My Child Lebensborn is based in real history. It’s not a often spoken or known of given the awful nature of the Norwegian events. “The Norwegian people treated our own children like enemies, because they carried the genes of the German soldiers. This is an important, dark, part of our country that many of us are not even aware of,” explains Sarepta Studio’s CEO Catharina Bohler.
Turning this tragedy into interactive form came from a documentary production. “Elin Festøy, working as co-producer on the documentary Wars Don't End worked a lot with the topic of the Lebensborn Children in Norway. Seeing that the documentary would only be able to reach the older generation, she had the idea that the topic should be turned into a game,” writes Bohler.
Festoy reached out to Bohler back in 2014, with development beginning the following year; Festory joined as a producer. The focus became making this dark history known. “As Elin was spending time with some of the surviving Lebensborn children, it became a very personal matter. To tell their stories, create empathy for their suffering and hopefully to change people's perspectives so that this will not happen again, were the main drivers for the game,” writes Bohler.
Sarepta Studio describes the result (on iOS and Android now) as a story-driven “dark Tamagotchi” where two parent-less children try to survive in post-war Norway. It’s a matter of maintaining rations, and earning trust. Stunningly, no direct organization exists to preserve this history, only those survivors who form the Norwegian Lebensborn Union.
As a result of their work, in a partnership with developer Tecknopilot and Prf. Dr. Ingvill C. Mochmann (a “leading researcher on Children Born of War,” notes Bohler) Sarepta Studio has started an organization: International Network for Interdisciplinary Research on Children Born of War. The goal is to research and tell the children’s stories.
Bohler also wanted to thank the multi-disciplined team behind My Child Lebensborn. “Writer Ozan Drøsdal from Perfectly Paranormal, programmer Richard Barlow from Progress Interactive, musician and audio designer Simon Poole. And we have to mention Thorleif Blatt, the head of the Lebensborn union who sadly passed away in July this year. He was a huge support and inspiration during the development of this game.”
