#tiny pride

The themes of transgender acceptance and the anxieties that arise from that in public situations are central to One Night, Hot Springs, but the game chooses to address each of these very carefully. While choices are sparse throughout the experience, they always lead back to multiple core points that the player character was thinking on in previous scenes, often with build-up based around a scant handful of lines of dialogue. In doing this, the game is able to very gently escalate the discussion to more serious topics, while also maintaining the subtle and careful tone of the experience overall. 

After being introduced to your robotic companion Turing in Read Only Memories, they begin asking you for personalized information so that they may address you during the course of the game. This includes dietary restrictions for when the player orders drinks or food, their name, and the pronouns that Turing will address them by throughout the experience. In addition to allowing the player to customize the experience of the game to better match themselves, this also allows the game to ingratiate the player to Turing, as both a tool that allows them to interface with others, as well as a companion who’s first point of interest is to determine how to best address them and their needs. 

The player doesn’t make dialogue decisions in We Know the Devil, at least not directly. Instead, every decision they make is in terms of what two characters will be staying together during a specific moment or task. It’s a subtle way to build on characters, but even more than that, it cuts to the core of what the game itself is interested in seeing the player decide- not what Venus, Neptune, or Jupiter say or do, but who they do it with. That’s what matters to the larger narrative structure, and that’s what the game places in the player’s hands.

Hey all! So, after some consideration on how I wanted to handle a new request event, I’ve settled on this: it’s June, and while we could talk about all kinds of games for the next event, I want to do a Tiny Design event based entirely around games with gay, bi, pan, demi, non-binary, trans, intersex, ace/aro, and/or queer characters! As such, I’d like to announce the opening of the Tiny Pride Month Request Event!

Speaking as a bisexual game developer, it’s incredibly important to make note of the works that include excellent representation in this medium. From high profile AAA productions to odd indie titles, games have a long if often overlooked history in the games scene, and I’d like your help finding some highlights. Hopefully, these requests will also introduce everyone to new games they may not have heard of, and further expand everyone’s library of queer content :3

Starting today, feel free to submit as many games as you’d like to this event. With these requests, be sure to include the name of the game, the year it came out, and the character(s) that are a part of it that fall under the umbrella of LGBTQIA+. You can submit via messaging, or by sending me an ask. Feel free to submit anonymously if desired, but if you do send it via normal messaging, please indicate if you’d like your name to appear in the post when it goes up! 

The final date for submissions will be June 16th, with the full event spanning between June 17th to June 30th. I’ll randomly select from those submitted and release a schedule of the next two weeks the day beforehand as well! It’s my intention to include as many requests as possible during this event, so please send in anything that you think would be great to do a Tiny Design on! 

The narrative structure of The House in Fata Morgana is actually that of 4 sub-stories, each of which revolves around a previous resident of the titular house, with one meta-narrative outside of them connecting them all. In addition, two characters (or character archetypes) are frequently present throughout each of the stories, and often play a similar role in the Gothic horror story being presented. In doing this, the game is able to better bring in the player between each sub-story’s events, with each successive sub-story building upon the conventions established previously, and slowly culminating in the meta-narrative expanding upon all of them.

The dream sequences in Night in the Woods are often simple collection puzzles, requiring the player to perform a specific action across the area a certain number of times in order to cause an ethereal effect on the world at large. These sequences are where the vast majority of platforming challenges occur, with the rest of the game often not requiring it beyond some simple traversal, and thus allowing these sections to feel more directly important by including those challenges. 

While world traversal occurs exclusively in 3D in Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, whether in combat or while exploring as characters, all character interactions occur as visual novel style 2D discussions. In addition to simplifying many of the requirements for character discussions, this also allows the non-combat sections of the game to feel more dynamic, as the rest of the game is largely turn-based.