Night in the Woods co-creator Alec Holokwa has been accused of sexual abuse.
It's been a few years since Night in the Woods released to rave reviews and a couple awards, yet the game is suddenly back in the spotlight courtesy of a new accusation online from fellow indie developer Zoe Quinn.
You might remember Quinn as the unfortunate center of the original Gamergate controversy. Before her breakout game Depression Quest released, Quinn was in an apparently abusive relationship with Holokwa where she was confined to his apartment and later blacklisted from industry events.
Quinn recounts her story online via her Twitter account, which she writes is in response to an earlier post from Nathalie Lawhead about her being assaulted by an "industry legend." Zoe had her own industry legend story to tell that starts after her own battle with rape.
At the time, Zoe was living in Toronto while Holokwa was living in Winnipeg. Holokwa knew of Zoe's recent ordeal and comforted her online, talking for hours over Skype. "He was the one person who I felt like, in my newly chosen field, had my back," wrote Quinn.
After a few months, Holokwa convinced Quinn to travel out to Winnipeg to meet. The deal was that Quinn would buy the plane ticket there while Holokwa would buy the plane ticket home a week later so as to share costs. "I wouldn't get home for a month, and only then it was because my roommate used his miles to get me out of his apartment that he had physically confined me to."
The rest of Zoe’s tweets describe a horror story of being trapped in an apartment with a wildly moody abuser. It’s some strong stuff so viewer discretion is very much advised.
After not returning for two weeks, Quinn’s roommate eventually rescues her and she sends a breakup email upon her return to Toronto. According to Zoe, that’s when Holokwa went to games industry leaders to do everything he could to blacklist her. Zoe even admits that she missed the last two Games Developer Conferences in order to avoid meeting Holokwa again.
You can read the whole story over on Twitter, and also catch some of the follow-up tweets where Zoe says there are other women with similar stories. Again, this story is definitely not for kids.