It's best to let the Designer and Writer speak for herself. Take a look at the game's foreword by V. Rui:
My cultural identity has always been something of a question mark. On surveys, I tick the box that says “Asian/Pacific Islander,” but it never feels particularly honest, despite the fact that it should be clear-cut. All my family are from Taiwan and China, as far back as time can tell. That, however, ended with me. I was the first person on both sides of my family to be born outside of Asia, the first to be a US citizen not by naturalization, but by birth. But I should still feel Asian, no? After all, my parents didn’t leave their culture behind when they emigrated, did they?
From the first day my family set foot on US soil, they knew they were outsiders. Their habits were odd, their food was bizarre, and their accents were funny. It was the last thing they wanted for their children. And so, from a very early age, I was raised to be more western. My parents only spoke to me in English. They only called me by my English name. They refused to send me to school with bento boxes, all to ensure that I’d never be seen as foreign.
What they failed to realize was, even if you don’t quack like a duck, you still look like a duck, and so to many, you’ll always be a duck.
“Where are you from?” An innocent question that often carries generations-worth of baggage for any Asian American. It can be difficult to explain to non-Asians why a normally polite and innocuous icebreaker quickly becomes alienating. For most anyone, the question can be taken at face value. For Asian Americans, an unsatisfactory answer is immediately followed with, “No, where are you from, originally.” The first time you’re asked, you don’t mind. The dozenth time, you start to wonder if there’s something you’re doing wrong. After a while, you lose count, learn to brush it off, but you quietly wonder who else around you sees you as an outsider to the community in which you’ve lived most of, if not all of your life.
I have never lived outside of the United States. English is my mother tongue, and in fact, the only language in which I am comfortable conversing. And yet, I am still regularly asked the question that can only imply, “What kind of non-American are you?”
The easy solution should have been to seek refuge among people who…well… “looked like me.” But to most Asians, I was too Americanized. At restaurants, servers were always disappointed when I couldn’t read the “real” menu. Chinese classmates would laugh at me for stumbling through whispers in a language meant to keep secrets from others. Relatives would shake their heads as I stared dumbly during family gatherings, unfamiliar with their media, their music, their politics.
I knew enough of both worlds that I should have fit in anywhere, but instead, I belonged nowhere.
It should be no surprise that I spent most of my life seeking a community in which I could be accepted, not for what I was supposed to be, but for what I as an individual could offer. LARP is perhaps the closest I’ve come - a place where I could transplant my own experiences into a character, and collaborate with hundreds of others also pretending to be someone else in a world that was not their own, but where we all agreed that we belonged.
I did not write “Twilight’s Oasis” to teach others what it is to be Asian or to be ostracized. The Twilight Sea is designed with an Asian/Pacific Islander flavor because those are elements that I have grown up with, and because its inspirations are worlds that many will know and love. This game is not intended to be a lesson. It is an exploration of what it means to cultivate a community with others who do not look like you, who may not think like you, but who still want to build something spectacular with you. What does culture mean to you, how does it drive you, and what part of yourself will you leave for generations to come?
And to my fellow in-betweeners, wherever you may come from, and whoever you may be, I write this for you.
XO,
-V.
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