The co-founder of the Istanbul studio Recontact Games promotes game dev-education for children from low-income areas of Turkey

The producer of the Recontact game franchise, Simay Dinc, has launched the CATS of Small Village creative camp for Turkish children from villages and small towns. Dinge believes that this is a great project for training and attracting young talents to the video game industry.

Photo — US Consulate General in Istanbul
Many families from small towns and villages in Turkey often do not have the financial opportunity to broaden the horizons of their children.

The CATS of Small Village project will help them learn about new professions.

The first shift of the CATS (Culture, Arts, Technology, Science) camp took place from September 17 to 19 in the city of Ayvalyk in northern Turkey. Children aged 11-14 attended lectures on the video game industry, talked with foreign teachers and came up with ideas for their own games.

“My passion, my vocation is to tell how multifaceted the gaming community is, how inclusive the industry is,” says Simai Dinj.

In her Twitter, Dinge also noted that through CATS she wants to tell children about socially significant issues like gender inequality and climate change through the prism of game dev.

Simai has been working in the industry since 2015, since the founding of the studio Recontact Games together with his brother Erai. There are already three mobile games in the company’s portfolio: two parts of Recontact: Istanbul and the upcoming Recontact: London. In each of them, the player investigates crimes, solves puzzles and studies evidence by viewing CCTV footage.

The Turkish gaming industry has been experiencing a great upswing in recent years. For example, the country’s gaming startups attracted investments of $2.4 billion from 2015 to 2020. Zynga also bought Rollic Games for $168 million and Peak Games for $1.8 billion last year – the developer became the first “unicorn” of Turkey.