For this critical play, I chose Florence, which was created by Mountains (an Australian game studio) and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was intended for all ages (rated E for everyone). I played the game on my laptop, downloading it via Steam.
The game Florence takes a non-traditional character, one that is not usually highlighted by popular feminism (as described by Shira Chess as white, middle-class, cis-gendered, heterosexual), and tells her story in a creative narrative fashion – one that uses puzzles rather than dialogue, narration, and other classic storytelling elements. Thus, to play Florence as a feminist, means to take these puzzles and further derive the story of Florence (the character) through one’s own interpretation.
This is especially present when the game tells the story of Krish and Florence. When the player first starts off the conversation with Krish, there are many puzzle pieces to be put together. Pictured below is one of the earlier puzzles in their conversation, where the player needs to put together what Florence will say next.
Pictured below is one of the latter puzzles once they start getting to know each other.
A simple example, but through this, the player can derive that through more conversation, Florence is becoming more comfortable with Krish and the conversation flows more naturally and easily. Prior to her conversation with Krish, the only typed out dialogue that exists is of Florence talking to her mom, in which the user can only choose from a select number of pre-set phrases that ultimately repeat. With the exception of this conversation, in all other “dialogue” parts of the game, the player only puts together these puzzles which help Florence converse with Krish – the puzzle pieces themselves are empty which lends to more capacity for interpretation.
To play like a feminist in this game, is to think more deeply about different aspects of the story, to understand Florence better as our protagonist. The game accomplishes this both through the puzzle pieces, but also through the overall perspective of the player. The player is able to see Florence as a character, in addition to different cut scenes of her life, but also able to only choose the actions that pertain to Florence (giving an impression of a first-person game of an already fleshed out character).
With all of these in consideration, I believe that the game somewhat successfully represents Chess’s definition of a feminist video game story. Chess writes,”A feminist video game story has particular potential for empathy building, allowing the player to think within different perspectives and experiences. Video games as a medium represent a space where feminist stories not only can be told but also can be told effectively as a way to push the boundaries of other forms of storytelling” (Chess 58-59).
As a player, we can better understand Florence as a character as the story progresses. The story itself is not complex or even unique to Florence as a voice not traditionally highlighted by popular feminism – a girl discouraged from her dreams from an early age, rediscovers her ambitions to become an artist later on in life, finding success and happiness in growing herself as a person. However, this is also where my critique of the game comes into play and my question as to how successful the game is at uplifting women. Because the game incorporates the character of Krish and because Krish is the one who ultimately gifts Florence the art set that inspires her to get back into painting, as a player, I’m left with a feeling that Krish (assumedly not a woman) was the reason that Florence got back into her passion. The player is able to create art throughout the game, but those serve more functionally as a transition into flashbacks. Krish’s art set is the last thing shown before Florence gets back into art and ultimately becomes successful.
I wish that the story was more of one where after her breakup, Florence is packing and finds her childhood artwork. Maybe here, she is inspired by Krish (or not, I do not think that Krish’s involvement is all that important in this arc of the story), and goes to the art store to get painting supplies. Much of Florence’s rediscovery of painting has to do with Krish’s involvement and his arc in the story. One could say in a counterargument that maybe this is actually representative of the message “pursue your dreams” because Krish goes for his dreams while in a relationship and getting support from Florence but Florence is able to push herself on her own – but I would argue that there’s a clearer way to show Florence’s growth by herself because of how much the game has the player invest in Florence (you only play as Florence and you only see her life story).
To conclude, my discussion question has to do with my overall theory as to why video games are inaccessible to women. To a certain extent, I agree with Shira Chess that part of the reason is lack of representation of non traditional stories, where women can see themselves, but I believe that even places too much of the burden to make gaming spaces more accessible on female creators (essentially, you need to create a space for yourself in order to fit into the space overall). This may be an oversimplification of the argument, but in my opinion, the issue with the video game space overall has to do primarily with players and moderation. It is all too common to see a female-presenting player in a game (especially one that has voice chat enabled) become subject to horrendous sexist remarks by other players, or to have their skills and abilities discounted all because of the way other players in the lobby feel. If the only safe spaces for female gamers to exist is in representative narratives of themselves or in games that are crafted specifically for them, then the problematic behavior in other games will continue and only worsen. It goes without saying that one of the only ways to remedy this cause is by addressing the problem at its root, however this is far easier said than done. Thus my discussion question is: how do we make current games (especially the games that do not feel as classically inclined towards women – according to Shira the more “violent games”) more accessible to women?
