Gender Identity And You

A word from our sponsor:

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Blog About: 

I've said it before, and I'll likely say it many many more times: I love video games.

That said, there are a lot of problems that the industry has with not taking alternative sexualities or even anything other than guys into consideration when designing games. Sure, that's slowly changing, but it can always use a bit of a push.

This is my idea for a game that could do just that.

The title, of course, is "Gender Identity and You," and the game's focus is on giving people who aren't trans a bit more insight into what it means to be such through means of a simple point and click "adventure" game that could be made relatively easy in a number of different engines: Adventure Maker, Unity, heck even Flash.

The story follows a day in the life of Chris, and is told from a 2D third-person side view, like classic point and click games always are. The character as they are shown to us is a thin, freckle-faced girl with short-ish red hair. Players have two meters on the bottom of their screen: Happiness, which represents how well Chris herself is handling her day and the stresses involved, and Perception, which represents how well Chris is fitting into people's perceptions of who she is supposed to be.

Here's where things get tricky, though: the Chris we see is not the Chris the rest of the world sees, and this is played up the first time Chris passes a mirror, and there in the reflection is the Chris seen by everyone else: a little broader, shorter hair, and much more masculine looking.

This is how the game's dilemma is played out. As you progress through parts of Chris' day -- getting ready for work, going into a public restroom, shopping for new clothes, and even visiting a county fair at the end of the day -- you are faced with having to try and balance Chris' Happiness and how she is Perceived. Happiness is typically increased through Chris allowing herself or being allowed to express herself in ways that fit who she really is, while Perception is lowered by actions or presentation that don't fit with the world's standards for how she's seen by others.

To make this all the more obvious, it is played upon by the player's own perception of the game since we see who Chris really is. Getting ready for work she has both pretty clothes and normal men's clothes in the closet, along with other garments that are more personal (no nudity in the game.) The more femininely Chris dresses the better she feels about herself, but there's a limit on what she'll let herself wear that feels good outside her apartment, and even within what she'll allow there are pieces that can radically hurt her Perception score when she encounters neighbors or people on the bus to work. Likewise any time Chris passes a mirror and faces it she gets a small hit to her Happiness meter. The thing is, to the player's eyes, those clothes that make Chris happy are also the ones that fit her the best, while the masculine clothes that improve the world's Perception of her, to the player, would appear ill-fitting and wrong on the in-game figure, but right on the figure in the mirror.

This would be played on several times through the game and in different ways, when Chris has chances to make choices that either make her feel better or fit with the world's expectations. Sometimes there will be "neutral" choices too, but often the game will boil down to being happy, or fitting in.

This all culminates in the end sequence, a Hall of Mirrors at the fair/carnival thing. The player is tasked with one simple goal: exit the hall by pushing on the mirror with the normal reflection. Most of the mirrors would be super-exaggerations or outright parodies, like monsters or amazons, things that make it obvious that they're the wrong answers to anyone looking. But there would be two mirrors at the very end: one that would show Chris as the world sees her, and the other that shows Chris the way she sees herself, leaving players to decide: which one do you try and push through?

Picking either one takes you to a screen where your overall Happiness and Perception totals are calculated and presented to you, along with a handful of links to information about the transgender community as well as a few small factoids, two or three picked randomly from a collection of about fifty it can show, including suicide statistics, estimations on how many trans people do or do not transition, that kind of thing. Then the game goes back to the title screen.

No game over. No "you win" or "you lose." Just a chance to live another day, making the same sacrifices. An entire game could be played in 20 minutes or less.

It seems like it could really get a lot of good points across in ways that people might not expect, and it would be really easy to make it NOT JUST a game about a MtF, but to have a FtM option as well, simply by flopping most of what registers on the Happiness/Perception meters and switching out the mirror sprite sets for the player sprite sets (or models, if it's rendered in 3D.) The game could even ask before the first day starts "are you a guy? Or are you a girl?" With choosing a guy resulting in the FtM line and choosing a girl the MtF line.

So, what do people think? Would this succeed at helping others see at least a little about what being trans can mean?

Lemme know.

Melanie E.

Comments

Hmm

I don't know, I just don't feel it would help at all. They'd just see it as a game, think of what happens when these Cis men play female chars, do they even care about them? Most likely not, I doubt it'd help they'd probably just make fun of the chars.

However I'm not an expert on the entertainment industry though I think you should probably add in those who are not guys or girls too. Gender Nonbinary, Agender, Gender fluid, Intersex to be more inclusive.

I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D

How do you think that should be done?

Providing MtF and FtM options is pretty easy, but providing a solution that somehow represents a character who's more gender fluid sounds to me like it would water down things and wouldn't really work with the two-bar dynamic laid out.

What would be your suggestion for using the same mechanics to introduce such character types in the small frame of what the game seeks to present?

Melanie E.

"Men play female chars!"

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

Men playing female characters and vice a versa, I think the reasons are as varied as anything else out there. At least with respect to the more free form RPGs and VRs where you choose and design your own character. Like other things it is likely a spectrum. Set characters with set story lines is something else. Of course there are overlaps and grey areas too.

I wonder how many gamers here at BC more often play their preferred gender rather then their born biological gender. The typical analysis of this probably does not fit us. It makes you wonder how much the assumptions fit the rest of the RPers out there.

>i< ..:::

Character gender

As a heterosexual woman I tend to play male characters because I prefer to watch the the backside of men to women :)

It isn't about the player playing a guy or girl.

It's about the disassociation between the chosen character at the beginning and the actions the player has to take throughout the game due to the rest of the world's perception of them. Even cisgender guys who play female avatars tend to associate certain interactions with playing a female character or choices of garment, etc. By discarding those associations it's a way for players to see, at least in a small way, the disassociation that happens in the minds of many trans people when dealing with day to day activities.

Melanie E.

Just some of the reasons.

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

Watching the backside is one reason.
Disassociation is another if that is your style.
Various forms of Role Pay can be other,
pretending to be other then you are,
pretending to be what you would like to be(at least in some part),
or just trying things out.

There have been several studies on the various approaches to RP & VR. A couple of which stress there are multiple ways to do so all are valid as long as you don't force your approach down other peoples throats.

Gee, I cant seem to find the article I am lookin for. Oh well.

>i< ..:::

Any recommendations?

I simply can't find many games with female protagonists who behave like females, rather than as kickboxing, sharp shooting males with tits.

Iron Roses was my last enjoyable game, years ago.

Any recommendations?

Depends on what kind of game you're looking for.

And depends on your definition of "female protagonists who behave like females."

Could you give more information on what exactly you mean?

For instance, though there were large sections involving rather over-the-top gunplay, the recent Tomb Raider reboot, to me, did an excellent job of fleshing out Lara Craft as a very likable, believable young woman (and was written by Terry Pratchett's daughter, but that's beside the point, though her previous game, Mirror's Edge, was great too.)

There are plenty of games within the adventure genre as well that have quite feminine female protagonists, such as the older Laura Bow Sierra adventure games from the 80's/early '90's, as well as more current entries in the genre (like Syberia.) Then, of course, there are the games that are "made for girls," like the Barbie games or even fashion design and similar "girl career" games, though if their definition of female behavior is what you're using to define a female protagonist then I'd be rather disappointed. The dominant type of game nowadays is still action-oriented, specifically combat-oriented, simply because that's pretty much the easiest type of game to make. Just because a girl or woman is good at those things does not inherently make her unfeminine any more than a guy being bad at them would make him less masculine, and I know of several female kickboxers and sharpshooters who would take umbrage to their femininity being questioned because of it :P

Games ARE getting better about their representation of both women and minorities. In fact, I'd say the attitudes toward such in the industry are the best they've been since the mid-eighties.

Melanie E.

I've managed to go through life...

...negotiating all kinds of difficulties without ever using a gun or any other kind of weapon, apart from my sense of humour, which occasionally can be cutting.

IMHO Shoot 'em ups are for the children, and male adults who behave like children, and the female adults who want to behave like men behaving like children. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't enjoy it.

The game I mentioned Iron Roses was about a woman trying to get her rock band reunited. For rock band, substitute any kind of group from tea dance to a game of bowls, and it becomes the kind of thing we adults do now and again. It's often challenging but mostly fun, and it doesn't involve killing anyone. So, I like my games like the kind of real world I would like to live in.

how about...

Sadarsa's picture

The Longest journey & Dreamfall
are two very good games you might be interested in

~Your only Limitation is your Imagination~

Thanks

I'll have a look.

Charlotte

Mostly I am in to online RPGs.

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

It depends on what type of game. There are character based games that are non-combat oriented. RPGs usually follow the storyline of "Adventurer saves or helps save a doomed world from some evil by defeating it" and this usually means combat. There are however other types of games that can have different types of goals. Adventure games for example are often about solving a puzzle rather then killing things. Since most "Character Based Games" are goal aka winning oriented, the most straight forward way to do that is combat, so that is mostly are set up. I would love to see more peaceful options add to more Online RPGs.

.
VRs:
Are essentially free form pretend and not games as such, but can have game play in them. You pretend what ever you want or just be yourself too. What you will encounter in these is a hug mixed bag, from people using it as a "3d Chat" to those doing any sort of complex "Role Play" and any thin g in between. Plus people just reinventing them selves and trying things out.

.
As for RPGs:
As I said; Mostly I am in to RPGs(Role Playing Games) particularly MMOs(massive Multy Player Online), SciFi & Fantasy Stuff. Basically you design your own character forma set of options, race gender various looks. You then interact with the world and other players while pretending to BE your character. Some people get more in to the social pretend aspect of RP then others.

Most of these are combat oriented but not entirely, most do require at least some combat just to survive at least in the initial orientation phase, a handful have tried to make it more avoidable. In many it is possible to focus on other things, crafting, harvesting, diplomacy, decorating, social and errand type quests. There are people who play through these type of games and mostly or entirely avoid killing and just focus on the social and story aspects, it is difficult however. The main sticking point for a "Crafting Focused Character" is often the need for harvestable materials in an unfriendly world.

.
So is anyone out there up to writing a good RPG with a really strong non-combat component and avoidable combat? ???

I have GMing. Alpha Beta and General Tester & Trouble shooter experience. :D
>i< ..:::