The concept behind my Twine game is dating in college. The players play as a college girl named Sophie, who is trying to live an uncomplicated life this semester and focus on school, and boys seem to be the thing that complicates her life the most. The point of the game is not let the male characters that enter your life add drama and unnecessary complications. The idea of the game came from brainstorming with two of my girl friends. I was trying to develop a game that had a story line that would be appealing and not to confusing to implement. I attempted to create a lighthearted experience that all could relate to an enjoy because although from the female perspective, male players get one side of what girls experience in the dating.
I had many people play my game, both male and female. Almost all the female players loved the game. They became really invested and wanted to see where the storyline and their choices would lead them. Some claimed it to be just like their lives and others saw it as something they wanted to happen to them. It really appealed to their desires and interests. This fact relates to one of the first readings we did for this class, Rise of the Zinesters by Anna Anthropy. Anthropy discusses the need for more diverse games that appeal to the increasingly diverse gaming community. One of the solutions she suggested was for these diverse yet underrepresented parties to begin to create their own games that they would be interested in playing and other with similar interest would also enjoy the game too. I thoroughly enjoyed creating my game, and much like Anthropy said, many other people who had the same interests as me also enjoyed my game because it was something that related to them, which lacks in the video gaming world for minorities such as women and those part of the LGBT community.
On the other hand, the male players who played my game, although they said they did enjoy it, they also claimed it made them feel as though all guys were predators. It was a interesting perspective presented to me because on one hand, girls seemed to love both male characters, yet guys saw them in a negative view. It was reverse of what has been happening in the gaming community now. With #GamerGate, women do not enjoy the female representation in games – how they are either overly sexual or serve as only a person who needs to be saved. However, many male players see no wrong with the female characters and in some cases, enjoy it.
I feel as though I was successful in executing my game and properly conveying my ideas and goals. The process was definitely a lot more time consuming than I realized, but I actually enjoyed it when I did not have other assignments to stress about. However, I did cut out many other possible plot lines because of time.