He Ao Hou (A New World)
- He Ao Hou (A New World)
He Ao Hou is a point-and-click adventure game set in the far future, when Native Hawaiians have attained the next level of navigation—space travel. The gameplay is based on kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) stories and knowledge, and focuses in particular on the uses of the kukui nut, itself a symbol of knowledge.
As the player searches for their sister, they meet interesting individuals and learn about their relationships to their respective planets. On the water planet they are taught to use the kukui to clarify water that is cloudy, thus finding a helpful shark. On the lava planet, they see how hula dancing is used to make kukui plants grow. On the plant planet, they use the kukui as a projectile, hitting the boar-like, eight-eyed demigod, Kamapua'a, to wake him up. Finally, the player unlocks enough knowledge to find their sister—but she is now much more than she ever was before.
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Nā 'Anae Mahiki with AbTeC/IIF, He Ao Hou (A New World), videogame, 2017. (© Nā 'Anae Mahiki)
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Supplementary Material
You are the Ocean: Vimeo video link: https://vimeo.com/232792092
"Reconstructing “Sketchpad” and the “Coons Patch”: Toward an Archaeology of CAD": Interactive Software Reconstructions of the 'Coons Patch' and 'Sketchpad': https://vimeo.com/243439941
http://abtec.org/iif/
Nā 'Anae Mahiki is a collective of 16 young adults from Oahu who participated in the Skins 5.0 Workshop in Honolulu in July 2017. Skins 5.0 was hosted by the Kanaeokana Network, Kamehameha Schools and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures. The Skins Workshops in Aboriginal Storytelling and Digital Media aim to empower Indigenous youth to be producers—not just consumers—of new media. The program is one of four major components of the Initiative for Indigenous Future (IIF), a partnership of universities and community organizations led by AbTeC and dedicated to developing multiple visions of Indigenous peoples in the future.
