No really, like what game is just trying so hard to be the most up to date, inclusive, socially and politically sensitive game in existence. Answers that would have been true at the time are good to.
There’s always been games trying to force socialisation on gamers :p bioware rpgs often had discriminated against characters for example.
But I am not interested in any old game that’s trying its corporate approved best. I want to see the extremes of itchio or whatever.
EDIT: I’m serious, I want like the game that would exist of you wrung all the discourse out of tumblr and put it in a game. Not “a few good takes” something that takes every opportunity to make some point about how it is good media with good politics and values. The sort of game that the frothing-mouthed gamers on twitter think the industry is always one boycott away from producing. Someone, somewhere, must have made something so earnest it deserves recognition.
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Chess, half the characters are black.
And the devs made the two most powerful characters women. Also half the characters are brokie peasant conscripts.
monarchism and realpolitik
Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque
They’re talking about creating a private armed Jewish militia here, I’m gonna be put on a list if I download this.
One thing I noticed while playing Pillars of Eternity was how many boxes it checks.
Opens with a strong female warrior character. Has a very even gender and race distribution in every region and faction. Challenges all the assumptions and tropes about race. Has a culture where the gender roles are entirely flipped. Has an allegory of England and an allegory of America, both of which are portrayed as repressive and ultra-chauvinistic in their own way. Anti-colonial resistance is normalized. There are no prominent “good guys”. All the gods are either evil or chaotic and selfish. Devotees of these gods are shown as being narrow-minded. The god who starts out being coded as the good god ends up seeming very suspicious; the religious revival in support of him becomes a bloodbath between two nations that results in status quo ante. The precursor/model ancient civilizations did extensive ritual human sacrifice. There is a “retvrn to tradition” faction and they steal the souls out of babies. None of the character quests have a satisfying positive resolution. The player has to act against hereditary land ownership. There are several points where you can slaughter a community of sentient nonhuman beings, and the game massively guilt-trips you for it. The only truly good thing in the world is the all-recycling Earth itself.
The only truly good thing in the world is the all-recycling Earth itself.
And Durance. I’ll hear no slander of my favourite little oppenhiemer but if he was cool priest.
The warcrimes are Ethosian propaganda
Maybe the original Durance. Thank you for reminding me what I was forgetting, that there is a fascist that can join your party, you have a very awkward dynamic with him, and he ends up deconstructed and morally defeated in the end.
Having an Eothazn invazn is maybe a bit corny.
It’s been so long I can’t remember any specifics, I thought he was more raging fantatic than fascist though. I remember enjoying the writing in his arc realising that his god sucked and maybe he should chill the fuck out.
The other character written by the same author, the psychic chime lady, also had standout character writing.
“I would purify you too, Watcher…”
I don’t remember the full quote but that convo about “purifying” the Dyrwood is where the Nietzscheanism of the Magran cult gives way to someone who just wants to slaughter minorities (especially Glanfathans).
I think there’s important differences between religious fanaticism, which has propped up purges and genocides, and fascism which is uses fantaticism and fanatics but which is state centered and a sort of anti-politics/rejection of beliefs and institutions.
He’s a true believer who actually worked with a real god and is now shunned by it, desperately trying to prove his genocidal faith. He doesn’t really believe in a state or any sort of greater order except his god, hence his lone wanderings.
Is the apocalyptic, Siege-type, sleeper cells and lone wolves style of fascism not still fascism?
If someone has a vehement disgust and intolerance for foreigners and colonized peoples and religious minorities and experimental science (animancy) and “undesirables”, mixed with an ethos of the strong dominating the weak, I think that clearly refers to fascism as much as any allegory in the game.
I’d have to replay it and see if my interpretation has changed over the years.
Maybe “Say No! More”
100% looks perfect <3
I win!
You get this picture of a rat wearing a very stylish hat
She’s just like me
Ms. Pac-Man
Subway builder, it pushes an anti car agenda
And yet a subway is composed of cars?
Doesn’t your edit just describe depression quest and the reaction thereto
Was that the excuse behind gamergate? I just avoided all that and enjoyed playing my silly ASCII games while the internet burned down
Elden Ring, no I won’t elaborate but if Gamers understood the lore they’d be really mad
- Fems should run the world, mascs are simply their attack dogs
- chronic illness is godly
- Idealism without materialism will never work due to the human flaws of leaders
- The sins of the past will forever haunt the future
- The inequities of the system will drive people to even worse ideologies
- equality is a curse to the ruling class
- the weakest in our society can find provide meaningful contributions if given nurturing
That’s what I got off the top of my head
radagon as enby icon?
Heaven Will Be Mine is the only video game giving me an accurate representation of my lived experience:
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all the main characters are trans women
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all are immediately recognizable genres of t girl (shitposting furry hacker brat, self destructive “it’s only a flesh wound, i went back to piloting one week after my bottom surgery” milf stoic, stoned af instagram plant mom in full-on gender euphoria mode)
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all are crushing hard on each other and are destined to end up in a polycule together after they’ve bonded enough over their mutual trauma
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all are really into giant robots
I mean, yes, they actually pilot these robots in an interplanetary war instead of just doing some tabletop wargaming, but this very minor detail of the setting does not change the fact that nobody else has achieved these levels of realism so far.
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These are major studio games from a studio that is often criticized for wokeness, however:
Tell Me Why - first major studio game with a trans man as the main character (trans man returns to small town Alaska and has to reconnect with estranged twin sister and deal with childhood trauma)
Life is Strange: True Colours - main character is a queer musician with supernatural empathy powers. Rainbow auras help you learn to connect with and care about the people around you in a small Colorado mining town that you move to after years in foster care.
I’m glad I live in a world where this exists. I generally don’t like these games but I did like the dad dating one and this is unique enough to check out.
It was the Sims.
Which is also why there will be no Sims 5, because Jared Kushner and the Saudis now own EA. It doesn’t matter how much money it makes, it doesn’t matter if it was EA’s second biggest cash cow after FIFA, it’s the woke game and they’ll kill it for political reasons.
Fortunately Paralives looks like it’s going to fill the gap.
I hadn’t heard of paralives, looks cool actually. I am begging for a real sims killer to scratch that itch. Inzoi looked to have some promise as well, but I’ve not heard much talk about it
I think it’s a hold off for now, they’ve got a good framework but it’s a shell that needs fleshing out. The main issue I’ve heard mentioned is that characters don’t feel that different to one another, the traits aren’t producing personalities that are memorable or significant enough for people to feel that they are their own characters (assholes or otherwise).
It is visually very appealing though, they’ve kinda nailed art design.
I don’t know about Inzoi, my best guess is it’s in a similar state. Personally I think Unreal 5 graphics will hurt it though, Sims is a cartoon and thrives on that. I feel like realistic graphics looks great in promotional videos but makes everything less identifiable in isometric top down gameplay view where you need everything to be really exaggerated to be more visible.
i think the paralives art style is pretty dated (i know it’s been in development for like a decade) and i especially don’t like how the faces look currently. still excited about the project though. inzoi seems very soulless which is highly counter productive to being a good Sims like
I mean, Sims 4’s cartoony graphics were pretty universally hated on release by fans of the older games, and, like… I have never liked “alpha” CC in any previous Sims games. I put up with some of the less exaggerated examples of it in 4 because it’s the lesser evil. The original The Sims was cartoony for the sake of isometric gameplay, absolutely, but both 2 and 3 did their absolute best to look considerably more realistic with the resources available at the time. If someone could make a better life sim with TS3 like graphics, but running smoother than that dumpster fire did with half decent hardware, that would be perfect. Just because TS4 is cartoony for no reason doesn’t mean anyone who’d buy a competitor’s offering actually likes that.
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Woke is when you delete the swimming pool ladder >:D
Still waiting for the Neom based Sims DLC.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Metal Gear Solid V -the Phantom Pain
The main character navigates a post op life. Supporting cast consists of a disabled man who propped up Sandinistas, a deaf woman who eschews the patriarchal shackles of clothing (she literally cannot breathe with clothes on), a group of child African soldiers who escape forced mining in Congo, and a shaman who finds cures to a virus that imposes colonization through linguistics
It might just be me but I’m not sure that this character
Is in the game to challenge patriarchy.
But once you recognize the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds.
What’s the term? Deckhead? (diagetic essentialist or something) People that confuse the fictional explanation for the structural one.
Folding Ideas called this the Thermian Argument
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
a deck head is part of a boat
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sigmarxism/comments/11wt3kp/the_plague_of_diegetic_essentialism_or_how_i/ something about plastic soldiers
Oooh an explanation for why I insist on still using the term “fluff” instead of “”“lore.”“”" Rules are hard. They require concentration to chew through. They’re what we call “crunchy.” Stories about the game’s universe are easy to chow down. You can practically suck them up through a straw. That’s why they’re “fluffy.”
Fluff exists to give meaning to crunch so we’re not playing an abstracted game like Go or checkers. 40k has subsequently fallen away from this as lore has become its own thing, where the point is something other than explaining why my toy soldiers are fighting your toy soldiers.
I like models and would enjoy 40k if more people just recognised it as an excuse to dress up a bunch of dolls and play together. Games are fun, making things is fun, arranging stuff to be cool and tell make believe stories to each other is fun.
Unfortunately most people around me treat it as if it’s some serious and respectable thing. They care more about respecting IP and official rulings/setting than fun.
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She reminds me of the brave Iranian women in preIRGC Iran. Incredible nod to feminism
Hollow Knight: Silksong, no really I mean just read the lore see
A princess kidnapped from a distant land now is in thralls of her abusive grandmother, the abused aunt of said princess helps her escape and it is the princess has determined that she will help the disabled, the queer, and the poor of this new land in overthrowing the obscene overlords trying to achieve immortality. Princess also helps everyone around her, like hunting food for the poor and disabled, looking for lost toys of children, donating money and resources to destroyed communities.
Dragon Age inquisition is probably up there in woke vibes. Its got trans people, women with short hair, black people with influential positions, and most importantly it has a shitton of characters with that semi-fade every TV-lesbian had in the 10’s.
Sure if you read the text its not all that woke, having aristocrats and stuff, but thats not really what we’re looking for it seems. More like what game screams “look at me! Im #woke!!” And that one does.
I’d love to know what’s genuinely woke, as long as it’s really deliberately that way.
Just given the answers saying “corpogame 123” I think people needed more extreme biasing the other way since there’s 0% chance it’s not some weird indie game
Yeah and I think Inquisition is genuinely woke.
I don’t think there’s a lot of woke indie games, but it might be our understanding of “woke media” differs. To me “woke” as a concept is just yet another thing that has been coopted by DNC libs, as such the most woke game will be some “corpogame 123” slop.I have no idea what a DNC is but I would disagree that it’s necessarily corporate. There’s shitty queer tokenism in a lot of corporate crap but that doesn’t mean if someone wants to know the queerest media they want that.
Woke stuff is a bit performative sure, but games are a performance. It’s not like disco elysium isn’t performatively political for example, characters trip over themselves to get into discussions of political frameworks and it’s very silly. It’s just done well enough that it stands up.
