My twine game is titled, “Heroes and Villains”, and can be found at: http://philome.la/C_Kay_P/heroes-and-villains/play
Originally, my twine game’s concept was about a girl named Lucy branching out from her previous identity and becoming the hero. In the end, I added a few elements to make the story more interesting. I really wanted to incorporate elements from the class, while making it enjoyable and meaningful.
The story is pretty simple. It follows the story of Lucy, a girl from Georgia, that sees an old man crying. You could either follow the story of her ignoring the man and going to the mall, or her helping the man save his wife Lorraine from the ice king in the land of Chillings. Towards the end, you could also follow the story line of Lucy saving the ice king and teaching him how to change his ways. The overall goal of the game was to save Lorraine from the ice king. There were a few different possible outcomes. In terms of constraints, the only way to really win the game was to accept Lucy’s role as a hero–but a hero that also could use help from others to reach her goal.
When I made this game, I was trying to get my audience to see that women are often seen as incapable of being the hero or being brave. And also, the “villain” is often perceived as incapable of change. The alternate ending of Lucy saving the ice king shows that even the villain can have a happy ending. I think it’s important for people to realize that gender shouldn’t matter when looking at heroes. Women shouldn’t be labeled as weak and always in need of a male. I wanted to achieve a twist in what people usually expect from a heroes tale to show that games can be more diverse and still fun.
It connects with what we’ve discussed in class because it incorporates ideas of a women taking the role of what men are usually stereotyped to be. Women are usually seen as the “damsel in distress.” Like we learned from Sarkeesian in her Ted talk, this trope victimizes women and makes them seem as if they depend on men. In my game, I had Lucy be the hero that saves another women and possibly the fate of a man (if you chose that option in the game). Robert was dependent on Lucy to save his wife, which is different from most games. For example, Mario’s goal is to save Peach. This damsel in distress trope is a recurring issue, and I tried to mix things up a bit by going against this stereotype.
I think I succeeded in that I showed that women do not always need to be stereotyped as weak and that men aren’t always so strong–they need help at times too. The final product of my game is definitely better than my first draft because I initially had no idea how to use twine to make it more creative. I was able to have different storylines, add pictures, and change the colors in my game. The same idea was there, but I definitely made it more enjoyable to play while keeping the message intact.