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But the Japanese LOVE fishing.

I don't know anything about PZ Meyers, but the recent Hugo Schwyzer debacle has definitely made me a bit wary of men who tout themselves as feminist figureheads. Is he anything like that, or is he more of an atheism advocate who touches on feminism?

[While these types of games are a refreshing departure from the standard formula, and something I'd generally like to see more of, the focus is still squarely on the male characters and so at their core these games are really deconstructing the player's assumptions about the traditional hero archetype.]

While these types of games are a refreshing departure from the standard formula, and something I'd generally like to see more of, the focus is still squarely on the male characters and so at their core these games are really deconstructing the player's assumptions about the traditional hero archetype. A true subversion of the trope would need to star the damsel as the main playable character. It would have to be her story.

What? Did she really say this? [offensive comment]

"Nope. Can't be feminist unless a female is the protagonist and defeats all the male characters by herself without any assistance from any male characters. Derp derp herp."

Wow, you really said this, go to hell.

There's nothing offensive about what she said. There are games that subvert or play with the trope, but still exist within the constructs of male-oriented storytelling. A game can contribute to the forest of misogyny even if it's not a particularly misogynistic tree. That's hardly saying "Burn in Hell Ron Gilbert." It's more akin to the way that a feminist movie can still fail the Bechdel test, a test which aims to expose an overall trend, not to vilify individual films.

But that does not seem to be most people problems with her arguments, Trapezoid.

Oh, nobody's gonna admit that's why they're upset with her, or even be conscious of it. They'll think up some other reason via the magic of Rationalization.

(I know this not because I'm a feminist but because I'm a guy. I've in the past been the snotty contrarian, made uncomfortable by feminism and attempting to assign logic to my discomfort after the fact.)

Reminder of what Myinah posted on the second page: "Her videos are also designed to be used in a classroom setting or as a teaching aid for parents and kids. They aren't flashy, but they are rich in content and easy to pause and explain and so it makes more sense when you view them as a teaching aid."

Basically, it's like creationists barging in on lecture about the evolutionary history of Amazon parrots, and complaining that it's not convincing them that evolution is real in the first place. That is not the talk's function.

Her videos aren't meant to make a convincing argument--they're not Loose Change or Ancient Aliens--they're a pretty basic application of feminist media critique to video games. She's really not saying anything that other people haven't been saying for years about movies, television, books.
It's just extra touchy because GaMeRz are, well, touchy about their timesink of choice. Think about how easy (and entertaining) it is to troll provoke gamers by saying "Games Aren't Art." That insecurity, coupled with ignorance of the history of feminist theory and a general unfamiliarity with the sound of a woman speaking, leads to a weird and over-passionate urge to take her down.

The greatest evidence that people are a little too ready to demonize Anita is that anybody's actually defending YouTube comment sections. YouTube comments are notoriously worthless even when the complacency of dudebros isn't being challenged. Turning off the comments means absolutely nothing of value lost. Consider why you suddenly care.

If you can't write a good title, why should I expect you to write a good game?

Obviously that's not always true, but that's the logic. You can see the author's taste in a title, and extrapolate their taste in other things.

[Yeah I know, Satan is everywhere because people don't believe in Satan.]

As long as there are people who resent that feminism still exists and see these videos merely as a generic prompt to ramble on about how they know better than those ivory tower women and their "experiences", it's gonna be hard to stay on topic. Also, dudes in this thread talking about what they find attractive, for some reason. Sigh.

When we are looking at things like female genital mutilation, breast ironing, forced marriage, honour killings, domestic violence (I'm not disputing men are never victims) and reproductive rights, the people campaigning and fighting for these causes and people tend to have been feminist organisations. I'm not really aware of an egalitarian charity focussing on these sort of things, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

When all those things exist, it strikes me as rather sheltered to look at the word "feminism" and get all scurred by the "fem" part. It's more backseat-driving. Dudes setting up pointless hoops for feminism to through, and pretending they'd be on board if only this, if only that. Don't be that guy!

Wow, anti-frenchers are early this morning.
Yeah I know, Satan is everywhere because people don't believe in Satan.

Since when is analysis the same as bitching?

In that particular case, the concept of "bitching" and "analysing" are almost recovering the same phenomenon. That's why I use the word "bitching".

[...] but if you get good at *identifying* it you can help to lessen it.

No it won't. That's precisely the very essence of the examples I gave earlier. It's on the nature of cultural studies. Any attemps to modified what was previously criticised, if noticed, will magically make the cursus morph into something else. Just look how fast the same Buffy morphs from "empowerment" to "An illustration on how society love to see women suffers".

You act like one person's reading of one piece of fiction suddenly becomes a consensus in the entire feminism community. Here's a tip: there is no feminist community! And even if there were, feminist critique is an exercise. Like I said, it's not a boycott. It's rarely meant to tell anyone what they should and should not enjoy, except in the harshest of cases.

Anyway, you just gave me a very good illustration of " In fact, any speeches / narrations / discourses / stories that is not [edit:itself] a meta-speech / critique can be easily  stretches to be accused of being patriarcalistic. Try ! The olny game 100% kosher will be something like a Q&A game where the player has to identify the thropes. [/b]".

Why do you think anyone is calling for 100% kosher? Why do you think it's a contest?
All forms of critique, social or not, can involve at least as many "rules" as you seem to think feminists are calling for. Do you think if Roger Ebert had his way, all movies would just be a list of things he thinks are good? No, because critique is not a rulebook, and you don't need to act so dramatically every time a feminist suggests something might have problematic undertones.

Therefore you're not looking for concretely appliable solutions ? (hence "bitching" ?). I'm a feminist (amongs many other political positions of mine) in that sense that i'm looking for better social positions/conditions for women. You're not.

Discussion, awareness and the call for deeper analysis of media are worthy pursuits. EVERYBODY agrees with "better social positions/conditions for women"-- that's not special. That's like saying "I don't SUPPORT rape." Like it's a matter of vote. Like there's no ingrained psychology we need to dismantle. Wouldn't that be nice.

Since when is analysis the same as bitching? How is it damning anything? There are games deserving of damning, but nobody's ripping Mario to shreds, just using it as a simple example of how some of these tropes manifest.
The idea with feminism is that patriarchy and misogyny are all over the place and bleed into everything, but if you get good at *identifying* it you can help to lessen it. Media awareness is a good thing.
Oh, and condescendingly butting in thinking you and you alone have discovered "the real issue here" is preeettty patriarchal.

Dudes gotta stop flipping out whenever a feminist identifies sexism in something. It's critique, not a boycott. Did you know feminists are still allowed to enjoy something even if they know it's problematic? So are you.

If Direct3D supported 256 color mode and didn't ignore resolution when scaling down characters, maybe I'd be okay with it.

Want to address some of the tone arguments bubbling in this thread-- Overly focusing on Anita's facial expressions, or the infamous "why not call it ____ instead of feminism/patriarchy?" question. Those are time-wasting diversions from the actual issues that are fairly plainly presented by Anita/feminism. Reassess why you're put off by those things.



Also, completely aside from the issues, want to commend Anita on keeping her superhuman cool in the face of unimaginable backlash and threats. Meltdowns aren't uncommon for highly-criticized people on the internet. No clue how she's avoided it.

My suggestions:
-Make the different walk modes a radio button or switch, separate from the verbs.
-Make the inventory accessed by a button on the GUI, maybe under the "new kid" button.
-Reset the current mode to walking/running/sneaking if you click on a non-hotspot or a right click.

I prefer having the inventory in a scrollable window on the GUI, visible at all times, but you probably don't have enough room for that in your current 32 pixel high GUI. But you could perhaps redesign the existing inventory box to fit in the lower portion of the screen, just so it doesn't obscure the whole playing field (and make it so it doesn't pause the game.) I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to have to scroll through inventory items, five or a six at a time.

I also think the keyboard controlled character option is possibly useless. Is that the source of the weird pathfinding-bouncing the character does sometimes when they reach their target? Might be worth scrapping that feature just so you can avoid that weird bouncing.

Seconding what's been said so far.
Also:
-The status bar font is kind of hard to read. Go with a pixel font designed for that resolution.
-A clickable/interactable player character always seems like a fun idea, but usually ends up being not worth it. It just gets in the way of more important hotspots.
-I feel like the normal walk speed is a little too slow-- people will just end up running everywhere.
-Use AGS's skippable cutscene features.

Awesome graphics and AMAZING ADLIB MUSIC omg

I'm already stuck at the axe murderer trying to bust the door down, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something, there's a bug, or if that's just where the demo ends.

The backgrounds and NPCs seem to be pixelated, but the main character, text and cursor are not. Those screencaps are 640x480. The backgrounds are 320x240, scaled up x2, which looks jarring against the elements that are not x2.

Thanks for the encouragement guys! 
I'm afraid I'm so new to this (bar a couple of years of chipping away at this project) that I didn't even think of mixed resolution - I just scan it in and pixelate it a bit.  This does mean the characters get a little (sometimes a lot) less pixellated as they scale down but I couldn't think of a way around it.  Also, the sprites are still unfinished in these screens, so perhaps it will improve...  Thanks for drawing my attention to it.

So your game's at 640x480, but you're "pixelating" it to low-res quality before loading it in AGS?

- You play the teacher on a Magic Schoolbus-knockoff, going on an educational adventure inside the human body. However, the person they're inside is MURDERED, and as bodily functions shut down, you and the class must solve the mystery... from WITHIN! The ultimate autopsy!

- You play a haunted suit of armor which comes to life to seek the Holy Grail, which is lost in storage somewhere in the museum you call home. Store items inside your empty armor body. Frighten off night watchmen and paranormal investigators.

- You play a "professional organizer" on an episode of TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive. While taping an episode, you discover that that a Lost Treasure may be hidden in the hoarded home of the person you're trying to help. You must figure out how to find the treasure without being discovered by the hoarder, their therapist, or the TV crew. An ethically troubling quest.

- We need to destroy the moon, for reasons never specified.

- A talking cat battles discrimination in the world of high powered finance.

- A pregnant woman gives birth... to a clue??

- On the brink of a nuclear crisis, the President of the United States finds a secret tunnel in the White House which leads to OvalSpace-- a transdimensional office out of time, where all Presidents, past and future, can meet.
However, when a maniacal, reptilian shape-shifting President from the year 2469 escapes into the present, aiming to parlay the nuclear threat into a total dictatorship, the current President must assemble an all-star team of Presidents to stop him.

- Die Hard in a pyramid

- That's all I got

Well, except the kind of people who show up to a party, cross their arms and ask sourly, "Why did you buy so much booze?"

$400k wasn't their budget. It was their minimum.

They asked for $400k, insinuating that it would be possible for them to make a game at that budget (which is quite possible).

It is. But the Kickstarter let the public determine the (initial) budget, and the public chose a game larger in scope.


speaking of food and pie, this is the analogy I posted on the Double Fine forum:

Tim Schafer is throwing a small party. He asks some folks to chip in for beer.

87,142 people chip in $3,336,371 for beer.

“Oh shit,” thinks Tim. “I can't throw a tiny little party and just pocket the rest of the cash. I need to make this an amazing party.”

Tim plans out an amazing party. It has been a long, long time since there's been a party this amazing. Everyone wants a party like this. But in order to get really nice drinks and music and whatnot, it turns out it's going to cost even more than what's been chipped in.

“Fuck it,” Tim says. This party is already going to be crazy, why not go the extra mile? Tim decides to make it a full weekend. Everyone who's already on the guest list is welcome to attend. The party will be so rad that people who aren't on the guest list will want to show up. They're welcome tooâ€"but they have to throw in some cash, just like everyone else. That extra cash will pay for the tigers and fire-breathers.

Everyone is happy.

$400k wasn't their budget. It was their minimum.

I'm just getting the regular logo.