Who says you can’t have a female lead in your video game? Apparently your funders.
According to an online gaming article, Remember Me, a video game released last month, received criticism for having its story revolve around a woman because it was “going to feel awkward” (for the male gamer).
Attendees at the Iamgamer Game Jam on July 12-14 at the Centre of Digital Media in Vancouver, including my team and I, sought to challenge that assumption. In a 48 hour period, teams developed and presented playable games featuring female lead characters.
I worked on a game called 'HEX'. It is about a young alchemist/scientist, Oriana, who is accused of being a witch and is sacrificed by her village to a demon lord and is then saved by a real witch, Bellatrix. The two escape to a cave, where they have to work together and defeat the monster.
Meet the Team
I met Emily at Feminist in Games' annual workshop at the Centre of Digital Media. I went to go see Anita Sarkeesian speak, along with other speakers. Sarkeesian started a Youtube show, Feminist Frequency, that analyzes representations of women in films and now video games, and has received threats and criticism for her videos
While I was there, I pointed out to Sarkeesian that I had been told not to go see her speak by even my female colleagues and gamer friends. I asked Sarkeesian what she thought of females who had helped participate in the online hate campaign against her. Sarkeesian in turn replied it was mostly band-wagon jumping on the girl's part to fit in the boys club of video games.
Emily contacted me a couple days later. She was interested in the question I asked Sarkeesian and I guess the personal stories of the criticism I got from my female colleagues. Emily also writes a feminist fashion blog, the Closet Feminist, which is a humorous and in-depth read for those looking for pop culture and fashion feminist analysis. My personal favorite is her "Slut-Shaming Revenge Fantasies" category which I want to be the concept of an action-packed, gritty, revenge mainstream film a la Django: Unchained now!
I later met her boyfriend, Phil, who is a game designer. Phil contacted me and asked me if I'd like to join him in the jam, because he was participating as well. He told me the game would be horror based and him and his friend, Matthew would come up with the concept.
Phil found an artist online who signed up for the jam. Her name was Laurel. After some friendly internet stalking, I found out she goes to Emily Carr University, which I attended as well.
The team was assembled.
Game Jam Survival Journal: Day 1
During the first day of the jam, I watched people set up a huge sign for Power Up Audio at the staircase leading to the kitchen in the room. We were in this huge space called the "Hangar" in the Centre of Digital Media. The room is essentially the size of a hangar, with a garage door in the back.
I found Phil after picking up my lanyard and bottle of water. We threw ideas back and forth, after he was done chatting with another team. Nuba came in and catered our dinner. I was pretty excited, I am an on/off vegeterian, so I adore their baked cauliflower and other dishes. I took the quinoa salad they offered for us.
I opened my backpack and unpacked my survival gear. A can of Monster, Starbucks Energy Shot, and NOS. A blanket. A pillow. A change of clothes. My toothbrush, lotion, soap and comic books for inspiration. I brought my drawing tablet and laptop. I whipped out my DSLR. I glanced around and saw others whipping out pillows and survival gear.
Everyone was talking in the giant hanger room of the Centre of Digital Media, so the environment at first was quite loud. We decided to sit outside, in the last bit of sunshine we'd enjoy in the next 48 hours. We talked about where we wanted to go with the characters, the story and the design.
We established our roles: Phil would program, Matthew would design the levels, I would write the script and do some art assets and Laurel would do the lead art and animation.
I had to put down the fork and stop eating the quinoa deliciousness at Kimberly Voll’s opening speech for the jam. If you'd like to read it all, it's available here. She is the organizer of the event. If you'd like to hear her story of how she organized it, you can read an interview here.
Voll had a long speech, but these are the memorable parts for me:
Who am I to host this jam? I dunno. I’m just me. But I want to live in a world that is tolerant and open and celebrates the wonderful tapestry of life, woven of the richness and diversity of every one of us.
And I know I’m not alone.
I want to caution everyone against rushing to point the finger at external sources of sexism. When we do we miss the opportunity to look within and see how we maybe unconsciously contributing ourselves. It’s easier (myself included) to point fingers at other folks than it is to look inside. That’s the hard work.… but the very fact you’re jamming this weekend says that you’re not afraid of that.
[...]
Why do I need to do this jam?[...]
Because I look at a woman and assume she’s an artist, not a programmer, for no good reason. I assume that’s what people think of me, so I don’t tell people I’m an artist. I say I’m a developer. Both are true, but I’m ashamed to say only one makes me feel worthy. That’s why I need do this jam.
[...]
Because I’m not a game developer. I’ve made lots of games, and helped people with many more, yet I’m too scared to publish. Because if you catch me late at night, after a couple drinks, I’ll tell you that I’m not good enough. And then I might quietly whisper, “… because I’m a girl.” That’s why I need to do this jam.
Gamers unite
I mentioned a fanfiction a friend read about a Harry Potter universe where Harry was not raised by his awful uncle and aunt. He was raised by his parents who were scientists. He goes to Hogwarts and his struggle is the choice between magic and science.
Phil started to throw in ideas of how the innocent girl could be an alchemist, who made traps and special items in the game. Matthew added some level design ideas as well, that the girls could collect respective items for their abilities while trying to survive. Laurel agreed with the idea of science and magic embodied in the two characters, and we asked where she wanted to go with the art style as it would be a top down, Zelda-esque adventure, horror game. I love Laurel's choice to have Oriana be a woman of colour, because their representation in video games is woefully low.
We eventually came down to a title for our game. We didn't want something too literal, a Latin named seemed confusing and too serious for our style, and we wanted something abstract. Laurel suggested we look into the Salem Witch Trials. I went off in many directions with this research, but came to the Malleus Maleficarum, which was a document used to prosecute witches. The German name for this was "Der Hexenhammer". I kinda just blurted out Hex was a cool word, and after being discussed throughout the group, we chose "Hex" as a title. We scoped the story as well, to fit in the gameplay a lot better and to deal with the time constraint.
This was generally how we worked together. An idea would be raised and circulated amongst us, all with different design intentions, so we had a full-bodied eye on the ideas we shared. Our communication was top notch, so even in moments of confusion, we quickly helped each other out. In moments of extreme progress, I think we tamely cheered for each other, when I know a whole marching band was going on inside ourselves.
Though, Friday night, I isolated myself and began writing the script. A big challenge for me was that I did not know what the levels were like yet, and furthermore, that the game finished whenever the user beat the monster. So I could not have a plot driven story, which would penalize the player by not allowing them to see the main bits of the story if they kill the monster early on.
Girl talk?
I am a big fan of the Bechdel test. The test has three questions to see if a movie or game is sexist or not: 1) Are there two women and do they have names? 2) Do they talk to each other? 3) Do they talk to each other about something more than a man?
If the movie Machete can pass the test, masculinity won't disappear if we apply this. I still believe the Bechdel test has its flaws. One quick flaw I can point out: women can talk about other things than men in movies, but it is still gosh-awful stupid. (See: dieting, other girls being bitches, babies, shoes, cleaning... you get the point.) But really a theory having flaws should not be the end all to applying the theory in action. The designer just has to be aware of what those flaws are if they use the theory.
I wanted the girls to be fascinated by each other at first, then hesitant, then frustrated and question each other, but then go into a phase of trusting each other and then going back to normal banter. This to me seemed perfect, because, say the player beat the monster during the frustrated moments, the ending could seem like a good end to an argument. During the moments of hesitation, maybe the future of their friendship is just a cordial one.
Another big influence on the story was Cat's Eye by Magaret Atwood. When I first read it, it was blown away. I wanted to read more about how imperfect yet cohesive female friendships were.
I started to understand both the good and the bad in my relationships after reading that book and I wanted more positive material about this. Maybe this is why I like the Bechdel's test despite its flaws: I want a world where girls do not compete with each other over looks, boys or status. I want a world where yes, that may happen for a moment in the friendship, but if you know someone long enough, there is much more than that. The longest lasting friendships in my life have been the ones where I don't run away when things get bad, because a friend has to be x, y, z.
Putting it all together
By the end of the first night, Laurel had the concept art for our characters. Phil and Matthew had a basic system going on in Unity, our program of choice. I had a script of "non-gameplay dialogue" and "battle dialogue". I had to trim this down and get Matthew and Phil's advice on what needed to be improved on. With all the work we accomplished, we decided to go home and have a good night's rest. Saturday was our key day for building, so we wanted to have enough energy for the day.
So, Saturday was our key date to put it all together. And the Kitsilano fest was on, so the 84 bus to the Centre of Digital Media was a crapshoot at best. Late as I was, the first thing I did was face plant in the muffins that Brioche provided for our breakfast. After a hectic morning, with really thinly veiled hatred towards Translink's lack of signage on the 84's route, I wanted to get back in productive mode by drowning my frustration in lemon and poppy seeds.
We still got a lot of work done that day. I helped Laurel with the art. I created some of the items in the game, such as the bouncing mushroom, the UI, GUI and other assets. The boys hammered away at technical issues. There were frustrations on their end, getting certain things to work, but they were pretty patient and diligent about fixing the issue.
Phil and Matthew seemed to know quite a few people at the jam, as they'd peek around at the other teams. In the kitchen, there were little bundles of people sleeping near the fridge, window and lounge area. I remember after some time figuring out how the story fit in our game, I stood near the window, hearing the faint hum of snoring while the aroma of coffee wafted into my nostrils.
Right after we decided on the title, there was a yell down the way. A team was doing their sound design and a voice actor let out a cry. This made the whole room rowdy, so the sound designer had to tell us to be quiet because he was rolling sound. As soon as they were done, we let out a deafening cheer.
Sunday was mainly finessing and adding our finishing touches. I spent a moment walking around staring at the different teams hustling to finish their work. We only had thirty minutes left, but I felt energetic and excited not only from our game being near completion, but seeing all these games around me that were ready to release. I wondered what other teams did differently, how they would represent women and what kind of mechanics lent to the story.
Proving them wrong
Despite my nervousness speaking in front of the gamers at the game jam, we presented our game to applause. You can find all the games produced at the Jam here.
Of the game presented, I have a few favorites. I currently love the insanely hard, platformer where you change your orientation in space by your gender orientation. It is called Ava Martin vs. the Binarist Hegemony.
In another favorite of mine, Bounce Through Life, the player is shot out of their mother's womb into the air in this rocket-speed side scroller. The player must collect money, experiences like playing soccer and avoid bad things like smoking, accidents and other mishaps as the girl ages through life.
Another favorite is Wolny, a beautifully animated game by my friend Kramer and his friends Breanne and Carl. Wolny is a free-running platformer game set in post World War II Russia. You play as Anka, a Polish war refugee trying to find her way back home.
And of course my team's game HEX.
A week later, we found out we won a prize! A sound design package from Hybrid Soundworks. The sound designer, Yanni Fyssas has worked at EA on NBA Live, and other notable games.
When the game jam ended, I felt like Cinderella at midnight. I had such a great weekend, being creative and with so many awesome, talented people and the next day was literally being back in the office.
The game jam was such a positive environment that nothing really else compares. Kudos to Kim for really creating a wonderful space that promotes collaboration, creativity and all around respect (And also delicious, delicious food).
I can't wait for the next Iamagamer game jam. I want to participate in every one. I believe we can make video games more inclusive and also use them for many, many social causes. I know video games should be fun, and most people's first criticism is that we don't need them to be all activist and political. But why can't you have a game that says something smart, and be fun to play too?