shadow_Fox81 said:
The last few indie games I played as four elemental world building beings, an arrangement of neutral-gender cubes,a disembodied consciousness and a gender neutral infant with transient morphology, are you seeing a trend.
Jenova Chen(journey) at the gdc talked about how gender neutrality in games is important to speak to the universality of experience which games reach for. I mean why make gender or sex an issue when it doesn't have to be, its just an obvious way to go and why journey was such a powerful experience.
But that's kinda mov'in around the issue.
I had to play a game about trans-gender hormone swapping treatment(dys4ia) for my interactive narratives course. There are indie games out there like this but not many because often the player has to be dis-empowered because sadly society dis-empowers many minorities and that's something games at large aren't ready to touch both thematically and mechanically.
dis-empowerment as a mechanic is frightening for almost any developer (except Frictional)
That's a good point actually. Although I suspect the lack of games about certain groups of people often has a lot to do with who is making the games. (Although not impossible, it is quite challenging trying to design something from the perspective of an identity you do not share. - This is all the more true if that identity involves prejudices or points of view that are quite far removed from anything you've ever experienced personally.)
However, you bring up dis-empowerment... Which is actually a serious consideration; Disempowering the player of a game is very difficult to do well, because it takes away from the core of what a game is usually thought to be.
Yet... If approaching certain topics or groups as your subject, then that sense of disempowerment may well be very important to the narrative, if you want to do something other than make a character where their identity is basically a thin, nearly meaningless shell...
But how do you approach that in a useful way?
Tricky... Very, very tricky to get right.
As an example, I have at times contemplated trying to create a game about rape. Now, the controversy of that topic aside, it's difficult to even approach how to handle that.
To be clear, the goal of even trying to create something around that topic would be to try and create some empathy and understanding - To make it clear just what it's like to face a situation like that.
But... Leaving aside the controversial aspects, and even the very real risk that the entire thing would have completely the wrong effect, how do you build a game around something whose essential quality is to do with a lack of control over your own situation, and an inability to do anything meaningful to stop what is happening?
Because, in essence, you're working around how to represent a
lack of control which is almost the opposite of what the vast majority of games are trying to do.
Now, that's a particularly extreme (and super-controversial) example, but the same general problem (albeit probably to a somewhat lesser degree) shows up with many topics, themes and character types...
And unsurprisingly, such themes seem quite rare in games. and if presented at all, are usually relegated to supporting non-playable roles...
Some things are just difficult to approach.
80sboy said:
Mycroft Holmes said:
Write them exactly like you would any other human being because we are all the same despite different bits, colors and sexual preferences we are all the same. Same aspirations, same feelings, same goals, same desires.
I also believe that men and women aren't as different as some people make them out to be.
I would agree with you here. But I have some first-hand experience of the drastic effects that biology can have... Specifically, how much hormones can mess with your mind (and your body, but that's easier to measure objectively in general.)
Not that even these differences are as dramatic as some people would claim... But I certainly wouldn't suggest they're non-existent.
But there is the whole nature vs. nurture thing. The world conditions us to be a certain way because of our race, gender, creed, etc. And that's a tale that can't be easily understood over the gaps. I mean, I'm a white male in my 30s living in American, does that mean I can also write about a white male in his 30s living in American...during the Great Depression? Well, I probably can, but I'd probably also have to do a lot of research: read books like the Grapes of Wraith, or articles of the time and how difficult life was before I can actually do it. Unless I do that research, just because we're both male - white, 30something, American - doesn't mean I "get" him unless I understand the world he lives in. Now a 30something women in American during the Great Depression? That's probably trickier, and the research might not do me justice. Okay, how about a Middle Eastern women in Saudi Arabia that has to spend most of her life completely covered in public...?
Now, even doing research, that would be pretty freakin' heard considering how alien her world is compared to mine.
Researching things that are alien to you is certainly quite hard. - And again, first-hand experience of something can throw up a lot of surprises that no amount of research would make all that clear.
Research, if well done can accomplish a lot, but in the end it's difficult to truthfully reflect something you have never experienced. - Something that is well and truly brought to light if you end up experiencing something first-hand that you've previously researched extensively, and thought you understood quite well.
What research amounts to in the end, is borrowing the experience of others, in as much as you are able to. Good research then, would imply making sure your sources are actually a good reflection of the experience you are trying to understand indirectly...
But... I think I'm rambling on a bit here... So perhaps I should leave things there, before it all gets too silly... XD
