hey masto folks, friends n #gamedev people
do you know of a cool indie game with LGBTQ or female or non-white characters in it? tell me about them!
(also pls boost this toot, i'd be super grateful! ✨ )
@staticsafe aha, i do! but if there was ever a sign for me to check it out again, this toot would be it :')
@jasminehenry not exactly _people_, but Undertale has at least one main canon gay couple. (I don't wanna spoiler who.)
@jasminehenry finished Ladykiller in a Bind earlier in the week.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Dragonfall might count depending on your definition of indie.
@CBrachyrhynchos what did you make of it?
and sure it counts! i have it downloaded so im v excited to play it now ty
@jasminehenry Not sure how to judge Ladykiller as a game. Not one of my more familiar genres. As a fic it reads like a snarky circlet (LGBTQ erotica publisher) story.
@CBrachyrhynchos ah okay, that sounds alright tho so i'll check it out
@jasminehenry Check out Citizens of Earth! 40 or so diverse characters can join your party.
@jasminehenry disclaimer- I worked on it so I might be biased :)
@Robinobandito omg (thank you tho! ive just wishlisted it!)
@jasminehenry Awesome! We were actually bummed that there wasn't much talk about our attempt at a diverse cast, it was one of our design priorities and we were really excited about it.
@Robinobandito ah dang, wish i'd have been in the know, i definitely would have written a piece about that.
what are you working on next btw?
@jasminehenry We've got a couple *unannounced* things we're working on / exploring! ;)
@Robinobandito oooh okay, how exciting! is there a mailing list i can sign up to?
@jasminehenry of course, there's Joylancer
@plsburydoughboy joylancer legendary motor knight?
@jasminehenry that's the one!
@plsburydoughboy nice! admittedly hadnt heard of it until i just googled lol, but im wishlisting it now thanks!
@jasminehenry Have you seen VA-11 HALL-A?
@jasminehenry My game, Anthrotari, has the first two! (With the third in the pipeline.) http://anthrotari.com.
@jaycie oh hey! ty for the rec!
btw, did you get my email about steam n marginalised devs?
@jasminehenry I did! Thanks for the reminder. Replying now.
@jaycie oh no pressure or anything, i was just checking :)
@jasminehenry Night in the Woods.
@jasminehenry Dominique Pamplemousse. An extremely charming stop motion point & clicker. It doesn't explicitly state what gender Dominique identifies as, but that they would prefer it if people didn't insist on assigning gender.
Also, it's a musical, that features some artfully horrific singing. Really cool game, but very short.
@skumring "Artfully horrific" omg i'm sold (thanks for the rec!)
@jasminehenry Another that has a female protagonist is Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. It's got some cool mechanics (like super powers) but is actually quite a classic cop story.
@jasminehenry this is extremely indie -
abigailcorfman.com/OpenSorcery.html Abigail Corfman's Open Sorcery - protagonist is a computer, but there are female and gay major characters!
@verityvirtue thank you!
@jasminehenry Dreamfall Chapters.
Female characters, non-white characters, LGBT characters, female characters of different ages. Protogonists that are subset of the above :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR2vgGuFXk&feature=youtu.be
@eylul ooh nice, ty for the rec!
@turi oh yes, ive heard of that but havent played it yet, will add it to my list :)
@jasminehenry I gues "2064: Read Only Memories" is supposed to, but I have never gotten around to playing it! 😞
@stylus @jasminehenry i can highly recommend it!
@colon_three @stylus aha, i think i own it like three times cause of bundles n stuff but i still havent played it either whoops!
@jasminehenry you should chat with @dodgyville
@ajfisher @dodgyville of escape from pleasure planet fame? i would love to! (email?)
Hi! up.multimedia.australia@gmail.com
@dodgyville thanks so much! just emailed you :)
@jasminehenry my friend works at spooky squid games where they made They Bleed Pixels, which doesn't have much plot/characterization in it but it's about a girl at a haunted victorian finishing school and she turns into a demon and has eerie demonic bloody platforming dreams every night and it's PRETTY COOL
@shoofle isnt that in the latest humble bundle? well ofc im going to get it now! tyvm for the rec!
(also is your friend on masto, jw?)
@jasminehenry i don't think so! miguel sternberg, he's spookysquid on twitter
@shoofle you should peer pressure him to get on here so i can livetoot about TBD haha (thanks again!)
@jasminehenry even the ocean is a good one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0tCzwZJsFk
@Verydumb oh gosh that art style <3 thanks for the rec!
@jasminehenry I've heard good things about "2064: Read Only Memories" as well as "Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan".
let me know if you find any more. I've been itching for games with these demographics.
@fyeahnix sorry for this bit of self-promo but i cover games with those demographics @ jstationx.com (lmk and i can give you links to the specific tags for each)
i feel like i do a p good job of finding whats out there / making waves but im always on the look out for more, hence that toot!
@jasminehenry oh nice! thank you!
@jasminehenry oh if you haven't played Undertale, I could count that as well
@jasminehenry I just thought of another, and it's possible that I'll think of more, as many of my games are tagged with Female Protagonist. But for now: The Cat Lady. It's a horror game, pretty surreal and emotionally taxing. It makes an impression.
@jasminehenry 2064: Read Only Memories has all of the above. Does Broken Age count as "indie" since it's Double Fine? Also Night In The Woods!
@creatrixtiara @jasminehenry these are all great games!!!
@creatrixtiara @jasminehenry @vahnj Broken Age is pretty awesome
@creatrixtiara I really need to pick up Night In The Woods! I've heard amazing things about it. @jasminehenry
@caff @creatrixtiara aah! a lot of people have recommended NITW to me today, sounds like im massively missing out by not having played it yet!
@jasminehenry http://www.eventheocean.com/ is fantastic! i may be biased 'cos i speedrun it~ but it's a narrative platformer with a very inclusive cast and outstanding gameplay/story.
@jasminehenry (i had >500 characters to say about it at https://steamcommunity.com/id/lifning/recommended/265470/ too 😅 )
@lifning aha to be fair it sounds like you have a good reason to be biased! thanks for the rec (and the link to yr review)
@jasminehenry Technobabylon has a playable trans PoC!
@vahnj omg?? what a rarity, instantly wishlisted
@jasminehenry trans woman Chinese doctor detective, Max is super cool
@jasminehenry Sara is Missing is set in Singapore/Malaysia and thus all the characters are POC
@creatrixtiara thank you so much for all the fab recs btw, i massively appreciate it!
@jasminehenry Lady protag in Jane Jensen's Grey Matter, and she's an illusionist to boot, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a fellow Goon's game, 100 Ft Robot Golf, which has most of the above *and* a Welsh Corgi. ;)
@jasminehenry Also, even though this is a grey area, I'd be remiss in not mentioning Kate Walker, protagonist of Benoit Sokal's (and Microid's) Syberia series, which got its most recent installment quite recently (Recently enough that it's on my docket)
@jasminehenry Ooh, forgot about Oxenfree! That, also, is a good one. :)
@TMWReviews thank you so much for these! hadnt heard of grey matter so im excited to find out more~
@jasminehenry There are a lot of games these days with female protagonists. Much more now than there used to be, although one could probably argue that there are not enough.
I'd be happy to give you recommendations, but I need to know what kinds of games you like before recommending anything.
@loke willing to give any and all games a look! not fussed which genres :)
@jasminehenry you might enjoy Gone Home. It has very strong focus on the story and have been very positively received. I haven't played it because the genre isn't to my taste, but you should probably try it.
@jasminehenry didn't see anyone recommend Night in the Woods, What Remains of Edith Finch, A Normal Lost Phone, or Gone Home yet but they all qualify
@jasminehenry well, there is at least some chance I'll be making one or more of them myself someday soon,,
@literallyfenic [eye emoji] keep me in the loop!
will do ;P
@jasminehenry also idk if it counts as indie per se (though it's certainly not AAA), and it's not exactly SUPER new, but Read Only Memories has all of the above, pretty sure.
@jasminehenry Crypt of the Necrodancer has Bolt, a genderqueer Poc! There are also lots of playable women (including a mother and a grandmother!), and other PoC (Monk, Diamond). :)
Besides that, Undertale has two queer women, Night in the Woods has two queer men and a queer woman, like others have said, and Freedom Planet has three playable woman lead characters!
@Pluma_y_Pelo oh wow, those sound rad, thank you a ton!
@jasminehenry You can try A Normal Lost Phone, very good game, I won't say much cause I don't want to spoil but it definitely corresponds to your criterias.
There is also Itlle Dew, Transistor, and The Cat Lady.
@jasminehenry We Know The Devil is right now my reigning favorite indie game about queer girls.
@DensetsuNoGomez will check it out, ty!
@jasminehenry I can't think of *any* specifically (the games I play don't tend to have characters). But here's a list of lists of diverse games: http://diversegaminglists.tumblr.com/Masterlist
In case you haven't seen that before.
@fallerOfFalls woaaah how did i not know about this tumblr, thank you so much!
@jasminehenry wooohoooo spreading knowledge yeah!
I found it via femhype.com
@jasminehenry The walking sim Gone Home fits the description. (apologies if you already know it)
@jasminehenry Pretty much everything I make/am making fits this definition! I'm working on a game with nothing but trans characters right now: https://twitter.com/thewaether/status/849718461160804352
And some of my old stuff fits this definition, but it's buried a lot deeper. https://thewaether.itch.io/dsa
I also made a heavily political game with a trans protag:
https://thewaether.itch.io/world-of-hate
@thewaether oh rad! looks like the development of TPS is going well! when do you think it'll be ready to release?
@jasminehenry I've been working on it for only a few months now, and I'm thinking of making it early access because it's probably going to be quite sprawling + I could get feedback on it, hopefully. Thanks for checking it out!
@thewaether ah okay, are you ready to do promo for it? / do you think you're going to do promo for it at all?
'cause i'd definitely like to write something on it (if yr interested)
@jasminehenry yes! Feel free to!
As for promo, I'm planning to do some, although usually I tend to send my games to a few websites & hope they cover it. I'm kind of clueless as to how to do promo outside of that, unfortunatley, except through word of mouth.
@thewaether thats what a lot of ppl do for promo actually so dw about feeling clueless!
i should ask, also, are you planning to do a trailer as well?
@jasminehenry I'm hopefully going to have a trailer! but I haven't started on that now (there's probably not enough to fill one, yet) so I'll probably do one closer to release. I might be able to cut together some longer gameplay footage, though!
@thewaether alright np! let me know when you start ramping up promo more or when a trailers ready 👍
@jasminehenry Life is strange, where the main character is a girl. One on my best experience on video game. Not sure we can qualify it as an indie one :/
@jasminehenry There is also They Bleed Pixels
@jasminehenry Ça, c'est une question pour @ptilou42 et plus généralement les participant-e-s desateliers queer games du @Le_RESET !
@jasminehenry Our game, The Maker's Eden has a few, here's Zeelicht, for example. The concepts of race/gender/sexuality are quite superficial (and lampshaded as such) in its world though since (spoiler) everyone's an android. https://mastodon.social/media/8jZ9o-To-SMtOlYuMxI
@warpgate9 thank you very much for the recommendation! what are you working on next?
@jasminehenry Still finishing act 3 of the aforementioned, then who knows. I have a bunch of prototypes which I would like to make something complete out of. Also have a free game series on Steam called "Kith - Tales From the Fractured Plateaus" - attached a screenie of work in progress on the second episode.
https://mastodon.social/media/REbzWxVodzs4AhW2q9s
@warpgate9 ah grand, will have a look at that too! thanks for the update :)
@jasminehenry not sure if indie (I don't think so), but there's the Telltale series of The Walking Dead featuring non-white & female main characters.
@jasminehenry Lupiesoft games.
http://lupiesoft.com/games/
Warning : except Toko the Reject demon, they are 18+
You can check the Yuri Game Jam https://itch.io/jam/yuri-game-jam/entries
https://itch.io/jam/yuri-game-jam-2016/entries
And depending of what you imply with "indie" you have games like Aoishiro, SonoHanabira and so on.
@Bloobz oh cool! thanks a bunch for the links. (do you know if theyre doing a yuri game jam for 2017?)
@jasminehenry Nothing official but I think there will be one. No reason to not have one.
But it will probably as the past years, during october.
@Bloobz ah, wonderful 😃
@jasminehenry You should give a try to 'A normal Lost Phone' .
It should meet your criterias, with a really diverse set of characters :).
+ the narrative/puzzle concept is really interesting.
@munsh nice! thank you!
Also: Resistor is a mag with games, fiction, etc: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3291628
There's also Eclipse Phase (http://eclipsephase.com) (PDFs here: https://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/)
@craigmaloney haha no worries, i've never really gotten into pen and paper rpgs actually but this is as good a starting point as ever, right? :)
@jasminehenry a normal lost phone :)
@jasminehenry as usual I will recommend Jotun.
Play as Thora, a female viking who has to defeat 5 Norse giants to enter Walhalla.
If you like Shadow of the Colossus, you will like Jotun.
@Vrashnak love love LOVE Jotun, i'm excited for Sundered too!
@jasminehenry yeah Thunder Lotus is a great studio.
Have you finished Jotun ? I can't defeat Hagalaz, it's driving me nuts x)
@Vrashnak sadly no, i had a press copy that expired so i think i only got to take on the frost jotun and the dwarven one. i should probably buy it for real (tho i doubt i'll be able to give you any hagalaz help!)
@jasminehenry oh :( too bad. I instabought it and I did not regret it.
(Concerning help, actually I wouldn't be able either, the patterns are easy to understand, but from Hagalaz or even worse with Kaunan... It's try and die all the way ahah)
@jasminehenry Maybe @zorakillerqueen or @Moossye from our #QueerGames workshops will know ?
@jasminehenry
There is a transgender character in the Deponia series. With Deponias heavy use of deliberately inappropriate humor, some took certain jokes as an attack on transgender people, while others (including the developer) claim that the transgender character isn't treated differently than other characters in the game.
Have yet to see a smart analysis of that, would be interested in your take if you find the time to play that game.
@tauli hm okay. which games star said trans character?
@jasminehenry Deponia and Deponia Doomsday
@tauli alright thanks. i'll look into it
@jasminehenry a normal lost phone!
@jasminehenry Gone Home https://gonehome.game/
It's been quite famous, so maybe you already know it. Good storytelling, I liked it.
@jasminehenry not sure if indie but The Cave is a bit feminist-oriented and really fun to play
@SebCorbin a bit feminist oriented? im interested 👀
...but can you elaborate pls?
@jasminehenry sorry for the late response... The Cave inserts a few puns on the traditional "rescuing the princess" tale and inserts parity within the main characters (the adventurer, the time-traveler, a non-playable hunter are all girls) so it's really mind-opening on these matters
@SebCorbin np! and wow, this actually sounds like a Dream Game? thank you so much!
@jasminehenry If you find out about anything cool, you gotta put a thread together, or a blog post about it!
@ajr i got a ton of brilliant recs! i was wondering if i should do an article like '[X] Inclusive Games That You Absolutely Have to Play' or something?
what do you think
@jasminehenry I would love to see that, yes.
@ajr alright, wonderful! i will be sure to toot about it :)
@jasminehenry @ajr I too would love to read this
@modernmodron @ajr im just putting the list together now (its over 30 games long so it could take a while to write tho!)
I've taken to doing series of posts about games and or music, as I have time. When I have five or six of them finished I collect them in to a single roundup style post.
@ajr @modernmodron nice nice, i'd love a link to that too!
(self promo alert) but im doing inclusive gaming news stuff @ http://jstationx.com as it is. thats where this masterpost whotsit will be posted too!
@jasminehenry a lot, what are you looking for? :)
@zorakillerqueen i was just seeking suggestions for a list post about inclusive games - if you've got recs lemme hear 'em! :)
@jasminehenry ok! Try all the queer games by Anna Anthropy, Merritt Kopas, Christine Love, Mattie Brice... You'll find awesome things
@jasminehenry you probably already know about Ladykiller in a Bind but I'll mention it anyways :)