June's Queer Games Bundle 2023 (recap)
Earlier in the year we were lucky enough to have been able to participate in the 2023 edition of the itch.io Queer Games Bundle!
For those not in the know, the Queer Games Bundle is a collection of games and artworks by queer creators promoted together across various platforms during the month of June. Proceeds raised through this bundle are distributed directly to queer creators participating in the initiative!
As beautifully stated by the team behind the bundle; "[supporting] the Queer Games Bundle is a direct action that you can take right now to support queer people in a life-changing way... help nurture our diverse queer arts community, fund the creation of the next great game you love."
Some of the QGB highlights on Steam:
You can check out the entire bundle archived here (WARNING: there are some NSFW games included so just browse accordingly!)
QUEER GAMES BUNDLE INTERVIEW
As part of the QGB 2023, there were some interviews with featured developers planned that never quite made it online (because musky-musk’s Twitter decided to limit posting during this time, making promoting things essentially impossible). This is a copy of the interview Thomas from our team did with the QGB folks:
QGB: Who are you (and if applicable, your team)? What are your pronouns?
T: Thomas from Fnife Games, he/him they/them
QGB: What's your game about?
T: Small Town Emo is a walking sim adventure for GameBoy! Set in 2007, Small Town Emo follows the story of Ken, an emo teen with an awkward crush on his goofy best friend.
QGB: What's your favorite part of your game?
T: In Small Town Emo there's these sections where you use "MSM" Messenger to message your crush - it was fully such a blast to make an MSN interface for Gameboy. I also really enjoyed making a suuuper UNFUN "Bullet Hell" cellphone game for Ken's fliptop phone (an LG PM-225).
In general though, my favorite parts are the bits of fanfiction-esque awkward cringemode dialogue throughout the game.
QGB: How much did your game change from the original concept?
T: Heaps - it wasn't really a romance originally! It was going to be a very short, messy game jam kind of thing. But the spirit of Gay YA Fanfic Nonsense took the wheel, you know how it is.
QGB: What surprised you during development?
T: Early on we took the game to exhibit at a local Game Dev event and it really resonated with a few people... It's SO wild to have someone laugh at the jokes you've been cooking up at home. Watching another person get a crumb of catharsis or joy from something you've made, it's really humbling.
QGB: What led you to choosing the story for your game?
T: Drinking the double nostalgia juice. There's nostalgia in the GameBoy format; the graphics, the limitations, the iconic games it evokes... All those elements combine or juxtapose really nicely with nostalgia for mid 2000's emo-subculture and queer coming-of-age. It's a match made in Hot Topic (we didn't actually have Hot Topic in New Zealand RIP.)
QGB: What are your favorite tools to use?
T: Aseprite and GB Studio. Name a more ~iconique~ duo.
QGB: What have you learned since making your first game?
T: Playtest early, playtest often. Put yourself out there BEFORE you feel ready (you'll never feel ready.)
QGB: How are your design choices informed by you, your experiences, or your team's experiences?
T: I guess it's something like: we're a queer team working on queer projects, so there's already allowance for things to get biographical or semi-autobiographical. There's also lots of consulting and discussing and combining experiences, but in a really additive, smooth way, where stuff doesn't get diluted or washed out. We're combining queer voices with the same enthusiasm as kids making playground mud pies!
QGB: What's something you wish the public knew about game design?
T: Video games are just another medium for creating stuff! There's room for messy games, art games, personal stuff, and simply hot garbage. It's all good.
QGB: What games inspire you?
T: "Is It That Deep Bro?" by Moawling, "Butterfly Soup" by Brianna Lei. I'm also really inspired by Naomi Danielle's (@ndChristie) work. Also, not a game but I was listening to a LOT of Told Slant while working on the game. Love love love.
QGB: What makes a game fun to you?
T: I CRAVE a small, specific, curated experience. Don't care nothing about open worlds or expansive-ness. I like a deceptively deep puddle, rather than a big shallow lake. I wanna play something and think, like, "oh they were really feeling themselves when they made this - they got hyper focused on XYZ!"
QGB: Would you like to highlight a particular game by someone else in the bundle?
T: Still making my way through the list, but: 2064 Read Only Memories, Stillwater, He F**ked the Girl Out of Me, and Queer Man Peering Into A Rock Pool.jpg, just to name a few highlights.
QGB: What are you hoping to do with the QGB money?
T: It'd be wicked to do a physical release of Small Town Emo with like carts and a box and everything. But also: having some kind dollars to pay rent and eat food in our capitalist hellscape world is great too!