Palestine Skating Game - Development Fundraiser

Hey ya'll. This is Palestine Skating Game. You grind rails, shoot paint at tanks, and tag walls to win. The focus will be on Arabic electronic music, and plot and character-driven narrative. For now, at least 70% of the money we raise is going to go to evacuating colleagues in Lebanon. Probably more. Over 1000 people have been killed by Israel in the past 2 weeks alone; we've wired over $3500 in funds for travel so far. Our First Episode will be set in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Gaza before the war in 2022. Playable prototype:

https://bit.ly/psgprototype3

We've been working on this thing for about 3 years.

We got here with 3 part-timers, and $7000. Most of the code is recent and from two guys, one who willingly took a very deep pay cut to work on this. A pool of volunteers and temps contributed bits and pieces, but we need more permanent team members. In normal circumstances, at *least* 70% of donations will go to hiring Palestinians and Lebanese who need it. Plenty of brilliant artists, musicians, and coders over there.

As an example: a Gazan refugee we met in Egypt needs $2k/mo for himself and his family back in Gaza. He's currently employed at $1200 per month. If we hired him he’d get at least 2.4k a month.

PC first, then Android, and iOS, PS4, PS5, Switch if we're allowed on those platforms. Multiplayer if/when we have money for it.

Yes, it's a genocide. The death toll could very well be ~100,000. Thousands under the rubble. Look up NYT maps showing the totality of the bombing, as well as their May 2024 piece, "How Extremists Took Over Israel," and videos of the intentional destruction of Gazan aid. We note Reagan got Israel to stop bombing Lebanon in the 80's, he literally called it "a holocaust." We don’t back Biden or Harris.

======== Plot and Episodes ========

We'll need Palestinian writers to flesh this out more, but we have some in mind. Here are some broad outlines:

Episode 1: set in 2022, Bethlehem, Hebron, and pre-war Gaza.

Episode 2: Oct. 7th, 2023 onwards.

Episode 3: Near future and Good Future--what if Palestine gets a state? Is a 2-State Solution viable? (It's not.)

Episode 1 will explore the West Bank and Gaza, before the war, and the ever-present ethnic cleansing and apartheid there. It was genocide, just very slow. We recognize this is a heavy subject to tackle, but Paradise Now did so effectively, and with slice-of-life/humor elements. Episode 2 will cover events unfolding today, set in Gaza, and likely Jerusalem and Jenin. Will require dedicated writing and scenario planning team. Episode 3: near future, we see the creation of a Palestinian state. We would like to show an idealized Palestinian state and victory, but a relatively realistic one. We would examine a futuristic Palestinian setting in 2030, 2070. Further episodes and levels could be set in Jericho, Yaffa, Cairo, Beirut, Istanbul, Amman, Baghdad, Sana'a, and beyond.

Characters: designs are not finalized, but there are a lot of farmers on the frontlines having their land stolen at gunpoint. There are also club-dwellers in Ramallah and Yaffa, and lots of Palestinians from political, legal, and negotiator families. It's not uncommon for any one of these groups to have family unjustly held in jail or killed by settlers or IOF.

========= Gameplay =========

It's inspired by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Splatoon. There'll be lots of grinding and shooting paint. To win you might do 10 tags per level--or simply explore rooftops, streets, markets in Gaza, say--get to a high place and tag it, race other skaters. Or you might knock over soldiers and paint tanks and REALLY confront the Occupation.

We did not plan this to be an ultra-realistic game prior to October 2023. The plan now is to make it more realistic as we go from episode to episode, and as we get more money to add complex gameplay systems. We've been advised by other Arab game devs that they see how making the first episode less realistic could help the West engage. Possible gameplay scenarios:

We like RE4, Skate, and Mirror’s Edge's up-close-and-personal cameras and combat. We also note how dense with obstacles their levels are. Luckily our Unity character controller already has vaulting, sliding, climbing, and ledge hangs, and Bethlehem and Hebron’s beautiful rooftop vistas and hillsides are full of elements to traverse IRL.

========= Art and Music =========

FYI: the majority of our assets were developed prior to the war. They tend to be low-poly and colorful; they're not final. What you see is essentially a tech demo.

As for music--we have a wishlist to license for the soundtrack, but we don’t want to say what will be in the game until we actually get the licensing agreement. It'll take some time. A music production group from the West Bank, called Hazy Noir, gave us a few tracks for free, for which we're very grateful.

But we do have rap, minimalist electronic, electro-funk, desert rock, trip-hop, jazz, and more to choose from, all from North Africa and West Asia. We could stick with Levant groups or go broader, there are options.

======= Budget ========

How are we going to build this first episode? Well, it took our part-time contractors 400-500 hours to code grinding, graffiti-stenciling, and paint ball reaction, and to implement tanks and car assets. (About half of this was done Feb-July.) Complete player and enemy mechanics could take another 400-500 hours. Modeling, rigging, and animation could take as much as ~1000 hours, while level design will probably be ~700 hours. Assuming $20/hr salaries,

Remaining coding, animation, and level design would cost, approx:

~2200 hours * $20/hr = $44,000.

Then, budget leftover to license music and pay for writers/VO’s would be:

$60,000 - $44,000 = $16,000

Raising more than our 60k goal would allow us to pay more workers and at greater salaries. That said 30 hours a week at $20 an hour is maybe 2x a livable income in Egypt (where most Gazans crossed over to), and will probably cover the needs of most families back in Gaza. Supporting extended family however may require 22, 25+ per hour. Our most recent Excel budget, not yet reflective of prior work, is here.

What happens if we go over budget? We’ll scale levels down and reuse building assets more liberally. Fewer animated cutscenes, fewer enemy types. But we also have a consistent supply of Western volunteers and 1-2 really dedicated ones, to fill budget gaps.

What about marketing? We note that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk relied on trailers and worth of mouth, was self-published, and made $10.4 mil on PC, in 12 months. We’ve also had articles in several gaming and mainstream media outlets without a prototype or trailer, so we're going to see how that works before doing ad buys.

======== Extras ==========

Books and authors we're looking at include Rashid Khalidi, Raja Shehadeh, The Way to the Spring, Mona Eltahawy, Chomsky, Finkelstein, Tamim Ansary, and histories of Israel and Zionism, and of Jerusalem.

A concept of a real Arabic subway, in opposition to racist AI depictions of Arabs on British buses:

Banksy's hotel The Walled Off Hotel, which is a real thing. It's filled with his art, and is beautiful. The rooms are custom designed by other artists. In the lobby a piano plays songs composed by Massive Attack and Nine Inch Nails, and Elton John and Tom Waits have played concerts there (remotely):

The Israeli Wall, this is just our small section of it, there's much more of it, this is a small but accurate slice of it and the graffiti on it (from artists in Palestine and all over the world):

Extra shots of characters and environments:

This is a bit bridal but we've seen hijab with bright white colors, including Louis Vuitton headscarves in Egypt:

====== Final Notes ======

Is there any thing really to say at this point? We’ve seen now how a modern genocide works. We’re told by our anti-zionist Jewish friends and organizations like IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace that they are and have been horrified at what’s going on for a year now. We’d also look at Standing Together and Torah Jews.