yurodivuie ([info]yurodivuie) wrote,
@ 2009-06-01 09:04:00
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Fat Princess
Realistically, I know that I will play this, regardless of any scruples.  I'm just not sure if I should have any.  Scruples, that is.

It's basically Castle Crashers meets Capture the Flag.  You play one of many soldiers in a tiny kingdom, trying to rescue your princess while hanging on to the enemy's princess.  It's also online for 16v16 play.  Lots of blood, explosions, and it looks like some fortress building mixed in.  Sounds aweome.  The twist is that you can help hang on to your stolen princess by feeding her massive amounts of cake.  Which makes her heavy.  Which makes it harder for enemies to carry her away.

I'll set aside the "save the princess" aspect of the game.  It's a trope that I don't feel the need to publicly revile out of hand, since it's so quintessentially stereotyping it rises into the realm of a Jungian archetype in the gaming community.  It is what it is.  But promoting overeating for captives as a defense against their rescue?  Is it cute or horrifying (or both)?  Of course, I'd rather not judge it before i see it; the concept was apparently developed by a woman, including all the art.  Does it matter?

The controversy over the game happened a year ago, but it's getting released this month.

(Incidentally, the studio developing the game is located in pioneer square)



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[info]amnesiack
2009-06-01 05:03 pm UTC (link)
I don't usually like online-only games that much, so I'm not terribly interested in this one, but I would have to see it in execution to judge how I felt about it.

As a general rule, my answer to the question of whether or not it matters that it was designed by woman is, "No, it doesn't matter." Women are capable of reinforcing negative stereotypes of their own gender and being misogynists too.

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[info]yurodivuie
2009-06-01 07:55 pm UTC (link)
Not actually online-only, near as I can tell.

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[info]amnesiack
2009-06-01 07:57 pm UTC (link)
Ah, my mistake. I thought it was a Counterstrike/Return to Castle Wolfenstein/Warhawk sort of setup.

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[info]lesleymac
2009-06-01 07:01 pm UTC (link)
Sorry, I'm going to judge this one before I see it.

You may have noticed that I am a fat lady. As such, my main problem with the game is the way that the fat princess is hardly a princess at all, just an obstacle. It reinforces the idea that if you're fat, you must gorge yourself on cake all the time. It reinforces the idea that fat people will eat anything that is put in front of them. It bothers me that as a woman who is fat, the only character I can relate to is essentially there to be laughed at (no matter her strategic importance.)

If you give them money for this game, I have to admit that I'll be a little disappointed in you. But you're a grown up. You can make your own decisions.

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[info]yurodivuie
2009-06-01 08:30 pm UTC (link)
I keep thinking about how to respond to this statement, but I think this is a case where a comment thread is the wrong place for me to discuss it. Which just goes to show that I didn't actually have the guts to discuss a controversial topic on my livejournal, in spite of raising one.

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