Admittedly, I had never attempted to analyze the games that I play through a feminist lens. For the most part, my interaction with video games have been mostly surface-level. That is why I am appreciative for this week’s Critical Play, where I had the chance to experience Queers in Love at the End of the World, developed by Anna Anthropy, a game designer whose focus is exploring trans and disabled bodies in play. This particular game was designed as a browser-based game hosted on itch.io, so I played it on my MacBook laptop. While this game does not explicitly state an intended target audience, given some of the mature themes the game deals with (primarily concepts relating to sex), I would see it as something appropriate for teenagers (and up) to play.
Queers in Love at the End of the World is especially interesting as it certainly does not fit the mold of a typical video game. In fact, I would go so far as to describe it as interactive poetry given its choose-your-own-adventure-esque nature of progressing the story down certain predetermined paths. The game loop is also incredibly short, leaving a player 10 seconds to do (or not do) anything, resulting in fast re-playability for players interested in traversing down every branching path like a pathfinding algorithm.
To play a game as a feminist involves examining the game through a feminist lens, which as Shira Chess describes in “Play Like a Feminist,” is looking at a movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression. In that way, Queers in Love at the End of the World is an interesting exploration into feminist theories, and examining it through such a framework allows for a deeper appreciation of the work than a surface-level play through.
For one, while not explicitly stated, it can be interpreted that the player’s character and the person that they are with are both members of the LGBTQIA+ community that are romantically involved. While there is some subtext that hints to this throughout the different routes, the game’s tags on itch.io of “love” and “Queer” make this relationship more clear. Furthermore, the use of second-person perspective in this game does a lot of work in immersing the player into the role of the characters, to feel that what I happening in the story is happening to them specifically.
I think that in a feminist framework, an important element is to try to understand and relate to people that come from different and varied backgrounds and perspectives, which this game is also doing in putting the player in the role of this character. While not everyone who plays this game may hold the same identities as the character in question, by experiencing the world through their shoes, the player may come to understand their characters if even just a little bit better.
I am also intrigued by the directionality that the game decides to take. In my experience, many games that look at apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic settings (such as games in the Fallout series or The Walking Dead) often include violence as an integral mechanic for gameplay. In an age where society has collapsed and people are left to fend for themselves, everyone else becomes a potential enemy, a potential threat. In that way, violence becomes a tool by which people can survive the end of the world. However, this game takes an anti-violence approach, which again can draw references to feminist theories we have discussed in class. In this game, the only options for interaction are to express love in one way or another to the other character. In doing so, this game is making an argument that violence is not the only option at the end of the world. Instead of surviving through violence, we can survive through love. In removing these sort of default masculine modes of play, the game wants us to play as feminists and see things through a feminist viewpoint. And given that the game is on such a short timer, only giving the player 10 seconds to make a decision, the player has to act on impulse, on instinct. Perhaps by limiting the expression of the player character to acts of love, the game designer wants to say that when everything else has gone to ruin, our instinct should be to love, not to fight. I think that is poignantly beautiful.
Another thing that I noticed was that on the game designer’s page on itch.io, Queers in Love at the End of the World features a tagline of “fellas, is it gay to make out in the ashes of capitalism?” Again, while not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that the end of the world in this game was brought about due to capitalism. This can draw references to the anti-capitalist themes of feminist theories that were touched upon in class. I also appreciate the messaging in this game that despite the end of the world and despite the impending doom of capitalism, love persists for all.
Regarding critiques, the only thing I wish the game did was give me more. I would have loved to see more of the world that these characters inhabit—why did the world end? Who are these characters? How did they come together? While I ultimately would have liked to get more context in the game, I suppose that that is not the purpose of the game. I believe that some satires exist only insofar as they are described. Perhaps the reason for the end of the world does not matter in this game because the designer wanted to focus solely on the relationship between these two characters. And I think that is totally fine.
Overall, this game was certainly an interesting and unforgettable experience. It took what I saw as staples for games about the end of the world and completely turned them upside down. And I think that I was only able to really get a deeper appreciation of this game and the messaging that it was trying to convey by looking at it through a feminist lens. Had I played the game and only engaged with its concepts at a surface level, I likely would not have been able to come away with the same takeaways. Ultimately, this game has shown me a lot about the value of examining works and playing games as a feminist and the depth to which feminist theories can be explored in games. This game is simple and short, but it has so much to offer and so much to say.
