I don’t have a lot of time to play game these days. I usually play games like Cities Skylines where it’s easy to pause and exit. I basically have 1-4 hours to game a week - depending on the week. But ever since coming out trans, I’ve wondered if there was a game that casually was affirming. I realize I could play an RPG where you can design your character, but most of those games have you spend 2 hours designing and then you never really look at the character again. Baldur’s Gate was a lot of fun, but it’s a little too deep to play casually on the side. I strongly prefer a non-NSFW game. I realize a lot of NSFW games exist on Steam that do explore trans concepts (I assume), but I’m looking for a more positive, gentle, affirmation.
But I don’t want to knock down too many ideas! What do you play?
Edit: I realize I made it sound like I’ve excluded all RPGs which I don’t want to be the case since - inherently - anything affirming will have some RPG element to it. I just don’t think first-person RPGs really work since I spend most of my time looking at my hands and I don’t get to see my character.
I would probably recommend mass effect. It’s an RPG in third person. I found playing an RPG character with voice acting was much more affirming, because it let me feel like I was the character much easier than games without voiced protagonists.
My own voice even within my own thoughts sounded masculine until I did voice training work. Reading my own character’s voice was enough to take me out of the experience. Also Jennifer Hale is voice goals.
I would also recommend playing games where women are the target audience. The sims is a good example of that. Core games with female protagonists are generally not great, because they assume the audience is male and are built with that attitude. They tend to put a distance between you and the character when female. When you play uncharted, you are nathan drake, but when you play tomb raider you are not lara croft.
Personally:
- Stardew Valley
- Skyrim / Oblivion
- Unpacking
- Gone Home (admittedly this was more relevant to me as a lesbian)
- Life is Strange
- Long Dark (survivalist game, esp. relevant to my pre-transition state of mind, but also feminist themes and switched gender perspectives make this more trans-coded for me)
Stereotypically:
- Celeste is specifically a transfem game
- Fallout New Vegas is a stereotypical transfem game
- TF2 is pretty popular with transfems
- Minecraft
Also, worth mentioning Sims, I played that more when I was younger but it’s a common favorite among women and girls.
I definitely love Life is Strange and Stardew Valley! But Stardew Valley stresses me out lol I know it’s supposed to be relaxing but the day/night cycles give me anxiety to get stuff done quickly before seasons/years end.
Maybe I’ll do Unpacking or Skyrim but try it in 3rd person?
I really enjoyed Dragon Age the Veilguard. The character customization is great, and it has the BEST long hair options in video games. And also it’s one of the first games I’ve noticed where your character can be canonically trans!
