At Gamescom Latam, Tiago Prudente told me that he is from the “blackest” part of Brazil — the city of Salvador. The reason there are so many Black people in Salvador is that it was one of the closest destinations to Africa and was a top port for the arrival of slave ships centuries ago. It’s a demographic that was hundreds of years in the making. Prudente started Mandinga Games with his brother, Daniel de Melo Prudente, to bring attention to this dark chapter in history, and he belives he has found a hopeful message about resistance for the game, which is expected to come out in about a year. Mandinga Games is making Black Sailors, a real-time strategy pirate ship combat game that captures that lore. But in a twist, the pirates in this game are the heroes, not the villains. The Steam game will highlight the slaves who resisted slave owners and fought to take over the ships that carried them from Africa to South America. Black Sailors is being made by a very small team at Mandinga Games. Source: Mandinga Games “It’s a game about freedom, about resistance, about fighting back,” Prudente said in an interview with GamesBeat during Gamescom Latam. And Prudente believes that this game could be appealing far beyond the shores of Salvador, as it could resonate with the larger Black diaspora, including those on the African continent as well as Black Americans in the United States — as well as any people of…
