1979 Revolution: Black Friday, a video game taking place during the Iranian Revolution of almost 40 years ago, will launch for Mac and Windows PC on April 5.
The game's creators, iNK Stories, premiered the trailer above showing 1979's gameplay, pacing and main characters. iNK says the game will explore the tumult of that year through the crumbling family relationships it triggered, across settings such as Iran's infamous Evin Prison and inside militant hideouts as Tehran comes under martial law by the soon-to-be-deposed Shah Reza Pahlavi.
Black Friday references an early point in the Iranian Revolution, when soldiers of the Pahlavi government fired on a crowd of demonstrators, with dozens ultimately dead or injured in that clash and others taking place that day. Iran's Black Friday actually occurred in September 1978; 1979 is when the Shah fled and the government of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni took power.
The United States allowing the Shah to enter the country in 1979 is widely seen as a flashpoint for the hostage crisis taking place later that year, when Iranian students backing the revolution stormed the U.S. embassy and took more than 60 Americans hostage for 444 days.
iNK is touting motion-captured acting performances featuring "a talented cast from both television and film, set to a moody original score, and dynamic gameplay."
1979 Revolution originally sought about $400,000 in crowdfunding back in 2013, but fell about 25 percent short of that goal. iNK Stories regrouped with a second crowdfunding campaign to complete the job. iNK Stories was co-founded by Navid Khonsari, a 5-year veteran of Rockstar Games who worked on its Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and Midnight Club franchises. His other credits include Alan Wake and 2011's Homefront.
