Feature: 'Are There Any Jews in the Audience?'

For today's feature, Gamasutra takes an in-depth look at The Shivah, a unique graphic adventure game with Jewish themes and characters, as part of its report on the New York IGDA branch's recent Demo Night. The fourth IGDA-sponsored 'Demo Night' took place on August 23rd in New York City, establishing itself as an outlet for local game creators to show off recent projects, as well as a chance to meet and greet their peers. In his intro, reporter Matthew Hawkins explains the left-field appearance of Jewish graphic adventure game The Shivah at the gathering, which sees Rabbi Russell Stone investigating the mysterious circumstances behind the death of a synagogue member: "It wasn't from some up and coming company that's just gotten in-flux of venture capitalist funding due to it tapping into what's hot right now, nor does it utilize some cutting edge technology to break untested gameplay waters. The game in question was The Shivah, from Dave Gilbert, an unknown in the New York circles (until that evening that is). The game in questions is simply a graphic adventure, in the tradition of Monkey Island and Gabriel Knight, with the twist being that it deals heavily with the Jewish faith. When Dave first went up front to address the audience, he asked "Are there any Jews in the audience?" which got some chuckles, and a show of some hands. Dave went over a brief explanation of the game, then a film-like trailer was shown. After the gruesome murder which ended the clip, Dave responded with "Yeah, the Jews get that". Again, more laughs." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the topic, including an interview with Shivah creator Dave Gilbert, and more reports and interviews with other 'Demo Night' game creators (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).