Internet searches can be full of surprises. Sometimes, looking for information on something, you stumble upon a completely different project. In this case the happy lucky strike made me discover a fantastic example of cultural appreciation through the videogame medium. “The Secret Island – A Sardinian Journey” is a delightful educational game (available both on Android and iOS) that guides the player in a route through different places in Sardinia, and introduces them to real artisanal entities and some figures from Sardinian folklore.
This game is part of the “point and click” genre, that is interacting with the environment by moving the cursor and clicking on the desired objects or characters. The simplicity of the commands serves perfectly the interface of a phone, but there are also many PC videogames that use this system. For instance, the classic investigation games such as Nancy Drew exploit this system to gather clues.
The games was developed by the Game Maker Academy of Cagliari, that collaborated on the Memory Wefts project through the school’s major representative, teacher, director of studies, technologic tutor and game designer Andrea Assorgia. He took care of the script together with Lara Melis and Ismaele Marongiu and followed the project from the beginning. The environment design is by Manuela Galletta (painting) and Noemi Lepori with the assistance of Martina Pani, Andrea Serra and Edoardo Sori (line art); character designs and animations are by Stefano Puddu. The game’s soundtrack was composed by Sardinian musician Mebitek, specialized in electronic music.
The protagonist of our story is Daniela, a young Sardinian woman, with a recent degree in archaeology, who after a long while is finally going to pay visit to her dear grandma Felicita. Daniela’s house serves the function of tutorial level: here are explained the commands to move, interact with objects and put them in or take them out of the inventory (our bag). The exposition of important details for the story is provided precisely thanks to the interaction with personal items such as the picture with her grandmother: this encourages the player to check the environment carefully before moving on to the following place.
After leaving home, Daniela reaches Mamoiada, the town where grandma Felicita lives. Here she meets Barbaricina, who leads her to her grandma’s house and offers to guide her through the town. Barbaricina is the first of several characters based on actual existing people: in real life she is a communicator with a blog dedicated to Mamoiada. Once inside the house, Daniela finds a letter from grandma Felicita, who congratulates her for her degree and tells her that a new journey to face without fear awaits for her. She warns her that she went out of town for an errand and that she will not come back before nighttime, so Daniela sits on her armchair and falls asleep. At this point a brief dream begins, in which she sees grandma Felicita from behind, focused on working at the loom, Daniela calls for her three times, getting closer each time, but the dream ends before she can reach her. Once awakened she realizes that her grandma is not back yet and decides to go look for her. Though before leaving the house she meets another character from the internet world: Insopportabile, represented as a fun insolent little bird because he runs a Twitter account. Ironically, Insopportabile now is the last little bird on the platform after the replacement of the famous mascot! After leaving the house, Daniela can go to the museum or the town’s fountain, and once explored these places the other locations will be gradually unlocked.
The Museum of Mediterranean Masks proposes to us the first of a series of quests or missions: inside Daniela first meets the Mamuthones, typical masks of the traditional Sardinian Carnival, who before letting her proceed further asked for some water. Right behind the corner there is a fountain to draw from, but only by using a canteen made with a pumpkin, as they would do in the past. Once the Mamuthones’ thirst is quenched, Daniela meets the Issohadores, the characters that traditionally keep the Mamuthones in line. The two are busy discussing over the date of a theatre play they want to watch (the show Istòs by Teatro Tragodia), and they can’t decided which one of them is right. Daniela offers to help them by checking the poster placed between the museum and her grandma’s house.
Each time Daniela interacts with someone, she obtains information about where her grandma could be at the moment: not everyone knows her, but some can give her directions on how to proceed. In the case of the museum masks they don’t know, but they direct Daniela towards Ottana to the mask of Sardinian Carnival who knows and sees everything: the Filonzana. This is the moment where we start to actually feel the mysterious and mythological atmosphere of the game: sitting and placidly spinning thread, the Filonzana welcomes Daniela and explains that her grandma got lost, and in order to find her she will have to go through a journey leading her to Cabras, Mogoro, Abbasanta and Paulilatino. She will also have to retrieve coloured yarn and two loom pieces: a beam, a rotating cylinder around which you wrap the fabric threads that form the warp, and the shuttle, that is the elongated and carved piece of wood that leads the weft thread through the warp. For now Daniela does not understand why she needs these pieces, but she goes anyway on a classic A.R.S.T. bus towards any town you choose on the map located in the inventory. From this point onwards there is not a preset sequence to follow, as all town are unlocked at the same time and you can decide in which order visit the locations all the times you want.
This type of game layout leaves the player with great freedom to explore the levels. In order to solve the puzzles of the different locations you will often need objects from other places: a classic game design device that rewards the player’s curiosity and encourages them to interact with everything. We will not go over all puzzles, to preserve the enjoyment of the experience, but here’s an example: in the Museum of Mediterranean Masks you can retrieve a beekeeper hat; it will seem an out of place object until you will find a bee hive in Cabras from which you can extract beeswax, which in turn will be needed elsewhere.
We will talk about the locations in the order I visited them while playing: Cabras, Abbasanta, Mogoro, Abbasanta again (archaeological area) and Paulilatino. The latter will be inevitably the final stage regardless of the path, because solving the puzzle in Paulilatino will unlock the real final phase of the game: the necropolis of Anghelu Ruju in Alghero.
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| Head of a giant of Mont'e Prama (source: wikimedia) |
In Cabras we meet a mullet fisherman that will provide us with the beam, hidden in an unexpected place. The fisherman is one of the few characters to not be based on a specific person. The real special guest of this lap can be found in the archaeological site of Tharros: among the empty tombs lays one of the giants of Mont’e Prama! This colossal statue was left partially unearthed, and it politely asks Daniela to change the numbers of the tombs to be dug out, so it will finally be the next in line. In exchange of this courtesy, the giant gifts her with its spear, which will be useful later.
In Abbasanta we can visit the nuraghe Losa and look at an empty recess. We will come back to this place at a later time, when the light will hit the recess in the right way. Moving on we meet the master of dye herbs Maurizio Savoldo, the person grandma usually goes to in order to get coloured yarn. Luckily he has some yarn ready to be dyed in the cauldron, but he lacks the three dye herbs necessary for the primary colors: Rubia peregrina (wild madder) for red, Istatis tinctoria (woad) for indigo from which derive blue and light blue, and Daphne gnidium (flax-leaved daphne) for the mustard colour from which derives yellow. Equipped with ampules to extract the pigment from the herbs, Daniela goes to Paulilatino to gather them. Aside from the herbs, this location is also home of the famous sacred well, but we will go back to it later once all the necessary items are gathered. Back to the cauldron, with a matching game between primary colors we objtain a purple ball of yarn, an orange one and a green one. Unfortunately Savoldo hasn’t seen grandma in quite some time, but Daniel can say she made some progress in her journey.
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| "Woman with plate of offerings" Bronze stautette (source: nurnet.net) |
In Mogoro, in the proximity of nuraghe Cuccurada, Daniela meets the archeo-experimental artisan Andrea Loddo. As the name says, he’s focused on experimenting fusion techniques to create bronze statuettes like in nuragic era. The technique in question is the lost-wax casting, but Andrea forgot the raw materials! There you go, now the wax retrieved earlier finally has its purpose, and Andrea created a “brand new antique sacred bronze statuette” that Daniela can keep for herself.
The bronze statuette, placed in the recess of nuraghe Losa in Abbasanta, becomes the character of Bronze Statuette Woman, who transforms Daniela’s juniper staff into the shuttle. Furthermore, she tells her that her grandma is “in our company”, highlighting once again the supernatural character of this event. Daniela has a fun conversation with the Bronze Woman, noticing a certain similarity with singer Claudia Aru and even singing a piece of her song.
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| Bronze Stauette Woman in nuraghe Losa |
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| The real nuraghe Losa (source: nuraghelosa.net) |
The project originated from our idea, of Lara and Ismaele as part of the Fainas Association, then it evolved into the collaboration with Teatro Tragodia, Effimero Meraviglioso, Ditta Luigi Spano and the participation to the Identity_Lab2 tender which provided indirect POR FESR European funds to whoever wanted to pitch projects for the internationalisation of Sardinian cultural endeavours. Later the working group was joined by the Game Maker Academy of Cagliari that developed with us the graphic adventure and helped us releasing it online. Through the long process of creation and development of the videogame we created a map of locations of cultural, touristic and identity-based interest to which we pitched the collaboration, so that the players could enjoy the playing experience and at the same time get to know Sardinia and create an actual touristic route. In fact, in each level of the game there is a “real” character, that is an artisan/tour operator/artist that you can contact to reserve a visit or an experience (i.e. Mamoiada’s hiking guide, Barbaricina). Also each time you finish a level additional info about the location visited in the videogame gets unlocked together with the relative contact information.
After getting good luck wishes from the Bronze Woman, Daniela finally goes to Paulilatino to deliver the items to the sacred well. The moonlight perfectly enters the well, reflecting on the water: above the surface appears a solemn figure dressed in green with a red cape and hat. This is the priestess, who appeared to test Daniela to see if she is ready to reach the final stage of her journey.
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| The priestess in the sacred well of Saint Cristina |
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| The well of Saint Cristina in Paulilatino (source: pozzosantacristina.com) |
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| "Offering priestess" Bronze statuette (source: nurnet.net) |
The priestess asks Daniela what do the beam, the shuttle and the yarn represent: if Daniela gives the most practical and shallow answer, she will get sent outside to reflect on it until she understands the symbolic value of these tools. In a wonderful metaphor, the beam represents the importance of bonds with our loved ones: the beam holds the threads of the warp, which are family and friends, and we weave our life around them. The shuttle with which we pass the thread represents the time that flows, while the yarn represents strength and the colour represents the joy, both essential to live. Every day we build the tapestry of our life with the support of our loved ones, trying to make it as pretty and as colourful as possible. Once proven that she understood this truth, the priestess acknowledges Daniela’s maturity and directs her toward the necropolis of Anghelu Ruju in Alghero, where her grandma is waiting for her.
Like the threads woven into the warp, all the little hints about grandma Felicita finally take a clear shape, making us foresee what we will find on the final stage. The necropolis is a very interesting place that proposes a final challenge: inside we find a labyrinth of rooms that need to be visited in a certain order, otherwise you will end up at the entrance and have to restart. I had to repeat the labyrinth myself enough times to need to note down on a notepad the right directions! Placing this kind of puzzle at this point of the game is a great idea, because not only it gives us a relatively complex final activity, but it enhances the anticipation for the meeting with grandma giving the player time to ponder on what awaits them.
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| Daniela gets lost in the necropolis of Anghelu Ruju |
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| Necropolis of Anghelu Ruju (picture taken by Pierluigi Montalbano, source: sardegnaturismo.it) |
“The Secret Island – A Sardinian Journey” is a delightful meeting point between tradition and future: during her journey Daniela rediscovers the folklore of her land and reconnects with her origins by learning how the loom so loved by her grandma works. The videogame medium is an ideal tool to introduce myths and places of Sardinia to a wide audience, especially considering that the game includes the translation of dialogues into English as well!
This game, with its cute art style, its interesting story and the fantastic food for thought on live, is absolutely recommended for the experience it offers. What’s more, it introduces many artisan and archaeological realities that can spark curiosity in a wide audience. We can hope that this bond between tradition and modern entertainment can give us other works of this kind!
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