These tensions are often obfuscated by more fantastical elements. In the time since 80 Days' release, more games have tried to have more pointed discussions involving race, gender, and inequality. "This is not a bug this is the entire point of the game." And the protagonist cannot get past years of ingrained distrust of whiteness and his ignorance of local culture and politics in the course of one conversation - she is never going to open up to Passepartout no matter what item you - the player - try and use from your travels."Īfter repeated attempts, a user posts: "Maybe it's a life lesson: sometimes, no matter what you do to try to help, bad things will happen." "Passepartout cannot ride to her rescue, cannot solve racism by posting a single letter. "'Solving it' using Passepartout's white privilege, actually would just make the solution part of the problem," Jayanth says. What items were you carrying? Did you side with the revolutionaries? Which dialogue combinations did you choose? And you still couldn't deliver the letter? Explained Jayanth, "She does not trust you because you are an outsider, you are white, you are male - you are closer to the oppressor than you are to her, and all the good intentions in the world can't change that."Īnd so exist the forum debates. The player can offer to help her, to "use your whiteness and maleness and position as protagonist ," to deliver the letter for her. Which comes back to the Murri girl in Brisbane. It takes a lot of forethought to avoid those traps, as Jayanth's experience shows.īeyond informed and diverse representation, Jayanth wanted to ensure that players felt the weight of their own character Jean Passepartout's western whiteness and maleness. And- too often-it shows, as attempts to be sensitive and aware ricochet into new forms of white / western savior narratives. There are few women or people of color in leadership positions, as Jayanth was with 80 Days, who have the background and point of view to handle these stories well. But while developers are increasingly committed to this work, the industry as a whole is still largely male and white. There's a growing movement within the games industry to tell these kinds of stories, to examine familiar stories and narratives from the point of view of the marginalized people who were so often reduced to stereotypes or ignored entirely. "If you're going to invent a world, why not make it more progressive? Why not have women invent half the technologies, and pilot half the airships?" "In 80 Days we use the steampunk and the fantasy to enable us to tell the kind of story we wanted to be able to tell to redress some of the colonialism and sexism and racism of the period," Jayanth said in a talk at GDC in 2016.
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