There’s a new online game that’s taking players on a quest back in time, where they must collect ancient artifacts and solve enigmatic puzzles to preserve the knowledge that came out of the Islamic Golden Age. It’s called “Vanished: Puzzle Quest,” made by Unity Productions Foundation, a group whose mission is to combat bigotry and Islamophobia through media.
The creators say making a game was a natural way to reach a wide audience. “The gaming industry is actually larger than film and music combined,” says UPF Assistant Producer Ariella Gayotto Hohl.
Executive Producer Alex Kronemer adds, “There’s an audience who will never watch a film or never watch a documentary. So how do you also reach that audience? And that was the idea of doing a game.”
The pair also talks about Islamophobia in the US today, the geopolitical moment in which the game is being released, and whether even Mehdi himself, who was never good at video games, could master “Vanished.”
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