Gamer Girl Spotlight: Olivia Haines

Get to know your new favorite developer

is an independent video game developer based in Melbourne. Although Haines has filled DIY itch.io with her cr🏅eations for the past few years, earlier this winter, her popular about the “urge to only make video games as a form of self🐻-expression” helped nudge her over to the .

I discovered Haines throu🥃gh that TikTok and became immediately charmed by her particular s𒊎tyle of video game. They’re , , and candy , often encouraging slow, heavy introspection, like if FromSoftware gave all of its players a fuzzy pen and diary instead of a black screen telling you you died. Instead, Haines’ games have a silver latch on life, and we chatted over email for this i👍nstallment of Gamer Girl Spotlight.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you first got into video game development. How would you describe your personal relationship with video games and the video game community? Has it changed at all over time?

I hadn’t considered a career in games until I൩ was in grade 11, when I l𒊎earned that game design was something you could study at university. It felt perfect for me; I’d been fascinated by video games from a young age and spent all my free time making digital art, and it felt like the only field where I could potentially find work for my art.

I assumed I would work towards a conc🌼ept art or design job and didn’t imagine maki🅷ng entire games by myself. It wasn’t until opened in Melbourne — an exhibition﷽ space for independent games — that I was exposed to a whole different side of the industry: creators who made experimental, weird, an✨d personal experiences without a team or goal of financial gain. I felt encouraged to try making and releasing games using my existing art skills and limited 3D knowledge, and as soon as I published my first project on I was hooked, and knew I’d made the righꦓt caree🎶r choice.

My relationship with games and the community has had its ups and downs, particularly during uꦜniversity which I fou🙈nd really difficult, as well as the struggle to find work after graduating. 

Now I’m in a place where I feel extre🎉mely secure and confident in my abilities, and truly believe that my work has value in this industry.

What motivated you to make about games that focus on self-expression rather than traditional “gaming”? How has the response been, and has anything about it surprised you?

I spend a lot of time on TikTok and “the feminine urge to [insert something here]” was a trend I was enjoying. A lot of them are pretty ridiculous and I wanted to jo☂in in on the trend and make it about my games, since they have a very “feminine” look and feel. 

Originally, there were a lot of angry comments from people who didn’t get the joke format, and as I saw it continuousওly climb in numbers, I worried that the negativity would escalate, but it didn’t take long for these comments to be overwhelmed by so many kind, enthusias✤tic and encouraging words. 

For a long time before the viral TikTok happened, I’d believed the audience for my work couldn’t possibly 🎉get any bigger and that I’d reached the maximum amount of growth I wa൲s ever gonna get on social media. Turns out my work is very appealing to a lot of people — they’d just never seen it before! This has been the most encouraging surprise ever and I’m so grateful that it happened.

It’s thankfully been mostly good, especially in recent years as I’m very lucky to have found an amazing group of friends in games. Earlier on in my career, one of the most annoying things was being treated like an anomaly and having men compare me and my work to other women in games, as if we’re all in competition with each other (for their attention?), but thankfully 𓄧I didn’t let that stop me from pushing forward.

My partner Andy is𝕴 also a game developer which has led to situatꦗions at events where I’m treated like his poor girlfriend that was dragged along, but we always laugh about this and he’s been the biggest supporter of my work from the beginning.

My most rewarding moments have been any situation where I’ve been able to work with kids. I love kids! I can very clearly remember being a child/teenager and how I felt, my insecurities etc, and I think I’m good at connecting with kids and helping them feel safe and confident. I didn’t know any grown women who liked games when I was young but ꩵI know I would’ve idolised them if I did, so I like to think that I can be that cool adult in young girls’ lives that inspired them to g♕et into game development!

Game development can be one of the most difficult things in the world — I’m not gonna deny that — but at the same time, it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of people in the general public that want to make games, but feel very overwhelmeꦏd, but you don’t need to master every kind of game dev skill in order to just start making games. This is a point I’ve been sharing on TikTok with several advice-oriented videos. I’ve been trying to bring awareness to tools that sꦑoften the learning curve of game development — GB Studio, Bitsy, RPG Maker, etc — and I hope to encourage people to just give it a go!

I could barely 3D model or use Unity when I made, but I kept my scope small, stuck to my strengths, and released it anyway. You will learn so much from꧑ that process regardless of how good the game is. You don’t have to work your🌟 way up to making a large commercial project either; some people just keep making tiny games, and that’s cool.

There may not be equal gender representation in gaming spaces yet, but there are growin𝓀g groups of underrepresent⛦ed people within the community that look out for each other. Here in Melbourne, there’s the whiꦦch offers a safe space to enjoy games and make friends. (the world’s longest-running independent games festival) celebrates games from every kind of background, and it’s easy to find friends and games that resonate with you at thes🐷e festivals.

It can be an꧋ i♚ntimidating world, but things are getting better and your contribution to the space helps. You’ll be helping to break the status quo and let younger generations see themselves in game spaces, and things will only continue to improve from there.

_{[All images courtesy of Olivia Haines.]}