Dissecting Elizabeth

A cautionary tale, gentleman and esteemed ladies, the following contains spoilers; Proper spoilers that would ruin your experience. Please be advised I don't want to ruin it for you. If you think you'll ever play this game don't read on.

Are you a Girl? Or are you a Boy? Part 2 - Queer

Auntie Pixelante, creator of Dys4ia notes that "videogames are one of the few places in life we’re asked “what gender would you like to be? what would you like your body to look like?”" In contrast, her game "exists where that choice does not: it is seeing the reality that has been shaped around you like a wax cocoon, and feeling utterly helpless to change it." 

The game is free and available to play on Newgrounds and documents Auntie's transition to the sex she has always known herself to be. Whereas in Fallout 3 all that is required is to restart the game and select a different gender, Dys4ia plays as a series of impossible minigames. They are designed to undermine player choices, so that in playing the game you experience the barriers that those undergoing gender transition come up against. The first screen is a Tetris shaped body unable to fit through the gap provided. Other barriers include patronising doctors, the search for the right clinic, high blood pressure and the experience of not having one's gender accepted by others. 

In the game, Auntie talks about so called "feminists" who refuse to accept her as a woman. I have no doubt that she suggests that their self-identification as "feminist" is undermined by their unwillingness to support and protect a trans. woman. But in mentioning these women, Auntie recognises a divide between internally understood gender, and the appearance of gender to others. In Fallout, as I mentioned in the previous part of this article, your gender is never challenged: no-one suggests that you might be trans. 

In the real world, the question is asked:
Are you a boy or are you a girl? 

Mattie Brice, a second trans developer explores the ways in which external forces; (particularly the male gaze) enforce specific behaviours upon women. Her game Mainichi is free to download. Initially I played the game without making assumptions about the player avatar's gender. I couldn't understand why my protagonist was so anxious to put on make-up and get dressed up to go for a coffee with a friend. So I milled about the house, played video games and ate left overs. Only  once I leave the apartment and a man verbally assaults me, do I discover that the avatar has a male shaped body.  At the coffee shop I feel so anxious and unnerved I don't want to chat up the cute man at the counter. 

A second play-through involves baths, makeup and best dress. I saunter into the coffee shop and get the previously-frosty barista's phone number. The game clinically outlines that unless I behave according to societal standards of femininity I will outed as a fake. At the point at which internally a trans person should feel most comfortable; when they have moulded their wax cocoon into something that resembles how they believe themselves to be, they are at their most vulnerable. In both Mainichi and Dys4ia, gender is the point of conflict from which the games' tensions spill forth. Each story closes without resolution, Auntie still has to remind people to call her ma'am, and Mattie Brice has to enact a  barbie-fication in order to find limited acceptance. For them both, their gender choice is disputed by a society that will not allow them their convictions. Mainichi and Dys4ia bristle with frustration.. and this anger gives their personal stories realism and depth. They are games that can't be beaten. 

That's My Nintai!

How to undermine sexism: an indie developer's guide.


Megadev is a small developing team from the South of England. Their latest game is a polished retro platformer with super tight controls. Its enigmatic protagonist has come with a mission, to discover what happened to the one armed ninja who previously made the trip. Armed with trusty katana and shurikens, and trussed head-to-toe in fabric, Nintai Ryoko covers up another subtle secret... her gender.


There was to be no surprising reveal. Without close examination of the mocked up box art, or perverse scrutiny of her chest area, one might never really register the fact that it's a curious girl who is taking the trip. Intrigued as to why the developers had chosen to develop a female protagonist and then barely lampshade it, I decided to ask what had motivated the team.

 At the base of it, it was due to us not having very many female protagonists in our games and we thought it would be more fair remedy [to] that, while at the same time [we decided] not fall into the blatant trope of "sexing it up" for more hits.

Where other developers assume that simply adding a female into their games is enough, Megadev  developed its female protagonist who is an exceptional fighter and, as the game's attached comic shows, hungry for a story.

After I asked whether the appearance of the protagonist was designed to be a homage to the Metroid series, the developers replied that: Despite the "classic videogame homage" nature of the game, she was not a direct reference to Samus Aran; however the comparisons are pretty fair as both games tackle the case of gender equality by obscuring the protagonists' appearances with cloth/armour. Simply by hiding her under layers of clothing Ryoko becomes an enigmatic figure. All we can know is that she is a competent fighter, whose motive is what we might use to conceptualize her character. 

Megadev commented further that outside of her interactions with Smither the skeleton, her gender is really a non-issue.  Smither is the disgusting NPC that sits on treasure levels, asking the player character if she wants "to touch my fibula" and stating that "Ancient evil lies below. My waistline that is." His catcalls ignore the clothes that cover every inch of her body.

Who are you callin' ninjette?

So the developers have created a complicated gender narrative by having the player internalise that gender is a "non-issue", and then using an NPC destroy this illusion by focusing only on the character's sexual body. For female gamers, who are so used to having their good gameplay undermined by the sexualised attacks, Smither's words are satirising an everyday reality.

But for those not used to being reduced to a sexual object whilst playing, I hope the SHODN's lascivious skelly provides a wake-up call. Just as they have cleaned up the controls of retro classics, the team have addressed outdated gender-stereotyping. Megadev give the uninformed a taste of what it feels like to be objectified without compromising on engaging gameplay.

Finding the Fun: Sarkeesian and the Joy of Gaming.

As a feminist girl gamer I am occasionally asked what I think of the work of Anita Sarkeesian. 

I think that the abuse she has suffered is disgusting. In no uncertain terms the full-scale tantrum of a select few is without justification, and their response has enormous ramifications for the video games industry. Bullies must not be tolerated. Nor does Sarkeesian need to give them a platform, such as a barely mediated comment system on youtube. 

In the process of becoming the face of feminism within the games industry, Sarkeesian has counted the ways that misogyny has pervaded video games and found them to pacify women, to to undermine them, to objectify them. She has become hardened, and positioned herself against games... forgetting that games are fun. We play them for fun. We play them to feel like this: 

A couple of weeks ago  Sarkeesian posted the above picture of her and a friend playing Super Nintendo. On their faces, the girls have a look of intent, relaxed focus. They wear the half-smiles of gamers who know what they are doing. 

For critics of her work, Sarkeesian comes across as conservative and po-faced. The school-mistress of video-games who tuts, and says, "it's all very well and good having your fun but whom are you hurting." Her blog posts have trigger warnings, her feminist frequency twitter tweets that: Playing games like DmC is the worst part of my job. Remarkable @NinjaTheory managed to cram so many repugnantly sexist tropes into one game... brushing over fabulous, tight gameplay and an impressive aesthetic. By positioning herself as being less interested in gameplay, she detaches herself from an audience that loves games for how they feel to play:  Frustrating that game reviewers will often trash games for minor gameplay issues but let blatant misogyny pass without comment.

Without doubt the games industry needs to be shown that the shit they do to women, is uacceptable. But Sarkeesian infers that enjoying the gameplay of inherently misogynistic games is to be complicit with their continuation. The problem is, if I were to review DMC and say "this game is disgusting, but I love how it feels to play", I still paint myself into a sexist corner. 

Rather than tread these more complicated lines of inquiry, Sarkeesian chooses to play the role of a hardened, no-nonsense feminist. She is willing to deny herself the addictive and fast-paced fun of a game if it recapitulates tired and sexist tropes. To the defensive and immature, it seems as though she is saying: either continue to play these games and be a sexist, or take my bitter pill for a brighter future. In highlighting only the negatives, Sarkeesian pushes away the very people that need to be questioning and rejecting sexist tropes in games. 

 In contrast, her personal snapshot is glimpse of the times when she played the games for fun. Until she reconnects with this focused, invested, and instantly relateable video-kid, she will continue to be an outsider. 

Are you a boy or a girl? Part 1

"I wonder what it would have been like if someone had come along, and in quite a friendly manner had asked, "Well, young one, what do you think you are: a boy or a girl?" What would it have been like not to have been afraid of getting hit because of some wrong answer." - Kate Bornstein

Unlike Kate Bornstein, when I was thirteen years old I was calmly asked. "Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?" for the first time in my life. And it was to be the first of many times.

The person asking me this was the famous Pokemon Professor, Oak. The screen had gone silent, and the shivers ran up and down my spine. For the first time I was able to choose the gender to which I subscribed, if not by clear choice, by circumstance. When I was thirteen, I traded away my copy of Pokemon Silver along with some choice trading cards for a copy of Pokemon Crystal. I wasn't upgrading to a new model, but rather the trade was motivated by virtue that it was the first Pokemon game to have a playable female protagonist: Kris.

In theory, the gender choice is extremely superfluous in the Pokemon series; passersby say the same things to you, and the world continues in the exact same way as if you were a boy. The in-game mother seems no more anxious about her ten year old daughter setting off into the world, than her ten year old son. Kris is a fairly gender-less tomboy. The different generations of Pokemon games have since presented a range of characterisations of its women: the girls encountered on the road are cool and suave team rockets, or ditzy lasses. Equally. The female protagonists equally range from boyish, to adorable and kooky.

The "girl" edition never
had an english translation.

On the surface Kris in Pokemon Crystal plays exactly the same as any male character and dresses fairly similarly; in sensible shorts. But on a personal level, I was thrilled. On screen, was not "Matt", the boy that had gotten me through Pokemon Blue, and Silver and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. I had played the heck out of those games. Playing Harvest Moon a farming and dating simulator was the happiest hundred hours of my teenage years. But "Matt" was never me; only the character I was pretending to be. Unlike her male counterparts, Kris, was a blank canvas onto which I painted myself. The game was a platform to negotiate my own identity. A chance to really address the first question Pokemon Crystal asked: Was I a boy or a girl?

These days, I often make the choice based on calculations that extend beyond a personal desire to play as a woman. In Bethesda's Fallout 3 there is an infamous "Black Widow" perk, which gives females an advantage over the opposite sex, in a world populated by male enemies. This "game favoured gender" is a useful strategy for gaming developers when it is used to give the gender choice meaning and depth. It is less helpful when it reinforces male physical prowess, or female "healing" proficiency. As games continue to develop, it is possible that gender choice will become ever more nuanced decision, creating difference in game narratives and play styles.

Take that! Patriarchy!

To begin this article I quoted Kate Bornstein. Kate is a male to female transsexual, whose 1994 book Gender Outlaw articulates her frustration at internally associating with one gender, but being exposed as male by others. Videogames offer the opportunity for this internalised exploration. In the safe and virtual world of Fallout's wastelands, no passerby or enemy is going to wonder whether my modest skirts hide a secret. Thus, gender outlaws, can use the virtual world to negotiate and forge an identity for themselves. The characters do not have gender projected back at them: they simply transmit the gender the player chooses out into the world.

In the second part I will examine what happens when video games are conscious of gender narratives. I will examine two fascinating freeware games by transgender women:

Mainichi, by Mattie Bruce

and Dys4ia.

Each of these games explore both the internal struggle, and makes explicit the problems faced once outsiders are given the opportunity to engage in gender narratives, and are worth the ten minutes they take to play.

How to Cook Early Modern Recipes.

Step 1: Choose your recipe.

There are two ways to go: either seek out a popular cookery text of the time on eebo. Here is a short and sweet bibliography to get you started:

Hugh Plat, Delightes for Ladies , 1602
Hannah Wooley, The Accomplish'd ladies delight in preserving, physick, beautifying, and cookery. 1675: She has several general manuals, all of which will contain recipes.
Gervase Markham, The Early English Housewife
May, Robert, The accomplisht cook, or The art and mystery of cookery. 1660.

 Here is a longer bibliography including latin, italian and french books: 


Accessible Manuscript recipe Books:

This is of course a little trickier. You need to have a basic proficiency in paleography. You can search for them on archive hub.


The one I generally use is:
Mary Baumfylde's recipe book and it can be found on British Literary Manuscripts Online 1660-1900. Simply search Baumfylde.

The first half of this book is medical receipts written by Mary Baumfylde in the 1620s, and the second half are cookery recipes written by Katherine Foster  in 1707.

Another option is Arcana Fairfaxana Manuscripta,
A victorian facsimile of the Fairfax family's medical recipe book. Most of the book centres on herbal remedies, but around from page sixty-five onwards there are some cookery recipes.

Before you pick your recipe, be sure to consider the following:
- Try to figure out what the recipe will look like. A cheesecake is not the same as a modern cheesecake, but sometimes resembles a steam pudding, what is a posset? Do they mean the same thing when they say bisket?
- What ingredients does it require: Read the whole recipe, there are no ingredient lists.
- Have I got the equipment to make this. This is a skill in itself. Early modern equipment has modern equivalents, be inventive!
- Be flexible. Robert May's recipe for blood pudding suggests that you use the still warm blood of a hog, but you could probably get away with using lukewarm sheep's blood.

The Cook - Bernado Strozzi c. 1620

Step 2: Buy your ingredients.

If you are going savoury, don't feel the need to buy a live pig and flay it yourself. Instead, ask the butcher to help you.

Replace in more delicious equivalent ingredients. I made a currant pudding using a recipe by Katherine Foster, and the currants had small pips, I'll use raisins next time.

Step 3: Weights and Measures.

Use a set of scales that can measure pounds and ounces. (If you even breathe the word cups near me... I won't be held accountable for my actions.)

Step 4: Common sense is your friend.

The recipes you will receive will not be complete. They will not have all the information you require. Having a bit of cooking experience will be a valuable help in this difficult time:

To make an extraordinary good Cake.
TAke half a bushel of the best flour you can get very finely searsed, and lay it upon a large Pastrey board, make a hole in the midst thereof, and put to it three pound of the best butter you can get, with fourteen pound of currans finely picked and rubbed, three quarts of good new thick cream warmed, two pound of fine sugar beaten, three pints of good new ale barm or yeast, four ounces of cinamon fine beaten and searsed, also an ounce of beaten ginger, two ounces of nutmegs fine beaten and searsed; put in all these materials together, and work them up into an indifferent stiff paste, keep it warm till the oven be hot; then make it up and bake it being baked an hour and a half, ice it, then take four pound of double refined sugar, beat it and searce it, and put it in a deep clean scowred skillet the quantity of a gallon, boil it to a candy height with a little rose-water, then draw the cake, run it all over it, and set it into the oven till it be candied.

Take for example this recipe. Clearly, Robert May was cooking for an extremely large household. A bushel of flour is 42 pounds. He literally made a hole in the sack and used that to make the cake. I would suggest dividing the quantities by 20. A mere 900g of flour. Other things worth noting: he ices the cake, but does not tell not tell you what kind of icing to use, or how to make it.
Finally he covers the entire cake in sugar syrup; something we simply wouldn't do, and then places it back into the oven to harden. The page will be littered with missing information, it's important to have the confidence in your decisions, and just hope for the best. There will be no oven temperatures beyond hot, medium and cool: Look up modern equivalent recipes for good oven temperatures.

Step 5: Use modern equipment.

I'm not saying pull out the food processor and mix it all in there, but if a recipe asks you, as in the case of Katherine Foster's biskett to beat eggs for three quarters of an hour, use an electric whisk. Experiencing material history is one thing; tennis elbow is a different but potentially related thing.

Postscript:

Cooking early modern food is really fun, and can be pretty time consuming. The resulting product, however, is not necessarily going to be delicious; the flavours were still experimental and the processes very much affected by how hot the fire would be at different times of day. Even if you end up with a completely inedible piece of cookery, enjoy learning about the intricate relationship between work and food in the period, and how skill intensive this work was for the men and women who performed it. Take it all in, with a pinch of salt.

Music and Silence in Botinicula

"Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music."

Hamlet, Act II Scene 2.

Narrative in Botinicula is not told through words via the drawling exposition of the protagonist. Instead every leaf, every insect and monster bristles with emotion, life and characterisation. Embedded in this cacophony is a story about life and death shown through music and silence. Life is articulated as creativity which is fed to the player through the sounds and music of this beautifully orchestrated game. Every leaf that the mouse brushes over has a sound that tinkles, as though the cursor was itself an intergral part of the eco-system. The player's actions seem to breathe life into the game, which in turn becomes an instrument. Silence is death.

The protagonists are five small creatures, three of them are types of seed; Mr. poppy head, Mr. Lantern (he looks like a hazelnut or acorn to me), and Mr. Feather, ( a sycamore seed). The fourth critter is Mr. Twig covered in tiny buds and the final, Ms. Mushroom (marital status unknown, and considering that mushrooms can produce either asexually, or sexually this seems appropriate). The gendering of these characters is simply a tool of anthropomorphism, as little narrative is given to the relationship between the protagonists. Instead   these creatures each represent the continuation of life as they carry not only the desire to protect life but the potential to create, regrow and repopulate. In contrast, the antagonists are black spider-like blobs that pump life out of the trees wasting the resources to asexually produce a consumptive population.

As this trailer shows there are unfriendly creatures in the ecosystems, but these natural predators are contrasted with the villains which rot and destroy the trees themselves. The buzzing beetle articulates a natural hierarchy whilst the silent, stealthy monster spider destroys the ecosystem. The musical atmosphere which is so lively is replaced by silence once the spiders infiltrate. Botinicula's narrative is therefore nuanced enough to not articulate a moral world, but the only honest struggle; between life and death.

Saving the world can wait ^_^

The game's introduction of the antagonists, which grow bigger and bigger as they feed off the trees make the protagonists seem terribly small. Trapped in an already potentially hostile system, they now have to find the courage to fight the encroaching pollution. Essentially the seeds, twig and mushroom run errands for other creatures. Finding lost children or helping to power the hot air balloon that allows the other inhabitants to escape the now dying trees. Tiny actions, such as giving a family a seed to eat instead of a live chicken help in the bigger picture by pushing forward the friendlys' escape. 

In one room the player enters to find piles of dirt. When they are clicked, small shoots grow and produce buds. On the end of one bud forms a beehive, which pollinates the flowers. One of the flowers climbs higher and produces a landscape, and then a further flower becomes a mini hot-air ballon which carries a tinycreature up the landscape. Clicked on again, the critter gives the player a flower which leads to the completion of part of a mission. The room is a microcosm for the game, which in turn suggests that the seemingly random actions of the player can set in motion, and develop beautiful systems. Were I teaching secondary Biology, Botinicula would be on the syllabus. 

As the game pushes you into the darker recesses, the root system, a series of errands are created. Rather than instigating a final solution, these puzzles seem to suggest that there will be no escape. They offer instead small comforts. One creature has lost his trumpet, another, the small orb that brought him light. As the game grows darker, it imposes the hopelessness of the task. Even if I do find that trumpet, how will I ever stop the impending destruction of these myriad lives, all for the purpose of the growth and consumption of a single species. 

But we can just plant more trees! Right?