Q&A with Ampere’s Brandon Bunnie
At Ampere, learning doesn’t always start with a textbook. It starts with curiosity and sometimes with a controller, mouse or keyboard in hand.
Ampere’s Interactive Game Design Lead, Brandon Bunnie, sits at the intersection of storytelling, technology and culture. He creates games that invite players to explore language, make mistakes and learn through play.
We had a conversation with Brandon where he shared how games can preserve Indigenous language and culture, expand representation, and empower young Indigenous people as creators – not just characters – in the digital world.
The first one is less game and more of an exposure interactive, where you can see the Inuktitut syllabics and their Roman orthographic counterparts. You actually hear what those letters sound like when you press the buttons. It’ll be laid out like a keyboard, using the same shortcuts that an Inuktitut keyboard would use, to see the different letters and where they are. The second one is an Inuktitut version of Wordle. If you’ve ever played that game, you basically get five guesses at a word that you have no idea what it is, with no hints or anything. Again, you’re using the syllabics keyboard to take guesses at what that word could be, and every time you get a letter right or wrong, the game will give you that feedback so that you can whittle away the possibilities. To make it simple for Inuktitut syllabics (the like- for-like translation is 26 characters in the English alphabet to 112 syllabics in Inuktitut), I removed a lot of the letters that aren’t in the word so that it’s easier to make those guesses within six tries.
The final game is going to teach hockey words and terms in Inuktitut. Basically, there will be a version of the game where you can explore a hockey arena and learn some of the words. And then there’s a quiz component where the game will give you the word in Inuktitut, and you’ll have to either go find it or do the action, either it’s a hockey term like “slapshot” or [a command like] “go stand in a defence position,” but it’ll be in Inuktitut.
Right now, a lot of it comes through dialogue. You’ll have a character that’s speaking, and a word bubble will come out. All the games I’ve been creating have a way for the user to switch between English words, Inuktitut syllabics or Roman orthography, so you can experience the language however you’re able to understand it. Some of them I’ve had the privilege of getting voiceovers recorded so that the player can actually hear how those words are said in the two different languages. The only other way is that the UI [User Interface] will be translated into English (Roman orthography) or Inuktitut syllabics.
It makes it okay for their experiences to exist in this medium. It shows them that it’s possible for them and their experiences to influence the things they create if they were to go the way I’ve gone [becoming a game maker]. And it lets them know they can use their knowledge and apply it to art, or writing, or anything they do. It reinforces the knowledge that they have learned, and I love to share it with other people, whether they’re Indigenous or not. They get to experience it how they would want to experience it.
At its heart, Brandon’s work reminds us that learning is most powerful when it’s personal, playful and grounded in lived experience. In his games, language is heard and seen, culture is honoured, and mistakes are part of the process, not something to fear.
By centring Indigenous voices and creativity in digital spaces, Brandon and the Ampere team are helping Indigenous young people imagine themselves not just as players, but as creators.
