I love when games serve as valid, poignant social commentary. As a cisfemale, this really helps me to understand what the trans* community must go through... to a certain extent, at least. Obviously as a cisfemale I'm never going to fully understand. But I digress. It's a solid game, short but sweet, and like I said- its message is incredibly valuable and timely. Well done.
Reviews for "Social Dysphoria The Game"
I like that this is trying to put cisgendered people into the role of transgendered people, and to give some people some insight into what it's like to be consistently misrepresented and judged. On the other hand... you missed two things. One is that the pressure for the body to conform to the mind doesn't suit everyone. While some people are obviously better off having sex correction surgery, others only suffer due to the expectation from heteronormative society to look like this or that, and from other trans people to be a 'typical trans person' otherwise you're not 'real'. It can invalidate a person as much as pronoun misuse etc.
My other problem is that this is very gender-binary. A 'No' option at the start would be pretty good... I know some trans people like to think that genderqueer individuals are attention seeking or fake though. It's funny to see trans people say the same stuff about genderqueer people as cis people do about trans people. But I assume it's just an oversight in your case.
VOEC responds:
This is only really meant to be a representation of what transsexual (as in people who seek hrt etc.) people go to in contrast to trans* in general.
But I think if you not focus too much on the ending screen and the game over screen it still works as something that is relevant to all trans* individuals.
But the focus of the game comes from the original idea as stated in the description, which was written by a transsexual person.
Also there is a gender nonbinary option which you can unlock by getting a certain score. It actually even says "No" as the option. So I wouldn't call it an oversight, just what the original idea was focused on.
Ha, I always pick boy so this fits :)
Niiiice! When I saw the title and (and a bit of the description) my eyes lit up. The medical referral levels, HRT denial and the hurtling of pronouns really make a statement. Great job.
As a devotee of retro, I had to take a look.
I like the crappy green dot matrix screen, well implemented to look like an old gameboy. The gameplay itself was dull and unfun. I could see some words offending people. I know the robot doesn't care, but you might.
But I did get conglaturated joke!! Ha!