Yeah, a lot do. A lot also have an issue NOT being able to play as a female. Game devs really can’t win these days unless their games provide both options.
As for myself, I don’t have any issue playing as a female protagonist as long as it’s not a game where there are RP aspects of it where I would be expected to identify with the character. This is mostly MMOs for me. I’ve tried creating and playing female MMO characters but it’s just too weird for me to enjoy. I remember the GW2 forums once had a very long thread with people (both male and female) fighting both sides of this issue. It was clear from the posts there that a lot of people invest nothing of themselves into their MMO characters. They’re just pixels to look at. But others role-play a lot more and want something they can immerse into and identify with.
Both sides in that thread thought the other viewpoint was alien and it got kind of ugly there after some of them started throwing out terms like “crazy people”. But then the world we currently live in has truly become a world of intolerance. Differences in other people’s viewpoints or psychological makeup are no longer respected or tolerated at all for the most part.
As for Tangledeep, the most recent thread about this has been locked:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/628770/discussions/0/2132869574255516646/
Fozzle
1822
Fake News…
(JK!)
I like playing female characters on the screen in third person mode because starring at attractive @'s all day is much better then starring at male @'s…
I wasn’t directing that at you, I was trying to defuse the comments that derail these discussions where people come in and say, “people can take issue with anything! People are crazy!” and then pat themselves on the back and no one learns anything.
Thanks for the summary (both of your opinion and the back and forth at the forum you related). I didn’t even realize there was RP in that game. I thought it was just an avatar. Literally just “pixels to look at”. I can understand if you’re RP’ing that you want to identify.
Although getting into the character of people unlike me in games has led to some really good experiences and then maybe even further learning/empathy on my part. Gone Home is a really good example. (quick spoiler tag in case you haven’t played the game and don’t want to know anything about it) I’ve never been anti-gay or homophobic or anything, but it was informative to put myself in the shoes of a teen lesbian girl learning who she was. I never really had THAT perspective before. I like that there are games with diverse viewpoints I can expose myself to. I would be less of a person if I’d never experienced these other viewpoints. Of course every game doesn’t need to do what Gone Home does. I do a lot more gaming where I’m just escaping and doing fun things than gaming where I challenge myself.
Yeah, no worries. :)
I don’t know if there is or not. Somebody said on the Tangledeep forum that the devs couldn’t just add male pixels to the game because there was a female story component but the game is supposed to be a roguelike which usually doesn’t have any of that stuff so that’s why I was asking about it. I have it on my wishlist and it looks pretty good.
Thraeg
1825
I can understand that perspective in the context of an MMO where other players are talking to “you” (and strangers can be weird/creepy toward female avatars), but don’t get it for single-player games.
Maybe I haven’t played the right MMOs, but I can’t help but think they’re awful for RPing. So many of the choices and events and outcomes are railroading linearly through the theme park ride. Isn’t that a challenge for the way you prefer to play?
I have identified with characters in some games, but never in MMOs. That genre has always been a third person experience for me.
Heh, I think it’s interesting that’s how you remember Gone Home, because you’re actually NOT playing the character you’re talking about. You’re playing as her sister. That you remember it the way you do speaks volumes to how effective Gone Home was.
-Tom
Maybe immersion is a better way to say it than RPing. I’m not talking about MMO RP in the traditional sense. I’m talking about the sense of a character being an avatar of yourself extended into the game world. I carefully design my MMO characters to that end so that I end up with a gaming skin that I feel comfortable inhabiting while I play. I remember one time in WoW I made a female Draenei mage and played her up to around level 12 or so. Every time she’d get hit in combat she’d make these sad little squeaks and I finally just gave it up and went back to my Deathknight. Too much of an immersion breaker for me, I guess.
More often than not, RPing in an MMO has more to do with the use of it as a social space providing a shared history and context than actually playing through the game in character, though that isn’t always the case. For instance, City of Heroes was a game that lent itself to playing in character quite well.
rowe33
1829
My daughters love it when I play a game as a female character. I don’t mind either way but I get a kick out of making them happy so…
Max Payne, Sonic the Hedgehog, and who else?
Sarah Palinonetta of course
The Boss in Saints Row games. ;)
Hey you’re right! :)
This might be a personal issue too. When I start reading a lot of media by someone I really get into their character. So a deep dive into someone’s history will have me identifying with them. Since your character in the game doesn’t have a ton of story and it’s all about the sister, my mind naturally identified with them and then made the connection between subject of the game to protagonist to player character. Whoops!
And you’re definitely right that the design of the game is what led me to do that.
I’m not digging Tangledeep at all. Maybe I’m just sick of dungeon-crawl roguelikes. It’s very pretty and accessible - so it might be a blast for someone new to the genre but it’s not doing anything for me.
Tales of Maj’Eyal does most of what this game does, but better.
Could you be more specific? Is it too easy? Are the classes/skills/loot/monsters uninteresting?
Razgon
1836
Its not for me either. It seems quite messy. The levels are weirdly designed, and its quite difficult to figure out where to go to get anywhere. Now, granted, I’ve never played those early games this seems to be based on, but I do like roguelikes and dungeon crawling quite a bit, but this just leaves me cold.
Not a rogue like at all, at least so far.
But a bigger problem is the interface is not good. And there are decisions here that were clearly an attempt to capture gaming from a bygone era that I can’t stand. E.g. no diagonal movement or apparently no diagonal melee attacks.
HRose
1839
I’ve been fiddling with the design of this concept for a while but, as others have said, it requires leaving behind substantial features of a ‘roguelike’.
We’re in this weird situation where a non-roguelike might still feel closer to a roguelike than an actual modern roguelike, if you know what I mean… (see Legerdemain, my favorite non-roguelike, let’s call it inverse-roguelike)
Having a party requires even more micro-management and slower combat, so all basic features like permdeath and quick runs become its antithesis.
But the idea is, who cares about genres? You can take the parts you like and leave the rest behind. So the concept is a persistent world (not random), long single playthrough with harsh death penalties but no permdeath. Losing those two features of a roguelike, but preserving everything else.
My idea was to move the usual ‘@’ in a dungeon representing the whole party, like a dungeon blobber, but when a monster is detected then the combat is initiated and you get to deploy the party members on the map (a certain radius), and from that point onward it’s turn based with movement points and playing closer to something like Final Fantasy Tactics. So a semi-non-modal (because every action is available but there’s a slight difference).
In combat you’d move every party member manually and individually, out of combat you move the party as one. And whenever you want you can manually activate combat even if no monster is in sight, so that you can perform actions individually like maybe some puzzles that might require party members being on different parts of the map. Or even carefully planned ambushes!
It’s a nice idea because it opens up lots of options.
That sounds a lot like Helherron, actually.
