Relooted

The game is set in the year 2099 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The world powers have agreed on a treaty called the Transatlantic Returns Treaty for the return of artifacts.^[3][4] An amendment to the treaty subsequently instituted a rule whereby museums only had to return publicly displayed artifacts. Museums responded by quietly removing their artifacts from the public, effectively protecting the artifacts from repatriation.^[5]

Professor Grace, a retired South African art historian, had worked on the treaty her entire life and was now fed up with inaction. Since the museums had removed the artifacts from public display, they cannot report them as missing or stolen without revealing they'd been hiding them in the first place. In an abandoned warehouse turned HQ, Professor Grace devises a plan to break into the museums and private collections.^[6]

She recruits her grandson Trevor, a locksmith and security systems expert, along with her former Belgian-British student Etienne, who provides them with insider intelligence about what artifacts are being held where.^[6]

Nomali, a sports scientist and parkour practitioner, is the protagonist. Trevor explains that he is working with Professor Grace on a much larger scheme. In an effort to protect Grace and Trevor and show them the dangers of their heist, Nomali joins the crew's first mission. After their success, Nomali realizes Professor Grace and Trevor will not stop until the other 69 artifacts are retrieved which convinces her to lead the motley crew. Other characters who join them include Ndede, a Cameroonian acrobat turned food delivery boy, and Fred, a Congolese gadget maker and getaway driver.^[7]

The team is joined by a 15-year-old hacker named Cryptic who desperately wants to help the team liberate stolen artifacts. Nomali agrees to let Cryptic join so long as she doesn't neglect her school work.^[8]

It is an action-platformer.^[9] Heists consist of three phases: the first involves examining the location of the artifact, as well as security features to be overcome; the second involves searching the location while evading alerts and planning an escape route; and the third involves obtaining the artifact and running from security forces.^[10]

After the player acquires the artifact, a 30-second countdown begins, the player will encounter drones and non-human entities as they escape from the museum.^[11] The player has to escape according to the plan created in the previous phase. Lack of precision and fluidity of movement would lead to an unsuccessful escape due to a gate shutdown or the player's health depletion.^[8]

The game uses a two-dimensional interface with layout of the building housing the artifact and obstacles that players must navigate by high-speed running, consecutive jumps, and sliding moves. Despite the movement-based techniques, the player also needs to recruit characters with different ability types and decide where and how to use them. As the game progresses, the difficulty of navigating and creating the pathway gradually increases, requiring players to design more complex strategies and act accordingly to solve the puzzles.^[5]

Relooted was developed by South African game studio, Nyamakop.^[12] Development of the game started in 2018, and involved a team of about 30 developers.^[13] Ben Myres served as the Creative Director, Mohale Mashigo served as the narrative director, and Sithe Ncube served as the game producer.^[14]

Lead developer Ben Myres said, "We wanted to make it feel like you're in a heist montage for a movie of your own plan,"^[15] Myres was inspired by both games such as Mirror's Edge and Teardown, and the TV show Leverage.^[15] Myres compared the solutions of each puzzle to solving a broken Rube Goldberg machine, in which players have to solve to progress through the level.^[15] Myres also added that Relooted was created to give players an optimistic feeling of the repatriation of cultural artifacts.^[14]

Voice actors from the game come from countries such as Nigeria, Angola, Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.^[16] The artifacts featured in the game are based on real-world objects.^[17] The game's soundtrack uses modern synthesizers and traditional African musical instruments.^[18] The game's narrative designer described the game as "African Futurist".^[19] The game received outside funding, which is not typical for independently published video games, with the budget being around several million dollars.^[20] The trailer for the game says “Is it stealing to take back what was stolen?”^[21]