I’d like to start by breaking down the phrase “play like a feminist”. The verb “play” here refers to an ideal space for changing minds and bodies and disrupting the patriarchal ideals embedded in into video games. The word “feminist” exceeds the boundaries of gender while still advocating for gender equality. Additional undertones to this statement include adding a playful twist on what has previously been the somewhat charged movement of feminism.
For my critical play, i chose to play the game Florence (like a feminist). Florence is an interactive story and video game developed by the Australian studio Mountains and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the story of 25-year-old Florence Yeoh as she navigates her daily routine, meets Krish, and explores her passions. In this blog post, I will analyze what it means to play Florence as a feminist, critique the game, and discuss how it relates to the feminist theories mentioned in Chapter 4 of “Play like a Feminist” by Shira Chess.
After playing Florence and nearly crying from how beautiful the game was, I gained a deeper understanding for how the game made get deeply invested in the narrative of a woman, making me feel like her life was my own. Florence causes the player to deeply connect with and side with the protagonist and feminist theories in general by 1) creating an excellent quality, beautiful game, 2) taking a more mild, indirect approach to conveying feminist theories, and 3) requiring the player to participate in the full life story of the protagonist, focusing on particularly emotional life moments.
For and foremost, the game boasts unique, S-tier illustrations, sound design, and overall aesthetic. The aesthetic is mature, simple, honest, and adorable, which has the effect of disarming the player and opening them up to building empathy and connection. The takeaway here is that quality, well-funded games that embed feminist narratives are essential to bringing gaming culture to where it needs to be.
Second, the mild and indirect approach to communicating feminist narratives is extremely effective at building a subconscious layer of appreciation and understanding of women, especially for non-women audiences. The game does not ask for change in a particular area of the world directly, it instead builds the bridge necessary for depolarizing toxic patriarchal communities and smoothly inviting change.
Third, the core mechanic for how this is achieved is by allowing the player player to participate in deeply emotional parts of Florence’s life such as painting butterflies as a kid to getting in a bike accident only to clear her vision to soon be the love of her life. The mixture of participation in very basic experiences like brush her teeth in the morning also make Florence easy to relate to, further building empathy.
Overall, I thought this game was wonderful and I have no legitimate critique of the game. One discussion question I might ask though is:
What is the right level of directness of feminist theories in video games? Should they be more subtly embedded or should they be more clear and surface level?
