interview with Julie Kern Donck

“By studying and working within the contemporary art scene, I felt a contradiction with who I am and the typical public who visits museums and buys the art. I don’t come from a rich background, but the ones buying the art do. With that the diversity reduces as you keep climbing up the echelons. I felt more and more uncomfortable doing that and I realized that this public is not the one I want to make art for. This introspective moment came right around when covid happened, which gave me even more time to think about my career.

At this moment I thought: how can I make experiences/ installations that people can access easily, that don’t cost zillions to produce or obtain and that are not constrained to a physical place like a museum? I realized that a video game is exactly that! Then I gradually learned how to code games through a course by a center in Brussels called Interface3. Later I started developing some games and stumbled upon, She Jams, a competition where in this case only women develop games.

That’s how I met these four other great women and together Amal, Reem, Shaila, Vanessa and I made ‘Iman & The Busy Season’. Three of our group are Belgian, Amal is Saudi-Arabian and Reem is Syrian. Reem is also the one who came up with the story of Iman: who is a young woman who’s just got her IT degree and lives in an undisclosed location in the Middle East with all these cute colors. Since Iman is so smart she’s constantly being asked for help. Iman’s dad needs help with his computer, her neighbor Mrs. Farasha who’s scared of butterflies needs her to catch these insects and her best friend needs Iman to drive a jeep because she doesn’t have her license. All silly little tasks you as Iman need to complete.

"We think that many of us can relate to Iman, who hasn’t been asked for computer help by their grandparents?"

We wanted all the characters to feel very whimsical and make it kind of a fairytale from the 21st century. After we made the first version of the game, we presented it and had a very positive reception from Arabic or Middle Eastern women. They expressed that they felt that it was the first time that they were represented like a normal person and where their headscarf wasn’t the topic. Iman is veiled but that’s not what the story is about. We think that many of us can relate to Iman, who hasn’t been asked for computer help by their grandparents? Or who doesn’t go big tasks out of the way by doing little side quests? The game is also about finding time for yourself in a world that constantly throws stuff at you.

Like previously mentioned, accessibility is very important to us. So, we put a lot of time into optimizing the game so that it can run on every type of computer. With that do come a lot of conscious decisions for example when making the animations not too complicated. We draw a lot of inspiration from anime where the characters wiggle. Besides that, we also put many hours in the ideas and designs of the houses and interiors. We also included a few Easter eggs like the cat in the game is my actual cat, but I think that’s more for us than for the players (laughs).

Since the first version other women have joined our team: Scheherazade, Manon and even a new intern from Interface3, Chloé. Together, we’re really putting in the effort to make the newest version of the game more interactive with lots of new tasks. Get ready for a more vibrant Iman and an even more eccentric world.”

Julie will host an expo at Het Bos from Wednesday, February 26th, to Saturday, March 1st. During this expo you'll get the chance to play the newest version of Iman & The Busy Season yourself and discover more about the development of the game.

Come by on:
Wednesday 26 February: soft opening for Boslabs 14 - 16h
Opening: Thursday 27 February: 18 - 23h
Friday 28 February: 16 - 23h
Saturday 1 March: 15 - 20h

Can't wait until then? Through this link you can download the game and play!

Iman & The Busy Season is a game developed by:
Art, Game & Technical Director: Julie Kern Donck aka exitshadow
Narrative Designer & Programming: Vanessa aka captainVanessa
Lead Animator: Shaila aka Tylia
Additional Programming: Paulman
Initial storyline & playtest: Reem aka reem-alabras
Local assistance & playtest: Amal aka amalalotaibi

_{Tekst door Eveline Slavov Slavov}