I love the idea. Honestly marriage and having children should be in the game because why does the relationship need to stop there it’s literally just beginning at that point if it’s not the end point it’s the start.
Exactly!!!
I want to go through all the ups and downs of an relationship!!
I want to make myself suffer– Wait wut.
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I would love all of the things you suggested. Harvest moon and The Sims are probably two of my favorite games because your character can have kids and watch them grow! I also like seeing if the kid(s) look anything like their parents if they’re biological. Life simulation games may be my favorite genre.
I loved Alter Ego too. Have you tried Instlife (android/not sure if Iphone) and Bitlife (android/Iphone) ? You can adopt and also marry someone of the same gender if you want, unlike in Alter Ego. They don’t have meaningful and substantial dialogue with your spouse and kids though, which is something I really like for games to have
I liked Alter Ego too, but I would like to make clear why it is in no way progressive. The first time I played it was hm I guess around 1994 or around that time. Alter Ego is a near to 100% Adaption from a C128 Game, at that time there where alter Ego, and alter ego female. So at that time it was quite modern. 
I don’t think I’m a bigot. I’m sure I have biases. We all do, but I really try to be aware of mine, and not let them dictate my actions, and opinions. I’m sorry if what I’m about to say offends anyone, but…here goes.
Settling down, getting married and having children is a happy ending. It’s not the only possible happy ending, but I hope one day to be married, be pregnant, and be a mother, and I could easily and strongly identify with a video game character who also wanted those things, and got them.
I know those are things that are widely represented in our culture, and I know that while they apply to many they don’t apply to all. That doesn’t mean that including them in a story/game is bigotry. Actually including something like that would be almost completely novel.
I’ve played hundreds of video games in my life, and I can only think of one that ever let me a be a wife and mother. (Fable 3) Part of that is due the general lack of video game heroines, and the incredible scarcity of any of those heroines having relationships at all.
I think I would find it very, engaging, comforting, and emotionally powerful if a well written game had a heroine who kicked all of the ass when she had to, but who also wanted the same things from her life that I do.
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I married SO many grannies in fable 3! It was So much fun 
wanting marriage and kids , isn’t bigoted . It is bigoted when thats the only outcome you have . Or ending . The lack of choices is bigoted . The desire for marriage and kids isn’t .
Just like wanting to roam the world questing alone , isn’t LONELY ending . Its a ‘Free do whatever I want’ ending .
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Well I don’t think wanting that is bigotry. The bigoted is the ONLY ONE i have. No opportunity to anything else than THEY MARRIED AND HAVE KIDS THE END.
Spanish media is filled with this ONLy good ending possible for a woman is nun; death; or marry Has been so far since medieval is an adagio until now. In culebrones NUN DEATH OR MARRY. Lorca has a drama that direct attack that Bernarda Alba. A woman that is killed by her own mother to hide the fact she had sex out marriage. The mother crazy ended I want white coffing as my daughter has death virgin.
In my culture until 1975 Where literally that 3 options and anything else was degenerate. I was taught by the nuns that the paths of virtue in a woman are Virginity Chastity and pure obedience to first parents and brothers later husband. It was that or marry with Jesus.
So after media and media and more media and more media and more films. And The otome genre literally only good ending is marry.
I can’t have more that crap only options are marry or be a nun.
I am here in choice of games because something. Could say NOPE NO MARRIAGE. Some characters want others no. Could choose IS THE BEST THING EVER
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You got to think about it like this our generation did not go grow up with those preasure. Plus what are you view as he’ll being nun or wife and mother are something woman truly want. My own mother was successful PI for years before she retired which means she was never home. Did she want that? No all she wanted was to be stay at home mom and raise her family but one ugly end of marriage that dream never happen even after she was finally remarried me and my brother where grown. Being Nun or monk in today society is very noble calling no one does it for respectability or power anymore it someone with the genuine calling to the vocation.
@Morphine and @Kaelyn the first time play that game is back when I was 14 very fond memories of it because it was on the very few games where you can play Cradle to the Grave and had some incredibly frightening real world scenarios in there.
I am in total agreement with this.
Today’s games, just like movies, t.v. shows and other media are evolving - more roles are seen as open to women in general and because of this, more of our issues are being dealt with. It isn’t perfect yet and there still is some push back in all media, just as there is in society in general, but I do think games will get better over time.
As far as IF games go - in my opinion, it takes talent and perhaps experience to successfully write on the subject of family and marriage life.
Alter Ego was good in its day but it shows its age and is not something I’d embrace today as I did before. @hustlertwo 's current WiP, I feel is one that will be successful and it seems to me that his writing talent combines with his experience so that he can make a compelling game.
A project that @Lys is or will be working on sooner or later will deal with pregnancy in a way that will be unique and different than that seen so far.
Others, like @JimD 's Zombie Exodus games have situations that deal with family. For example, the nephew in Safe Haven started out as a “handicap” but has evolved into something more as the game progresses into part 2.2.
Another series in which I am looking forward to seeing family and marriage being dealt with by the MC is @Cataphrak’s Lords of Infinity - the other titles in his series always had references to the MC’s family but not to the extent it seems Lords will be dealing with the issues.
The more I think about it, the more I think a lot of authors (more than I can list, actually) here actually do deal with these issues in different ways. Those that succeed in doing so often have strong stories to tell.
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I don’t want be mother I don’t want be wife. Why I should forced to it by society? Why should be only portrayal.
Man could do whatever pursue their dreams freely. Women has to felt guilt and be corrected to don’t want be forced to only that and see only that in media. It seems my only goal should be carry babies and marry. And I should desire that. Guess what i am free thankfully and not forced like many women in all the world to marry .
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Generally, not to the same extent (I won’t speak at all regarding religious callings; I keep out of that) but there still is a general expectation that eventually women will “grow up” and “settle down” into home life. Pop culture and media often has the “happy ending” of women settling down and marrying and having babies.
It bleeds into more than just pop-culture too. My favorite least-favorite example was a friend denied any type of permanent birth control despite being told it would be very dangerous for you to get pregnant, you’ll probably die because “what if you want babies some day”?
The idea is less that women can’t want this. If you want this, that’s fine. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a mother or following a religious calling, or anything, and no one should be stopped from pursuing that goal. But not everyone does, and the constant portrayal of this as the only “right” option can get grating. I was so happy when I found romance authors who didn’t include and they had lots of babies in the epilogue, because most of the time, the final chapter involves “and she got pregnant” even when that character was adamantly against having babies until she “met the right man” or what have you.
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I am not saying you should be but Mara my friend you are going at idea of motherhood and the marriage with such vile and angry. Where for some people it something that is still genuinely desire.
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I grew up in the Eastern tri-state area. Subjective from my own experience and my peers women are deeply encourage to have careers and lives of Their Own. To the point where the idea I’m settling down in either regard male or female to be a homemaker is it look on with piety. My mother wanted to be a homemaker my mom wanted to be a wife she wanted to be an active mother and she wasn’t able to because of a bad divorce. What I was saying earlier is that for some people it’s a person dream and it shouldn’t be attacked so viciously.
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I’m Eastern US myself. It’s not so much that women are expected to give up their jobs (though stay-at-home-dad is still more of a stigma than stay-at-home-mom), but marriage and babies are taken as a given. “When you get married”, “When you have kids…” It’s mildly annoying to me, more than anything else, though having my gram freak out because I accidentally scarred my ring finger and “I’ll help pay for plastic surgery, you can’t wear a wedding band on an ugly finger like that” was weird.
To my friends with medical problems, or to trans folks who get to deal with “well you can’t transition what if you change your mind and want children” as a legitimate stall tactic, it’s an actual problem.
I didn’t read mara’s comment as attacking motherhood, so much as attacking the media’s pressure to pursue motherhood/religious callings, which is a different thing.
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and for some peoples it’s a nightmare .
peoples who ‘‘attack’’ as you worded it , don’t do it because ‘‘having kids and marriage’’ is the devil work!!! Burn it with fire!!!
But because , something in their past…or where they lived…or how they were raised…someone took away the ‘Freedom’’ to grow ‘marriage and kids’’ as a dream and turned it into a bloody nightmares where it become ‘‘you are a women ? guess what…start popping kids already ! chop chop! time is running out for you!’’ .
pretty much this .
you gotta take into account , where the peoples come from too .
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Poor grandma. Honestly though it’s more how it’s being dealt with in this particular discussion I feel like it’s attacked aggressively as an institution and the quote on quote settle down is almost treated as a form of suicide I feel like in this discussion an ending instead of a beginning.
But that’s the thing the vocation of marriage is not how unless you make the wrong choice sadly we do. I am taking that also into account but it doesn’t deserve to be treated as this hell scape.
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I don’t see it as suicide or “an end” or anything, and I apologize for contributing to that tone. Finding a partner you love and having children to love and dote on can be an amazing, beautiful adventure in and of itself (I’m considering kids someday, I should point out).
The thing I’m against is: Parenthood is a very big decision in life. You’ve got a little person dependent on you for basically everything, and that’s a big responsibility that factors into every decision you make until said little one is an independent adult.
And that’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not the only “right” choice, and media very much portrays it as such. When every life path leads to motherhood, when every sweeping romantic adventure ends with “and then they stopped adventuring and had kids”, instead of some ending with “and then they stopped adventuring and had kids” while others end with “and they continued adventuring for as long as they were able, saving the day and travelling and making friends”… When that happens, it starts feeling frustrating to those who want to keep up the adventuring. And for some, parenthood does start to feel like the end, because everything they want is in the “adventure” part, and the epilogue brings all of that to a close.
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I want to share my part of this thing to, since it is a social view which until now was not represented^^.
Here in Germany woman are pretty free in their decisions. I lived until my thirtys without wanting, or needing children in my life. Even after having a child of my own, which was my own and free decision, I hate almost every kid, most of them are unruled, impolite and stupid, sorry to say such a thing, but I see and experience it daily in the class of my daughter.
But even here, were nobody dares to tell me, what I have to do. I have to listen to my mum, and the mum and grandmother of my partner why I don’t want to marry, not that I have to, but in a way to indicate that my wish not to get marry was something strange. I do not want to think about the pressure woman have to endure in countrys where being an unmarried mother, or unmarried woman is a absurd and strange thing. It must be hell to those women, so I really understand if people don’t like to get forced to getting married in a game. Everyone has other goals in life, nobody would think bad of a guy, who just playboys his life around until his 50ies. But for a woman it is still a strange thing, and that might not be hell or the devil, but still something we should think about, because it is not right, at least in my opinion.
It would be nice if everyone was more open, to women, to lgbt and all the other varietion that humanity offers. 
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I come from exactly contrary experience My grandma sister was cheated by a guy and left pregnant she was forced to marry a guy she despised her entire life due it was that or nun.
Even myself today are telling YOU HAVE TO FIND A MAN YOU HAVE GOOD TITS GO DRESS SEXY AND CAUGHT A MAN BEFORE IS TO LATE
Oh you haven’t husband? Are you lesbian
etc etc You have to have babies and many 3xpect you grown up and sit down
Meanwhile all men in my group and in working place are Young golden single lawyers with future. I AM A GIRL ABOUT PASS THE PREFERENCE EXPIRE date.
My society is building by base women had babies willing or not. if not something happens. Even if so I am supposed to adopt.
Women Man queer are more than their capacity of raise children. It should be a gift have a baby not a burden. And no media should assume and forced in a interact media have a marriage and kids only solution.
Edit i would suicide before have a baby for me is eorst nightmare. I don’t want be my mother and cause that suffering to a baby.
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I so get you their!! From the sociality point view “the adventure period” of life need to end or take break for the real responsibility of “family” and not doing so look irresponsibly. If you have the time or money people have done both. Child raising weird when it works and people do it when they are ready it look more rewarding then all the adventures. Mind you this is not from media but parents and grandparents I meet over the years as a bartender. My adventure and traveling are fun the personally after a while they come up just decadent and hallow so I can see how some view that as the next step.
@Kaelyn You made me think of and other thing people do not think of is the religious meaning which I will save for later on and also the long-term legal meanings both are huge.
@poison_mara I am sorry that happen to your great Aunt and from your point of view that makes a bit more sense because you grew up with the societal pressures so it looks like it robs you what could be beautiful about it from your perspective?
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