The game I played was Episode. It was created by Pocket Gems and is an app available to both iOS and Andrioid. The target audience are teen girls and young women that are interested in stories about romance, drama, and choosing your own adventure in a story. Playing Episode like a feminist means acknowledging how romance is the central plot of many stories and how it doesn’t empower women to imagine more power alternatives to life besides men.
While Episode markets itself as a game of choice and customization, its underlying mechanics often reinforce narrow gender roles and heteronormative romantic ideals. When one first starts playing Episode, you might think that game gives you endless choices and unlimited freedom. You get to customize your player’s appearance, name, and get to make many choices in the story. As we talked about in section, though, often these choices are not as open as they may seem. This is because the best choices often cost gems, which forces players to either pay or settle for suboptimal outcomes. While this may seem like a minor issue, it can actually reinforce a very toxic and unfeminist message, which is that desirable love comes with a price.
From a game design perspective, Episode’s mechanics are built around monetization, not meaningful moral choice. This contradicts Life is Strange, where moral dilemmas have emotional weight and long-term impact. Episode often gates meaningful choices behind transactions, reducing complex decisions to paywalls. There is always room to improve, though, and I would suggest that Episode incorporate more nonbinary, queer, disabled, characters into the main story arcs, not just side characters as it currently does.
Using the MDA frameworks, Episode uses the mechanics of interactive narrative, character customization, and gem choices. This reinforces the idea that value in women characters is tied to consumption and appearance. A feminist mechanic would let the player make meaningful choices that don’t depend on payment, like navigating peer pressure, establishing boundaries, or choosing friendship over romance, while still allowing the storyline to continue. For example, I was playing the story, The Kiss List, and the premium option to “kiss him back passionately” was locked behind a 20-gem purchase. Obviously, that was the choice that I wanted to make but I couldn’t because I couldn’t afford it. For dynamics, Episode uses the illusion of control and puts pressure on its players to make in-app purchases. This is shown because the pressure to conform to beauty standards or to win over a romantic interest creates game dynamics where the player is constantly chasing desirability. This gives a sense of fulfillment not through autonomy but through being wanted. A feminist change would shift the game’s core loop away from “win the boy” to “shape your own, personal identity”. The game uses the aesthetics of drama, romance, and escapism. This is because the emotional tone of Episode focuses on fantasy, as players get to fall in love with celebrities, become the most popular girl at school, and more. This is a stereotype of what women desire in life, because it limits the end goal to very superficial things. A more feminist game design would expand the game to make sure that players feel seen, supported, and inspired, not just flattered or envied. This was demonstrated as most story covers show slim, white, and feminine characters. As someone who does not fit into most of those categories, to was hard to feel seen and accepted in the game, as it reinforced narrow beauty norms.
Chapter four of Play like a Feminist focuses on how feminism in games is not just about having women in lead roles, it is about making sure that games have substantial values that they promote to inspire women. One of the key factors that she argues about is gendered labor. While Episode acknowledges the struggles that women take on with emotional stress, relationship management, and appearance, player is rewarded for doing this labor correctly. It rewards the labor instead of critiquing it. The game also incorporates the theory of feminist fun, as it makes sure to account for care and connection, but often through romantic interests. A more feminist lens would allow space for messy emotions, flawed friendships, queer love, or even choosing to be alone.
