Jun 14, 2018
Zenos yae Galvus figure at PAX 2017
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
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seen from Türkiye
seen from Argentina
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seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
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seen from China
seen from Türkiye
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seen from United States
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Zenos yae Galvus figure at PAX 2017
When everything changes, nothing changes.
--- Our Camerata cosplay at PAX West 2017. It was great, we got to meet a good chunk of the Supergiant Games development team, and showed them our cosplay. :D Cosplays built and Royce Bracket modelled by yours truly. Sybil Reisz modelled by @magpiegold. Photos by @sgtserger. Visit my Patreon/Facebook/deviantART!
PAX Australia 2017 Day 3
There are no notes for Day 2 because I spent it socialising a little and sleeping a lot.
Queer Coded: A History of LGBTQIA+ Gaming
David Gaider Q&A
Brian Fairbanks Talks about Addressing Accessibility Through Game Design
Misc: I spent a chunk of the day in the diversity lounge which was fun. I met some great people at the Gender Diverse card game, and got to the semi finals of the Xena Nintendo 64 Fighting Game Tournament (there were only three rounds, but given how much I suck at fighting games this was still a happy surprise, and a sign of what a random button masher the game is)
The gender neutral toilets near the diversity lounge were very well done, unlike GCAP the original signs weren't visible and "with stalls/urinals" was in small letters like an afterthought.
I didn't break anything on Day 3 but did break a mug the next morning. Also the cinema in the Crown Casino is surprisingly inaccessible.
Despite the various mishaps I had a great time and will definitely come again next time we can afford it.
Queer Coded: A History of LGBTQIA+ Gaming
I missed the second half of this to see David Gaider, feeling very annoyed at the programmer.
Anny Sims @ChattyAnny on twitter (I was too slow to get the others!) Keely Thirkell Hayley Williams Soap Pejovic
Most queer characters are just queer coded, with plausible deniability. "It's up to you".Tendency for queer characters to be villains. Indie games tend to be more queer friendly than AAA games.
Lesbians: First known queer character in games: 1986 Moonmist had side-character who was a lesbian murderer.
Other notable lesbian characters:
KOTOR 2003, Juhani, first queer Star Wars character
Gone Home 2013
Dragon Age Inquisition Sera (I thought Sam Traynor from Mass Effect 3 came first?)
Tracer from Overwatch 2016
Trans characters:
1988 Birdo from Super Mario Brothers 2 "A male who believes he is female"
Lots of others but all terrible. Jokes and villains. Trans women seen as threat. Poison from Final Fight 1989, "so you can hit a woman".
Krem DAI 2014 trans man, You can't go "Ok, cool".
Hainly Adams MEA 2017 trans woman. Tells you her deadname, this was patched.
Horizon: Zero Dawn 2017 trans man
Dream Daddy 2017 trans man. One throw away line about wearing a binder, had to be clarified by writers. Non binary people and cosplayers wear binders too!
How do you make it clear they're trans without them implausibly outing themselves or just having it be word of god?
Gay men:
1993 fmv Dracula Unleashed has speaking role
Tended to be background characters, jokes and villains again. No m/m relationships shown onscreen.
Dreamfall: the Longest Journey 2006 (not made super clear until 2015)
Steve Cortez Mass Effect 3 2012
Dorian DAI 2014
Dorian knew exactly what his sexuality was. Coming of age narratives get boring.
Bi Characters (no picture because they're invisible):
1993 Ultima 7 part 2 bi character propositions character regardless of gender.
"Slutty bisexuals". A lot of characters are playersexual and it never comes up outside the relationship.
Zevran DAO 2009
Borderlands 2009
Fable 2004 let player be bi, Fable 2 2008 added bi PCs
Playersexual:
Only queer in the context that they will date players of both genders, but you don't see that unless you play as both.
Dragon Age 2 2011, Anders only mentions his ex-boyfriend if you play as a male PC
Fallout 4 2015. Did have background queer characters.
Stardew Valley 2016
Non Binary:
1995 Chrono Trigger villain
Often robots, aliens or other non human
Frisk Undertale 2015
Life is Strange 2015
Zer0 Borderlands 2 2012
Turing Read Only Memories
Some games let you have gender neutral pronouns.
David Gaider Q&A
1999 Working on Balder's Gate 2, didn't talk about his sexuality at work. Figured he would always be writing stories for straight people.
He was shocked to hear Jade Empire was having same sex romance. Got to be lead writer on DAO after that. "So I can put same sex romances in, right?". More economical to have bi romances, but he would have been happier having some gay characters.
Feeling iffy about playersexuality after DA2, he asked for 2 straight, 2 bi, 2 gay for DAI. "Minority content" is weighed via the percentage of those who play it and those who appreciate it. Eg 5% play dwarves but most see it as a positive thing to be able to do.
Most of his time was spent on the actual plot but Dorian was the most personal writing.
He was targeted by Gamergate but it doesn't compare to, for example, how much Jennifer Helper was targeted.
10 years on Dragon Age was enough, his head would explode if he had to write another story about templars and mages.
How did you get the job: His story is very specific. He was managing a hotel and a comic book artist in his spare time. A friend was a character artist at Bioware but Gaider wasn't really aware of the specifics. Bioware told their employees "If you know anyone who does game related writing let us know", the friend gave them Gaider's LARP rule book without asking. Got a call, gave the stories he wrote in highschool, got offered a job. He said no, it didn't pay enough, but then he got fired from the hotel. It felt like a sign.
Who do you think will take the romance torch from Bioware: he’s not sure they're giving it up? EA treats romance fans as a reliable audience who don't need to be advertised to, even though it's why a lot of people play in his experience (though obviously those are the kinds of fans he will tend to meet). There is an underserved audience.
Most proud of: Lots of stuff he's not proud of. Wishes he'd been more involved in community discussions early on. Proud that the team tackled issues as they started arising. Proud of the company for standing by them. Most proud of Dragon Age 2 despite the mixed response. They had very little time to create it. It’s like a very big first draft. They had a plan but didn't get to compare notes once things were written, so he had to trust the team would stick to plan as much as they could despite things being cut on the fly. Team said they were happy in a post-game survey, didn't feel he was too dictatorial.
What does your writing look like, a screenplay? A cutscene does. But it’s generally structured like a tree that expands and then contracts back to the core path before expanding again. Flow charts.
Favourite relationship in a game? Morden in Mass Effect. Cried more than in a movie. Tali was his space girlfriend. Of the ones he's worked on, Morrigan will always be closest. She represents Dragon Age to him. Joyous time working with Claudia Black, first celebrity he'd worked with. Flemeth was originally Arabic, but that actress couldn't do it so they got Kate Mulgrew. They stopped looking for an Arabic actress for Morrigan and looked for someone who matched Kate Mulgrew. Claudia Black's audition tape was her reading Smack That like a beat poet. Gaider was very nervous, he'd never spoken to any actor before. First rule he was told was don't compare them to another celebrity, so naturally he said "I had Helena Bonham Carter in mind when I wrote Morrigan". Claudia Black said "So you're saying I'm a cheap Helena Bonham Carter ;D". She would say "Does he want me to do it more like Helena?" during recording.
Has being so closely associated with diversity had downsides? He may be gay but he's still white and a dude. He feels like it's all he talks about conventions sometimes. Teams need to sit down and look at what they've made. Lot of things made individually without concern for the bigger picture eg only 15% speaking roles in DAI were female until they stopped and looked at it and fixed it.
"We didn't think about it" is no longer a defense. He wants to help with that, but we should be helping other marginalised voices get into the industry and amplifying their voices.
Wishes it could just be expected and we didn't have to discuss it.
He likes dating sim mechanics in the context of a larger story. But he does like the idea of romance not being as tertiary as it's been in Bioware games, romance as part of the adventure eg a romantic adventure. He's not really interested in social sims or day to day relationships. "My idea of a spicy relationship is to have my life threatened."
Why do you think most AAA companies try to avoid discussions of lgbt stuff, why is it taking so long? Because it's Pandora's Box. There is more being added casually. But if they do nothing they get lumped in with the rest of the industry. As soon as they do anything there are 2 sides: 1. why are you doing this, you're politicising your game. 2. Why aren't you doing more, whatever you did is wrong and not good enough.
Not that flawed attempts should be above criticism. But by mostly focusing criticism on the games that did anything rather than nothing, people have increased the feeling that it's Pandoras box. He understands that it feels like those developers might listen to criticism but the dynamic is sending the wrong lesson.
My question: How do you think inclusion of non binary player characters can work with including gay and lesbian love interests instead of just having playsexuality? “We've thought about it”. He defined playersexual for audience, like Shroedinger's sexuality. He doesn't like it when the only way to have something show up is to have the character talk about it. eg asexual: character would have to sit you down and explain what asexuality is. Is unsexy as a feature. Explaining nuances of sexuality is off putting. If there was more nuance across the industry that would mean no one game has to do everything. Any one game can have only so much within it.
(This doesn't actually answer my question. I discussed it with my husband afterwards and even he didn't understand what I was asking, so I may have garbled it in my nervousness)
Are some choices "canon"? One of the features of Mass Effect and Dragon Age was the continuity of choices. No "canon" but there is a default. A lot of people feel like they have to play the whole series to get the full experience, was off putting, and he found the Keep a nightmare as a writer.
They had editors keeping track of which choices were incompatible. And that was just the third game. "Can you imagine for a fourth game? Phew! Not my problem :D"
Have you thought about the morals of gamifying romance, saying what people want to hear to get sex? Dragon Age didn't work that way, sex was not at the end. Some characters in DAI had no sex scenes, sex is optional for Dorian's romance. It's a game, everything is gamified, you can't simulate actual relationships. For proper reactivity you’d have to mark every response and keep track of inconsistency, but that’s too much work. Same with polyamory: too many variables!
Maybe get away from the approval system? Pay more attention to overall choices in major quests etc instead of individual lines.
Bi characters in DAI were bi from the start. Not the first thing that comes up during character creation eg Dorian started out as "the good Tevinter". Helps avoid too many assumptions based on sexuality. But once characters started solidifying they would think about who worked for what sexualities. There's no set way to write someone "as" bi, but the writer can have them talk about relevant things in other scenes. Sera's writer is a straight dude, he didn't want to write About The Lesbian Experience, and got lesbians in the company to check out what he was writing.
Have relationships gotten more or less complicated? In Balder's gate 2 there was a single sequence of romance scenes which you could get kicked off. Dragon Age had approval. If it gets complicated but the player can't see it or understand how reactions relate to their previous actions it just seems random or predetermined. Unless they say "I am angry at you because of X", but noone says that.
Brian Fairbanks Talks about Addressing Accessibility Through Game Design
lostandhound1 on twitter
His notes.
He's not blind himself, and while he obviously cares a lot about accessibility had an unfortunate tendency to treat disabled people as a separate, if respected, "Other" to himself and the audience, even though I was right there in a bright red mobility scooter. He advocated person first language, "a person with blindness" etc, but not all disabled people like it and it shouldn't be presented as unambiguous best practice. I'm building up the energy to talk to him about it.
He's a sound designer.
Audio games: designed for people with a vision disability.
Audio game jam: the games tended to be about blindness as a bad thing. It felt victimising.
How can we make people feel powerful?
He was inspired by his dog's amazing sense of smell. The mechanic is that you follow an invisible trail using sound cues, a humming noise that gets louder and quieter.
Sighted people struggle with extracting information from sound. The game is more difficult for sighted people.
He had to add fruit on the ground as an accessibility measure for sighted people.
All music is diegetic: happening inside the world of the game, eg characters are singing.
There's a lack of much budget for audio games, since they're never going to make much money.
In 30 years current 30-something gamers will need accessible games.
Accessibility tends to be added as an afterthought or accident.
For example Pokemon has unique sounds for materials, collisions, monsters that accidentally make it accessible.
Sony reader: US only
Microsoft narrator: good but hard to use as a developer
EA: Proactively adding blind accessibility
Fighting games are often in stereo, blind players can play and even win tournaments.
Demand more from your games.
Developers: find a consultant. Address accessibility early.
It's about empathy. People with disability deserve the same stories to take part in as everyone else.
gameaccessibilityguidelines.com
daisyalesoundworks
binaural sound is going to make a big difference
audiogames.net: where blind gamers go to play games. They're supportive if you ask for advice and feedback.
People don't mind if you don't do immersive, game specific voices and just rely on the screenreader
Sound designers need more love to make VR accessible.
Braille games?? He doesn't know much about it.
Curb cut effect examples: curb cuts for wheelchairs but also useful for prams etc. Subtitles. Think about short term problems that benefit from accessibility as well eg the screen is broken, there's sunlight on the screen etc.
Sounds of a blind person navigating their desktop. To me it sounds like a mangled garble of little bursts of cut off computer speech, here’s a description of what’s going on.
Pax Australia 2017
Guess who won two 1st place medals in competitions at PAX!? Still stoked I've won anything at all tbh. Both competitions were for Sonic Mania, too!
The other side of the coin. MIGW - PAX 2017
today has been a very new experience for me and hopefully a small glimpse into my future. walking into PAX not as a consumer, but as someone trying to promote a game (Shadowverse), lead to an entirely different experience that gave me a new perspective on the community of gaming. https://shadowverse.com/
So I was volunteering for Cygames ‘Shadowverse’ booth as a general hand, so handing out flyers, teaching people the rules of the game, playing it with people, monitoring tournaments the whole bit. It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun, getting to know the community and see people really passionate and eager to play was really awesome and infectious. https://shadowverse.com/
However being on the other side of the coin wasn't without its downsides. watching as people would walk straight past because they didn't like the art syle or wasn't being made by a AAA studio was heartbreaking. I didn’t work on the game but over the last week or so of playing it to make sure i knew it well enough to explain it to people who were new to it at PAX, I really started to getting an attachment to it and could see how much work and love went into making it as fun and appealing as possible. I'm not usually a fan of the turn based card game genre but this one really grabbed me and opened my eyes to how just small things like making sure there is always plenty of player feedback with particles and effects make the experience so much more enjoyable. This may be a contributing factor as to why i never really gave the genre the second chance it deserved.
I could see people flocking to all of these big AAA game booths and leaving the indie games that are doing some amazing things in innovation to try and get noticed with the bigger studios. now don't get me wrong I love the big name companies as much as anyone else but if you get the chance go to the Indie booths, its where the magic is at.
Pax 2017 Panels day 1
Today was an unrivaled success. I didn’t break anything.
Western Dating Sims: Beyond Tsunderdome
Are we having fun: Playing games critically
The State of Queer in games
Western Dating Sims: Beyond Tsunderdome
Barbara Kerr https://ms45.itch.io/ Jack Crnjanin Pritika Sachdev Cassiel Kelner localiser, translates from Japanese to English Shakari former insomniac now indie Jess Zammit games critic Queerly represent me
Not a competition between Western and Japanese dating sims, both are good. But there are trends.(The panel talked a bit about Japanese games too anyway)
Main difference: more established genre in Japan, less accepted in the West.
Basic framework: generic main character. Selection of different kinds of love interests, often very tropey. Situations range from mundane to fantastical.
Kenka Bancho Otome Dating sim where you are crossdressing as your brother at a fighting school and have to beat the boys to get them to respect. (Not available in English but checking the spelling lead me to an anime adaptation on Crunchyroll, no idea if it’s any good)
Often don't have much family, no mention of that background.
Freshman and Sophomore cute have f/f. (Couldn’t find links for these, sadly)
Saying exactly what somebody wants to hear until they kiss you- is that bad?
Everyone showered DAO characters with gifts.
Desire in the west to mirror the complexity of real relationships.
Examples mentioned: Cute Demon Crashers, Lady Killer In A Bind.
Strategic dating is good:
predictable
choose a character you will definitely like
"Game-Like"
clear differentiation between characters
learn how to interact with people
Kindness Coins: dating sims are safe. I can't be hurt, if I get scared I can shut it down. Safe space. Explore sex, relationships, communication.
Counterpoint: Strategic dating is bad:
predictable
replicates shitty real life behaviour "I was nice to you, you should date me", like blaming FPS for violence
Not much fun for the developer
Complex games justify complex mechanics
Tusks: gay orc dating sim. Can enable NPC autonomy. harder than he expected.
Queer relationships (Queer and gay used as synonyms a lot this panel :/) Producing your own games allows you to reflect yourself Coming Out On Top: straight dev, lots of consultation. A bit tropey in parts but not too bad. Tusks: complex variables & approval w queer orcs Lady Killer In A Bind BDSM safety warnings in loading screens The Crown and The Flame it's good to be the queen. Pixelberry just lets you bang anybody. Kind of have to pay to follow the f/f path fully in some games.
Further recs:
Astoria Fate's Kiss: greek gods and mythological figures. Equal partnership with Hades. Medusa's story is full of queer characters, often you feel like the only queer character in a game, normalises it. Alex is non binary.
Brooktown High cheesy typical highschool game. Can be a boy or girl but have to be m/f. A bit dated, so bad that it's good. PSP game.
Pixelberry Choices: can date m or f, choose stuff about PC.
Dream Daddy is a very straight gay game but fun.
Date or Die.
A game about dating Japanese warlords that may or may not be Destiny’s Princess
The Arcana
Paris the City of Love
Fire Emblem: Fates
Great Personality
There was a liveplay of part of Dream Daddy. The audience voted overhwhelmingly to talk to Damien first.
Are we having fun: Playing games critically
Rami Ismail: @tha_rami Alayna Cole: @AlynaMCole Dakoda Barker: @JiroJames David Hollingworth: @CPTHollingworth Jess Zammit: zammitjess
Distinction between playing for work and fun?
We do this because we like games, except for the games we do in fact hate.
Rami: Started making games before he started playing, modding code in simple ways in QBASIC (this is also how I got started).
Alayna: Being paid in neocoins to make people's profiles. Didn't realise until after highschool that coding skills could be used to make games.
(And then I stopped keeping track of who said what)
Took a while to realise it could actually be a job.
Having been a critic changes the experience, doesn't make it less fun just different. Same with reading or watching tv when you're a writer.
Yonder the cloud catcher chronicles: playing to review took away from her enjoyment because she had to get a review done quickly when it's supposed to be played in a slow, relaxing way.
As a creator he’s looking for shortcuts and tricks. Walks back and forth to test out where he thinks a loading point is. "Did you see that cool action scene?" vs "Did you see that cool slow zoom??"
Played intro area of Mario Odyssey. This is so good I’m angry, time to pack up the games industry.
"I wish I could do that"
Used to be a rule never to give 10/10. Now they do it if they just really love a game.
Have to put a game down to play the next one, it’s frustrating.
Criticism doesn't have to be finding flaws but can be figuring out how it works. Creator’s job is to trick the player into believing that the world of the game is real and the plot is important.
What does it mean to you to play games critically?
Looking at the game means looking at the creator. What are they trying to do or say? How do they execute it? Even AAA games have a group of humans behind them.
Rami cheerfully ruined games for everyone eg FIFA goalies perform worst at the end to give more last minute wins. Every game with percentages is lying. If you are told it's 50% accuracy people expect not to lose more than one time in a row. Humans think stuff is "fair" when it's in their favour.
"It's a platformer where you shoot things...about love." How is that mechanic making you feel love?
Bad games can be informative. Earth Defense Force. Defending cities from giant ants. "I want ants. 1000!" "That can't work with the frame rate" "AND LASERS."
Every bit of a game is controlled. Someone chose every detail to be the way it is. Ask why it is the way it is.
Good to question the choices people see as default. "Did you notice every character is a white dude?" Things that are considered important vs things that are just made "the default"
Is there a conflict as both critic and developer? Even the positive feedback made him feel bad, he just focused on any negative aspect. Conscious as a reviewer of not attacking the developer themselves. Still write spiteful humourous reviews, but avoid attacking developer, know there are things they can do better.
Giving feedback is hard. Rather than questioning intent, help them achieve their intent better.
By the time you get most negative feedback, you know about the flaws, have heard about it all before. Let people be angry for three weeks, then fix. Half the time they end up fine with it.
People who play a game a lot will say it's too easy, if you listen to them you’ll make a game that puts off new players.
A player might say "this weapon is too strong" but they mean "the boss is too easy" or "you get the weapon too early". Listen, but not too hard.
Multiplayer game, teams supposed to be balanced, but one team kept winning. Turned out one had louder guns, made them more aggressive so they won. FEEDBACK IS HARD.
Who you are giving the feedback to makes a big difference. A student, a friend, a developer you want to help, asked to write a snarky review.
Games CAN be fun, but expecting them to be JUST that is reductive. Games can let you feel something, find catharsis.
We are affected by everything we engage with.
Games are part of a wider industry. Pays peoples wages, needs to be looked at critically.
Even if it's just fun for you, someone else might have a different experience from the same game. I won't tell you what games are for you and you don’t tell me what games are for me.
If you're at PAX you spent money to be here, you care.
"just" for fun implies “fun” is not a great value.
Knowing his game helped someone in hospital deal with pain.
If you want to be a good game maker, play lots of games and see how they're made. Keeping a journal of every game he plays.
If you are playing a game and feel something, figure out why.
When giving a student a game, give them a challenge like "explain X to me", so they have guidance, a direction to go in.
Thinking critically in a fun way: fun to write reviews when you're angry. Critical isn't negative, just more active.
You can't force players to engage in any specific way, just make the game and let them do their thing.
Some players will get really angry anyway so just make your game.
Hype can work against you as a reviewer, makes it hard to be objective if the game disappointed you. Can also be hard to say you loved a game if everyone else hated it.
Balance frustration with a sense of achievement. Frustration is a tool, as is a grind. The “random” drops aren’t entirely random: if you haven't gotten anything good in a while it'll give you something nice, and if you get a good drop too early it gets held back. Testing, see how people feel. If people aren't complaining you're doing something wrong. If everyone complains about all classes it's balanced.
Nanojam 3.0: Wacky Live Game Design
Jason Imms, Rami Ismail, Paul Verhoeven, Leonie Yue, Maize Wallin, Lucy Morris
So a little before this started my body went NOPE NOPE NAP TIME, and while I did manage to drag myself in near the end I wasn’t up to taking notes. I had a great time though, it was hilarious. The panel got given silly ideas for games and brainstormed them together, while an artist drew illustrations.
The State of Queer in games
Ashton McAllen @acegiak Saf Davidson @wanderlustin Charlie Francis kennedy @CharliethGfish Alayna Cole @alynamcole queerly represent me Jess Zammit @zammitjess David Hollingworth @cpthollingworth
What have the panelists played in 2017 that was really good queer rep:
Horizon Zero Dawn subtle, sidequests, feels very natural
Tacoma lesbian couple part of the main cast. Very cute, positive and real.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mystery has cute background f/f couple.
Life is Strange Before the Storm isn't very gay yet but is going to be.
Mighty Games added queer couple to the background of Charming Rooms, support for marriage equality in update in Shooty Skies. Good place to work, big "Vote Yes" sign on the window.
Dream Daddy: lets you choose your previous partner and how child was born, cool as an adopted person. (Also makes it easier to play trans character)
Pyre: choose pronouns
Lady Killer In A Bind lets you skip sex scenes, has an option in the menu you can change at any time.
Night in the Woods. Background m/m couple.
Little moments that people enjoyed:
Heartstruck app dating sim (you ate the daughter of a president) LI actually SAYS she is bi. (not sure if the same as Lovestruck?)
Hacknet Labyrinths: Incidental queer content is good, rather than PLOT TWIST THEY'RE TRANS.
Criminal Case Pacific Bay: Background f/f in a hidden object game.
Recs from audience:
Overwatch made Tracer a lesbian, but only in extended content. In that case not so bad because of the nature of the game. All back stories are extended content (compare to harry Potter). She has a line in the game where she mentions her girlfriend.
Tides of Torment Numenara: 2 body types and 3 pronouns.
Stumbling blocks and salt:
Mass Effect Andromeda: had trans character tell you her deadname. At least they fixed it.
Where are the explicitly ace and bi characters??
Lost phone turns out to be owned by trans woman, feels really vouyeuristic, inspiration porn. No agency or voice.
Why isn't there more incidental queerness??? So easy!!
Don't rec stuff to us JUST because it's queer if it's not something we'd enjoy.
Only representation is aliens and robots.
Even in most games with incidental queerness it's a tiny drop in a sea of heteronormativity.
South Park lets you pick your gender etc and you get attacked for whatever it is. The fact it happens to cis people won't make it less awful for trans characters. Game designers need to talk to people with diverse POVs and have diverse teams.
Why not 3 body types, or sliders? Saints Row is the bar.
Encountered none as a reviewer of AAA games over 2017 (was playing as a dude in Mass Effect Andromeda and got bored before encountering any queer content)
Can make Shelob a sexy woman but not add queerness to Tolkein??
Annoyed that it's SO notable that a character has a gender neutral pronoun option.
As a trans person I am escaping my shitty life as a trans person, I don't need that in a game.
List of demands:
Gender neutral pronoun options if there’s a gender/pronoun choice. Charlie will help you.
Bisexual anything.
Asexual humans.
Robots having sex.
Incidental queers.
Explicitly non binary characters, not necessarily androgynous.
Indie games at PAX 2017
Indie Games I checked out that look cool:
The Gardens Between Pretty puzzle game with an interesting time-control mechanic
Intergalactic Space Princess Cute adventure game
Qinoto Cute puzzle game where you "fold" the image on the screen to make a new image.
Necrobarista edgy animated visual novel about a necromancer
Morphite Space exploration game with plot.
The Eyes of Ara Pretty fantasy point and click puzzle and exploration game
Ticket to Earth turn based fighter using match-3 type mechanics.
Winter's Wake a fantasy text adventure with an interesting movement mechanic.
Rainbow Reef Pretty reef building game
Games that looked cool but I didn't get a chance to play:
Earthlight VR space station exploration
Rumu Narrative driven adventure game about a robot vacuum cleaner