While reading through the recommended games, I chose With Those We Love Alive by Porpentine. The game runs in a browser and is accessible on nearly any device. It quickly becomes clear that the game is designed for a teen or adult audience. It deals with heavy topics such as trauma, queerness, and bodily autonomy. When I first opened the game, I was surprised to be drawn into the experience right away. Early on, it suggests that the player have a pen ready to draw symbols on their skin. This creates a connection between the body and the story, reinforcing the game’s themes of identity, control, and ritual.
Screenshot: Draw a sigil
To play With Those We Love Alive as a feminist is to engage with themes like survival, oppression, queerness, and identity. The game avoids traditional goals or win conditions. Instead of empowering the player through conquest, it explores what it means to survive in a strange and controlling world. In this game, you play as an artist serving a powerful Empress. You create bone sigils, explore, sleep, and mark your body with strange symbols. There is no clear climax or resolution.
This stands in contrast to games like Super Mario Bros., where the goal is clear and the structure keeps players motivated. In With Those We Love Alive, openness can be powerful, but it may also alienate players who need more clarity or scaffolding to feel engaged. While I appreciated the emotional weight of the game, the repetitive game loop made it harder to stay connected. As someone with dyslexia, I found the poetic and abstract writing difficult to parse. Although it added to the game’s haunting atmosphere, it sometimes left me unsure of what to do or how my choices mattered. In class, we discussed good design practices for different disabilities. For dyslexic players, the material should not rely heavily on memory. I feel like this game did, and that made it harder to navigate.
From a feminist design perspective, this could be improved through optional tools that support neurodivergent players. A progress tracker, a summary of past events, or small reminders of choices could help players stay grounded. These features would not change the story but would make it more accessible to a wider audience. As Shira Chess writes, feminist games must rethink how games function in order to include more people (Chess, 80).
Most games frame choices as good or bad. In With Those We Love Alive, your decisions are quiet and constrained. You exist under control. You survive. You make art. Chess writes that video games can become agentic training tools not because they allow players to dominate the world, but because they help us practice living within systems of power (Chess, 90). In this game, agency is not about winning. It is about noticing, remembering, and enduring. Chess also notes that agency might be an illusion, but it can still exceed the boundaries of the game itself (Chess, 91).
Screenshot: “[I] don’t want to choose”
With Those We Love Alive is not a traditional game. It is not about winning or finishing. It is about feeling, surviving, and reflecting. It shows how games can center emotion, identity, and quiet resistance. That is what it means to play like a feminist.
