Good gravy, I have a bone to pick with genderflippable ROs. Especially if the game is advertised as playable for ‘straight, gay, bi, pan’ but only because the RO genders are flippable. At which point I just give up because 9 out of 10 times, the character feels like they were written exclusively to be girls. uggghgh
Like in Choice of Deathless, a game which I love with all my heart, when you kiss your RO at last, the narrative says that your MC lifts them off the ground in joy (or something to that effect) and that was immersion breaking. Like my character was this craft woman who I envisioned was shorter and probably physically weaker than my RO but she lifted him off the ground when they kissed? Especially when the male ROs are supposed to be tall? ???
And also the new game Dinoknights was really fun but there was no real male RO, despite having two genderlocked female ROs. The Princess and your partner were clearly written to be girls, with both having a softer nature. I was really bummed because I wanted my kickass Ranger to end up with a kickass hunk. But nope.
yo cyoa gives us more masculine hunks to romance pls ty
On the note of DinoKnights: Martis was a bit of an eehh for me during the beta (this was improved, so major kudos) as they fell into something that irks me greatly originally:
Characters that are ticking off boxes for autism/anxiety/introverts who then turn out to be ‘just shy’
I can respect that, the forums and the games do a good job of challenging gender norms, but I still don’t think genderflipping is the way to go. To each their own and all that.
As for DinoKnights, my biggest issue was a lack of male ROs in general, and the only two being genderflippable which made it feel as if male ROs were kind of an afterthought. Aside from them, there were two great female ROs who were bold and coy and wonderful. So I was mildly salty.
This!! Introverted =/= shy =/= anxiety. I’m introverted as hell, but I have no problems with talking to people or standing up for myself. I was in speech and debate for crying out loud, I just don’t like being around people for very long. Doesn’t mean I can’t be loud if I want to be.
Also whoever said nerds/straight-A students are always awkward, shy or antisocial (or whatever low charisma) should stop. The honor class ruled my high school more than any jock did.
Same here. Like, why the most sterotypical ROs have been genderflipped, but the other two weren’t? If at least the genderflip was either for all the ROs, or at least one of the not genderflipped was male, I would not feel salty.
But as it was done, I really felt my character (straight female) was an afterthought.
I don’t mind the genderflip per se…but Dinoknights is exactly the example of badly done genderflip in my book. There are genderflip done well, and genderflip done poorly.
And I say this as a disappointed reader. I was very hyped for playng this game: I really loved the concept of playng this woman warrior riding a dinosaur!
Yes, there were women who wanted to fight and couldn’t. There were also women who fought despite not being allowed. There were women who achieved power through subtler means. There were women who didn’t earn fame (or, more accurately, infamy) for breaking gender norms, but weren’t passive pushovers. And yes, they were outnumbered by men, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
And yet, we don’t get to experience their stories. It’s ironic that people love an underdog, but only a straight white male one. Sure, you can play as a black lesbian, but few games acknowledge that such a character might have an experience different from what’s considered “standard”. I don’t think games should be bleak, grim, and full of discrimination, but some acknowledgement would be nice. And whilst CoG is far ahead of its peers when it comes to inclusiveness, I don’t think “one size fits all” is the best approach.
The probleme is that some are asking for their ‘special trait’ to be recognised, like being a black lesbian while other, like some earlier in the thread, were pissed if there is homophobia or that kind of thing by the setting’s civilisation, so you have two contradictory demand, since if there is no homophobia or racism, your character being a black lesbian is in no way special to anyone in the setting so nobody will mention it
also, one size fit all is the best approach IMO since you have to make all the choice valid somewhat, if you give more content to a certain combinaison of choice, you’re making those other choice less valide
also as MeltingPenguins said, it depend on the worldbuilding, why would your black lesbian be remarkable if black lesbian are the norms ? a lot of choice of game world simply consider pretty much all the customisation choice as the norm in their worldbuilding, that’s all
it being badly done though, is one of the thing that made me somewhat uncomfortable (because it broke immersion) in the hero rise serie, with the infamous and almost litteral oppression olympic scene, it’s said that sexuality, weight, race and all that stuff is all part of the past and now it’s only about super power and suddenly, we have a litteral cat fight between homosexuals, transsexual and …fat people ? (was kinda hard to understand that scene) to see who is the most oppressed ? with the narration already have clearly taken partie against one of the dude too IIRC
Obviously, this is just my opinion and I can’t speak for everyone.
I have no problem with there being no difference in how different genders are treated in fantasy, unless it has been established that there are strong gender norms in the setting, in which case I find the fact that the MC is exempt from them immersion breaking.
In works that are set in a reality similar or equal to our own, I’d like it if it was brought up later in the story, perhaps leading to a different scene, at most.
What bothers me is when works that are basically historical fiction, and therefore cannot ignore the sexism inherent in such societies, choose to switch around some pronouns and call it a day. I never played far into Choice of Broadsides because I felt like I was playing a game gender locked to male. I’ve seen a few guys on the forum complain about Choice of Romance doing the same thing, albeit replacing a group gender swap with confusing, self-contradiction world building. These are the cases where I think the author should either create separate branches or subplots for each gender, or genderlock the game.
I think an utter no-go is what some games have pulled (not many, thankfully):
Lying to the reader.
Oh, I don’t mean in the ‘masterfully misguiding’ them.
I mean in the ‘wording a choice in a way that indicates one thing and then mocking and scolding the reader when they picked that choice, cause how dare they have fallen for it and don’t thy know their character would never do that, and then railroad them round to another choice’
Like someone asks I dunno . “what’s the most important part of running a business” and there is is seven answers but you have to go through all seven to make sure you realize there is no one right answer?
I really need to complain about this some more. The first fifty times weren’t enough.
It really bothers me when games just assume that I will find their fetish fuel character attractive. But it’s not even just about them being considered attractive by other people, the game usually writes in a way that insists they are the best looking person the MC has ever laid eyes on.
At no point for me is that ever, ever going to be a long blond haired, blue eyed, girl. It’s just not.
I can absolutely accept other people finding them attractive. Even the majority of other characters seeing said character as good looking. Just don’t keep pushing that my MC must be interested in the character simply because they have an attraction to boys/girls/anybody.
That’s called dubious consent, coercion, if not outright rape. So it counts.
After all. The author created a character the player/MC can NOT give informer consent too.
As much as an author might insist ‘they can’t control it’, they author is the one who created said character, gave them said ability etc.
They didn’t it in versus , and… star chasers of lady luck or whatever the space pirate game is the character gets pissed if you actually resist their powers. I’m trying to figure not if it’s more annoying the game assumes you have a type or if it’s annoying when there is a “plot” reason for your character to be interested.
The author still created such character for the purpose of having these powers. Whatever the role is.
It’s like creating a hypersexualized 15-year-old alcoholic and then having the narrative lament about how wrong and tragic and stuff that is.
