Damsels in Distress in Early Gaming

[earthscorch]

Up through about the end of the NES period of gaming, when everyone was pretty much sick of it, the idea that the protagonist is going to rescue his girlfriend or whatever was extremely prominent. Here's a list, looking through the games at the Spriter's Resource

Comments

[canadiacookie]

I remember when I had to save you at the end of the game. You were screaming like a girl throughout it. Does that count?

[earthscorch]

That was me doing your mom! I was making her scream like a girl! Hahaha!

[lunatron]

Yeah. It's like people think that 'girl' is a character role, when it's not. Now, if there were options of normal guy/normal girl, private eye guy/private eye girl, and douchy FBI guy/douchy FBI girl, that would be a lot better, at least to me.

It is good that you think critically about the media that you consume!

[earthscorch]

When I was doing Wing Commander essays on here, it struck me that there was no reason in the first game the main character couldn't have been a woman. Wouldn't that have made you happy to have that option, with no change to the game except art and pronouns? If I ever get around to making games, I intend to make a male/female option for your character, whenever possible. Saying they think being the "girl" is a role is a good way of putting it.

I sometimes think I overanalyze everything!

[lunatron]

"Wouldn't that have made you happy to have that option, with no change to the game except art and pronouns?"

Heck yes. I love games like that. Glad to hear that is what you want to try.

Overanalyzing is the way to be.

[earthscorch]

To be fair to those old games, though, disk space was very valuable. Now it's completely not a problem. (Sort of like when I started MUSHing and they were still encouraging us to destroy our unused objects to keep the game running fast. How quickly computers have advanced!)