“I don’t want Liyla to be relevant anymore. I want this game to be a part of history, not a part of the present time.”
– Palestinian software engineer
Rasheed Abueideh, on the timeliness of
Liyla and the Shadows of War, his 2016 videogame about a father’s (futile) attempts to protect his daughter during the 2014 bombings of the Gaza Strip. “In this game, even if you think that you have a choice, you don’t,” he says. “You’re powerless and weak. I wanted the players to get a glimpse of that feeling.”