pauraque | Entries tagged with games: year: 2012

This Flash game presents a series of brief minigames offering snapshots of the developer's experience of starting gender-affirming hormone therapy. The gameplay is inspired by WarioWare—the minigames are simple and each is only a few seconds long. Some are literal (you walk past a gauntlet of strangers who all call you 'sir') while others are abstract (you try to manuever a jagged shape awkwardly through a gap in a wall that barely fits). The whole thing only takes a few minutes to play through.

character navigates a pixel art maze full of mirrors with the caption sometimes I can almost see myself as beautiful as my girlfriend says I am

character navigates a pixel art maze full of mirrors with the caption sometimes I can almost see myself as beautiful as my girlfriend says I am

The world this game depicts postdates my own medical transition by about a decade, but it does feel familiar and distinctly premodern. Some aspects would probably be relatable to any trans person at any time, while others place it firmly in an era when gatekeeping is rigid and visibility is low. When this game was made there were still a few years left when many/most straight cis people had no particular opinion of us because they never thought about us at all.

When the game came out some hailed it as a means for the uneducated to learn about trans experiences. The developer evidently came to find this very frustrating, and I can understand why. These are just glimpses of some moments that were particularly stressful, surprising, meaningful, or darkly funny. A trans (or even trans-savvy) player can get a lot more out of it because we can fill in what goes unsaid, but if you went in knowing nothing I'm not sure how much this would help. I think the game is meant to be expressive rather than didactic.

I also think it's significant that there's no way to get a game over. Even when you fail a minigame, you keep moving forward. The only way to lose is if you decide to give up and stop.

dys4ia is free on itch.io.

In this extremely fast-paced minimalist action game by Irish developer Terry Cavanagh, your only goal is to guide a small triangle through a geometric maze of abstract obstacles which constantly rotate as they come at you. If the leading tip of your triangle touches a wall, you die and return to the beginning of the stage. The longer you survive, the faster everything goes.

A still screenshot really doesn't do anything to convey what the game is, so here's a video of me playing the first stage:

Watch on YouTube

This is a monstrously difficult game, and at first it seems impossible. Within seconds of starting the first level, you're dead. It's so fast, it feels like there's no way you can do it. And yet, if you keep trying, you start to learn how to get through the gaps in the first few walls. You survive for five seconds, and then, thrillingly, ten. As your attempts improve, you realize the obstacles come in sets and patterns that repeat. Some of them are a little less crazy than others; once you know them, they almost feel like "downtime" in between the more frantic moments. And then, at last, you make it to the end of the stage! Sixty whole seconds, incredible! That wasn't so bad after all.

( Then the next stage starts. It's faster, and the patterns are new. Within seconds, you're dead. It's so fast, it feels like there's no way you can do it... )

Super Hexagon is available on PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices for $2.99 USD. I would recommend it for anyone who likes a twitchy challenge. Or if you need to get yourself psyched up for just about anything, you can just listen to the soundtrack.

Bee sting update: I put ice and neosporin on it and it got better. I appreciate the advice. ♥ I have a doctor's appointment coming up soon anyway, so if it gets worse again I should still be good.

Anyway! Last weekend was the free promotional period for The Secret World, an MMO that came out last month, so

walgesang and I checked it out. A friend of ours has been playing it since beta, so he was able to get us up to speed and answer more questions than we probably could have worked out on our own in three days.

It's a modern-day, real-world setting, which is a nice change right off the bat. The premise seems to be that you're a regular person who is granted mystical powers by a swarm of magic bees(?) and then you get recruited into a secret society that sends you on missions to fight paranormal evildoers around the world.

The questing experience is very different from most MMOs I've played. Some quests present puzzles and mysteries to solve, providing a few cryptic hints and leaving you mostly to explore the world and try to guess the answer. I found some of these clever and engaging, though a few left us with a King's Quest-like feeling of 'man, that was illogical' even after we figured them out. I definitely applaud the concept, though. The game's community seems pretty into it, too. My friend said he got yelled at for giving someone a hint about a quest in public chat. "No spoilers!" they said. :P

There are also stealth quests where you have to figure out how to avoid security systems and such, rather than just blasting your way through. And of course you also get the standard kill-collect quests, though even those can make you think. You may be able to see the thing you're supposed to get on the roof of a building, but still have to figure out a way to get up there.

( Cut for length )

Anyway, it's an interesting game that I'll be keeping an eye on. If you liked King's Quest even when it drove you crazy, check it out. It's not just WoW with a different coat of paint.