[quote="Campaignjunkie"]There's a mute button on the control panel in front of the view screen. I guess I should've labeled it? Having personally played through this like 100 times, I just tune it out after a while, which is what I hope most players do.

I don't buy the "players can't relate because they're not gay men" reasoning - in many other video games the player is a woman, a robot, a dog, etc. and they still manage to relate to these characters. I mean, by that logic, I should make all my player characters into 18-34 straight white middle-class men. Which is slightly less exciting... So I think it's just simple "gay panic" and homophobia at work here.

But if I can get the player to "wonder why he should give a damn", then I'm more than happy with that. I mean, why should you? You're not gay.[/quote]

I also think so.

How did you people get X9? I went through once, exiting to see what would happen. I then re-did it trying to repress, but failed and just got to sitting in a room staring at each other for (seemingly, as I never actually got to the end) ever. Then I successfully repressed memories, and I got the same sitting in the room staring. I decided to redo with repressing, but using noclip so that none of the boxes broke- same deal with sitting in the therapist's office. When I noclipped around, I found the backlot, but I had no idea how to get there. Can someone offer solutions? Is mine bugged, or are you supposed to end it by sitting in a room staring blankly at a wall?

Hey there,

I kind of forgot how I stumbled upon this page, I had it "favorited" vor weeks I think and finally installed the mod.

It was an intresting experience and I liked the second chapter the most. Many details to disvover. I must admin, I used noclip to see the "good" (I don't really know if it was good) ending a little faster.

Thank you for your work, I hope to see some more!

Greetings from Germany
Christoph

PS: I am myself hetero and I really have to say: everyone who has a problem with a gay charackter is so small-minded that he should consider playing with Barbie and Ken again, instead of playing games of this kind!
PSS: Wtf is a german love doll (saw this in a post earlier)? I often see so called "german-stuff" in US forums (and other places) and I dont know where people get this billshit from?!

This is an ingenious pair of games, and I'm very happy to have played them. The mechanics of Polaris were more appealing than HWC, but even this made sense within its own context. Excellent choice of music in both (you may also like the McCarricks ( http://www.houseofmccarrick.com/ ) and Cinephile ( http://www.cinephileonline.com/ ) at a guess). If all art aspires towards the condition of music, then your mod is halfway there with the effective selections you've included.

It's inspiring to see interactive narrative finally embracing its medium and becoming more than a point and click adventure - the obvious comparison is Dear Esther, but where that was grand and ponderous this is sharp and witty, (we needn't mention Korsakovia). The spoken dialogue really made HWC come alive for me, though I recognise how time consuming it is to do and understand your aversion to doing that again.

There are several things here that are interesting - the first is that there is no "good" ending. I discovered all 3 endings in Polaris and all 4 in HWC, and found each to be as valid as any other. As has been discussed at length, games traditionally present the world in black and white, victory or loss, and so it's great to see the true ambiguity of life come through, and more effectively than in larger works which pretend to do much more.

The homosexuality issue didn't occur to me as an issue while I played it - I read both as being about love and relationships. I found both to be sweet and sad, (Polaris especially reminded me of certain parts of the novel The Rules of Attraction - not the film). It didn't strike me until I read this forum thread what an issue the identity of the player character would be. You've used a medium - not just games, but mods of games - whose base demographic won't have sympathy or experience with the themes you've chosen. It's like writing show tunes for Menonites.

It's great to see, and I'll be watching closely. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

I don't get why it is such a surprise to people. I assumed they were gay from the beginning; they are both identified as "partners", they both had masculine names, they were both seeing a relationship councillor. The clincher was the "Id Magazine" (Which was very funny by the way). In fact the whole scenario made me laugh.

It is interesting what you said about how divorce gets automatically labelled as bad, because that was the ending I got and I did do just that; associate divorce with "losing". In hindsight, it is a shame that I had such preconceptions about divorce and "failure" in videogames in general. I like the idea that the player is frantically trying to prevent closure. Perhaps more games should be structured around the idea that the protagonist’s actions are non-conducive towards a good ending. I thought it was an excellent idea overall, and am happy with the execution.

[quote="Warmotor"]the idea will continue to shock the population[/quote]

See, it's that mentality that I feel compelled to challenge. By "the population" do you mean the percentage of hardcore gamers who are homophobic straight men? Believe it or not, there are gay people who play games. There are transgender people who play games. There are women who play games. And none of their needs are being met.

If gamers form "communities," then those communities should be inclusive. So that means making games that aren't necessarily about straight men or highly objectified women with large breasts. That means making games that reflect the female experience, the gay experience, or even games about people who have sex with love dolls or livestock. Because those are novel, interesting, and reflect the vast cross-section of society that plays video games.

By the way, they already made a game that contains sex with space aliens. It's called Mass Effect. I bet it was pretty disgusting, huh? It totally poisoned the game. Utterly unplayable.

So you may only break the X9 box?

Warmotor: this is a game about marriage, not about the sex that does (or does not as the case may be since they are getting counselled). It is not flamboyantly gay in any areas, either - it's just a typical failing relationship that happens to be between two males. I don't see why you even posted, have you actually played the game?

Enchanted Arms was a good RPG that was shot down by the mainstream gaming press because of the FUH-LAMING gay character. Although I must admit that all of the monster collecting/chess battles in the world are hard to focus on while there is an annoying queen clinging to your leg, crying about the lunch he made for one of the other male characters.

Please forgive me, I just stumbled across this message board by means of a link posted on another debate.

You say that the gay issue shouldn't be a big deal in this day and age - but I contend that it will be an issue during any day and/or age. What you're doing is bringing sex to the forefront by introducing two partners, the same as you would infer that a man and woman were having sex if they're at couples' counseling, but we're so used to the idea of monogamous hetero relationships that we simply don't care. Since the genetic abnormality that causes gayness is somewhat rare and will likely continue to be, the idea will continue to shock the population. If it were a man and anything else that you could technically have sex with (german love doll, some larger breeds of house pets/livestock, a space alien) sitting next to your character at a counselor's office, the natural reaction will be "Oh god, he's banging that?" - and as long as gays are the minority that will remain the case.

Regardless of what some people may think, beating the population with pro-PC propaganda won't change this. That's pretty gay, I know, but what can you do? (I use the word 'gay' in that context in jest)

I like gays. From my personal experiences I can tell anyone who asks that gay men are clean, good listeners and from a common-sense standpoint they will treat you more ethically on average than their straight counterparts. Gay women are no different than normal women, except far less likely to put up with my bullshit. The last thing I would do to my gay brothers is take away their ability to stand apart from the crowd (wearing bright colors) and enjoy the attention of being different. Seriously, who wants to be an old married hag at the counselors? I'd rather be a homo.

Ahh! I just beat it! I enjoyed it immensely, thank you very much for your work :) Glad you did that article for The Escapist or this might have passed under my radar. Half Life 2 is relatively new to my world, has rocked it, and the wider world of Mods is still ALIEN TERRITORY

The gameplay by itself is, sorry, lacking and unexciting; but everything else made me feel motivated to finish. I think the mood and atmosphere of the room is perfect, absolutely perfect, but the way you have to interact with it is silly and detracts from it greatly, yanno.
I'm glad you say to don't find either ending to be "right" or "wrong", because I felt that blowing up the memory cubes to be something I'd think would be a healthier thing to do for James. It's weird having to unshelve a lot of his thought-junk to move around, I was actually half expecting some sort of repercussion from doing that near the end as I just lay them all over the floor without remember what belonged to where.
I disagree about the characters not being sympathetic, because I think an attachment to James is inevitable while living through some of his more confusing and painful memories.

I'm going to play Polaris when tomorrow after breakfast and I eagerly await 1-3 and all following Radiator installments! They better be good!! >:( ASSHOLE

I'm going to cage the ladders. When people have a hard time getting on the ladders while holding a crate, for some reason they don't think "huh, maybe I'll try something else" - instead they think "well I can hold a giant crate while climbing a ladder in real-life, so surely this should work properly?!" and, uh, blame the ladder code that has remained unchanged from Ep2. Petition Valve instead! :)

And I'll label the "mute" button on the center console too, I suppose. Thanks for the reminder.

If you do revise the game, could I suggest fixing the ladder mechanics? I got stuck on the ladder so many times that I just gave up and stayed as far from them as I could for the rest of the game.

By the way, I really loved the voice acting. Would've loved it more if it wasn't on perpetual repeat, but it was still really nice.

I think that the gay thing REALLY worked for the mod. and although i did feel a bit uncomfortable with it, i think it added a lot to the mod.

BUT!

Make sure that you do not over use it, just because it worked in this part, doesn't mean you should put it in everything. most people like chocolate, but just because they like it, that doesn't mean i should put it in every single thing that i cook.

Hi there.
Forgive me if I'm derailing the thread, I didn't pause to read everything yet.
I just wanted to say, I read your article on the Escapist, and it is the consummate articulation of my experience and that of every other gamer-fag I know.
I went on to peek at Radiator, and it looks resplendent, I intend to download it the moment I get Ep2. , please continue with your work, and your articles on the Escapist.
I've got our project site linked, and I have been passing around the permalink if "Not that there's anything wrong with that".
It's rare I feel such gratitude when a queer writer decries their plight, but you sir just managed to strike the chord without sounding like a screaming queen.
Thankyou, Again.
-Theocrati.
Gamerfag, lawlfag and fagfag.

The warning on the mirror is probably the thing I'm most proud of... in the entire mod. I suspect most people don't notice it, though. Which is fine.

One wonders how gay people could cope with playing most video games as a straight protagonist. Jarring, impossible to sympathize, etc... etc...

Don't know if I have much to add, except that I really enjoyed the mirror at the start.

Also, I agree with the person above me. It's absurd that people think that games should just be about people like them, and it's telling that such a complaint is most often voiced by people who want to see more white, straight, male protagonists (as if they didn't have enough of those to keep their egos satiated already).

Just popping in to say I think both these releases were great. Polaris a little less so cause it lagged on my computer and I despise astronomy, not to mention I disliked the protagonist's personality (I got a distinctly female vibe, by the way, but I suppose there's some overly bitchy gay guys out there.)

HWC, on the other hand, was intensely emotional for me and endlessly enticing, unlike such mods as "Dear Esther" which lay down no hints and no motivation for what the protagonist is doing. I was in love with the whole thing, down to the set piece memories, the main chamber, the counseling session, the tiny hints, all of it. Great voice acting as well: it was natural, not necessarily dramatic, which was fitting. Being gay myself, I felt an automatic connection to what was going on "in there." I also didn't mind the constant repetition, as that really just further emphasized the unsettling atmosphere in that place.

Like I said before, I'm glad there were enough hints to motivate me and keep me going until the end, rather than utter ambiguity, and more importantly, lack of pay-off at the end. The first ending I got was them being divorced, which sort of made me sad. I thought destroying the boxes would "help" the marriage rather than end it.

Maybe it was for the best, though? I dunno, I eventually went back and did the "married" ending, which left me a tad more gratified. It was really an intriguing experience all around, though.

Far as gameplay goes, I don't like tedious box stacking as much as the next guy, but the atmosphere kept me distant from that.

To toss a few theories out, I'll say that the whole thing is either an elaborate metaphor for the brain and what-not (rather trodden on, in my opinion) or, quite literally, someone controlling someone else from a distant control area.

Anyway, wonderful job all around on HWC. I think I'll go back briefly and replay Polaris to see the other endings, too.

[quote="Sulkdodds"]On that note, I felt a bit miffed that we are forced to accept that the partner character has brown hair. Couldn't you have given him a hat and made him clean shaven so that blond people could enjoy the game too?[/quote]
What a top post.

I should really have added that I loved the game. You managed to get into some really strong psychological issues. Loved the repressed memory boxes. What a hoot.

Am I the only one who saw a parallel with the Dr Melfi character in "The Sopranos"?

Excellent work. Really really strong.

At last. At long long last someone finally has the balls to introduce overtly gay characters. Thank you thank you thank you.

Just a thought: Next time could you introduce the ability to undress the guy, shoes, socks, shirt, pants, etc. Not that I have any interest at all in seeing his "bits", I just love the idea of loads of "straight" male gamers grappling with the dilemma of whether they want to have a quick look. "What the hell, nobody will know."

More please.