#amon26

If the player makes it past the title, the player is treated with a unique premise for a video game: the Spider-Queen’s slaves have revolted. Using her magic scepter, the Spider-Queen must recapture them. The unapologetic use of the term slave seems to make the Spider-Queen, whom the player controls, a not so nice figure. There is mention of the slaves working in mines and it’s heavily suggested by the imagery (see frequent toplessness) that the slaves offer services of pleasure to the Spider-Queen. From the surface, it seems a bit difficult to find this character as someone we want to experience ourselves being. Packed with the opening cinematic, however, is a note of the Spider-Queen and a slave shaking hands that reads “All power exchange has to be negotiated!”

Suddenly, the entire context of the premise changes. What was once a science fiction story about an evil arachnid who housed sex slaves becomes a story about role playing. It’s a fitting use of the format of the video game to express a sadly under recognized concept: consent. Players of video games are all too familiar with the idea of role playing. Power fantasies are, essentially, the foundation of the industry. Yet, in those power fantasies, there is no negotiation. Players either take control a chosen hero who is destined for greatness, personal desired be damned, or they embody the already powerful to execute their will on those who cannot exercise their right to say “no”. Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars plays a bit of a trick on the player, or, perhaps more accurately, reveals something to them that they should have had in their mind all along.

While the social and psychological ideas being expressed through the game are one of the more unique features of it, the message it conveys is more powerful due to the game, itself, being a fantastic recreation of the classic arcade maze game. Like Pac-Man and its uncountable number of clones, Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars is simple to play, requiring only the use of the direction keys on the keyboard. The game takes place over multiple stages, each stage consisting of a single screen and a maze in which the player is placed.

(Just your typical 80s arcade level)

The goal is simple, use scepter’s laser to re-capture the revolting slaves. That’s about all there is to it. The control scheme and mechanics are so simple that a single screen that plays during the intro easily sums up the whole thing.

(Okay, now which one is the space bar?)

Though straightforward mechanically, Spider-Queens does offer some nice variations on the theme to make it standout among the classic arcade games from which it takes so much inspiration. Capturing a slave is performed simply by walking into them while they are bound. Slaves can be bound simply by facing them on the same plane. The scepter that the player wields constantly shoots out a laser beam that acts similar to a web when it comes into contact with a slave. Once contact is made and a slave bound, a diamond will be released, which yields significantly more points for the player if collected. Slave bindings have a time limit. If the player binds slave then turns away and doesn’t capture them in time, the slave will burst free and become a more dangerous type, providing a slight sense of urgency and working to add a bit more strategy to how the player approaches their prey.

There are various types of slaves, all with unique behaviors and point values. Standard slaves walk about the maze and will kill the player if they make contact to the player from any direction but the front where the laser points. These slaves make up the majority of those that will need to be recaptured, but there are numerous types, such as the Armor, which deflect the Spider-Queen’s laser from the front, and Princesses, whose rarity and fleetness of foot make them valuable targets for high score achievements. Since new slaves spawn into the stage through one of four corners, and seemingly at random, Spider-Queens of Mars very quickly becomes a game about territory. Managing territory and choosing one’s targets carefully are quite often the keys to a successful play session.

While Spider-Queens of Mars is a game that fills a niche within a niche, it was able to transcend what I’ll call its natural audience, for lack of a better term, through its publication by Adult Swim Games. Known perhaps primarily for its collection of absurd games like Robot Unicorn Attack and Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself), Adult Swim Games has become something of a refuge for independent developers. It’s actually where I first discovered Terry Cavanagh’s fantastic VVVVVV for the first time. While many of the games are heavily skewed toward a particular demographic (Viva Caligula and Zombie Hooker Nightmare particularly call out to curious and slightly mischievous adolescent males), there is a spirit of rebellion, of doing things one’s own way, that can be felt simply by scrolling down the list of available titles.

The Adult Swim version of Spider-Queens is interesting because it features some censorship. The title splash screen has an Adult Swim logo covering the generously drawn breasts of the original. To make up for it, there are some voice samples heard in that version which do not appear in the original. The censorship, applied so humorously, almost makes the game seem more pornographic than it really is, probably in an effort to entice Adult Swim’s target audience rather than Anna Anthropy’s.

(Not being able to see them makes you want to see them so much more!)

That notion has the potential to undermine Anthropy’s message, but the fact that a game about sexual politics made its way to a sizable audience, even if it had to be disguised as something for boys to gawk at, feels like a win for game creators as a whole. The Adult Swim version also plays exactly the same, of course, so as long as you can bear non-bare chested humanoid spider beings, it’s worth trying it out just to hear the slightly distorted and distractingly lo-fi cries of the Spider-Queen as she re-establishes her dominance. Playing both allows for the full experience as it would be hard to consider either release the definitive version.