With Those We Love Alive is an interactive fiction game created by Portenpine in 2014. This award-winning, single-player game targets a broad age range of players from different backgrounds who speak English or Hungarian (based on the language options). This exploratory narrative game allows players to click through a fantasy story using a series of hyperlinks. In line with this week’s theme, I applied a feminist lens to my gameplay. In this critical play, I will discuss how interrogating the agency afforded in the game, the positionality of the protagonist, and the mechanics of this game allowed me to play like a feminist.
One of the most salient aspects of this game that fell in line with feminist principles was the sense of agency it provided. Straight off the bat, I was prompted with the message: “Please remember: you can do nothing wrong.” This simple but effective message prepared me for a game with choices, yet reassured me that any choice I would make would be okay. From there, I was given the ability to select the month I was born, giving me a say in the background lore of my character. Then throughout the game, I was met with a series of hyperlinks that allowed me to choose where I was going and what was happening in the story. Through these choices, I was provided with a sense of agency in the game— a quality Chess describes as a “necessary part of a feminist definition of equality.” Agency is an articulation of power that can be used to counteract problematic status quos and societal structures. Therefore rather than passively observing the story unravel before me, the choice the game provided through hyperlinks allowed me to have a say in the world-building of this narrative and the structures stemming from it. This was enhanced by the minimal visual imagery in the game. There were no images, just backgrounds. Therefore I was given more freedom, and hence agency, to visualize what the game looked like.
As I played this game, I reflected on the positionality of the protagonist. In particular, I reflect on gender as it was one of the identities that was alluded to in the narrative. I was given a feminine name (“Ciara”), I was told I used to hold a different name, and every now and then I was prompted to take hormones. As I continued playing, I started to read the protagonist as a transgender. Given that trans narratives are underrepresented in the gaming space, I started researching online to see if my queer reading of this text was something that other players picked up on. In doing so I came across an article, “Pride Week: Twine Games and the Trans People Who Love Them,” that corroborated this aspect of the protagonist’s identity. Although I could have continued playing the game without this confirmation, I do think that this process of reflecting on the protagonist’s identity and reading the text as queer (even if I ended up being wrong) was me playing the game as a feminist. Since the creator of this game was intentional in dropping gender-related cues, I wanted to pay attention to them and not assume heteronormativity. Calling back to the minimal visual imagery mentioned in the past paragraph, I also felt that this gave me as a player the ability to create my own perspective on the protagonist’s expression of gender. This, perhaps, might have been intentional.
Finally, I view my gameplay experience as challenging what a game is. As mentioned in Chess’ piece, many folks think of first-person shooters, violent/fighting games, and games with overt masculine themes when conceptualizing what a digital game is. With Those We Love Alive fell in stark contrast to that with its hyperlink-oriented interaction. This aspect of challenging a dominant narrative, to me, falls in line with feminist principles.
