Resonating Histories

Hawk and Puma (2024) is a critically acclaimed minimalist video game developed with Bitsy by the Chilean studio Niebla Games in collaboration with members of the ÑawpaÑan community in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru. The game invites players to join Guaman Poma de Ayala, the Indigenous Andean chronicler, on a metaphorical journey through his life, writings, and the struggles of his people during the colonial era. A central element of this journey is Guaman’s encounter with Maki, a spirit representing Niccolò Machiavelli. This interplay of figures—one defending Indigenous sovereignty and the other grappling with modern state power—creates resonances that are as historical as they are theoretical, bridging worlds across time and geography. Hawk and Puma has received critical acclaim, including nominations for the Explorer Award at A MAZE./Berlin 2024 and Best Diversity Game and Best Social Issues Game at the Gamescom LATAM / BIG Festival São Paulo 2024. Thematically, the game explores governance, power, sovereignty, and religion, resonating with Guaman Poma’s First New Chronicle and Good Government and Machiavelli’s The Prince. These figures, while temporally close, are rooted in different temporalities: Guaman Poma observed the collapse of the Inca Empire, while Machiavelli theorized the emergence of the modern state. This tension is represented through Guaman’s use of the chronicle, drawing, and writing to advocate for social and political change for Indigenous peoples, while Maki, as a restless spirit of the early modern European worldview, challenges Guaman's motivations and strategies. The game’s development is grounded in research-creation, where historical inquiry, decolonial aesthetics, and collaboration converge. Theoretical foundations include Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui’s (2018) concept of ch’ixi and Aníbal Quijano’s (2000) coloniality of power, alongside the referential texts Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno (2002) and The Prince (2004). These frameworks informed the game’s hybrid approach to cultural narratives and guided its design choices, particularly the integration of material metaphors—ink, weaving, and pixels. Guaman’s ink embodies testimony and resistance, Andean textiles signify cultural memory and continuity, and minimalist pixels critique both industry aesthetics and the extractivist underpinnings of digital infrastructures. Methodologically, the project began as an exploration of Guaman Poma’s work, emphasizing the materiality of ink and weaving as central to his acts of resistance and cultural memory. These material dimensions found resonance in the process of translating Guaman’s illustrations into pixel art, where Bitsy’s (2018) aesthetic evokes the texture of woven threads. Furthermore, Bitsy’s open-source and collaborative nature aligns with the communal practice of weaving, fostering shared experimentation and creation within its constraints. To extend this metaphor of weaving through collaboration, the project evolved into an active partnership with members of the ÑawpaÑan community. This collaboration led to a Quechua translation of the game, ensuring its cultural relevance and accessibility while transforming it into a living archive for local communities. Building on this ethos, the Andean Futures initiative empowers young creators from the Sacred Valley to craft their own narratives using minimal open-source tools, amplifying Indigenous voices and promoting cultural sustainability in digital spaces.