Windrush video game launching at Thurrock film festival

A video game claiming to be the first in the world to feature the plight of the Windrush generation is due to launch at a culture festival.

The game’s writer has described the Windrush Tales as an “interactive photobook” in which players chart the life of two Caribbean migrants.

The launch will be the showpiece at the Thurrock Screen Culture Festival in Grays, Essex, starting on Saturday.

HMT Empire Windrush docked at nearby Tilbury 75 years ago.

Writer Corey Brotherson, a creative consultant from Birmingham, told BBC Essex: “I absolutely jumped at the chance to help create what we feel will be a very important, significant and personal game.

“We thought it was an opportunity to give a voice to that entire generation in a medium that hasn’t really been explored before.”

Corey Brotherson said he “absolutely jumped” at the chance of making the game when he was first approached in 2018

Windrush Tales – described as an illustrative text-based narrative game – follows the arrival in Britain of main character Rose and her brother Vernon in the 1950s.

Players must make decisions for them as they find a job, find community and navigate discrimination in what Mr Brotherson described as a “relatively alien world”.

The final product is still in development but will be playable on PC via the gaming platform Steam.

It is the work of indie company 3-Fold Games and is directed by Chella Ramanan.

The Thurrock Film Festival has been rebranded as a “screen culture” event this year and will take place at South Essex College and Grays Town Park until Friday.

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