Working Class Heroes tells the true story of three steel miners and heavy industry workers who turned politicians and fought hard for workers rights in early 20th century Luxembourg. It was a collaboration between my university Cologne Game Lab and the Musèe vun der Aarbecht, in Tètange, Luxembourg.
Play now on itch.io!This game was created as part of a collaborative university project between Cologne Game Lab and the Musèe vun der Aarbecht (MUAR) in Luxembourg. It was created with a team of two artists, three designers, and one programmer. This project was different from all other previous ones, because we were not given a theme and then tasked with creating a game befitting of that theme. Instead, we were assigned a client (the museum) who gave us a very specific goal to accomplish: creating a historical educational video game inspired by their museum exhibiton centered around three politicians who fought and died for worker’s rights. The game was to be captivating and enaging to a younger audience, in order to educate them about the life of those figures and the history of workers right in Luxembourg.
With these hard requirements in mind, we figured that a narrative point-and-click game would be the most suitable approach. We decided to craft a dramatic story detailing the biographies of the three figures, from their early days as children to their first day at work, to their first steps in politics and the protests they organised, as well as the end of their lives and the hopeful outlook they left behind.
To bring the museum exhibition to life, we made use of several real historical photographs supplied to us by our contact with MUAR. The artists on our team did the fantastic job of colouring and fixing up these black and white photos, as well as adding effects like sun rays, particles, and foliage, to create a real sense of immersion and “entering” the photograph. The people in the photos were re-drawn as realistic stylised illustrations so that we could create consistent visuals for key characters as well as potentially animate them.
The story is built around the player entering these historical photographs come to life, and talking with the characters therein, or simply listening in to an existing conversation. This way, players are on the ground floor of the policital activism being made, and feel a deep personal connection with the three main historical figures. The main task of the designers after finalising the core concept was thus to write all this dialogue and narration that would play out in each scene.
It was my particular focus when writing to give each historical figure distinct personalities, principles, dislikes, and conflicts which develop over time, so that they feel like real people and their struggle can be empathised with, as well as making the story feel more engaging. The three men original start working towards the same goal independently of each other, but as time goes on, they enconter each other and even work together. I tried to leverage these moments to create relationships between them that change and evolve, and aren’t entirely amicable, as each of these figures were given different sets of principles and priorities. In addition, background characters (such as other industry workers) comment on current events. I tried to add even more life by writing supporters as well as enemies. With every historical revolution, there will always be people against the idea, and extremists who think the revolution is not going far enough.
I did my best to play with these dynamics to make for an immersive and captivating dramatic story, while staying true to the real world history of the figures and events. Overall, given the very narrow wiggle-room we had and specific points we had to check, I’m happy with how our story and prototype turned out and how we worked together as a team. I’m confident that if given the time and funding, we could have created a very interesting and compelling historical narrative game.
The Team: