In February 2016, Adrian Cuevas, a game developer from Barcelona, got together with illustrator Conrad Roset and developer Roger Mendoza to founded Nómada Studio.
The aim was to produce independent games with meaning. His previous work had been very high profile, working with developers Ubisoft on The Rainbow Six and Far Cry series — mostly improving animation and the AI systems for characters in the game.
Nomada’s first result was Gris, which Cuevas describes as a “2D adventure platformer with unique visuals.”
Yet the game is so much more. It’s a beautiful, tear-jerking journey about overcoming trauma — about rediscovering peace and self-confidence after painful life events. And it’s been so successful that it’s been described as the “most emotional game in the world,” which has made “all the world cry.”
Games for Change selected the game as for producing “an evocative experience through sorrow and how to deal with our inner demons,” and the critics have been equally impressed — Gris made it onto Variety, The Verge and GQ’s lists of the best games of the year for 2018, and the game has taken home extensive national and international gaming awards.
Polygon explains that in the game, you play as a woman who has lost her voice and subsequently her independence. She starts the game weak, plagued by her fears and her pain, but at the end becomes mobile and skilled. “Hers is a journey to reclaim an intangible, inner kind of power,” the reviewer writes. “It is a journey toward rediscovering the self, and toward peace.”
Cuevas graduated from the Universitat Ramon Lull with a dual degree in Computer Science and Game Programming. His subsequent roles have seen him work on gameplay, graphics and in-game physics with developers of different sizes, based in places from Spain, to the UK, to Canada and Denmark.
Tags: Social Impact, Spain, Trauma, video games
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