Iman & The Busy Season
Iman & The Busy Season is a short narrative adventure game where you play as Iman, a young woman who recently graduated from computer science and wants to enjoy her well-deserved holidays. This is without knowing that soon enough, all her family, friends and neighbours are set to ask her the most absurd quests—most of which have nothing to do with computers. Between her dad who is overwhelmed by computer bugs, a neighbour who has a butterfly invasion and a bossy friend, Iman must find her own way to navigate the situation and enjoy herself. Colourful and whimsical, I&TBS is a modern fable about rapidly advancing social and technological landscape, work and contradictory social expectations, that uses a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek absurdism. The accent is placed on the snappiness of the dialogues and the refreshing art direction rather than accumulating minigames; the features follow a narrative and emotional flow rather than a mechanical-based one. The game’s first version was developed during the GCON’s all-women SheJams in 2023, and won the international category with a team composed of Saudi, Syrian and Belgian women. Given its good reception, especially among marginalized groups, we carried on working on a more refined version with the support of the cultural centre Het Bos in Antwerp. A minimal version is set to release in March 2025 for free, and hopefully extend to its maximalist version later if more funding is obtained. Another core aspect of the game is its location in an undisclosed Middle-Eastern country, acknowledging the origins of the initial Saudi jam. We wanted to show women’s lives, inclusively Muslim ones, without making it the topic of the game, allowing for an uncharged and light-hearted representation that we hope is refreshing to see both for marginalized groups and non-marginalized groups.
