Any teacher struggling to find resources that fit Act 31 (American Indian Studies in Wisconsin), there’s something new to be added to the list.
PBS Wisconsin and Nebraska Public Media have recently launched “Powwow Bound: A Menominee Homecoming,” a 3-D narrative-driven adventure game sponsored by Vision Maker Media, with one of the creators, Jacob Schwitzer, being a Menominee first descendant now working in Lincoln, Nebraska, as a game producer and developer.
The game is set on the Menominee Reservation, and players get to be Deborah Jo (D.J.), a teen who returns home and is working to reconnect with her Menominee roots. The family is preparing for a special dance for her deceased grandfather, and work is being done to get D.J.’s mother to rejoin the dance circle.
“For the last few years, we have been exploring video games as a new form of media,” Schwitzer said. “My mom said, ‘Hey, if you ever want to do a video game about your tribe, we can look into doing that.”
He noted that his mother, Lela Schwitzer, who works for the Bonduel School District, told him that finding resources that fit the requirements of Act 31, which requires schools to teach about the Indigenous tribes of Wisconsin, can be difficult, so Jacob Schwitzer started looking into the possibility of teaching about the Menominee through the lens of a powwow.
“I wanted to create something that taught about the Menominee culture in a modern setting through an interactive media,” Schwitzer said. “That was the genesis of it all.”
Schwitzer was able to tap into his childhood recollections of going to powwows in Keshena to add a little personal touch to the game. PBS and NPM also worked with local Menominee to provide voices for the game with the help of the College of Menominee Nation.
“It’s like our county fair,” Schwitzer said about the tribal powwows. “It’s like our homecoming for a lot of folks, so it really has a lot of cultural and familial moments tied to it. The idea of focusing on the powwow came more from the sense of people coming home, and that sense of homecoming that comes with it.”
He added that, living in Nebraska, he occasionally feels homesick, so he can relate to D.J.
Schwitzer said it was important to have a Menominee character come from an urban environment to the rural tribal lands, as many who are raised off the reservation do not always have the full grasp of their cultural traditions. D.J. gets to learn with the players.
The game has taken almost three years to be completed, according to Schwitzer. Production of the game started near the end of 2022.
Being an Indigenous voice for “Powwow Bound” is important to Schwitzer. However, he knew other voices had to be included on the project for it to be culturally sensitive and relevant.
“Indigenous games should be told with Indigenous input,” Schwitzer said. “Even though I am a first descendant Menominee and our writer is enrolled, we can’t speak for the whole tribe. For this game, we brought on a lot of community advisors and worked with the community to develop this game and make sure that it was a conglomeration of many Indigenous perspectives and attempted to capture the general sense of the tribe and the culture.”
Authenticity was something that writer Justin Eagle Gauthier, a Menominee now living in Oregon, also wanted to be sure was part of the game, so that players can learn about Menominee culture and traditions.
“The team has been very intentional in how the story, characters and world are portrayed to a larger gaming public,” he said. “At its core, this approach has involved many members of the Menominee community representing an array of experiences and belonging to that community.”
The game made its debut Aug. 1-3 in Keshena during the Menominee Nation Contest Powwow. Angelina Shi, an interactive media producer with PBS Wisconsin, was Schwitzer’s partner on the project and said she was delighted to see so many children giving the game a try.
“I was very happy with the reception at the powwow,” Shi said. “We had a fairly continuous stream of mostly kids come by and play the game on those three days. We had kids stop by multiple times during the powwow to play and kids bringing their friends. That was nice to see.”
Shi said that it was a natural merging for PBS Wisconsin to work on the Menominee video game, although she noted it was an ambitious project for public media to undertake.
“What we ended doing over here at PBS Wisconsin was we contributed to the art direction as well as a lot of the UI (user interface) design, as well as the play-testing and promotion of the game,” Shi said. “In terms of play-testing, that would be essentially putting earlier versions of the game out in front of people, trying it out and telling us what does and doesn’t work.”
“Powwow Bound” was considered an ambitious project because the video game realm differs from what is produced for television, according to Shi.
“It also involved a lot of folks on both sides together and contributing to what is a fairly accurate 3-D representation of people in the local area,” she said. “That took quite a few people. There were a ton of assets created in terms of 3-D models.”
“Powwow Bound” can be played on Mac and Windows computers but is not available on tablets or mobile devices. It can also be found at www.pbswisconsin.org/powwow-bound or www.wisconsinfirstnations.org.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
