Exploring the complexities of humanity through video games
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Roman Alkan began making video games at 18. The realisation that she could make money from these projects shifted her games development from hobby to career.
Today, she stands at the head of indie games studio Larky Labs, and has been named as one of this year's Ensemble cohort – an exhibition dedicated to showcasing Black, Asian and underrepresented ethnicities working in the UK games industry.
Alkan spoke to GamesIndustry.biz during this year's Ensemble photoshoot to share more of her story, and her desire to see more complex characters explored through video games.
Alkan primarily made dressing up games aimed at girls in her early career, after which she launched Rinmaru Games, a website that allowed online play. This success encouraged her to push herself further.
"I started making [visual novels] on my website as online games, and when people really started to enjoy them, I thought that I could make it a bit more serious, make a bigger story game," she explains. "I made my first commercial game – Cardinal Cross – back in 2017, and released it on Steam. It has a very good rating, lots of good reviews. Some people really loved it, and I really enjoyed making it, and so I decided, 'Okay, I'm making interactive story games from now on, and mainly aimed at women and the female audience'."
"You can put all of your heart in artwork... but we can also entertain people. My goal as a storyteller and developer is to put these two together"
In 2020, Alkan decided to move from her home nation of Turkey to the UK, where she formed her current company Larky Labs and began work on that studio's first commercial game, Glam Pursuit. Building on her
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