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DEMO V0.8 HERE 

(it's still in development).

INTRO

Palestine Skating Game is a fast-paced game with Splatoon elements, and a kaleidoscope of Arabic music, art, & culture. Episode 1 is set before 2023 and will explore three women’s lives under Israeli Occupation. PC/single-player first. 

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This is not a super violent game. But we won’t ignore it, either. Episode 1 will go to Bethlehem, Gaza, and Beirut. Later episodes for Yaffa, Al Quds (Jerusalem), Cairo, Istanbul and beyond. We'll examine possible futures for Palestine and their likelihood. This is a critique of nihilistic Adult Swim pop culture, and a maybe rose-tinted examination of Arab culture. But a hyper-secularized West, white liberals, young leftists, white feminism--not our ideal. 

If we raise $80k, at LEAST 70% of that will go to hiring Gazans. A game studio employing hundreds of Gazans is the long-term vision. 

The team, over 3.5 years and 40-50 contributors, is from all over. But two of our main teammates are in Gaza and South Lebanon (and they've requested to remain somewhat anonymous). We got one of our former teammates out of Gaza in April 2024. The trailer music is from a West Bank group. A white guy from Florida did 400 hours of coding for $4000, refusing a bonus, so--it's been a group effort. We've talked to Palestinian and Lebanese authors, comedians, and rappers about writing or directing and there's been some willingness, but they've been clear that we need more money to hire them. That's where we're at. 

GAMEPLAY

It's basically Jet Set Radio with a Splatoon paint gun. To win you do 10 tags per level. The gameplay loop is, you do graffiti, escape from incoming soldiers, then do more graffiti. In other levels you simply get up to a high place, or explore rooftops, streets, markets in Gaza, say. Or race other skaters. You might also shoot paint at soldiers and tanks, throw around some soldiers. 

We have a realistic graffiti stencil minigame, with spray location controlled by the mouse or analog stick:

Here's more grinding and shooting gameplay from the trailer:

We did not plan this to be an ultra-realistic game prior to October 2023. The plan now is to make it more realistic as we go from episode to episode, and as we get more money to add complex gameplay systems. We've been advised by other Arab game devs that less realism could help the West engage. Possible gameplay scenarios:

• Shoot gun-mounted drones out of the air
• Save kids from snipers
• Stop bulldozers from demolishing village
• Defeat helicopter gunner
• Escape an IOF raid on rooftops
• Sneak into a prison or Settlement
   

We like Mirror’s Edge's up-close-and-personal cameras and combat; we also note how dense with obstacles their levels are. Luckily our Unity character controller already has vaulting, sliding, climbing, and ledge hangs, and Bethlehem and Hebron’s beautiful rooftop vistas and hillsides are full of elements to traverse IRL.

WRITING & CHARACTERS

We'll need dedicated writers to flesh this out more, but here's some broad outlines:

Episode 1: set in 2022, Bethlehem, Gaza, Beirut.
Episode 2: Oct. 7th, 2023 onwards. Gaza, Jenin, Al-Quds (Jerusalem)
Episode 3: Near future and Good Future--what if Palestine gets a state? Is a 2-State Solution viable? (It's not.)

Episode 1 will explore the West Bank, Gaza, and Beirut before the war, and the ever-present ethnic cleansing and apartheid in the former two. It was genocide, just very slow. This is a heavy subject to tackle, but Paradise Now did so even with slice-of-life/humor elements. Episode 2 will cover events unfolding in Gaza and Beirut, and likely Jerusalem and Jenin. Episode 3: near future, we see the creation of a Palestinian state. We would like to show an idealized Palestinian state and victory, but a relatively realistic one. We would examine a futuristic Palestinian setting in 2030, 2070. Further episodes and levels could be set in Jericho, Yaffa, Cairo, Istanbul, Amman, Baghdad, Sana'a, and beyond.

Characters: designs are not finalized, but we intend to have a character from a farming family (having their land stolen at gunpoint) and club-dwellers in Ramallah and Yaffa, and Palestinians from political, negotiator families. It's not uncommon for any one of these groups to have family unjustly held in jail or killed by settlers or IOF.

LEVELS AND ENVIRONMENTS

Most of our assets so far are for Bethlehem. Other West Bank levels will look similar. Beirut has yet to be modeled but it's a mix of older buildings and lots of skyscrapers and modern architecture. We are big fans of Mirror's Edge and would love to make our rooftop environments just as busy and fun to traverse. 

We also intend to have a few dream-like levels set in Arabic cloud cities, or in “Good Future” versions of our current cities. 

BUDGET

It took our part-time contractors 400-500 hours to code grinding, graffiti-stenciling, and enemy paint ball reaction, and to implement tanks and car assets. (About half of this was done Feb-July 2024.) Complete player and enemy mechanics could take another 400-500 hours. Modeling, rigging, and animation could take as much as ~1000 hours, while level design will probably be ~700 hours. Assuming $20/hr salaries,l

Coding, animation, and level design remaining, with a budget overrun factor of 1.2 would be approx:
~2200 hours * $20/hr * 1.2 = $53,000. 

Budget leftover to license music and pay for writers/VO’s would then be:
$80,000 - $53,000 = $27,000.

30 hours a week at $20 an hour is maybe 2x a livable income in Egypt (where most Gazans crossed over to), and will probably cover the needs of most families back in Gaza. Supporting extended family however may require 22, 25+ per hour. 

What happens if we go over budget? We’ll scale levels down and reuse building assets more liberally. Fewer animated cutscenes, fewer enemy types. But we also have a consistent supply of Western volunteers and 1-2 really dedicated ones, to fill budget gaps.

What about marketing? We note that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk relied on trailers and word of mouth, was self-published, and made $10.4 mil on PC, in 12 months. We’ve also had articles in several gaming and mainstream media outlets without a prototype or trailer, so we're going to see how that works before doing ad buys.