Coming out in Games

A Closed World

A Closed World is an eloquent and beautiful flash game which deserves our attention for what it has done that no one else has.  First, it’s a game that uses gay issues as its premise.  Second, its Pokemon-ish battle system relies on making a good argument and not obliterating an opponent with bullets or blades, but contains an intensity that would make violence seem a simpler path.

This tiny game has many pockets; right from the start it challenges ideas on gender and love.  Closed World contains no gender tags or markers beyond names like, “sister” or “mother.”  Your character model is the same whether you choose a male or female protagonist, and the monsters you fights are stylized, monstrous, and lovely, none bearing any resemblance to a male or female form that has been modified.

Meeting these monsters takes you into a verbal battle with your foe.  These foes are not physical as these conflicts take place in your mind as you struggle to deal with the fallout of realizing your sexuality and coming out.  The conversations with these monsters real world counterparts have already taken place and now what are left are the echoes and reverberations in your head.  You struggle to keep your composure and get your mind around and through the prejudices, guilt, shame, ignorance, and fear they have tried to tattoo to your brain.  They make a statement and you meet it with a passionate plea, a logical one, or an ethical one.  Arguments on both sides read simply, “Why can’t you just let me be who I am?” or, “You’re not mom, so stop trying to take her place,” while your opponent tries to break you with bigotry or guilt.  While simple the dialogue is brilliantly chosen to mirror any of a million conversations that would spawn from that idea making the game feel personal and bringing a very visceral reaction and stream of memories from my own experience coming out and coming to terms.

A Closed World is a smart little game that starts with social awareness, aiming, I believe, to help young gays feel less alone by showing the universal emotions and struggles involved in coming out to yourself and to others.  It is a way for straight folks to gain some sort of empathy to the experience, laudable goals to be sure.  Its art style is lyrical, simple, storybook, and lovely, and its words are poetry, but it is not without problems.  It isn’t very game-y- it is more set up to teach or show than to play, especially for more ardent gamers.  There doesn’t seem to be any real risk of losing, and that does not seem to be the intent of this game; the intent is to experience it, to allow it in, to join it in its journey.

A Closed World hopes to open the world up to understanding what it takes to really look at yourself and the world and claw your way into it.  Within the game are really potent messages like true love doesn’t lead the way and not all loves survive.  Love is not a Band-Aid and no matter who is with us or against us our journey is internal and alone, and that is frightening and enlightening, crippling and transcendent. The game offers no guarantees or simple solutions.  While simplistic A Closed World is rich and multi-layered, and I look forward to analyzing it in future segments, meanwhile, give it a try, savor it and allow it in, and celebrate that a team of folks created it.

http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/summer2011/aclosedworld_play.php