No Girls Please: Gender Stereotyping in Indie Games.

 In Critter Crunch, an extremely polished puzzle game from publisher Capybara Games, there are three characters. First the game is introduced by a nature documentary presenter slash explorer. Having discovered the unique eco system of the island, he delights on explaining the critters habitats and behaviour. He then goes on to introduce the puzzling central protagonist; a rotund and furry critter called Biggs, and the progeny of that creature called smalls. Each of these critters could have been genderless, but the writers make it clear that this hunter gatherer creature is a father looking out for his son. So within the first two minutes of the gameplay; the exposition has been carried out, and two squashy main characters have all been represented as arbitrarily male. This may seem like a moot point as it doesn't affect gameplay directly; it could even be a nice twist on how we perceive caring for children, but as the developer makes no explicit attempt to explain the gender choice for any of the main characters it comes across as lazy or sexist design.

Wait where are the balls in this diagram?

From the excitable, and parachuting adventurer, to the father-son combo, the game glibly assumes the only possible audience for this otherwise interesting, colourful and appealing puzzler will be male. Added to that it seems to share the assumption that boys will only associate with male characters, which has long been held by producers of children's television programming.  In recent years however with the break-out hits of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show that has developed an enormous fanbase amongst young men (aged 16-25) and with the newest season of the Avatar kids television franchise: The Legend of Korra. The latter show was only given a ten episode run as the network was extremely anxious that young boys would be unable to connect with it's eponymous female protagonist. The show was an enormous hit and now has 40 episodes in the pipeline. Boys and girls connected with the Korra and this hopefully made bosses sit up and listen to the idea that boys will watch girls if the story is good enough.

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The male characterisation seems decision that boys play video games and therefore they will want to be the protagonists in this adventure. Furthermore, the central mechanic of the parent - child relationship is that the father gathers food, and when there is a long combo, you get the option to “barf rainbows” into your waiting child's mouth. Perhaps it was deemed inappropriate for women to regurgitate food, it's not as if children take liquid from women's bodies both in the womb and from the breast after. Sticky fluid is certainly not something we want to associate with the female form: that would be indiscreet. Intention, is of course a dangerous thing to write about, and though I was tempted to email the publisher, I felt aware that I might come off as blinkered, when really I want to improve video game story telling. If the producers of the game had explained the decision, I think I'd be able to swallow it. But I felt disappointed that this puzzle game could have shown an interesting series of relationships, instead chose to build a game that would appeal predominantly to little boys.

Indie game developers obviously still have to find a market for their games, but they do not have to pander to scared, sexist and outdated publishing practices. Capybara games are not alone in their particular decision perpetuate arbitrary gender characterisation. For the most part developers choose a male protagonist and this is not always problematic, but the decision becomes particularly noticeable when the player character is in fact an object. In the platformer Nimbus, you play as a bullet shaped space-ship that has no means of internal propulsion but floats using gravity and air streams. The little spaceship is not manned, apparently, but a sentient creature with, you will be surprised to hear... a pink girlfriend space ship. In the opening cut-scene, the two little space ships are having a moment of fun, when an evil eye plucks the helpless pink robot out of the sky and laughs maniacally. The perfect expression of lazy design, the developers hark back to retro platformers without considering how problematic this stereotype is.

Nimbus could have used it's beautiful air mechanics to show objects falling space and showcased what makes this platformer unique. Puzzle games have every right to pare down on narrative through cut scenes, if they don't have the resources to carry them out. But when effort and time has been put into recreating the tired princess-kidnap trope, I am left wondering how that time might have been better spent. When developers cut narrative corners they inevitably rearticulate dominant paradigms, they fall into mediocrity and innovation is tainted. It's a shame, because interesting mechanics and concepts deserve polished stories that say SOMETHING, rather than repeating the small nothings of every slip-shod game that has preceded it.