'Kumhar Katha' - A Potter's Sage - Can You Help a Rural Artisan Survive the Economy?
Master's Thesis Project: An Interactive Text-Based News Game for Impactful Storytelling
MA Media, Communications and Critical Practice
University of the Arts London, London College of Communication
London, United Kingdom
2021 - 2022
Brief
'Kumhar Katha - Can You Help a Rural Artisan Survive the Economy?' was my Master's thesis project - a creative practice research project focussed on exploring the potential of newsgames as a medium of communication in increasing awareness and consciousness of social challenges surrounding us. 'Kumhar' means potter in Hindi and the title 'Kumhar Katha' translates to 'A Potter's Saga' in English. Through my thesis, I have investigated news games as a creative tool for communicating and generating awareness of understated stories such as the challenges of the traditional Indian artisan community as explored in this project.
Key Achievements
My thesis project was awarded a Distinction by University of the Arts London, London College of Communication.
Premise
Kumhar Katha, an interactive text-based news game seeks to spread awareness of the plight of traditional artisans in the rural economy in India. The game takes the player on a journey that offers a peek into the daily life of an Indian artisan. The game begins with a challenge and the player must make decisions to meet the challenge and traverse various obstacles. Kumhar Katha, as a prototype digital media solution, presents an alternative approach to educating people, generating awareness and visibility on issues faced by the artisan economy and igniting an interest in vehicles of culture and heritage such as traditional crafts for a young Indian audience.
Screengrab from Playtest of Scene 1 from Kumhar Katha
Research
I conducted my research in two parts. Firstly, by playing various serious games, studying gaming concepts, and researching the sub-genre of newsgames. Secondly, I researched the artisan economy in India by visiting and observing local craft bazaars and studied news stories, and NGO reports published over the last few years. I was inspired by two news games namely the Syrian Journey by BBC and the Uber Game by Financial Times. The narrative and emotive approach of the Syrian Journey helped me ideate a story with a similar vision and the Uber Game helped me develop a story by incorporating data points on income, expenses, and other economic factors that drive a potter’s business.
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The story of Kumhar Katha is a fictionalised account of an artisan or potter in India. The game briefly helps understand the significance of crafts in India, the skills and mastery involved in creating an artefact, sustainable alternatives to plastic utility products, the declining trade of rural artisans and the challenges faced by artisans.
Research Mind Map
Production
Concept and Script Development: First Draft
The game script is a fictionalised story of Hari based on real data from news stories in India. Many aspects of the narrative such as the characters, storyline, monetary numbers, obstacles have been fictionalised for creative purposes, however, every aspect of the story has been transcribed from news reports adopted for an engaging gaming script.
Branching Script Development
To script and playtest the game, I used Twine, an open-source software for non-linear storytelling games. Twine is an easy-to-use platform and does not require any coding experience making it a great choice for testing a game.
Moodboard, Character Sketches, Illustrations Inspired by Scenes from Rural India
The visuals of the game have been designed using simple flat vector illustrations. I taught myself how to create flat vector illustrations in Adobe Illustrator. I reviewed different styles of illustrations and settled on vector graphics as they were suited for the web and provided a simplistic yet old-fashioned visual style to the game. Each visual scene has been inspired by everyday scenes from rural India. I proceeded with a mood board of ideas I had in mind and chose an earthy colour palette to match the theme and tone of the game.
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The challenge was in creating the character design for Hari and the family which took up a significant amount of time and effort in ideation and creation. With the help of illustrations, I wanted to produce a visual summary of the game that was characteristic of Indian culture in terms of character design and the environment of a village through simplistic illustrations.
The thesis recognises the limitations of the project's ability to target only younger audiences and its inability to transcend the digital divide that permeates the digital landscape of urban and rural India. Future research and development of interactive applications will broaden the range of possible users of such solutions, allowing them to serve a wider range of consumers.
As the way forward, I am working towards collaborating with NGOs and other organisations working towards the welfare of Indian artisans. I intend to undertake on-ground interviews with artisans to better understand their issues, as well as collaborate with creative digital teams on the project's future growth.
Dr. Sara Marino
Course Leader, MA Media, Communications and Critical Practice
London College of Communication
"Shalini, I find your game Kumhar Katha an excellent example of news games and one that I hope you will be able to work more on in the future. The focus of your research – the artisan economy in India – provided an interesting niche for the localisation of your prototype and for the contextualisation of your enquiry. While the field is relatively new and unexplored, you provided some promising starting points of discussion where the potential of interactive games within social and economic settings should be explored further. Unfortunately, the time at your disposal didn’t allow you to test the prototype and to fully respond to your key aim, which was to investigate the potential of news games for generating awareness and changing audience behaviour. However, you provided relevant insights into the ability of news games to provide information through storytelling, and I believe this aspect of your work was accomplished successfully. I hope you will be able to bring this project to its full realization."