Great list! I would recommend adding Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Ike is gay so I think that it fits the bill.

Also, Earthbound?

Huh, I guess backloggd doesn't have a respond to comment feature, but uh...in response to the comments: I'm keeping this list to games I've played, and also the games have to center LGBT+ themes. That means if a game simply has an LGBT+ character in it, but it isn't a central theme in the narrative, it doesn't make the cut.

Oh, okay. Makes sense.

Also, Earthbound had the first two openly gay video game characters. I think that is enough credit to get on here. Right?

I've played Earthbound to completion and I don't remember this? Is it super explicit or is it more of a thing talked about in fan circles? In any case, I wouldn't say LGBT+ themes are a core theme in the game as a whole. Like, look at the other games on here. If you take away the LGBT+ content from these games, they would be fundamentally different.

Btw is there a way to search lists on backloggd? People are liking this list and I'm very appreciative, but I don't know how they're finding it! Lol

To answer your first question; both Jeff and Tony are gay. It's not super explicit but it does have mention of Tony bringing a boy over for a slumber party right before Jeff left Winters. It was even confirmed by Shigesato Itoi in 2011. In hindsight, I probably should have noticed it earlier. To answer your second question, no. I wish you could search for lists but, you cannot.

I personally just found your list when I looked at lists that include VA-11 HALL-A and found it.

I think Tony is kind of coded as gay but in a way where you could also just read it as "Aw what a good friend" but that's cool that Shigesato Itoi had that intent behind it.

"bringing a boy over for a slumber party..." Huh, TIL I'm gay

Also, there's no real LGBT theme in Celeste. What's with that one?

Most lists I stumble on, I usually see a friend liking in the Activity tab

Madeline is trans and her struggle to climb the mountain can be seen as an allegory. The dev explains it better than I would

This is a great list!
My only complaint I guess or more like a pedantic one is that Dream Daddy barely “”centers”” around lgbt as much as it just shows off in a really cishet normative way that honestly just makes it more disgusting rather than LGBT to me. But I’m basically just splitting hairs 😓

Thanks for all the likes on this list everyone!

Wow, I knew that the lead dev on Celeste wrote an article about the game helping them come out to themselves, but I never actually read it until now. Incredibly well written piece. But yeah, that's why Celeste is on here. As a cis guy, a lot of the trans allegory flew over my head as well, and I mainly liked it for the portrayal of anxiety, but a lot of trans people related Madeline's struggle to their own struggles being trans, and it turned out it helped the developer work out their identity as well!

Hm, I think I can see where the critique of Dream Daddy is coming from and I'm of two minds on it. On the one hand it is very much about monogamous family life, and if you choose a trans character it isn't referenced in game, which feels like a kind of representation afterthought. On the other hand, I don't think that monogamous family life situations aught to be exclusive to cishet stories, and Dream Daddy portrayed an unrealistic but optimistic fantasy where you could be gay or trans and find love free of discrimination.

Btw if anyone reading knows what the good MLM games are let me know, because aside from Dream Daddy this list is all lesbians and gender stuff!

Same. I never knew about the trans allegory until now. It definitely flew over my head when I first played it and just liked it's Story, Gameplay, and open-ended message.

Little Goody Two Shoes! It is a 100% sapphic dating sim :)