I really liked Butterfly Soup! It‘s a shortish, pay what you want VN made by one person. It’s about four girls on a baseball team dealing with their sexuality, falling in love, and mostly just getting in general hijinks. It‘s not too long and I think some of the writing is a liiiiiitle bit over-the-top memeish most of it is incredibly tender and funny. I think it’s well worth your time to check it out!
@sabertoothalex I actually downloaded it a couple of weeks ago but I haven‘t gotten around to playing it yet!, it looks very charming and cool, from what I read a about the game I was a little worried about the memes and references because I usually don’t like that style, but im gonna try it out soon!
Been saying for years that Quina / Vivi are both excellent nonbinary characters (their respective families too)
Yesterday google fed me a directed news article titled “Final Fantasy IX's Quina Quen Is Surprisingly Great Non-Binary Representation”. Didn‘t read it though. Because I don’t have to. :j
I think it‘s important as a counter to everyone hating Zidane’s horniness. I think Zidane is far more excusable and self-aware than half the cast of FF6.
There's a huge itch bundle rn of 200+ games made by queer developers going on right now!! That doesn‘t necessarily mean every game has lgbt+ themes but, just taking a glance through, it certainly seems like the vast majority do - and in any case, supporting queer developers owns. Wish I could have noticed it sooner, there’s only about 5 hours left at time of posting, so nab it quick if you can!
Cool! thanks for the heads up, I just bought it!
The Outer Worlds is the only game I can think of that directly addresses asexuality. Are there others?
crusader kings III has an asexual character trait. Don’t know how “directly” the topic is addressed, but it’s part of the game’s major theme/gameplay dynamic
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Nier: Gestalt/Replicant is the only game I‘m aware of that represents an intersex character in a way that isn’t either explicitly pornographic or insulting.
I have always wanted to play Eien no Filena. It's about a princess raised as a male gladiator who meets a concubine, she pretends to be her beard, they fall for each other, and they go fight the evil empire together. Very interesting for a 1995 japanese game, when the history of LGBTQ+ representation in JRPGs is pretty underwhelming.
https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_small/0/7465/1739807-571240_9910_front.jpg
One game I personally didn't like, but I have a friend who likes it, and there's a lot I like _about_ it is Ikenfell. It is a very dialogue heavy story about diverse magical girls and enbies fighting their trauma... it sounds a bit better than it was executed. My impression was its kind of 'lgbtq comfort food' and maybe I was just in the mood for something with a little more to say. But it's very competently made and the gameplay starts strong... it just gets kind of boring and the whole game is maybe 5 hours longer than it needed to be for my tastes.
@Tradegood"#p106713 FINALLY someone said something about this game so I could remember what it's called.
Anyway, Star Ocean 2 which I am mentioning for like the 5th time in the last month, lets you ship pretty much any character pairing for what amounts to like 168 possible endings. If you want Rena to completely dodge Claude for about half the game and show up in after the final boss in a domestic living situation with the sexy lush genius sorceress Celine, you can do that. You can have Claude coincidentally be really really good friends with fellow sword master Dias Flac. You can, for some reason, have the middle aged doctor Bowman in a very sympathetic and codependent relationship with the interminably cursed and barrel-obsessed Ashton and the two dragons who share his body. The amount of content in the game is truly staggering and no matter who you and your favorite person self insert as when you play the game you can pretty much make it work. Why did they do it? Why has seemingly no other developer ever done such a thing ever again? Why are there so many other games where a single man or woman can date every single person from their social circle instead? It‘s a complete mystery but I’d sure buy another Star Ocean 2 over another Trails of Cold Steel or Persona right about now.
Play The Missing: J.J. MacField and the Island of Lost Memories (2018) if you are in the mood for a queer sort of coming-of-age story and don‘t mind surprisingly tame gore (it’s all in the sound design, which you can mute if it‘s too much) and jank that I guess is closely associated with Swery’s games by now.
I could only find two mentions of The Missing on here, and I had to do this to find one of them lol. I want to give my thoughts on it but in doing so will give away too much, so if you mean to play the game then just do it cause it’s only about 6-7 hours of pretty inventive puzzle platforming married very gracefully to its narrative. There are longplays on youtube if you get stuck.
It was nice to not only play as a trans woman character but in a narrative that kinda recaptured the feeling I got from reading Hourou Musuko for the first time and without telling a rote transition story. (I mean the feeling of being seen, I think.) This one isn’t even about a transition, it’s more about enduring pain and moving forward. It managed to make all the harm that befalls the player character feel empowering in a way I don’t know that I’ve seen in many other games.
It was also nice that, counter to a long history of lgbt stories ending BADLY for the main characters, this one had a happy ending and one that felt earned. Overall I’m really glad I played it. I hesitate to call anything a must-play but I do want more people to play this one, so: it’s a must-play!!
I‘ve been thinking about We Know the Devil a lot since I played it. I realized in 7th grade that I started experiencing attraction to both guys and girls. But because I didn’t think I fit stereotypes, I was very closeted and defensive about it. I was a good, socially compliant kid, so I probably would have stayed that way… but luckily in high school I made queer friends all braver than me, who were kind, generous, loving, brilliant, good kids. They helped me demystify my own desires and build up confidence in myself. I didn‘t grow up religious or care for religion but after following through with my desires, I still felt a nagging sense that I had crossed some “point of no return” in a biblical sense. No matter how secular you are, we’re all victims to religion's role in our culture that tells us we have to follow its arbitrary ruleset.
**_We Know the Devil_** takes place in an abstracted "non-place" where I found it hard to ground myself in the location, It's very liminal. Thematically, this makes a lot of sense for all of the characters. Neptune's non-place is their morality. Venus's non-place is their identity. Jupiter's non-place is their intimacy. We meet some offputting side characters at this bible camp who first creeped me out, and exist to show us how unsettling it is to conform. Those characters become more interesting as you play through because you could read them as giving well meaning advice _from their point of view_, but it's not **liberating** advice. It's advice that would effectively keep at least one of protagonists in a place where they're powerless and lonely.
From a visceral level, something about the eerie mood and sound and photographs added up to make me feel physically uncomfortable. I had to stop playing because my mind was wandering to panic mode and thinking about death and the afterlife, even though the game doesn't really address those topics. At one point I think Jupiter says >!'we're all dead' which I first read as them in purgatory/afterlife but might have been about them thinking they're trapped by the devil that they think will destroy them. Either way, I think it is fair to say that the lowest moments before self-acceptance are a kind of death. If you have no hope to come out, it's a death of the spirit. The non-true endings talk about how The Devil Only Gets One Moment, but I don't how much I agree with that. Much to think about next time I play it.!<
I think the best part is the writing and dialogue. It's funny! It's abstract and weird. It's authentic. It touches on attitudes and universal experiences in growing up. A lot of the dialogue is about morality, and whether the characters are _good_ or not. From any ethical perspective they obviously are **good kids** and **good** friends. All of the characters needed each other, and them supporting each other is proof enough of them being **good**.
Instead the _goodness_ that the speak about is about conformity. _That_ definition of _good_ means to be alienated and alone, so of course they struggle with being _good_. The final conflict in the true ending, resolves when >!they stop caring about being _good_ and allow themselves a "place" to exist instead of a "non-place". Venus sheds her old body and talks about never going back. Jupiter gets to experience touch and warmth. Neptune can finally relax. They don't have to be _good_ in order to be **good**. They crossed a point of no return, not in a biblical sense, but in the sense that can actually love themselves.!<
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I want to again recommend The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories. I love it. I happened to have a friend tell me about it when I needed it the most in my life. It‘s a gaming experience I’ll never forget.
@osu16bit @Tradegood Cado says on the Waypoint+ playthrough of WKTD that it‘s the kind of media they wish they’d had when they were a kid and I feel that way about both of these games.
this game looks cool I've been meaning to give it a try
Aloy? More like Gayloy!
I don't think this is very surprising in 2023, and definitely not to anyone who played the games… but 15 years ago it would be kind of unthinkable to have a AAA sony mascot be a vaguely butch queer woman with a sincere love story, who does not conform to the male gaze, and yet in 2023 there are several of them!
@Jaffe there‘s an ace character and romance arc in zachtronics’ Eliza
@Jaffe Ikenfell has an ace-aro party member (who is also nonbinary).
Now that I think about it, I don't think there's a single cis-hetero in the whole party. Maybe one?
@connrrr looking all over for this episode of the Podquisition I had to skip over at the time because I knew I wanted to go in blind, but a friend helped me find it again.
Discussion is from 16:34 to 32:38. Just ignore this if you want to avoid spoilers for The Missing.