DPCC 2019: Serenity Forge

Serenity Forge is a video game developer based in Boulder, Colorado. Their goal is to “create interactive experiences that challenge the way you think.” Essentially, games that have a meaningful message and that players can come away with. At the age of 18, Zhenghua “Z” Z was diagnosed with a severe blood disorder that hospitalized him. He could barely move and was forced to drop out of school. He lost touch with most people in his life outside his family. Things were bleak and Z almost lost hope. But he had one thing to fall back on: video games.

While Z played games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Portal, League of Legends was the key to his life. For those unaware, League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA. In this game, each player controls a single character and must together with their team to defeat opposing teams. And it was through these teams that Z met many new people friends. People that would check up on him everyday and that gave him hope. The hope to not give up.

And thus, was born the idea that became Serenity Forge. If video games that weren't designed to effect people in this way could, what could games designed to help people and the world do? Serenity Forge is a video game developer based in Boulder, Colorado. Their goal is to “create interactive experiences that challenge the way you think.” Essentially, games that have a meaningful message that players can come away with.

               I was able to play some of Serenity Forge’s games at Denver Pop Culture Convention as well as speak to Z. My big take away is that he and his team seem to be achieving their goal. Now, I only played a limited selection of games as well as limited parts of those games, but I came away impressed. The clear standout to me was Half Past Fate (releasing sometime this year), a “romantic narrative-adventure” about people and the connections we make. Not only is this right up my alley in terms of theme (Kingdom Hearts has a similar theme at its core), the gameplay and writing were enjoyable during my time with the game. The writing in particular meshed well with my humor and rode the line between naturalistic and video game-y very well.

               In conclusion, I will be checking out more of what Serenity Forge has to offer and I think it will be worth your time as well. After all, what video game player hasn’t been able to turn to their favorite games in hard times? Maybe these will be your new go-tos or just really fun games. I’m going to check them out, so I’ll report back to y’all later.