TEXAS — A group of six former University of Texas at Austin students has transformed their senior capstone project into Merge Conflict Studio, an indie game development company. 

Their debut title, Re:Fresh, offers players a solarpunk adventure where a robot hero aids in rebuilding a community after severe weather events. 

“Contrary to our name, we didn’t have a lot of conflicting thoughts on the themes of our games,” CEO Melody Geiger said.

Instead, the team was united in their desire to challenge the prevailing climate doom narrative through their work. Re:Fresh emphasizes a vision of the future where technology and nature coexist harmoniously, promoting sustainability and community resilience. 

“I think the lead through line is ‘hope for the future,'” Geiger said. “We wanted to incorporate that into the game that we’ve reached a place in society where there are still problems and there are still challenges, but if we work together we can overcome them, especially with the use of technology.” 

Paul Toprac, head of the Game Development and Design program at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that while the solarpunk genre is not new, indie developers like Merge Conflict are at the forefront of bringing these themes to the gaming industry. He highlighted that video games have long addressed social, political and environmental issues, citing examples from the 1980s and '90s. 

“There was a game called Balance of Power and it was a strategy game. It was about trying to avoid nuclear war,” Toprac said. “Final Fantasy VII tackled environmental exploitation and corporate overreach.” 

Toprac researches how games can change an individual’s emotions, motivations and behaviors. 

“It can do things like drive empathy and change your perspective on things,” the UT Austin professor said. 

However, Toprac reinforced that the player has to be open to change, otherwise they will just play the game and move on. 

Geiger expressed the team’s commitment to using their platform to inspire change. 

“Games are a poweful way that people can learn, it’s the power of play,” she said. “Everyone can come to this medium however they are and they’ll eventually end up learning something, and that’s pretty cool.”

Re:Fresh is available on Steam, with plans for a Nintendo Switch release. There are also plans to make the game available in six new languages. 

Looking ahead, Merge Conflict Studio is developing their next project, Gemporium, a 2D mining simulation game.