Bahiyya Khan is the developer of after HOURS, a full-motion video (FMV) game about sexual assault and borderline personality disorder (BPD). Presented as an interactive film, after HOURS has received critical acclaim and awards at game conferences around the globe for its innovative storytelling and willingness to tackle difficult subjects. The game has also earned a publishing deal with Humble, which will be releasing the game for Windows in early December 2018.
I first saw Bahiyya when she traveled from her home in South Africa to the Different Games conference in Massachusetts, where she spoke about the challenges of developing a game whose subject matter could be triggering. In this podcast interview, I ask her whether after HOURS was a cathartic experience; why she chose FMV as her medium; whether her decision to star in the game increased her sense of vulnerability; how she recruited her team from local artists in Johannesburg; what it means to be earning a college degree in experimental storytelling; how her BPD manifests itself; and how she’ll feel when the game is finally released to the general public.
Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spoke, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Bahiyya Khan on Twitter
- Bahiyya Khan on itch.io
- after HOURS trailer
- Different Games 2018
- Crying in the Club: How to make games despite the crushing weight of being alive (at A MAZE 2017)
- ‘After Hours’ Brings Mental Health Awareness To Gaming (Frantz Jerome for Black Nerd Problems)
- Interview: Bahiyya Khan, Game Developer of After Hours (Erian Mathis for We Are Geeks of Color)
- Bahiyya’s favorite bands:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:15 — 25.2MB) | Embed
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