Mona Brandt: Using Games to Improve the Culture of Remembrance

First at the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur, now at Paintbucket Games, Mona Brandt's passion for critical reception of the past burns through and with games. As lead game designer, she is responsible for the important "The Darkest Files".

To commemorate the launch of Paintbucket Games' Kickstarter campaign for "The Darkest Files", this portrait of Mona Brandt, Lead Game Designer, is free for all. It was originally published in GamesMarkt print issue 03/2024.

A common thread runs through Mona Brandt's life: the line between play and seriousness, between games and sophisticated content. Today, she is Lead Game Designer at Paintbucket Games, the prestigious Berlin-based indie studio behind "Through the Darkest of Times", "Beholder 3", the upcoming "The Darkest Files" and "Silicon Sunk", recently funded by the state funding agency Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Paintbucket stands for serious themes in good games, for impact games that couldn't be further from the dry cliché of serious games.

"We use game mechanics and/or narration to design game spaces that allow players to deal with serious topics in an implicit or explicit way."

Brandt's CV also reflects what Paintbucket is so highly regarded for in the industry. She actually studied film at the Babelsberg Film University, but came across game studies seminars at university. Her bachelor's thesis focussed on what motivates players to grind in video games. As Brandt was not yet sure which Master's degree she wanted to do, she looked around for internships. A phone call to the USK, which didn't have any internships open at the time, referred her to the gaming culture foundation Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur, where Brandt was then accepted. "That's how I ended up at the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur in 2017." During her internship, she then came into contact with the Game Development programme at Technical University Köln, so her Master's programme was decided. She continued to work for the foundation on a part-time basis, where she temporarily managed the remembrance culture project, which brought her together with Paintbucket. "While I was submitting my Master's thesis, Paintbucket was looking for someone to work on the game design for 'The Darkest Files'. I started there in September 2021 and have been the lead designer of 'The Darkest Files' since spring 2022," explains Brandt. Working on the game, which revolves around the legal reappraisal of the Nazi era, perfectly combined her skills with her interests, as the topic was already particularly important to her at the foundation. "It has always interested me and I believe that maintaining a living culture of remembrance is essential, especially here in Germany." And there are many challenges, especially when dealing with serious topics, because careless mistakes can have the opposite effect, especially when you want to achieve something good. Brandt has plenty of tips for people who are interested in impact games and want to develop their own. "Listen to the people who are actually affected, or in this specific example, their descendants. Even if the intention of an implementation is well-intentioned, ignorance can lead to the exact opposite and sometimes cause considerable damage," she emphasises, "as game developers, we have the expertise to create interesting, exciting or entertaining gaming experiences. We use game mechanics and/or narrative to design game spaces that allow players to engage with serious topics in an implicit or explicit way." Ultimately, according to Brandt, cooperation is the be-all and end-all of successful development. "Often the topics are so complex and comprehensive that it is hardly possible to take all relevant factors into consideration. Let's take 'The Darkest Files' as an example, a game about the legal prosecution of Nazi crimes in the 1950s and 1960s. Of course, we read up on the relevant topics, study trial files and find out about the legal situation at the time. But in order to get a really comprehensive picture, we have consulted helpful historians and lawyers, people who have pointed us to interesting court cases. On the one hand, this provides us with a professional corrective; on the other hand, we can direct our time and energy more towards what we are good at: Developing games." Or in a nutshell: "Concentrate on making good games and talk to the people who are experts or affected by the respective topics." Not so different from dealing with complex, serious issues in other parts of society.

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