One night, Hot springs is a single-player game made my npckc and released in 2018. The target audience is teens and adults. The game is a visual novel where players follow the main character, Haru. I played using a friend’s Xbox.
To start, playing like a feminist meant analyzing how this game portrays transgender issues, how they present characters of different identities, and the overall “political” message that is shown through play. It also meant exploring different dialogue options – specifically, I played the game a few times and noted the different outcomes that occurred when I took different approaches.
I argue that by using the game as a medium to tell the story, the designers attempt to give the player agency and allow them to feel more empathy towards Haru. However, the limited amount of player decisions, the short length of the game, and the forwardness of the delivery of sensitive topics leaves room for improvement. Still, the visual novel provides thought-provoking content that shines a light on experiences that may be common for transgender people.
First, we learn that Haru struggles with going out, feels uncomfortable over which bathroom to use at the hot springs, and views her identity as a potential burden for others. This allows the player to think carefully about their own views on these issues – literally by prompting the player with what to respond to another character. Throughout the game, there are several other dialogue choices that the player must make that directly cause the player to reflect on their own views on transgender issues.
However, I believe that more player choices would have been more beneficial. For example, it took me less than 20 minutes to uncover four of the possible outcomes to this narrative, and with more time, I could have learned more about Haru’s experiences, building more empathy. Additionally, by inducing a limited amount of player decisions, the player is more removed from the plot. Moreover, including few player decisions makes this social commentary feel more forced upon the player rather than the player uncovering it themselves. The dialogue choices are an extremely powerful tool – and they are unique to games as a medium – and the designers should have used them more.
Several other mechanics in the game contributed to the high level of emotion that it evokes including the music choice, the title (which hints that this is just one random night in Haru’s life), Haru’s expressed emotions, and the conversations with other characters all contribute to the sense of heaviness felt by the player. The examples below show everyday activities that a transgender person might struggle with. In terms of “Play Like a Feminist,” the game designers definitely understood that they needed to deeply understand the type of player they were representing – including their identity and emotions – before designing the game.
Overall, One Night, Hot Spring effectively causes players to reflect on how transgender people experience the world and generates emotions and empathy towards transgender issues. The game effectively takes a feminist approach by humanizing an identity through building the character Haru.
