Ojibwe Girl

Choice options are very one sided and lack variety. You have to choose between eating, resting and hunting, which bores the player. Also, one could use different vocabulary to describe Mitena’s feelings since the word “wariness” is overused. Too many repetitive sentences. The story feels robotic, barely any emotion. I would love to be able to connect with the characters more, for them to have more personality. It feels like a carcass of a story. I like that the beginning of the game clearly states what you need to pay attention to, like nutrition and rest, which will affect your energy levels throughout the game but, sadly, this is the only part that I liked.

The story idea is good, but it feels more like a decision game than a story. The choices and story seem to have a pattern- eat, hunt, rest and usually are not having any effect. The story also feels like it is going nowhere and has no awe factor to it. It lacks the intrigue of a journey. The story can be enriched further and elements of interest could be added.

This story is totally ESL and it takes me out of the experience. ‘Resting extra’ is not a phrase. The grammar and phrasing errors make it impossible for me to take the story seriously. For example, you have the phrase “Best not to linger here long, feeling there’s only time to either search the camp or harvest the fishing nets”. It needs to be worded more like “Best not to linger here too long. You know there’s only time to either search the camp, or harvest the catch from the fishing nets.”

This game is also extremely repetitive. It’s based around resource management, and you basically have the same options for almost every choice – rest, eat and hunt. Considering the point of this game is to better get to know the little girl, I was annoyed by how long it took before I could reach an option that would actually let me bond with her. I started to get really fed up with the repetitive options of ‘rest, eat and hunt’. All you really can do to increase the girl’s trust with you is give her things. What about talking to her? She liked me at the end because I gave her all the items it was possible to give her, and because I chose Ojibwe ally status. I don’t like it, and I think this is reductive. You wanted to make a story like The Last Of Us, where the character bonds with an uneasy ally over time, but got caught up with resource management over narrative.

When it comes to Ojibwe Girl, I was initially intrigued by the focus on resource management, a Native American major character, and this idea of building trust despite cultural differences. However, I ended up feeling let down on all fronts.

The resource management loop is not very engaging. While this system does appear to track your resources accurately, it’s repetitive and it feels like your choices do not matter much. We also don’t receive much description of our chosen activities and Mitena’s involvement in them. For example, towards the beginning of our journey, I would’ve liked to see Mitena’s surprised reaction to us kindly offering her some of our food or see her get frightened over how violently we hunt the animals.

Furthermore, the story does not deliver on featuring a Native American character in a way that feels authentic. I don’t want to make any assumptions here, but I call into question how well researched this story is and if there were any Ojibwe writers and/or sensitivity readers involved in making this story. I noticed many issues, including that Mitena is a name rooted in the Omaha tribe, not the Ojibwe. While possible that a member of the Ojibwe tribe could be named Mitena, there are a number of verifiable Ojibwe names that could have been chosen instead (ex. Anang, Niibin, Wenona). Of course, I do think it’s commendable to want to include more diverse characters in one’s stories, but this requires careful and extensive research that I don’t see present in Ojibwe Girl at this time.

I also assumed that the story would be focused more on the cultural differences between Mitena and Azariah. I imagined Azariah learning to respect parts of Mitena’s culture to make her more comfortable, even when it may be an inconvenience to him. For example, paying respect to animals that one hunts is a common practice in many Native American cultures, and perhaps Azariah would have to do so during hunts to earn Mitena’s trust. However, at least in the routes I played, this sort of dynamic between the two never came up. Mitena also simply showed little personality throughout the story other than being helpless and needing to be returned to her tribe, which makes this seem like a white savior narrative.

Some parts of the story in general were strange to me as well. At a point in the story, you can choose to gift Mitena a silver ingot, which brings you closer together. I think it would have been better for the silver ingot to be something like a pretty necklace, which is a gift that a child could actually appreciate. This would still provide the same intended effect of Azariah having to weigh his options too, since he must consider that he could have sold this valuable necklace down the line instead.

Similarly, you are able to gift Mitena weapons you find in order to further earn her trust. This was very confusing to me. I’m not sure how old Mitena is intended to be, but she doesn’t look nearly old enough in the story art to be able to safely use lethal weapons, let alone even comprehend the value of such a gift. Something like Azariah choosing to use his gold to buy her a doll would work better.

In addition, there seems to be something wrong with the narrative implementation. After the point where we acquire a tomahawk, I think there was an accidental merging of different paths. There are repeated lines that seem to be meant for other routes.

In the end, it was nice to see Mitena and Azariah grow closer throughout the story. But, it felt forced and like we as a listener had very little role in helping this relationship grow. I was hoping that Azariah would eventually form a fatherly relationship with Mitena, but even in the paths where they grow closer, he remains distant towards her. There is a lack of any meaningful bond between them that we can truly get invested in.

Overall, I think Ojibwe Girl is an interesting story idea with lots of potential, but the execution of ideas falls short. With more applied research on Ojibwe culture and significant adjustments to the narrative, I can see this becoming a really neat interactive audio experience.