Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

It’s Monday ! ~ Educational Games

Hi everybody, I think that for those who are regularly reading and / or answering to those Monday posts, you got that the idea was to discuss both about games and other stuff which can be related or not. After speaking of my brand new controller and of the stupid packages I lately received (wow such amazing topics isn’t it :o !), I decided to continue on as it seems like you guys like to discuss and share your own experiences, which makes me smile and sometimes learn a lot.
Last week I hesitated to pick the Pride as theme for my Monday post but I thought that it was maybe a little too sensitive topic and I don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable. At the same time, I believe in the power of education in small community more than a whole month with people going out in town while wearing a rainbow something, so today we’ll be leaning into the learning territory and I hope you’ll like it as much and share with us as much as the previous weeks.


LGBT+ Friendly Games

There are a lot of LGBT+ friendly games out there, there is even a whole > list of video games with LGBT+ characters < you can find on Wikipedia.
There are some with bisexual characters (such as Dragon Age), others with homosexual characters (such as Life is Strange) and some with transgender characters (such as Guild Warts 2), but there are really little representation of other letters of the LGBT+ family and at times it feels like they are living in a world where there is absolutely no intolerance regarding the community which is great, but not the exact reality about it.

LGBT+ Educational Games

I unfortunately know only two of those which I really adore. I don’t want to spoil anything about those games so I’ll just share them with you and won’t explain anything so you can play those , the second one is even free :) !

June giveaways for the Pride

Here is the > associated topic which was posted on SteamGifts < ! And here are my giveaways :


Did you play some LGBT+ friendly games in the past ? Did you like that part and did you have the feeling that the LGBT+ part was just a bonus flavor or that you learned something about the community ? Do you think that offering a game can help young people as much as adults to be more tolerant ?

If you know some LGBT+ educational or friendly games you liked, please share them with me !

Cece09

Oh played normal lost phone and didn’t really care for it. I can’t really say I’ve played/read anything that was lgbt for the sake of it. They are always the typical get with them yuri yaoi type stuff. None of which will give you the views like normal lost phone did. Then of course when it just isn’t that like life is strange for example they are clearly made to be bi instead of just gay and the ones that are barely play a role in the end

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Yes, VN are those which are the most LGBT+ friendly in general, but I sometimes find the way it’s depicted a little cliché and then again, it’s often the same letters coming back.

Cece09

yeah apart from kindred spirits I cant say I’ve played a proper lgbt story where people didn’t just get together straight away, People bring up a kiss for petals series but yeah sure they are nice but its still like hey i like you now take of your clothes

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

That sure doesn’t sound realistic lol

Trent

I enjoyed A Normal Lost Phone…the LGBT aspect seemed perfectly normal/apropos.
My favorite point-and-click/story-related game of all time had LGBT content, which is technically a spoiler, so the game was Dreamfall Chapters. In that game some of it seemed perhaps a bit shoehorned in (?), but I think they just wanted to challenge the stereotypical “gay character” prototype.
Another really good one was Gone Home. I loved the game in general, and the evolution of the story through journal entries was touching and sweet.
I’m sure there were others, but I’m not recalling them off the top of my head.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

I played Gone Home as well, it had been an amazing journey and I cried at the end (okay I may or may not be a little sensitive ^^”).
I have the Dreamfall chapters in my wishlist, I didn’t know it was LGBT+ friendly, I’ll try to get it when it will be on sale, thank you !

GiseIIe

One Night, Hot Springs is cute!!! You can find the sequel here because the author said it’s not gonna end up on steam.

I’m gay, and it’s highly likely that most stuff I’m interested in/I already read is lgbt.

Do you think that offering a game can help young people as much as adults to be more tolerant ?

Yes!! Having stuff in media, normalizes it. I noticed a big big difference between now and ten yearso ago. The new generations can grow up having a wide offer of lgbt titles, things I couldn’t even dream about ten yearso ago. And I’m not only talking about lgbt themes, I’m talking in particular about lgbt stuff that does not end in tragedy.
When I was a teenager, I would have killed for happy-go-lucky stories in which no lesbian ends up dead in the end, but the only stuff we had (or at least, that was popular enough that reached to me) was fucking sad and full of Bury Your Gays trope. Now things are gradually changing, and I’ve noticed that probably one of the reasons we can have happy endings too is due to the fact that the authors are lgbt themselves.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Thank you for sharing that link with me, I just bought the game as I really loved the first one which was really cute and realistic. Those aren’t games, but if you’re interested by LGBT+ content, you may like to read Becky Albertalli’s books, the most famous being “Simon vs the homosapiens agenda” but every others are LGBT+ themed.

I’m part of the LGBT+ community as well as you may have noticed if you went through the giveaways I’m hosting for the Pride month. I’m attempting to educate people about Asexuality as it’s certainly one of the most unknown and stigmatized letter as even within the community, some believe that Ace shouldn’t even be part of the Pride which is really painful. I still can’t believe I had to wait to be in my mid thirty to realize that what I was dealing with had a name and the idea of kids or other adults suffering from lack of knowledge regarding being Ace is painful to me.

I would love to know games with Ace, I don’t think there exist some. There is so much Ace phobia going on and the only thing I found remotely related always was more leaning into the sex repulse territory with a heavy past, as if it was the same thing. I just noticed that > Ace Jam < is a thing and I may binge into those games out of curiosity, that can be interesting ^^ !

tsupertsundere

I ‘count’ as asexual myself, though I don’t enjoy identifying as such because that particular aspect of myself isn’t that important to me. I feel you on it being an isolating struggle, though.

It is much harder to find stories with explicitly asexual people in them. I’m struggling to think of any… and all I can come off the top of my head is the point of view character from the Magnus Archives, a horror anthology podcast, has been confirmed asexual and… while it’s not CONFIRMED-CONFIRMED, between how he’s portrayed in games and some off-the-cuff PROBABLY unserious jokes and comments from the creators, it’s very easy and natural for me to view Kiryu from Yakuza to be asexual and biromanic… just like me!

I have complicated feelings on asexuality’s place in the queer community, but I don’t have complicated feelings about how I wish more characters were explicitly asexual and it wasn’t seen as abnormal.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

I do believe that the most important isn’t to label yourself as being part of the Ace community or not, but to know that it exists. I spent 35 years feeling like an oddity and some people made me even feel like I was some sort of monster (people are assholes), that’s why I consider education really important. It doesn’t matter if you count / label yourself as being Ace or Aromantic or Biromantic, etc. What is important is to know it exists at all.

Cece09

Yeah some people can be jerks about certain things. I know when someone was badgering on trying to get with me, whether they meant it or not or even realised it turned into a horrible person making me feel like it was wrong to admitting that I was not interested in a sexual relationship at all. I didn’t even take it to heart but I did let them have it since I had accepted them when they told me they identify as a female and helped them with that, so why should they make me feel like crap for all my stuff.

I don’t even know the stuff you brought up with biromantic and stuff like that since it’s not taught. You are still only taught that men and women should be together and all that junk. You are then able to see that oh wait girls can be with girls and guys with guys or even both. Then later on you get to find out oh sometimes you don’t want to be the gender you were born as. You aren’t taught about anything else like asexuals and you are just left to somehow learn them. I didn’t even find out about asexuals properly until last year since it’s just not something thats ever talked about or taught. I’m pretty sure if remembering correctly wild cat girl appears has a character like that

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

Even with lack of education (aka, parents and school), you still get to know a part of the LGBT+ as homosexuality and transgenders are highly represented in medias, but yes, there are a lot of things that aren’t or when they are it’s with some sort of judgmental or biased way.
If you’re not interested in sexual intercourse, you may be asexual or demisexual, the second one mean that you don’t have any interest in sexual intercourses before building a strong relationship with the person.
Aromantic, biromantic, etc. are about who you can fall in love to. For example, you can be biromantic (fall in love with woman and man) and at the same time heterosexual (have sexual intercourse only with the opposite gender).

The thing is with all those labels, it’s really complicated to remember everything that is part of the LGBT+, the best way (for me) is to remember what means every prefix and 3 main groups, this way you can easily make the combo.
The groups are: sexuality, gender, romantic
The main prefix are: hetero, homo, bi, poly, trans, demi, a

Cece09

oh never heard of demisexual before see learning. This thread has been basically a crash course on teaching me different names since even thought you say media it all depends on the people. I’ve never came across anything like this. The news we get if its about this is about trans, gays and straights. They don’t go deeper into everything else and I’m just curious about if anyone else I’ve known if they know about this now or if they are just left with the typical stuff that is shown everywhere. Until last year it didn’t even occur to me to think people wouldn’t be interested in relationships being sexual or not. It’s drilled into our head that people are born to find a mate and that if you don’t then what’s wrong with you.

As I grew up myself I would just be asked all the time so you got a bf yet? I did have a bf sometimes they asked but it was none of their business finding out when it wasn’t going to last so I just went no. However it was always that question whenever I saw them since by now everyone is dating at such a young age that if you aren’t it’s like this terrible thing. I haven’t seen my family in like 2 years now so I havent heard it in a while but when I saw them last it was like another year since I had saw them last and that literally was the 1st thing I got questioned.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

As you said yourself, even if you consume all sort of media, you do have to dig to go above the classic homosexuality / transgender representation. There are still people who believe that if someone who is bisexual settle with a partner their whole life, they suddenly become either homosexual or heterosexual (for those I tell them that if you have a convertible couch you always use as a couch, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be use as a bed anymore, it’s still a convertible couch).

Because it’s complicated to dig and you can easily be overwhelmed by what you find as there are a lot of nuances, it’s always easier to ask someone who knows and who can direct you to good documentation. To me, that’s the important part of the Pride, it’s not about going outside and showing your color, but attempting to educate people about what they don’t know, and hope that they will do the same if they have the opportunity to.

This is a flag chart which is both complete and explanatory, I usually give it as reference so people can see the colors of the flag and read the definition going with. (You can download the full size to be able to read easily > HERE < !

LGBT+ Community Terminology and Flags

IcyGlare

To be fair, I think the shortage of games (or other media) with ace is less due to ace-phobia, but more because it’s harder to accurately depict asexuality, especially outside VNs and RPGs. In games with lots of killing or blowing up stuff (or those where the subject of sexuality does not usually come up), you can get away with shortcuts such as a male character casually mentioning that he has a husband/boyfriend. I can’t think of a similar shortcut for asexuality.

A character’s lack of interest in sex may be interpreted in many ways. The character may indeed be asexual, or may not be one but is not interested in sex at the moment for a myriad of reasons like avoiding distractions, prioritizing the matter at hand, a real case of still not having found “the right one,” real dysfunction, trauma, etc. Even sexuals don’t experience sexual attraction 24/7 (maybe some do, but the vast majority probably don’t). Short of a character declaring “I’m asexual” or confirmation from the dev/creator, it’s pretty hard to conclude that a character is an ace. And unlike the case of Jughead in the Archie comics, which has been going on for decades, and where there are lots of opportunities to show that Jughead’s lack of interest in sex/romance was not brought about by other reasons, most games are more limited in scope and length. I think I’ve read somewhere that a writer even had to confirm that Jughead is an ace. Without that confirmation, Jughead’s sexuality (or lack thereof) would still be a matter of speculation.

And then there’s the matter of misrepresentation. I’d rather have a game with no ace characters than one which misrepresents asexuality. I don’t think I’ve come across a game, or other media for that matter, that does that. But (I’ve read that) in other media, asexuality has been misrepresented as celibacy or a dysfunction which may be fixed by making the asexual character actually experience sex.

Disclosure: I’m aro/ace.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

I fully agree with you regarding the games, lack of sexual impulse is harder to show than being interested in sexual interactions and the few I came across with were misrepresented as some sort of vow of celibacy or fear of the act.
We discussed about this with my therapist, because I unfortunately faced a lot of situation with people not accepting the idea of it being possible. She told me that feeling aroused is something you cannot control and thus people don’t understand why some people can’t feel it at all. Being attracted to someone of the same gender or several people at once is easier to understand as the sexual impulse is still there, which explains (according to her) why people just can’t fathom the possibility that it’s not either a choice or related to a previous trauma.

When I speak of Ace phobia, it’s mostly within the LGBT+ community as, indeed, some people consider that Ace shouldn’t be part of it as lacking of sexuality at all. Otherwise, most of people I met and discussed of the topic lacked of education regarding asexuality.
Though, I’m unfortunately part of those who had to endure various attempts of pushing me to have sexual relationship regardless my approval, I also have been mocked, insulted and so on because I did refuse sexual intercourses. I cannot count how many times my partner got the pity of people as I was imposing that to him and that I was selfish for doing such thing to him. That I should be alone. And so on. For those people, even if you try to explain, they just don’t want to understand or even to believe you. More than once I’ve told that since they never heard about it, it was just me making of a word to justify myself.

As for the media, > this is the only one I know of < and it’s an educational comic. I don’t know Jughead, I’m not from NA and I hardly ever heard about Archie comics unfortunately :( !

IcyGlare

Sorry you had to experience that. The worst I’ve had after saying that I have zero interest in sex/romance was being told that I just still haven’t met the right person. It’s annoying, but it’s nothing compared to what others have to endure.

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

That’s pretty much what is told to all the people who are in the “sexual orientation” side of the LGBT+, there is always someone who will tell you that it will come at some point, etc. I’m glad you only suffered that though, even though that’s already too much and shows how intolerant people can be :(

tsupertsundere

My favorite queer games that I’ve played have got to be the Missing, Tacoma, and the House in Fata Morgana. Tacoma in particular was very heartwarming for me, because two of the characters really reminded me of my fiance and I. c:>

Unfortunately, there’s more games I love but queer relationships in them aren’t explicit or confirmed out loud, so they don’t count-count. I’m looking forward to playing more and more games where they are, though.

Oh, minor shoutout to Overwatch for making both of their biggest most-prominent characters, Tracer and Solider 76, gay. That was fun when that happened.

Cece09

oh that caused an uproar after 2 years calling solider 76 gay. Yeah it didn’t matter for us to know but what’s the point telling us years later it’s not going to change anything at this point! Tracer is my favourite even if I never play her

tsupertsundere

Both of the reveals did! SOOOO many dudes were sooooo upset. It was hilarious. Soldier 76 is who he is, who he’s always been… and also he loves dudes!
I main Tracer and I love hearing her talk about Emily. c:>

Cece09

yeah i heard about the fact they revealed it later on with tracer being gay but ive always just known her as that and honestly even if i didn’t know I would still be like yeah she’s clearly gay must be. I only brung up soliders for the fact it did take like 2 years and by that point its really like why are you telling us. Is it important to know? Are you trying to say that you do have more gay characters or what. Everyone is turning gay as this point, harry potter has turned into a meme about it and now avengers is hinting about it. Like guys just tell us before it’s been years, if you don’t its going to make everyone question why you suddenly want us to know now

GiseIIe

it’s called retconning and jk rowling is known for it. I ain’t complaining about more gay characters, but these revelas always happen too late and too little and almost never are of any importance

Иιɢʜᴛᴍᴀᴢᴇ

I have Tacoma but didn’t play it yet, I’ll put it to the list. I’ll add “The Missing” to my wish list, thanks for sharing !