It's this or reread A Civil Campaign
I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the sexually explicit dating sim Katawa Shoujo ("Cripple Girls"), which was created by 4chan and where all the romance options are disabled girls.
You can see why I was reluctant, yes? But I KEPT hearing it was worth checking out, and it's free, and I had a cold and was really really bored.
And you know what? I LIKED IT. I mean, sure, it's created by and for men, and the main character can be a bit passive-anime-guy-sexist but it's mostly well below average levels of creepiness for male-gaze-y romance, the treatment of physical disability is pretty thoughtful (not so much mental illness or cognitive impairment :/) and the romances are generally pretty sweet. I'm glad I kept the sex scenes in, they were generally fairly tasteful and fitted organically into the plot, even if the characters look way to young for it to be very sexy (don't worry they're all around 18, and they act it. It's just a cutesy style)
The main character spends the game adjusting to his own recently diagnosed heart problems and having to go to a highschool for the physically disabled, and he can be a bit "ZOMG SHE HAS NO FEET" but he gets over it and the characters feel like actual three dimensional people whose disabilities are just one aspect of their character.
The gameplay is very railroaded: basically you make a couple of choices in the first act, then are shunted onto one of five romance arcs which go along their largely separate paths with very little choice from the player except at a few key points leading to good/bad/ok ends. I didn't realise I'd accidentally started the jock Emi's arc instead of her cross dressing artist friend until it was too late, but I loved her story anyway, it's ended up being my favourite. The "skip seen dialogue" and "autoscroll text" options are very helpful, my first playthrough only took about 7 hours, including lots of random pauses while I stared into space groggily, and the others were even quicker.
Some of the romances didn't work for me very well as romances, but I enjoyed them all as stories (even if I found the "and then we broke up" endings more credible and interesting in a number of cases) except the arc for Hanako, the girl with facial scars. It started out ok but went to a really creepy triggery place. I'd avoid that arc if I were you, or only play to break up, if you like Hanako she gets better character development as a friend in the Lilly arc.
All the girls have (femslashy) best friends! And other relationships between each other that have nothing to do with you! Also the early arc split means you don't have that creepy "everyone's in love with you, pick one" harem vibe. There's even a few minor references to queerness in the sidelines.
I'm not saying there's no problematic aspects, because there definitely are! This is not a super progressive story. But if like me you prefer not-too-terrible representation to none, then this is pretty much the only dating-sim-about-physically-disabled-people on the block and under the circumstances I think it does pretty well.
(nb my internet connection is being flaky so I haven't previewed this, here;s hoping it's not going to spew broken html all over your reading lists...)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/460244.html. There are
comments.
You can see why I was reluctant, yes? But I KEPT hearing it was worth checking out, and it's free, and I had a cold and was really really bored.
And you know what? I LIKED IT. I mean, sure, it's created by and for men, and the main character can be a bit passive-anime-guy-sexist but it's mostly well below average levels of creepiness for male-gaze-y romance, the treatment of physical disability is pretty thoughtful (not so much mental illness or cognitive impairment :/) and the romances are generally pretty sweet. I'm glad I kept the sex scenes in, they were generally fairly tasteful and fitted organically into the plot, even if the characters look way to young for it to be very sexy (don't worry they're all around 18, and they act it. It's just a cutesy style)
The main character spends the game adjusting to his own recently diagnosed heart problems and having to go to a highschool for the physically disabled, and he can be a bit "ZOMG SHE HAS NO FEET" but he gets over it and the characters feel like actual three dimensional people whose disabilities are just one aspect of their character.
The gameplay is very railroaded: basically you make a couple of choices in the first act, then are shunted onto one of five romance arcs which go along their largely separate paths with very little choice from the player except at a few key points leading to good/bad/ok ends. I didn't realise I'd accidentally started the jock Emi's arc instead of her cross dressing artist friend until it was too late, but I loved her story anyway, it's ended up being my favourite. The "skip seen dialogue" and "autoscroll text" options are very helpful, my first playthrough only took about 7 hours, including lots of random pauses while I stared into space groggily, and the others were even quicker.
Some of the romances didn't work for me very well as romances, but I enjoyed them all as stories (even if I found the "and then we broke up" endings more credible and interesting in a number of cases) except the arc for Hanako, the girl with facial scars. It started out ok but went to a really creepy triggery place. I'd avoid that arc if I were you, or only play to break up, if you like Hanako she gets better character development as a friend in the Lilly arc.
All the girls have (femslashy) best friends! And other relationships between each other that have nothing to do with you! Also the early arc split means you don't have that creepy "everyone's in love with you, pick one" harem vibe. There's even a few minor references to queerness in the sidelines.
I'm not saying there's no problematic aspects, because there definitely are! This is not a super progressive story. But if like me you prefer not-too-terrible representation to none, then this is pretty much the only dating-sim-about-physically-disabled-people on the block and under the circumstances I think it does pretty well.
(nb my internet connection is being flaky so I haven't previewed this, here;s hoping it's not going to spew broken html all over your reading lists...)
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/460244.html. There are
comments.