Not enough women make video games. While nearly half of the people who play games are female, they make up only about 12 percent of the professional gaming industry. But initiatives like Girls Make Games are working to change that disparity, with workshops and camps that inspire young women to make games, teach them practical skills, and introduce them to mentors.
At the second annual Girls Make Games Demo Day this year, a team of middle school girls was handpicked for the GMG grand prize by a team of industry veterans for the prototype of their murder mystery game, Interfectorum. Now, they’re looking for funding to make their game a reality with the help of professional mentors, artists and programmers.
As the girls explain adorably in a Kickstarter video, Interfectorum—the Latin word for “murderer”—is a murder mystery game that stars a young woman named Alis, who lives with her sister Sally in a village beside the woods.
Alis decides to go on a hike one day, but comes home to find her younger sister brutally murdered! Overcome with grief and vengeance, Alis embarks on a mission to find her sister’s killer by following the trail of bodies the murderer leaves behind. She must return the favor of death!
Through 2015, Girls Make Games has visited 28 different cities and worked with over 700 girls in their workshops and camps. The Girls Make Games grand prize winner from last year, The Hole Story, is now available on Steam; Girls Make Games hope to the girls create a similarly polished Interfectorum with the help of the Kickstarter campaign, which would fund “a very pretty and complete version of their vision.” The campaign is only halfway to its $10,000 goal with 10 days to go.