Comments - BillsterJ

(Post Part 2)

This game does a great job of subverting homophobic gamer culture by confronting it indirectly, by merely including it. It's only a "shock" because it's there, not because the game is going out of it's way to be controversial.

Other mediums like movies, books, music routinely feature protagonists from different races, genders, sexualities, etc. But by and large, video games predominantly feature heterosexual, white protagonists (especially in the FPS genre.) Video games should not only increase the diversity of it's main characters to better represent an increasingly diverse audience, but also because the video game medium is in a unique position to create empathy in it's audience. To literally take a walk in another's shoes.

I applaud this game and look forward to the next episode.

Games like this make me excited about where the medium is heading. It's interesting that people keep bringing up on varying forums about how they felt "uncomfortable" being placed in a "gay" role, but the game doesn't make homesexuality the focus. I saw the game as predominantly a look into how hard our minds must work to avoid confronting truth; how sometimes the right thing to do is to not repress emotion even if it means destroying what we think we want. Homosexuality is a character trait of the protagonist, not the driving force of the gameplay, the plot, or the meaning.

But then again, Dylan being gay is so wonderful in it's subtle subversion. I mean, the "gameplay" is in effect, just stacking boxes. The game is not trying to directly confront the social, political, and personal consequences of being gay. In fact, the only way you "know" your character is gay is because their name is a masculine Dylan. But by merely placing the player outside of their comfort zone, by casting them as a character who may not be "them," the game becomes a wonderful experiment in empathy. Just to quote from another commenter, "Because, if the player is not themselves gay, they're likely to spend the whole game completely out of character." To invert this question, how must it feel for a gay person to play 99% of games that feature only heterosexual relationships? How do you think the gay community feels being forced only in to heterosexual roles, being "completely out of character" as you put it?