The developers of Through the Darkest of Times did their research when it came to getting the reality of resistance fighters during the second world war just right.
Speaking to us at Gamescom, Jörg Friedrich, founder and game director at Paintbucket Games, talked us through about the ample research materials available in Berlin. “Berlin is great for that because they have a huge museum just for Resistance,” he explained. “And you have a lot of rivalries that actually have really good documents from that stuff.”
Of course, documentation is great when you can get it, but Friedrich was able to go one better and speak to a living descendant of a resistance fighter. Connecting through Twitter, he and Nora Hespers became friends, eventually meeting up and collaborating on Through the Darkest of Times in some unexpected ways. “We met and talked a little bit,” Friedrich recalled. “And then she said because she’s a professional speaking for German and British radio as well, then she voiced the trailer for us, that was cool.”
A ‘historical resistance strategy game’, Through the Darkest of Times is about surviving one of the darkest periods in human history, right at the epicentre of Nazi Germany in Berlin. Players lead the rebellion against the fascist regime, gaining supporters and being as much of a pain to the Third Reich as possible.
There’s no shortage of literature on the subject, but as is life, the amount of living people who can speak about what it was like and share the stories of their relatives is always dwindling. Nora runs a blog and podcast, Die Anachronistin, that chronicles her grandfather’s time standing up to Hitler’s rule.
No release date yet for when the rest of us can join the effort, but watch this space.