A Short, Short Spiritual Dance
An emotional game about shifting community and identity, A Short, Short Spiritual Dance focuses primarily on the ceremonial Maori dance, the haka, which you must perform by pressing the correct number pattern on your keyboard. Your character, a faceless warrior, is painted in bright blue, then red, then yellow, then purple as you dance new patterns with skeptical tribes until, finally, you prove your ancestry and make it back home. It’s a sad process, to have to convince so many people what you already know to be true. But the power that haloes the haka in this game feels like a testament to the unbreakable tie of Maori history—it stays intact no matter how much land is taken, no matter how often angry outsiders say you don’t belong.
That’s it for my picks this year! I hope perhaps these games can help you see new aspects of cultures less often seen in video games and serve as comforting reminders of the world’s rich histories, which are worth honoring and protecting. Got any similar games you’d recommend?
