Story of Heterosexuality

How to Play:

Use the ARROW KEYS to move.

Artistic Statement:

What is heterosexuality? A preference? A biological trait? An orientation? A style of life? A philosophy? In my attempt to understand it, I have decided to make this game: Story of Heterosexuality. In so doing, I also wanted to feel what it is like to be a heterosexual and experience their struggles so as to become more empathetic with them, which makes this an "empathy game".

As part of my research process, I have studied many heterosexual media, including art games canon Passage and The Marriage. I hope that my game has managed to replicate a fraction of those games' impact & nameless insight into what it means to be a (heterosexual) human. My game of course is nevertheless different; in Story of Heterosexuality, unlike The Marriage's crudely unambivalent pink and blue square depiction of the heterosexual woman and the heterosexual man (and passage's even less abstracted pixel people), they are represented as an upside-down and upright triangle. These are of course a play on the common portraiture of the male and female form in establishments such as public bathrooms, but it is also a statement on the different nature of men and women: the former, thick, doltish and penetrative with its lower half firmly planted on the ground, and the latter, deep, measured and holistic with a perfectly balanced base. The children, interestingly, can come in either form. They are also depicted as neither explicitly heterosexual or homosexual, and this is left up to the player's interpretation. This is a simple way i have found to inject further & personalizable representation into my game. Finally, the game is abstract in such a way that it is universal and really anyone can find something to relate to in it -- but the meaning is there for those with fingers to play.

As you may also have noticed, the level design of Story of Heterosexuality is lifted straight from the original level 1 from Pac-Man. Great artists steal, but this isn't a mere thoughtless act-of-taking. My use of the map is subversive given that Pac-Man was, famously, the first video game to be designed with women in mind. Of course, Pac-Man is also a sexist franchise (you may look no further than ms. Pac-Man's design), But with my full awareness of this i chose to appropriate its space to interrogate as well as to transcend Pac-Man and the larger cultural institution that is mainstream video games. This was also an endeavor to tap into the player's unconscious as they explore a space that feels irrefutably familiar to emphasize their (intentional) experience of dissonance as they find themselves doing recognizable (yet in-game irrecognizable and unconventional) acts such as marrying and procreating instead of scoring and killing.

When you play Story of Heterosexuality, you may find yourself experiencing phenomena such as "emergent gameplay" and "player agency". You may also find yourself in an inebriated-like state from "choice paroxis" given the array of paths offered to you. Please do report back on the exciting play variations that you encountered in the comment section as well as the impact it had on you. But at the same time, please do not let this obscure the original intention/message/lesson of the game as it was designed. With that said, please do not speak of me as some sort of intelligent creator who gave birth to or "designed" this game. I am after all but the vessel of the playful spirit, which is infinite, all-encompassing, and munificent.

For more "critical game design" by my contemporaries, please check out spacelionz's Pontification Chamber.