GLBT-friendly gaming on August 29

The inclusive gaming series Raiders of the Lost Arcade returns with the opportunity to try out a curated selection of games which explore different ways that video games can illustrate diverse narratives, aspirations, and life experiences.

On Wednesday, August 29 from 2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. in the D. H. Hill Jr. Library Fishbowl Forum, we will be playing a curated selection of games for platforms including Steam, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Our focus for this event will be games which explore queer and GLBT-friendly storylines and characters while offering a compelling and immersive gameplay experience. We will draw on the narratives of these games to talk about diverse representation, including resisting character tropes and stereotypes about the gaming community.

Participants will be invited to rotate through our gaming stations and to explore how NCSU Libraries' resources can support leisure gaming, video game design, and promote critical discourse for members of the gaming community. Gamers of all interests and skill levels are encouraged to join in the fun.

Raiders of the Lost Arcade is part of the NCSU Libraries Making Space event series.

Some of the games we might be playing include:

• Life Is Strange, a five-part, episodic game that allows a player to rewind time and affect the past, present, and future. You are Max, a photography senior who saves her old friend Chloe by discovering she can rewind time. The pair soon find themselves exposed to the darker side of Arcadia Bay as they uncover the disturbing truth behind the sudden disappearance of a fellow student. Meanwhile, Max begins to have premonitions as she struggles to understand the implications of her power. She must quickly learn that changing the past can sometimes lead to a devastating future.
• Mainichi, which conveys some of the social struggles the developer faces daily as a mixed transgender woman by recreating the simple act of going to meet a friend for coffee. Once the player returns home, they wake again the next morning to the same scenario, which subtly changes based on how they decide to get ready for the day. It’s a short but very personal slice-of-life experience.
• Dys4ia, an autobiographical game that explores the frustrations of hormone replacement therapy. The game is broken up into four sections that show players the intricacies of gender representation, hormone therapy complications, financial and medical issues, and the journey to things “getting better.”
• A Closed World, a game prototype that focuses on the challenges of LGBTQ youth. A Closed World takes the gameplay aesthetics and mechanics of “JRPGs” (Japanese role playing games) and puts you in control of a character of ambiguous gender that begins exploring a forest on the edge of town. Disregarding rumors of “demons” that exist in the forest who have the ability to “destroy” your village, your character must overcome the hardships of a forbidden relationship by exploring what lies inside the forest. Through this journey, players battle the forest’s “demons” and the ideals they are trying to force upon them. The players’ only defense is their logic, passion, ethics, and the ability to remain calm during conflict. As “demons” attack with their beliefs, they must fight back and defy their ideas of what’s “normal” and what love is supposed to look like.

Contact
Nicky Andrews
(919) 515-8253
nmandrew@ncsu.edu