New Crowdfunding Project: "Take Us North"
Jun. 13th, 2025 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithA friend tipped me to this campaign: Take Us North is a video game about migrants trying to cross the border into the United States of America. If you're interested and jump fast, you may be able to catch the Early Bird reward in the first 24 hours at $25, after that it jumps to $35 minimum. I backed it because I want to project to exist -- tell ALL the stories, and poke a bigot in the eye!
Take Us North description
A narrative adventure/survival game that follows the journeys of migrants and asylum seekers on their way to cross the US-Mexico border
$6,056 pledged of $30,000 goal
95 backers
29 days to go
🎮 [Early Bird] Take Us North!
$25
Backers 52
Estimated delivery Dec 2026
🚨FIRST 24 HOURS DISCOUNT!🚨 Receive a digital copy of Take Us North (PC/Steam) and digital wallpapers!
3 items included
Digital Copy of the Game Quantity: 1
High-Resolution Digital Wallpapers Quantity: 1
Invitation to Virtual Community Launch Party Quantity: 1
Our debut original project, Take Us North, is a narrative adventure/survival-lite video game inspired by real-world stories that follows the poignant journeys of migrants and asylum seekers on their way to cross the US-Mexico border.
We recognize this is a heavy-hitting and emotionally-charged subject matter; however, we're committed to humanizing the migrant and refugee experience and portraying it sensitively, respectfully, and authentically. Our goal is to foster greater awareness and empathy around issues that are unfortunately often reduced in mainstream media to statistics or divisive rhetoric.
This project is deeply personal to many of our team members, and we're collaborating with migrants with lived experience, anthropologists, and experts in migration in order to ensure our portrayal is both respectful and authentic.
The concept art is beautiful. The sample video is gorgeous -- it looks like the kind of stylized southwest / Mexican art you can find in some galleries there. It's accurate based on my observations and research; I could recognize some keystone plants and the rock formations look right for the region. When I was traveling out west, years ago, I collected postcards and some of them had very similar art, especially that striking purple/orange palette.
The developers seem to be doing a hardcore level of research. This includes talking with scholars and also interviewing migrants and refugees for lived experience. I love a good experiential history project. It helps that they have a very diverse team of different nationalities, genders, and life paths: something else to encourage in an industry that tends to be very white and male. That diversity and research contribute to new and different stories to enjoy.
Also, I want to poke a bigot in the eye. Backing a project like this lets me make concrete my philosophical rejection of American racism and everything it stands for. This project also has a wider reach than me just stuffing extra money in local tip jars at Mexican establishments. Not just the game itself but the traveling project as it's built will pull in more people and create more discussion about these events and issues. Supporting this project encourages people, conversations, and cultural content that bigots want not to exist and that I do want to exist. So if you've been wondering what you can do to fight back, if you've been watching the illegal assault on Los Angeles and wishing you could do something about the racist bullshit -- here is one opportunity. I've done a huge range of activist tactics over the decades, and the one with the highest throughput of "I did the thing" is plain old storytelling. This looks like a good story. And fuckICE the American Gestapo.
My one regret is that the campaign starts with a copy of the game (with some digital art included). Normally there is a "Back it because you love it" level at $1 or $5. Always put that in your campaign. (Yes, I have a $5 poetry category that mostly gets haiku and occasional other stuff, which you can request in any relevant prompt call.) Often there is a cheap swag level at $5-15 where you can get things like digital art, stickers, postcards, etc. Having these lets people support you even if they don't want or can't afford the main thing. Had I discovered this project tomorrow instead of today, they'd have missed out on my donation, because I don't actually play video games and that limits what I'm willing to spend on a project that's outside my entertainment field but square in my activist field. But I would've been all over a packet of postcards or a small print or poster of the concept art.
Don't make the same mistake if you're crowdfunding. Maximize your price range as best you can with your project offerings. Look at other campaigns to see what rewards people are offering at low levels that are cheap (postcards, stickers, bookmarks, etc.) or free (digital art, PDF copies, access to member-only forums) to send. The average donation on Kickstarter is said to be $50 but lots of folks have smaller budgets and back at those low level rewards -- or not at all.
Take Us North description
A narrative adventure/survival game that follows the journeys of migrants and asylum seekers on their way to cross the US-Mexico border
$6,056 pledged of $30,000 goal
95 backers
29 days to go
🎮 [Early Bird] Take Us North!
$25
Backers 52
Estimated delivery Dec 2026
🚨FIRST 24 HOURS DISCOUNT!🚨 Receive a digital copy of Take Us North (PC/Steam) and digital wallpapers!
3 items included
Digital Copy of the Game Quantity: 1
High-Resolution Digital Wallpapers Quantity: 1
Invitation to Virtual Community Launch Party Quantity: 1
Our debut original project, Take Us North, is a narrative adventure/survival-lite video game inspired by real-world stories that follows the poignant journeys of migrants and asylum seekers on their way to cross the US-Mexico border.
We recognize this is a heavy-hitting and emotionally-charged subject matter; however, we're committed to humanizing the migrant and refugee experience and portraying it sensitively, respectfully, and authentically. Our goal is to foster greater awareness and empathy around issues that are unfortunately often reduced in mainstream media to statistics or divisive rhetoric.
This project is deeply personal to many of our team members, and we're collaborating with migrants with lived experience, anthropologists, and experts in migration in order to ensure our portrayal is both respectful and authentic.
The concept art is beautiful. The sample video is gorgeous -- it looks like the kind of stylized southwest / Mexican art you can find in some galleries there. It's accurate based on my observations and research; I could recognize some keystone plants and the rock formations look right for the region. When I was traveling out west, years ago, I collected postcards and some of them had very similar art, especially that striking purple/orange palette.
The developers seem to be doing a hardcore level of research. This includes talking with scholars and also interviewing migrants and refugees for lived experience. I love a good experiential history project. It helps that they have a very diverse team of different nationalities, genders, and life paths: something else to encourage in an industry that tends to be very white and male. That diversity and research contribute to new and different stories to enjoy.
Also, I want to poke a bigot in the eye. Backing a project like this lets me make concrete my philosophical rejection of American racism and everything it stands for. This project also has a wider reach than me just stuffing extra money in local tip jars at Mexican establishments. Not just the game itself but the traveling project as it's built will pull in more people and create more discussion about these events and issues. Supporting this project encourages people, conversations, and cultural content that bigots want not to exist and that I do want to exist. So if you've been wondering what you can do to fight back, if you've been watching the illegal assault on Los Angeles and wishing you could do something about the racist bullshit -- here is one opportunity. I've done a huge range of activist tactics over the decades, and the one with the highest throughput of "I did the thing" is plain old storytelling. This looks like a good story. And fuck
My one regret is that the campaign starts with a copy of the game (with some digital art included). Normally there is a "Back it because you love it" level at $1 or $5. Always put that in your campaign. (Yes, I have a $5 poetry category that mostly gets haiku and occasional other stuff, which you can request in any relevant prompt call.) Often there is a cheap swag level at $5-15 where you can get things like digital art, stickers, postcards, etc. Having these lets people support you even if they don't want or can't afford the main thing. Had I discovered this project tomorrow instead of today, they'd have missed out on my donation, because I don't actually play video games and that limits what I'm willing to spend on a project that's outside my entertainment field but square in my activist field. But I would've been all over a packet of postcards or a small print or poster of the concept art.
Don't make the same mistake if you're crowdfunding. Maximize your price range as best you can with your project offerings. Look at other campaigns to see what rewards people are offering at low levels that are cheap (postcards, stickers, bookmarks, etc.) or free (digital art, PDF copies, access to member-only forums) to send. The average donation on Kickstarter is said to be $50 but lots of folks have smaller budgets and back at those low level rewards -- or not at all.
