No Proper Thief

[malinryden]

I am currently turning one of my unfinished book into a choice of games thingy, and I have to deal with exactly this. Since it was a book, all the characters were of course a certain gender in my head, and now I have to sit down and rewrite everything.

Still, for me it is a really worthwhile exercise, because I am finding that looking at the story from a different point of view actually is a lot of fun.

That being said, it is still exactly the same MC as in the book. I have changed nothing about the background, because that is an integral thing to the plot. I just lowered the bar for identification.

Another thing I realized was that it felt more natural to just insert the choices as you go along, at the first point they become divergent. For example, the Rooster nickname works just as well for both men and women I feel, and it is only when someone calls Clyde by name that you would need a simple set name thingy. Same when the issue of gender first pops up.

I am quite new at this as well, but I seem to get the feeling here that a lot of people are enjoying reading/playing a story without having to do the inevitable gender/race/sex AU in their head that you have to do for most modern media if you want to identify with someone outside the norm.

That being said, it can snowball fast, so make sure you pick what really matters.

As for being less iconic. I think Shepherd and Hawke for example (from dragon age and mass effect) managed to be quite iconic despite the gender options. After all, what makes someone iconic is not how they look, it is what they DO.

[OSFox]

Bonnie and Clyde, indeed–just like the infamous Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Trying to think of two more infamous partners in crime names to reference if i do end up going the gender select route, but nothing has quite the same sense of romance attached to it as those two. Glad you enjoyed the characters overall. I’ve explored Marlin and Stag (Mason and Narsico) before in short stories before they turned to crime so that made it easier to give them personality. Thanks for reading!

[Boman19]

I want the option where i can somehow turn on everybody without dying and take all the money and run away or basically the same option but take only bonnie with me

[Boman19]

I think it would be better if both were choices though

[OSFox]

As for being less iconic. I think Shepherd and Hawke for example (from dragon age and mass effect) managed to be quite iconic despite the gender options. After all, what makes someone iconic is not how they look, it is what they DO.

@malinryden Excellent point about behavior being what makes a character. You’re right.

The second person narrative certainly works in my favor for the gender aspect as “YOU” does not specify gender. It’ll just be things like Zebra (Wesley) saying “lad” and the name Clyde as you said. It’s the romantic relationship that develops that causes the major issue here. I’ll do my best. I’ll also keep an eye out for your story, unless you’re referring to Los Diablos, in which case I’ll be checking that out soon.

@Boman19 Don’t we all. Unfortunately, I imagine the guilt of doing so would eat away at Clyde until he got his conscience stat dropped to 1%, leading to failure. Either that or bolting with the money would be the end of the story which would be an end to the hectic adventure, as you’d be living it up on a beach somewhere with no excitement. So if you’d really like that to happen, I suppose I could make that happen. I’m actually liking that idea, myself. I’ll have to turn the Jerk-Gentleman stat to complete jerk. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the full version to get the girl and the money–really work for it, without cheating your team.

[Boman19]

Thank you for considering my idea! I hope it does make it in!

[OSFox]

@Boman19 Sure thing. I can make this one work.

I’m thinking of inserting it in at the “you have enough” “Keep going for more choice.” “Nothing. Sneak out with the money.” That way the running hostage can provide a distraction and a chance to turn back and help the team. I don’t see Bonnie going willingly with Clyde at that point so I’m thinking he pulls her as a hostage. I’ll update the sample with what I’ve got soon.

If anyone else has an idea or ideas, I’m open to hearing them. Thanks again for all your comments!

[Boman19]

Thanks man. And no problem. I love making an impact

[LordOfLA]

@OSFox

I can definitely look into adding a gender option and sexual orientation, as well, considering the interest in it.

I would most certainly be more inclined to give your game a try and purchase if it was fun if you expand on MC gender and orientation options. There is a thread on gender locking elsewhere on the forums you may want to read.

[LordOfLA]

@OSFox

I’ll have to add a note at the beginning that Clyde (male) will reappear in a sequel on a different medium, perhaps leading to players who choose female Clyde to feel cheated, or having to implement a gender selection in the sequel BLAME, as well which runs the risk of Clyde being less iconic.

First: Spoiler warning for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 (for those that haven’t played the games yet after all these years)

Bioware in above mentioned game let you play as a male or female character with this game. However the “official” gender for the player character was male.

Obsidian Entertainment retained the gender choice but the official gender of the player character was female.

You can allow gender choice and orientation choice in your games and still have an “official” storyline going forward.

As to ethnicity, economic background, while being nice extra customisation options. I don’t think these are as close to being required as gender and orientation choice. I should not that these last two aren’t required but you certainly open up your game to a bigger audience and to more potential sales by including those last two.

As a final note I also prefer to choose my own first and last names in these sorts of games and as such I’d suggest you maybe go for the option of providing some “official” choices and an option to type your own names as well.

[OSFox]

Great idea! I will implement that “official” story note at the beginning and put in place a gender option in order to retain my original idea but also allow for a wider audience to enjoy the game. I’m well on my way with the gender selection already, and I’ll update this sample with the new female/male/alien being and heterosexual/homosexual choices. As well as with @Boman19’s suggestion. It’ll just take a little time to make each selection lead to unique interactions.

I’ll also look into the first and last name thing, I believe I read about it while originally coding, so I’ll review it and see how I can achieve that.

[FairyGodfeather]

Just to note, there are actually people who identify outside the gender binary categories of male or female.
This can be for a number of reasons. As such, I’d suggest steering clear of the whole idea of ‘alien being’ as a third gender, especially if you’re doing it as a joke. Just stick with male or female, or if you’re really dedicated to a third category, do some reading up on genderqueer, and third genders first. But really, if it’s not something you know too much about, I’d say focus on just the two.

[OSFox]

The alien being, a body snatcher, is not there to offend. It provides humorous moments of misunderstanding,and fun for a second play-through, but it isn’t a joke. I have two transgender friends irl, so I do know something of genderqueer individuals. Adding a genderqueer option for bigender, trigender, pangenders, nongendered, etc. individuals would be a bit unreasonable and outside my ability to code it. I can certainly think of adding another non-gender option on top of the alien body snatcher, but seeing as the majority of players, including transgenders, can connect with a female/male gender, it doesn’t seem particularly necessary. As for asexual and other genderqueer individuals, even those who think of themselves as animals, they can either pick a gender and use their imagination as I originally intended with the gender-locked Clyde Lamm, or the alien being that is genderless. The third option is for those who don’t care for gender and want a little more otherworldly weirdness, or I suppose to help facilitate the transition of the character into a male/female role for those who do not identify as male or female (heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual). Part of reading is the imagination is requires to enjoy it, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that people imagine this as what it is: a game and not a form of targeted exclusion.

The alien being provides an option for all those who don’t want to start with a set gender, and a bit of a prologue to the male/female options. It is not a gender choice, just a third, fun option.

Edit: Going through this, I think I have been over thinking this. I’m thinking now that maybe the solution here is that I’ll just go Human or Alien as the first choice, keep the fun of that knew aspect, and then make the protagonist (reader) genderless as it is written in second person already (you, you, you), thus leaving it up to the player’s individual interpretation. That leaves orientation to be implied by the reader.

So i’ll just have a version of the story where Bonnie is the bank manager and one where Clyde is the bank shift manager. That way straight women, gay men, and all those who are attracted to men can choose to have Clyde be the shift manager, and all those who are straight men, lesbians, bisexuals, etc can have the original as Bonnie being the bank manager. Then I’ll add a name selection or just remove all mention of Clyde/Bonnie’s name altogether from the dialogue of the other characters.

If the majority of people in the beta hate the body snatching alien option, I’ll remove it. But I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

[FairyGodfeather]

That’s fine. I was just worried that you were equating not-binary with being an alien and as a joke. I’ve come across other, less aware, authors who’ve put in a third option, which has been unintentionally offensive.

That you’re planning to just provide a third path is fine.

I actually like the start you have to the game. It’s well written. Of course we do miss the date with Bonnie, and the character building there, and we’re thrown into the middle of the action. And Bonnie’s story is just as exciting a one, where she’s a bored trainee manager who gets whisked away into a life of crime. That’s Bonnie’s story though, not Clyde’s.

[Sashira]

Honestly, I have bought and played every single Choice Of Games/Hosted Games except those that seemed poorly written, were terribly reviewed… or didn’t have gender/orientation options. COG is one of the few places that a bi chick like myself can find quality games where I can see myself being the protagonist. : )

Now that you have been coding those in, I am psyched to play your game. Bonnie & Clyde are one of my favorite couples in all of history. <3 I hope you can find a way to make the default names for the opposite gender/other genders close to those, so people get the joke. (Benny & Claudette?)

[Sashira]

Oh, btw, I haven’t looked at your code yet, but there’s a rather elegant way to shift pronouns around. Like this:
*label female_pronouns
*set possessive_pronoun “her”
*set pronoun “she”
*set pronoun_contraction “she’s”

(Pronoun contractions aren’t necessary for male or female, since it’s just {pronoun}'s, but it may get more complicated if you add more than two genders.)

Then just add more to your label as needed, paste it into the bottom of your scenes, and use a gosub command when you first set the character’s gender.

[LordOfLA]

@OSFox

then make the protagonist (reader) genderless as it is written in second person already (you, you, you), thus leaving it up to the player’s individual interpretation. That leaves orientation to be implied by the reader.

I’m not sure that will be a good way to handle it. It will certainly work, but I like stories to explicitly accept and state gender over leaving it vague. It allows me to get more involved with the story and my MC.

[Sashira]

Making the player genderless could work, but it’ll be difficult to work around people’s reactions to them.

e.g.: You are running away with a bag of money. Unless you want to spend the whole game writing “Get them!” or “Get that crook!”, pronouns can save you a ton of trouble.

It’s a matter of your LI being able to say “I love him/her” rather than “I love that thief!” If you don’t mind all of the workarounds it could work well to leave the player’s gender unstated, but it could be annoying to keep having to come up with synonyms or nicknames.

[OSFox]

I thought about writing it from the bank manager (Bonnie’s) point of view in addition to Clyde’s, but I felt like she has a lot less choice in the matter, at least early on. I might explore her POV in a different game, but for this one, I feel the con-artist/greenhorn bank robber offers the best story, and as I’m making it work for all genders/non-genders, Bonnie’s point of view might only serve to disappoint. I’m not confident, after reading forum posts here, that readers are particularly fond of replaying games, even if it were from a completely different point of view.

[OSFox]

@Sashira I’ll definitely use that code for my second game, and might try it out for No Proper Thief. If it gets real complicated for more than two genders, I’ll probably just stick to my idea of using the strength of second person narrative and make the protagonist’s gender ambiguous, and then giving the player the choice selecting Bonnie or Clyde as a potential romantic interest. Otherwise I would definitely use Claudette. Ha-ha!

Your concern of having to get creative with dialogue is a real one, but since players only see and hear things that the protagonist does, people will naturally address the player as you or Rooster. No one should refer to the protagonist in third person, as if to someone else when they’re not in the same room. Writing short stories and a novel, I’ve found that using a person’s name too much in dialogue ends up sounding more unnatural than being vague and using context, but we’ll see how you all respond to the changes. I’ll do the workarounds to make sure no one feels excluded.

@LordOfLA I hope I’ll be able to implement my way in such a manner as to not annoy the reader and make it seem natural–in a way to allow players to still feel connected to the character. I look forward to your reaction to the changes when I finish, and hope I don’t disappoint.