Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey – diversity in the 1800s
London, 1888. With Whitechapel’s citizens living in the shadow of Jack the Ripper, Arthurian legends take to the streets in a thrilling quest to stop the killer before he strikes again. The artwork is beautiful, the adventure is thrilling, and the diversity is amazing!
Players take the roles of immortal hero Sir Lancelot Du Lac, and cursed sorceress Morgana Le Fey who embodies a dog, as they join forces with Whitechapel local, Mary Kelly, to explore the capital’s underbelly and encounter a diverse cast of characters along the way.
Familiar problems in a historic land – a suspect and corrupt mainstream media. A culture tainted with misogyny and discrimination. A world where sex and sexuality are unnaturally and unhealthily buried. Ringing any bells? Despite being set in the past, this game brings current social and political topics to the forefront.
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is a thrilling tale set at the turn of a century, just as London was gripped by the Autumn of Terror. The game has been meticulously researched to bring the hunt for Jack the Ripper to life using historically accurate crime scenes, each based on and including true-to-life reports from the era.
The stellar line up of voice talent includes Perdita Weeks (Penny Dreadful and Tudors) as Lady Morgana Le Fey, Gareth David-Lloyd (Dragon Age and Torchwood) as Sir Lancelot Du Lac, and Alexandra Roach (Utopia and Black Mirror) as Mary Kelly.
The setting for the game doesn’t automatically seem ripe for expressing diversity, however as the Studio’s Founder states, the Victorian Era is an often misunderstood time:
The Victorians are generalised as prudish, uptight and always fainting, but in fact they were absolutely filthy! The Victorians loved sex and LGBTQ+ people were actually really prominent in society. This was the birth of photographic pornography, there were many famous gay and lesbian clubs, Dames in the theatre, and same sex prostitution. Many infamous people openly had same sex lovers. This era gave us so much to speak about and proved a fascinating subject to research.
Jessica Saunders, Founder Salix Studios
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey allowed the diverse group of developers to explore LGBTQ+ experiences at a time when such lifestyles were deemed taboo. Du Lac is portrayed as a bisexual knight with both male and female love interests, and the supporting cast explores a wide spectrum of identities.
As a bisexual woman, there is the very real issue of bi-erasure and feeling accepted, so I always knew I wanted to have a bisexual lead. Having him be male was also very important to me. The games industry is a very, very male heterocentric industry – we are starting to see queer representation, but it seems to be more geared towards seeing lesbian and bisexual women, I’d argue because it’s seen as something that more palatable and titillating to a straight male audience – lesbian porn is still one of the most sought after categories in straight male pornography. I feel that by allowing only attractive lesbians to exist in the gaming space, companies can wave their pride flag and not fear their sales. We rarely see gay men in a prominent roles in video games – let alone bisexual males – so for me it was important to show Du Lac as the protagonist, to allow him to be the classic masculine hero, but still embody beauty, grace and vulnerability that makes him human.
Jessica Saunders, Founder Salix Studios
The story of Jack the Ripper has been told numerous times but has only ever traditionally focussed on the manhunt rather than the wider stories around the victims. Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey addresses this through the tightly plotted narrative and the development of the game was something of a personal mission.
I really wanted to tell the Jack the Ripper story because I feel that it’s one that has yet to be done justice. Everyone focuses on the identity of the killer, entirely missing the fact that that is the least interesting thing about the case. We know so much about each of the female victims and, contrary to popular belief, only one we can say with certainty was working as a prostitute as the time. Yet these murders have gone down in history as the killing of scantily clad young prostitutes, rather than the middle aged, homeless women that they were dying of alcoholism and TB. We wanted to focus away from the police, and on Mary, tell her story. We introduce you to these women in Dance of Death – they were more than just bodies but lived vibrant lives.
Jessica Saunders, Founder Salix Studios
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is a point and click adventure game with gameplay that feels very familiar. The added ability to switch characters to explore their different abilities is not unique but is very well executed. The writing is also superb and is probably the best telling of the Jack the Ripper story I have experienced.
The game is not without its faults, but the combination of gameplay, storytelling, beautiful looks and celebration of diversity means the positives outweigh the negatives. If you enjoy point and click adventures, you should take a good look at this offering.
Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is available now on Steam.
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