Talking ValiDate, TikTok, Politics and More with Dani Lalonders

July 31, 2020

It’s a hot, humid day in June. Tensions are high, the world is twisted, and I’m on discord calling up Dani Lalonders, the head developer for the upcoming game ValiDate.

“There was a period in time where I would take an edible and then play Ace Attorney until five in the morning, that was my routine,” they say. “ValiDate started a lil after that, one day my pal Haven and I were on call and were like, ‘let’s make a game,’ and then we kinda just did.”

ValiDate is a visual novel full of LGBTQ+ characters of colour who are trying to date in their 20s. The demo featuring some of the potential paths dropped early July, and from the clever dialogue to the fresh character design to the awkward situations, you’re bound to have a blast with it. ValiDate is overflowing with personality, also there are no white people in the game, and that was on purpose.

“In gaming there are very little black characters, it’s fucking ridiculous. As black people we have to come to terms that people are just not gonna fuck with us,” says Dani. “And I feel like that’s the stepping stone for every black person’s life. Especially as a black non-binary woman, people are gonna hate me because I’m black, because I’m non-binary, because I’m a woman. I don’t give a shit, they’re gonna hate regardless. People are already getting mad at it because it has no white characters in it, but that’s kind of the whole point of this game.”

The games industry is overwhelmingly white, and that’s why ValiDate feels like a beacon, a game for the people that games skip out on. This is Dani’s first time developing a game, they’ve had to learn how to code and manage people, and they made sure that ValiDate was produced by an equally diverse development team. When I asked Dani about how they managed to find so many talented folks to help out, they said it was easy, and every developer should be doing it.

“First of all if you think there aren’t great black and other people of colour out there you are lazy as shit, you are not looking,” says Dani. “And if you are looking, you are ignoring. I’m very visibly black and proud, and I’ve missed out on opportunities just for those reasons. I think that white people and non-black developers need to do better. If I, an amateur game developer who’s doing this for the first time, can find a full staff of 23 people of colour, you can do the same.”

Dani is head developer, but she says she’d be nothing without her team. They all do weekly “vibe checks” to see how everyone is doing, and every week since they started development something has come up. From dealing with a global pandemic to the reverberations of police brutality and protesting, they make sure to be there for each other.

“When I created ValiDate I wanted to have a game that people could relate to, I want this game to stay in people’s minds. For character designs we wanted everyone to be normal people, we don’t need to have a drop dead gorgeous instagram model, these are your average everyday people from the street. It’s not no TV shit. Every character design is straight from our artists, and I love everything they’ve come up with.”

Each character is distinct and drawn by a different artist, in a different style, and somehow they all fit smoothly in ValiDate’s world. I’ve written about representation in games in the past, it’s felt so stagnant over the years, but with ValiDate it’s comforting to see characters designs that look like real people, like me, like my friends.

“Black gamers are a very rare category because the gaming industry is so racist,” says Dani. “It’s really important for black gamers to get together and show support for one another because it’s hard out here when you want to enjoy things but people are being blatantly super fucking anti-black towards you. It’s just hard to have fun when everything around you is hate.”

Dani is also an emo TikTok legend, who’s made waves on the app by making controversial TikToks about race or how much they hate men. They have a complicated relationship with the app, but their content creations skills actually helped them with their game development.

“I hate TikTok,” says Dani. “Social media does their best to silence black voices, and TikTok is notorious for that. Making TikToks helped me learn how to control my comments and how people react to the things that I do, the more I learn how to do that, the better I’m getting at managing how ValiDate is perceived. It also makes me notoriously good at trolling, which is something I do on the Validate Twitter a lot.”

The ValiDate Twitter is always such a good time, and if you haven’t checked it out yet you should give it a peek. There are goofs galore, it’s very playful and encourages the community to come together (and even collaborate with the official art team) with memes and fanart.

“I want this game to inspire people to make that media that they’ve had in their head for a while. To create that game they’ve been talking about with their friends,” says Dani. “Go out and make the media you want to see, you can do it!”

ValiDate is currently in development with a scheduled release date for PC in early 2021. It’s aiming to have 12 playable characters and over 30 playable romance routes. Right now they’re halfway towards their kickstarter goal, which you can pledge to right here. You can check out more of Dani’s work and thoughts on Miles Edgeworth on their Twitter.