For my critical play, I played “Queers in Love at the End of the World” by Anna Anthropy, who developed the game using Twine in 2013. Anthropy is a game designer with over 15 years of experience, and her work focuses on themes of queer romance, disability. She has also written several books on game design and has taught game design for many years. The game is text based and the player has just 10 seconds to choose their path from the highlighted blue texts before the world “ends.” Upon ending, the player can click the “Afterword” button to be shown an image reading “when we have each other we have everything,” or they can opt to click restart and the game begins again with another 10 second countdown.
The game was created for Ludum Dare, also known as LDJAM, a game jam competition founded by Geoff Howland that started in 2002. “Queers in Love at the End of the World” was made for LDJAM 27, which took place in August 2013. The theme of that LDJAM was “10 seconds,” providing context for the unique structure of “Queers in Love at the End of the World.”
“Queers in Love at the End of the World” is unlike any game that I have ever played before. At first, I was confused by the 10 second timer countdown and I thought that I was doing something wrong. I restarted the game several times and I was surprised by how detailed all of the options were. Each choice can take the story down a completely different path. The game is unapologetically queer and clearly conveys a sense of urgency, helplessness, and despair that would come with the end of the world.
Ethics:
In a world where heterosexual relationships are the norm within the media, “Queers in Love at the End of the World,” allows us to play as one of two sapphic women during their final moments together. The game steers clear from any traditional notions of stereotypical sapphic relationships; there is no obvious “butch” or “femme,” and each character’s actions can vary greatly depending on which path the player chooses. The main characters are also freed from typical gendered expectations of women, such as being expected to fix or care for things. The end of the world renders all actions futile, allowing the story to truly focus on the dynamic between the two characters without any external emotional burden. Moreover, the lack of details for the characters allows the player to put themselves in the protagonist’s shoes. When I played, I imagined the characters being a similar age to me, although I could see how someone older or younger than me would imagine the characters being around their respective ages.
Playing “Queers in Love at the End of the World” as a feminist means to appreciate the narrative without forcing any traditional notions of femininity or queerness on the story. As Shira Chess mentioned in Chapter 4: “Gaming Feminism” in Play Like a Feminist, video games are typically strongly associated with masculinity. “Queers in Love at the End of the World” directly challenges that association by telling a sapphic love story with no men in the game at all. The game intertwines Feminist Theory and Queer Theory that we learned about in class. In regards to “Queering” Time, “Queers in Love at the End of the World” completely disrupts normative time by ending the characters’ stories 10 seconds after they began.
