This interview is with Hessel Bouma: artist, game dev and student at the ‘Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht’ (HKU) a performing arts and visual arts educational institution in Utrecht, Netherlands. Hessel’s work incorporates themes and experiences from his perspective growing up as a gay man in the Netherlands with a variety of other influences such as musicals, cartoons, war machinery and escapades into nature.

Recently Hessel proposed a mentorship/collaborative relationship with our Team, as internships and work experience are a component of the HKU ‘Games en Interactie’ 3rd year programme. As we’d already been e-friends for a while we knew our perspectives and influences heavily overlap, so we were more than happy to oblige! We’re doing the thing!

(P.S. This is the third Q & A of [Interactive Diversity] where we talk with other LGBTQIA+ and diverse people in the world of interactive media & games.)

—THOMAS:
We’re collaborating with you in a mentoring, interning, mutually-creative international timezone defying manner! Can you talk a little bit about why you approached us for this sick collab?

—HESSEL:
I first found out about ShelfLife on instagram. I came across a post on the explore page, and it was a sprite of some kind of void-spider wearing a little hat. So I commented on how I liked his hat and the devs responded to me. We got talking and commenting on each other’s posts and a kind of social media friendship formed around us talking about how much we liked each other’s work.

I stalked the ShelfLife instagram page and website for a while, and saw themes in the art and concepts that really resonated with me. I loved the look of the pixel art sprites walking around in the low-poly 3D world. Also the game revolving around a queer art-school student with strange magical powers really spoke to me, being a queer art-school student with strange magical powers myself.

So when my school told me we’d be doing internships in year 3, I immediately thought of ShelfLife and Fnife games. It took me about 2 weeks to actually muster up the courage to send ya’ll a DM and ask about the possibility of me interning at Fnife. My hopes weren’t very high, as it’s a small studio, which could mean they don’t take on interns.

To my surprise you responded positively and asked me some questions about the internship and we planned a discord call to get to know each other a little better, and the rest is history.

—THOMAS:
The future is now! So where did your interest in video game development come from? Are there foundational games or interactive media you’ve consumed that nudged you towards this line of study?

—HESSEL:
My initial interest in games came from the first ever game I played, which was Pokémon Diamond on my Nintendo DS lite in 2007. The character sprites in that game felt so 3D but they were pretty low res pixel art which really fascinated me. I’d always had an interest in drawing so I started drawing characters that could fit in universes I’d come up with. They were horrible drawings of course, as I was like 8 years old, but the same feeling of wanting to create worlds and universes still drives me to this day.

The game that has inspired me most though, is Undertale. The way it presents itself as a simple rpg only to turn into a game with some of the most fun, memorable and interesting characters in recent gaming is super inspiring to me. And the fact that it was mostly made by one person makes it even better.

HKU Gamejam: “Opus Unsolved”

—THOMAS:
How are you finding the experience of being a student of HKU Game Design, and specifically Game Art?

—HESSEL:
The first year was a huge challenge and struggle, because we had to do stuff from each discipline of game development, which included coding. I am the worst programmer in the entire universe and I knew that going into it, so I’d basically already accepted defeat before the class even started. HKU has a thing where if you don’t pass all classes from year one, they kick you out, so it was a massive source of stress. It took me two years to pass that class but with a lot of help and after a lot of crying, I did it. In a way it made me a stronger more determined person, but that was only after I passed the class, during those two years of stressing about it I definitely did not feel strong at all and it really took a toll on me and my productivity in classes that I actually cared about. It made me feel like maybe I wasn’t supposed to be there and the thought of having done all this work for nothing only to be kicked out really took a toll on me mentally.

Thankfully year 2 was way better and actually allowed us to choose which discipline we wanted to learn. Naturally I chose game art. This erased any doubts I had about me deserving to be there, as I got really good grades and felt great about the stuff I was making.

Being less stressed out allowed me to explore more stuff outside of doing schoolwork and I found loads of new shows, games and documentaries that influenced me and my art in ways that allowed me to experiment and let loose a little bit more. I got into Sailor Moon, to get the good old anime influences that I didn’t really get growing up, I watched loads of documentaries on WW1 and ocean liners to get more influences from history and technical stuff, and I feel like it really helped me become more versatile.

—THOMAS:
Programming is weird and cruel, for sure. Do you see a clear career path on the horizon or is there an element of uncertainty (as is the case with maaaany creative qualifications)?

—HESSEL:
I mean I have a dream career path which would be: 

(1) Solo-dev a fun lil RPG.

(2) Have it make me rich so I never have to do anything again and I can just retreat into the woods and live in a cabin with my friends and we can make a little vegetable garden and practice magic together.

But that almost never happens. So I guess the more realistic path would be joining an Indie studio or freelancing, but honestly, I just want to make a living from my art in any way possible, whether that’s in games, animation or illustration. I just want people to remember me for my art.

—THOMAS:
Ugh, the dream! So how have you been finding the process of studying during this particularly stressful year?

—HESSEL:
COVID-19 kinda cut my second year in half, so we had to transition from being present at school full time, to working from home. And understandably my school wasn’t prepared for that, so it was a whole mess with having classes on discord and zoom and stuff. But after 2 months you get used to it and you fall into a rhythm again so it hasn’t been too bad. I’m an introvert by nature as well so the lack of social contact didn’t bother me too much. In the beginning it was tough, as I couldn’t compare my progress to classmates anymore and it was really hard to get feedback.

Scene inspired by a garden

—THOMAS:
Do you have any self-care techniques that have been effective at maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

—HESSEL:
I have this thing that I like to do called a “forest adventure”, and it’s usually on a saturday or a sunday in the spring, summer or early fall. I get into my car and I pick up my best friend from the bus station and we drive into the countryside. When we find a good forest we park the car and we get out and walk for an hour or so until we go to the next forest. It feels really rejuvenating to be both mentally and physically away from responsibility for a day. 

I usually try to do a forest adventure about once a month but when it gets colder and more gloomy outside I don’t because that would just make me sad. So when it’s gross weather outside, I just sit inside, play games with my friends and drink tea a lot. 

I just wish I had a garden to tend to, that would be fun.

—THOMAS:
With regards to creating your own works, what kind of stories and mechanics interest you?

—HESSEL:
I really like escapism because the world we live in today is just not doing it for me tbh :).

Worlds with strong aesthetics  and deep lore are super interesting to me, as it’s easy to imagine my own characters or myself living in them. Shows like, Steven Universe, Adventure Time and Avatar have such cool worldbuilding, and they really inspire me to think more outside the box when I’m creating characters and universes.

I really want to make games where fun, quirky character interactions are the main focus (Undertale, Dating sims), interesting graphics are a must for me and fun movement/combat are really important too (Earthbound, Jet Set Radio, Hollow Knight).

I also really like when games build their entire world around the main gameplay mechanic. Like splatoon does this thing where literally everything is centered around graffiti and ink and punk culture and I really love that, because it makes a game really memorable. 

Jet set Radio too, everything about the game has the same aesthetic, the music, the UI, the character designs, the dialogue etc.

—THOMAS:
What are you creatively passionate about? Could you describe some of the different elements that form your unique perspective?

—HESSEL:
I think what makes my perspective unique is that I take inspiration from a lot of very different sources. I of course have the usual anime and videogames in my inspiration pool, but I also love researching stuff like fashion history, World War 1, Naval history, Aviation history, Musical Theatre and just going into the woods with my friends and brainstorming game ideas.

Music is a really big influence on my art as well. I like to listen to a song that has a strong vibe or emotion attached to it and then I just draw what comes up in my head. So when I wanna draw something weird and fun, I’ll listen to the Undertale or Earthbound soundtrack, or when I wanna draw something melancholy I’ll listen to the Breath of The Wild soundtrack.

Hessel’s “Untitled Dating Game”

—THOMAS:
In your designs and projects, are there specific LGBTQIA+ tropes you try to avoid, or depictions of queer characters you’d like to see explored more?

—HESSEL:
I try to avoid harmful stereotypes of course, like gay=feminine and lesbian=masculine, because those suck and are not representative of the LGBTQIA+ folk I know in real life at all. Whenever I write a character or come up with a world, it’s natural for me to include LGBTQIA+ representation and queer themes, because it’s such a big part of my own life, so it really would be impossible for me not to.

I’d really like to see more queer representation in gaming overall, especially in games where there’s a dating mechanic. It’s so disappointing when you want to date a character but the game won’t allow you to. I also really like games where a character’s sexuality is left completely blank, so you can interpret it the way you want.

Also being a gay man myself, I like to draw hot sexy guys, because I hate the lack of balance between sexualizing men and sexualizing women in games. Like you could see a woman wearing nothing but a bikini with some cheap looking pauldrons added to it, and a man wearing full plate armor in the same cutscene, and that drives me insane. Like give both of them cool functional plate armor or give both of them hot underwear-based armor so everyone has something to drool over you know?

—THOMAS:
Makes sense to me! To follow on from that, do you feel that there is a benefit to having more gender diverse and minority-sexuality artists study and work in the field of Game Design? Are there shifts you’d like to see in the industry?

—HESSEL:
ABsolutely!

We’ve been hearing the same boring stories over and over again for the past few decades: “Hi my name is Jake/Jack and I am a white hetero man with brown short hair and stubble, oh what’s that? Oh no it’s an enemy and the only way I’ll beat him is by using violence! Thank god I have no personality or else this might make me question the morality of my actions”.

I’m so done with those stories tbh.

I feel like more diversity in game development could spawn some amazingly creative stuff compared to what we have now. As minorities we have different experiences growing up, are exposed to a lot of different media and people, and I think that really helps in coming up with original and diverse ideas. And the representation that comes with it is super helpful in making the world a more accepting place hopefully.

That’s a wrap!

—THOMAS:
I’ve run out of content! Are there any shout-outs to underrated artists or projects you'd like to give?

—HESSEL:
My best friend @pulsatie_traktatie on instagram! He does really cool character designs and is a really great artist overall (also @kai_fawn on insta too!)

Some art friends and people from HKU: @AnnabelVenneker, @SchipTimmer, @dewosaurusart, @Cool_Guy_Senpai, @Jewelle70184254, @Esmmazing, @saphizzle all on twitter.

@natazilla and @rebeccasugar on twitter, who are not really underrated at all, but they’ve played a huge part in me developing my style.

My dog Fenne, because she looks like this and that’s really funny to me:

—THOMAS:
Woo! Fenne rules! Thanks so much for answering all these questions about your creative process and generally cool self! We’re stoked to have met you, and really excited to be helping you and collaborating with you in whatever useful ways we can.

Thanks for reading! You can check out Hessel’s portfolio at artstation.com/hesselbouma or follow him @maankalf and, well, also @maankalf