of friends just trying to keep a bit of joy in spite of the bleak outlook.
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When graffiti tells stories
If you don't like slow intros, you will love Umarangi Generation. You are thrown straight into the action without any exposure - instead of a weapon, which would be typical for first-person games, you get a camera in your hand. As a messenger of a delivery company, you have ten minutes to deliver in each of the levels, during which you have to earn extra by documenting the surroundings. The game rewards you for composition, color or theme, and at the beginning of each level you are given a list of what you need to record to complete it: five birds or a detail of a grenade launcher, a whole street party in a closed neighborhood or ten posters advertising a job with United Nations troops. There is only one rule - no p[censored]os of blue squares that lie scattered on the ground, on roofs or among colored sprays.
In Umurangi Generation, you have no weapon to change the course of history or events. You are only witnesses of all injustices, but also of small joys, one of those who try to somehow persevere.
In the world of the Umarangi Generation, the jellyfish represent a harbinger of the impending apocalypse, an unknown threat outside the land that has engulfed the New Zealand city of Tauranga. While the opening sequence presents an idyll on the top of a block of flats (with boomboxes, skateboards and a swimming pool), in the others it gets a little more intense each time. Peace Corps soldiers walk between the retro-futuristic backdrops, checking on residents or blocking off entire neighborhoods. And in the middle of it all, you, with your camera, interchangeable lenses and a group of friends just trying to keep a bit of joy in spite of the bleak outlook.
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