You’re a male student who has the pick of five high school girls with disabilities to date and sleep with. Yes, Katawa Shoujo has a sensationalist premise promising for something to go horribly wrong.
Author Archives: Mattie Brice
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review
Skyrim is a revitalization of Naturalism as its graphic achievements added a new layer to The Elder Scrolls series.
Mass Appeal vs. Accessibility in Video Games
Video games reflect themes and skills found in boys’ styles of play as children, and any introduction of qualities that are different from that (especially if tagged as feminine) are cast out as inferior “casual” games.
Werner Herzog, the Power Fantasy
While this game is categorized as a Boy Love (BL) or yaoi game, these are ultimately under the otome genre, which are games aimed specifically at heterosexual women.
Those Games Left Off of the “Game of the Year” Lists
Why can’t free-to-play games or extremely niche titles be featured on end of the year lists?
An Escape of One’s Own
I’m often asked why I have to drag identity labels into gaming discussions. Why does it matter that I’m a multi-racial, polysexual, possibly polyamorous, able-bodied transgender woman? Must I trumpet this everywhere I go?
Tsukuba Muneshige, the Meta-Samurai
Dating sims defy a lot of logic. Describing them to someone who’s never heard of them would paint them as a game aimed for girls; relationship focused, sappy, a social simulator.
Arianna Bell-Essai, the Teacher’s Vixen
Ah, dating a minor. Your student even! The beauty and tragedy of visual novels is the chance to engage in relationships you wouldn’t have considered, or don’t have access to.
Storyline? In Skyrim? No Thanks!
The narrative rests in the relationship between the environment and the items found in it, specifically placed for the player to find and create an explanation.
Derek Nevine, The Anti-Gamer
We all know someone like Derek, that guy who effortlessly has the world revolve around him and gets what he wants. Even though he was just event triggers and art on my screen, I still felt a little intimidated by him.
Girl with a Heart of Review
There is something to how a game describes itself. A “2-D interactive narrative” straddles the ‘is this a game or not?’ fence, encouraging the player (reader? participant?) to develop their ideas about both.
On Men’s Sexualization in Video Games
Because pornography typically has straight male consumption in mind, its politics leak into games by highlighting how they look at women and other men in porn. We would have to look to pornography made for women and gay men and apply how the camera looks at the performers for a holistic approach to sexualizing characters.
Why I Don’t Feel Welcome at Kotaku
I’m part of the gaming community, but Kotaku doesn’t see me as a gamer. No, instead I’m a multi-racial transgender who-knows-sexual possibly-feminist woman gamer.
Speaking in Accents and the American Ethnocentrism in Video Games
The cultural politics that voice acting implies, however, often escape analysis.
An Open Letter to Kotaku’s Joel Johnson
I remember the post that made me unsubscribe from Kotaku, before the good stuff started to roll in. Another gallery of naked women covered in video game accessories. It wasn’t because that post was SO offensive to me, but because I was TIRED of seeing articles like that over and over again.