Hollandia

Hollandia is a lush 2D action-adventure set in Dutch folklore! You play as Tulpje, the spinning-top-wielding girl from Fryslân. She has to traverse the Netherlands to beat the Val, the age-old threat of the lands being swallowed by the water. On her journey she meets a slew of Dutch fairytale characters and phenomenons. With art inspired by the old Dutch masters!

Official site: www.hollandiagame.com

This is the graduation project I’ve worked on together with Marthe Jonkers, Ward Lindhout, Maxine van Tongeren, Alex Zapata and Christiaan Berger. The original concept came from Ward and Marthe who, after studying abroad for a while, returned home looking at Holland with fresh eyes. “It’s actually really beautiful here”, they thought, “it’s something you don’t realize seeing it every day. This is something we have to capture in a game!”

HollandiaDemoHollandiaTulpjeHollandiaReynaertHollandiaJakje

I entered the project as a narrative designer. This means I’ve constructed the story, and worked closely together with the designers, the artists and the programmers to convey the narrative through mechanics, level design, art and even dialogue. Next to that, I’ve also helped the programmers out in XNA.

Hollandia got a lot of positive responses. It has featured on numerous festivals around the world and it won the Dutch Game Award for Best Student Game. After we’ve graduated we continued to develop it, planning to make it into a serious game to promote Holland or an indie game for Xbox Live Indie Games. Unfortunately, over time we became unable to combine it with work, so all I can say for now is “to be continued… perhaps.”

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