We ended up reshaping the previously friendly Tamagotchi-genre, replacing the original pet with an animated child that would respond to player interaction with emotionally expressive body language as well as spoken responses. We avoided the use of health-bars, so that the player had to study the child’s body language and facial expressions to see how well they were doing in the game.

It became clear during the development process that caring is at the core of the situation for the Lebensborn – the lack of care they receive from the local communities, and the amount of care that they need to cope with the situation. We therefore increased the amount of caring activities and gameplay in the game. Stroking the child’s cheeks with a finger on the touchscreen would be rewarded with a smile and a giggle – but not give any other gameplay rewards. Later, when the abuse became worse, the child would refuse to be touched – a removal of agency that hit the players hard.

The whole game is played with the player watching the child on the screen. In this way, we could force the player’s perspective to stay with the child. When talking about CBOW, the focus quickly shifts to a discussion of the parents’ guilt or the political situation, but this could be prevented by our choice of genre. I also chose to avoid showing the child together with other children, thereby denying the player the opportunity to start thinking about the different perspectives, such as whether the other children might have any reasons for their behaviour.

This made it possible to introduce historically correct stories about the child lying or stealing to try to make friends, while avoiding the game turning into a discussion of the child’s potential guilt. The genre defines the player as having responsibility for the child’s well-being, no matter what kind of survival strategies the child attempts.

The game tells the story of CBOW from World War II, which I think has been an advantage. The intense wartime hatred towards the Nazis has faded, which makes it easier to keep the focus on the situation of the child instead of the conflict.

Both Sarepta Studio and I thought of the game project as highly experimental, and we were worried that we had not included enough positive encouragement or caring to offset the tragic history. We were therefore genuinely surprised – and incredibly happy – to see that the game was given an overwhelming reception, from both reviewers and players. Since the launch, we have received a steady stream of feedback from players who love their Karin or Klaus child and who have become heavily engaged in the topic of CBOW.

This game development experience made a profound impression on me. I discovered that our experimental efforts to shape an emotionally engaging experience by creating gameplay for caring worked surprisingly well. The fact that, despite little marketing, the game has now been played more than 20.3 million times shows that the players have cared enough about the game to promote it in their networks.

This motivated me to further explore how emotionally charged interactions can be used to communicate non-fiction issues. I also wanted to tackle the one aspect of CBOW that I was not able to address in a game with a historic setting, which is how the suffering of CBOW is also happening today – to children of occupying forces that are still intensely hated, such as ISIS soldiers, or Russian soldiers in Ukraine.