episode one is a boring, tedious mess by a then-amateur level designer. everything is functional, but rarely fun.

episodes two and three are an impossibly rare example of a retro fps improving on the formula of the classics. easily the best thing to come out of new blood interactive. the unnecessary-but-cool touches (item kills, crossbow jumping, backflipping, pretty colored lighting) are free to shine with the brilliance of 1000 suns now that the maps are made with them in mind. the art direction is incredible too, largely due to david's penchant for horror. the man's is a genius and one of the best modern fps designers. we have dusk to thank for that.

FOR ONE MUST ALWAYS REIGN BENEATH...

CW: Discussions of Transmisogyny

The common response to vulnerable niche play experiences like Video Game Feminization Hypnosis (2019), Cave Story Sex RPG 2007 (2021), and He Fucked The Girl Out of Me (2022), is mockery both for the boldness of name and of content. Video Game Feminization Hypnosis is a psychic-design-manifesto with lines like "i dont care about the "puzzles" i just wanna explore weird islands & mess with the machines" and "ive half-joked about my games being laced with estrogen but i wonder how powerful they could be. what if we could use video games to forcefem ppl all over the world" nested as hyperlinks throughout her vent towards a better girly gameworld. Written in lowercase text and using internet acronyms like 'ppl', she speaks with a casual concern for unfettered femme exploration games as a way to potentially rewrite the social code.

It has not been product tested for review, nor has either of the other 2 games mentioned. The problem here is that the culture of 'gaming' itself is unable to step beyond the bounds of product review. Franz inquires into this problem around Cave Story Sex RPG 2007

"Why do we seek to quantify something clearly very personal based on how much it resonates with us?

I think my problem is that I think people are looking at this game as they would a product. Like it needs to have some value to me, otherwise it's not "worth playing".

Nadia, Fewprime, Blood Machine, npckc, communistsister, bagenzo, and [pourpetine] (https://xrafstar.monster/games/). These are in my mind the most notable transfemme gamedevs and their relevant store pages for their work¹. It's obviously not a comprehensive list, but this is my notation for who is the most publicly notable and prolific within the scene. Notice that all of the games on these pages are free as are the 3 games I opened with at the start. That's because transfemme gamedevs more often have to make their corpus free just to get eyes. So what are gaming spaces assessing the 'worth' of a completely no strings attached free simulated experiences? I think its the fact we dare to make people uncomfortable and borrowing a modicum of their time (across all the devs I've mentioned I cant think of 1 that takes more than 3 hours to finish, usually only being around 20 minutes in length at most). My sisters have to cheapen themselves to 0 just to get your ear and its still just met with mockery, harassment, and belittlement².

Even when a transfemme game dev gets the chance of any success at all she is thrown down again. In pourpetine's Hot Allostatic Load (2015) she notes among a litany of pained observations that

"One of my abusers was sent a list of the nominees for the upcoming games festival Indiecade. Unfortunately, I was on the list. I ended up winning an award, ostensibly to recognize my feminine labor in the areas of marginalized game design—years of creating access for other people, publicizing their games, giving technical support, not to mention the games I had designed myself. Instead of solidarity from other marginalized people in my field, I was attacked."

Video Game Feminization Hypnosis beats to a much more Utopian drum. A belief that we can mesmerize people into a more pure goo out of this vindictive rut, create a games made out of love, show people feminine Exits.

I believe in all that. I also believe that my words and those of my sisters are constantly being cast a sidelong jeer of disposability. That I and my sisters are then to blame for when a mobbing happens and not the world's own biases and outrage. This world has made this all quite non-negotiable, no more playing along with the democratic cesspits and hateful comedy routines. Here's to reflecting on the play experience others treat as compost as if its the most meaningful urtexts in the world because to quote pourpetine again "Build the shittiest thing possible. Build out of trash because all i have is trash. Trash materials, trash bodies, trash brain syndrome. Build in the gaps between storms of chronic pain." trash art is my queendom.

I hope it suffocates society before it can flee to their patriarch Arks. As princess put it here 'flood the world and dilute the sludge'.

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1. 2 notable exceptions I know of with pay to play games by transfemme is princess/Girl Software's other games, and the cowriting of Aevee Bee on Worst Girl Games. Also key in on the fact here I'm making no judgements on individual pricing of games as a moral decision.

2. Does not remotely just happen On Backloggd³ if you think this is just a grievance I have with this site you're gravely misreading me and I urge you to slow down your social media outrage use for a bit qt~

3. Although I should not lie, social media sites are remarkably more unreliable habitats for trans people than they initially appear, this place has been a great learning experience of that in my case

there were maybe 3 lines that emanated annoying-twitter-queer-person, despite what the title and cover art may suggest. no "girl dinners" in sight. video game feminization hypnosis is actually a porpentine video game manifesto for people without horrible trauma/a guide on how to think more critically about the media you enjoy/a study on how male-dominated gamer culture ia. the writer didn't use the word bl*haj a single time. i'm proud of them. the reason this has so many .5s is because people felt challenged by it, which is good- that's the point. no, the exaggeration that "all video games should be forcefeminized" is not literal (by definition), it's exaggeration to make a point about how many gamers act as if the mainstream should only cater to men ie the common denominator. how about y'all try having media literacy for a change?

backloggd user @Cjer gets a 25% revenue cut of this review

i thrust awake in a cold sweat beneath the quiet roof of my sengoku ranch. i remember that the deed is nearly complete - i'm on the brink of the backloggd alignment lock

the panting starts. then the puke; panicking over what i must do. i reflect on what has brought me to this point. the truth sets in

humans are given two choices in the fleeting existence they call life:

1. they rate kichikuou rance with a half star. completion status: abandoned. review roughly reads, "dont let rance fans near children" or, "i feel like a worse person for playing this". these people absolutely rule at parties and you should unconditionally take everything they say completely seriously

2. ten out of ten. reasons enigmatic. their thoughts may be more driven by seemingly sociopathic notions regarding how their life was changed by a fun strategy game with cartoon humor about a guy who does bad shit for women, money and power. there's a good chance these ones aren't getting invited to the aforementioned parties

this is where i forge my path; where i shall walk the road to dawn

...in all seriousness, i'm pretty amazed that something this meticulously detailed came from an eroge company - let alone in 1996. there are so many moving parts and interlinked events that it borders on overwhelming. tons of characters too - many of which you even won't meet because of how structurally dynamic everything is. seemingly whimsical decisions could have lasting consequences, be they positive or negative. it's all so thorough that looking up just about anything in a guide seriously compromises the overall experience

alicesoft's sheer fuck-it-we-ball energy is impossible not to respect here. they crammed every ridiculous idea they had for the series at the time into one sprawling what-if finale and somehow it actually worked. that said, since it's a rough summary for five games that at the time didn't even exist, the narrative feels a little rushed even though it clocks in at 40+ hours. definitely left me wanting a little more from the antagonists and world, but that's what the hundreds of hours worth in sequels is for, i suppose

look - if you think crassness is funny and you've remained skeptical of this series as i have for so long, i'd suggest considering it. if you're on the "i'd never play that shit" side of the spectrum, then you've already made up your mind and that's fine too

if you think this game's bad mechanically, however: skill issue, filtered and so on

here is a pdf that better formats/clarifies the in-game how to play section without any spoilers