Hello, i really hope this topic doesnt offend anyone and if it does, i am sorry
so i am thinking about making a choice of games and trying to focus on the romance aspect(even tho its not the main aspect of the story but still important)
seeking inspirations from other CoGs and HGs, and finding that most of the romance in their story are being able to let the main character to be Bi and Gay(which seems to be important because its everywhere).
and those aspects really burden me because i cant make all the romanceable characters to be Biâs unless i make them to be. I dont really mind with creating characters with same gender only romance, but imagining characters i made for the male protagonist(except characters i make them to be gay or bi from the first place) got romanced by female protagonist and vice versa really disturb me.
so is it really important to include this on every story ??
Ps.
a question: I am a guy, and if i am playing as a girl and romance a guy in a game⌠does that makes me gay ??
(sorry for any wrong words)
That said, you donât have to make every character bi. ROâs that are only available to straight (or gay) MCâs are perfectly acceptable, just so long as not every one is the same: I.E. guys can only romance girls and vice versa.
Assuming of course youâre talking about in CoG WIPâs, though Iâm sure there was a good gif to use right about now I canât seem to find it. Anyway, there are several other topics that answer these questions more in detail and Iâm sure have been discussed, but Iâll throw in my bit anyway.
Analysis: Youâre overthinking it. Solution: Create some bi, some gay, some straight. Or even choose one character to be each if it helps.
From what I see here the issue is you donât want to change the preference of the characters youâve created to make them into someone theyâre not. Thatâs understandable. Otherwise if itâs the coding for it youâre concerned about thereâs some easy solutions to that, but I find the issue more fundamental.
To answer your first question as simply as possible. I believe you just need a perspective change to help give yourself some understanding into the matter. Especially so you donât purposely exclude certain groups of people in your game and therefore unintentionally making them to feel excluded, which I donât believe is the desired effect youâre looking for. In other words youâll be taking a very important choice, in choiceofgames, away from many people.
As for your second question. Playing as the opposite gender and/or romancing the same gender as your own doesnât necessarily makes you gay.
Hope that helps.
- Advice from your local Brownie Sage
P.s. Donât forget to capitalize your Iâs when theyâre alone
I enjoy it when thereâs some variation, but if you actually manage to code in all kinds of different interests for NPCâs to have then it probably would be an even greater addition that forces you to play the game as a different gender as well.
I would say do what your comfortable with and do what you want to do. If the characters you have made have a certain orientation and you canât see them having a different one then I say keep the character as is. If you want to incorporate other sexual orientations, then make new characters for them. If you donât want to include certain orientations in your game then donât. Itâs your game so I would say do what YOU want to do.
I know some people that donât feel comfortable with gay/bi relationship due to religion and personal beliefs; if youâre not comfortable with it, donât feel pressured whatsoever, as everyone should respect your decision.
Itâs certainly gonna be important to a lot of people. Iâm mainly interested in f/f romances (because itâs already rare seeing it, and even rarer to see it have a happy ending) and I donât play games that cut me off from a romance based on my gender.
That said, different people have different opinions. If you absolutely donât feel comfortable with it, forcing yourself to include queer characters isnât gonna help anyone. (In a perfect world, writing queer characters might help you feel more at ease with such topics, but alas, we donât live in a perfect world.)
Your personal beliefs are obviously tied up in this (at least thatâs how it comes off, since you say youâd feel âdisturbedâ by letting a female character intended for a male MC be romanced by the female MC as well), so youâre gonna have to ask yourself: Can you see yourself writing queer relationships at all?
tl;dr
Write what makes you comfortable. Forcing yourself to do anything usually doesnât end well.
As for your second question:
No. The gender you romance in games doesnât have to say anything about your sexuality. I sometimes romance a man in video games - and that certainly doesnât make me straight. When I play a male character and romance a man, that also doesnât make me a gay dude.
Determining whether thereâs anything queer about you can be done with a simple question, really. Are you sexually and/or romantically interested in members of your own sex?
If you answered yes, then congrats! Youâre sexually and/or romantically interested in members of your own sex!
If you answered no, then congrats! Youâre not sexually and/or romantically interested in members of your own sex!
(Not that there canât be uncertainty in oneâs answer, but itâs safe to assume that oneâs choices in video games, iphone colours or bath products does not determine your sexuality.)
What you say is all true, however the thing that first drew me here, to Choice of Games, is that I could have the mc be like me in all of these stories and by that I mean gay and still have him be the badass main character as these are some of the very few games (that are not explicitly gay focused, though gay focused games are even rarer) where being gay doesnât relegate you to being a sideshow.
But @blackrising is certainly right that you shouldnât write something you personally feel uncomfortable writing, just donât expect me to play a straight romance game, those are a dime a dozen, even if I were interested in them.
The main romances in my game arenât bi. But the sex theyâre attracted to is set when the reader picks his/her sex.
If writing characters like that is disturbing to you, then do go ahead and offer a variety of romance options, as others have suggested.
If I play a monkey in a game, it doesnât mean I like peanuts. (But itâs possible that I first realize I like peanuts when playing a monkey.) Still, the answer to your question as written is no.
Yes, yes it is especially important for bisexual with preference toward same sex like me.
especially because itâs hard to find m/m interactive fiction/games that is not there for erotica/porn/titillation purpose⌠well I enjoy that too but if thatâs the only thing that exist? kinda tired of it. I need plot and actual story and character depth dang it
anything else, @blackrising has said everything I wanted to say.
If you intend to try and eventually publish it under the Hosted Games label, Iâd say that itâs rather important to include M/M and F/F romance options if you intend for it to sell. I myself wouldnât buy a CoG/HG that focuses heavily on romance but doesnât include M/M. As a gay man thatâs grown accustomed to it being a common feature in most games that run through this site, it would just be a bummer to me.
Now, if youâre just writing something for your own personal use or as practice? Donât feel pressured to do or include anything youâre not comfortable doing. If you donât feel comfortable altering your current characters to allow for same-sex romances, try creating a new, separate character that you know right off the bat is going to be eligible for male and female protagonists and see if that still gives you trouble. Experiment. Have fun. Writing lets you do all that.
Well, think of it this way. If you played a game in which there were no straight romance options available, but there were several romance options, how would you feel about the experience? If most games you played were written with lots of romance options (but none for straight characters), how excited would you be about another game that had romance options (but none for straight characters)?
You donât have to put anything in your game that you donât like, or donât feel comfortable writing. But much as with the discussion of what genders people want available in games, part of the draw for a lot of players around here isnât just the specific options: itâs that they have a hard time finding those options in games elsewhere.
Do you need to include non-straight romances in your game? No. Is that going to be a turn-off for some potential players? Yes. Is that going to be fine with some other potential players? Yes.
I have this thinking, if there was a game where you were forced to be gay or bi and you were a straight person, would that make you upset or not want to play the game? Would it turn you away from the game? If not then go ahead and do the game as you want, in fact do it as you want regardless, but I do believe itâs important.
i like the option to be like myself, even if i donât always play it. having gender options and orientation are both pluses that let me enjoy games more. If a game has neither its still ok maybe its for a perspective thing or doesnât believe they can accurately portray someone properly, those are both good reasons. Difficulty writing a story can happen when to much variation comes into play which happensâŚalot.
All in all its the writers choice, and forcing romance into it to suit everyone is pandering and often can degrade a story.
and no it does not make you gay to play a girl in a game and romance a guy, thats actually healthy and normal for a lot of people regardless of orientation, and comically most get embarrassed about it. its part of our society that we get ingrained embarrassment and think this sort of thing is wrong(sadly, but we are slowly stearing away from that).
I myself am bi and i get embarrassed about doing that stuff despite knowing nothing is wrong with it
A fun route is making a note of orientations but if a certain romance goes against said orientation make a note of it. Give the MC a chance to convince the other character to play for the other team, perchance.
But this only works if the personality of said character allows for this change of heart because love knows no boundaries!
YES! wholeheartedly agree with that thought. many personalities can become a little more comfy with it, mostly since most are closer to the middle than they may think being just pressure for a lot of people, on the other-hand there are the iron hides.
To me, having an option is really, really important. I am Bisexual, that mean I should also be cool with straight romance because I swing that way too, right? Well⌠not really. Being forced to play only straight romance resemble too much with real life where people expect Bi folks to âchooseâ one end of the spectrum, or telling us we have âStraightâ and âGayâ half. When the majority of media is almost exclusively hetero, just by having the option means a lot.
I find myself immediately turned off from straight romance unless there are gay options. Even if the romance is really well done or have the characters Iâm interested in, I still wonât play it. If there are gay options however, I find myself able to enjoy the straight route more. Because I can relax knowing that the game doesnât have anything against me or is straight due to heteronormative thinking and such.
With that said, like other folks already told you, donât do it if youâre not comfortable with it. But also prepare to accept that some people also might not play your game. (Not because itâs bad or you offend them, but because you donât have what theyâre looking for.) I do think some self-examining could go a long way though. It disturbs you. but WHY does it disturb you?
These are my thoughts. As a bisexual I was very excited to find these choice games because there were a wide variety of romance options for me and no other games have done before unless I played as a woman. It means a lot if the author thinks of lgbt when writing their game but if you canât itâs okay.
I think that giving the option is laudable, in a world where people busy themselves drawing lines all the time itâs always nice to see someone try and be inclusive. I like to think that though Iâm on the unfashionable easy street of being a hetero man Iâm quite enlightened when it comes to gender and sexuality. Then again I may be blowing smoke up my own arse thinking that.
For me a great love story is a great love story whether the players are like or unlike myself, in fact some of the best stories that Iâve read feature people who ought to be totally unrelatable to my frame of reference, but thatâs a line of conversation thatâll take us well and truly off track.
Having said all that, write what you want, not merely for the fact that itâs your story and you want it that way (though this is perfectly valid in and of itself) but because readers are smart and they know very well when a writer feels out of their depth or comfort zone. Itâll make them just as uncomfortable in the reading of a passage as it will you in the writing of it.
hefts soapbox over his shoulder and wanders off
giggles for eternity because heâs totally an adult
I personally am a cisfemale who has a ratherâŚfluid sexuality. That being said, Iâve always H A T E D it in games when the romance option is just gender-swapped to fit your preferred gender. It seems soâŚforceful. A la âCreatures Such as Weâ (that game gave me a lot to think about, man). Personally, I like to make each character their own person, with their own incredibly intricate background and story. This, of course, creates a lot of writing and coding on my end
In my current WIP, I have the option for each character to be romanceable by any gender (thereâs 5 or 6 romance options), just because Iâm not comfortable coding in sexuality (yet. So this may change). However, Iâve planned out that if youâre nonbinary or female, you cannot marry the princess. Why? Because itâs a âtraditionalâ society, and anyone but a man marrying the princess bodes terribly for future heirs.
THAT BEING SAID: as many people previous have said before, write what makes you feel comfortable. If you donât feel comfortable writing in non-heterosexual romance optionsâdonât. If your discomfort with it is that it will detract from your artistic vision â add in some homosexual or bisexual options. Like in Dragon Age. Three. Not Two. Dragon Age II irked me by being all bisexual.
âŚI think I may need to actually go ahead and code in sexuality in my own game, since I abhor the flip-flopping âI donât have any choice in being romanced by you! Regardless of whether Iâm attracted to you!!!â in games
If you donât feel comfortable altering your current characters to allow for same-sex romances, try creating a new, separate character that you know right off the bat is going to be eligible for male and female protagonists and see if that still gives you trouble. Experiment. Have fun. Writing lets you do all that.