Judging women for everything they do

As my first step in designing Glass Ceiling, I decided to investigate the kinds of judgements that women experience throughout their lives.

I have found social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, and dedicated discussion sites for women, such as everydaysexism.com, to be a rich source of comments and discussion of women's negative experiences.

Using these, I have compiled a list of what I am terming as 'handicaps' that could be used as character attributes in my game. I have observed that the majority of these are polar opposites; for example, women can be criticised for being too clever or too stupid, too pretty or too ugly, too fat or too thin, and any other dichotomies.

My intention is for these handicaps to be material in determining the range of possible quests actions, responses available to the player character in the game, as well as for them to change over time depending on the player's choices. As such, handicaps are a key element not only of gameplay but also of effectively demonstrating the concept behind the game.

#feminism #gamedesign #mechanics