Revolution 60 A game by and about badass wo

men
"If girls don't like the way games are made," runs the popular intern
et adage, "Why don't they just make their own?"
Enter Giant Spacekat, an indie studio who is doing just that !fter a su
ccessful "ickstarter campaign last year ## $ringing in %&',(') of its %*,
+++ goal ## the team has just released its ,rst game- .e/olution 0+ for
i1ad, descri$ed as "2ea/y .ain meets 3ass E4ect" in a stunning &50+
s
retrofuturistic aesthetic, inspired $y Space
6hannel *
Giant Spacekat is a four#woman team consisting of co#founders 7riann
a Wu and !manda Sten8uist Warner 9also de/elopment head and lead
animator respecti/ely:, lead programmer 3aria Enderton and game d
esigner 6arolyn ;anEseltine <he game stars 2oliday, an assassin in a
four#woman team of co/ert operati/es, including commander 3inuete,
engineer !melia, and the mysterious ;alentina
"!s a female gamer, part of what moti/ated me to make .e/olution 0+
was to tell a story where women are the heroes," Wu told 6=E< "<o m
e, what I'/e found most frustrating a$out games all my life is women $
eing a loose collection of stereotypes ## not people It's rare in !=> ent
ertainment to see women sol/e pro$lems together as people ## not as t
he girlfriend or lo/e interest"
re/olution0+#'jpg
Giant Spacekat
Interestingly, though, the .e/olution 0+ team did not start out as a gr
oup of women <he original script had a team of two women and two
men <his e/ol/ed into four women as Giant Spacekat $oth ran into pr
actical snags and realised that a team of four women would allow the
m to tell a story that spoke more to their own e?periences and what th
ey wanted from the game
"I think the characters ine/ita$ly re@ect our personalities 3y lead ani
mator, !manda Warner, will often study her own facial e?pressions in t
he mirror, and then recreate them in the characters !s for me, I did
most of the writing ## so each of the main characters re@ects di4erent
parts of my personality," Wu said "When 3inuete is $eing a hard#nose
d commander, that's part of me coming through When !melia is gi/in
g people unapologetic sass, that's part of me too 3ore than anything,
I think the women in r0+ feel genuine, like they're real, @awed peopl
e"
!nd the focus on women doesn't just come through in the story <he g
ame's $attle system ## designed $y Aenna 2o4stein ## is a com$ination
of touchscreen#$ased 8uick time e/ents and a more methodical turn#$
ased system played $y leaping around a small grid to a/oid enemy ,re
and return it
<his, Wu said, was designed speci,cally to appeal to e/eryone, with a
careful eye on how women play games as compared to how men play
"3y company did something /ery di4erent I wish the industry would p
ay attention to When you put out a call for playtesters, the /ast major
ity of people who write you $ack are '+#year#old hardcore gamers !n
d without work, that's who ends up in your testing pool <he means /i
deogames are fre8uently de/eloped for '+#something male gamersB W
e made sure that *+ percent of our playtesters were women, since alm
ost *+ percent of gamers are women these days !s a result, .e/olutio
n 0+ appeals to women in /ery speci,c ways," she e?plained
re/olution0+#Cjpg
Giant Spacekat
"When you watch a guy playtest a game, they fre8uently want to attac
k as fast as possi$le I ha/e gone into playtests and seen men hammer
on the i1ad so hard I was afraid they would $reak the screen What's i
nteresting is, women generally don't approach a game like that <he t
witch re@e?es for an In,nity 7lade stress them out So, we made a ga
me that relies on pattern recognition and timing," she said, stressing,
"It's not that .e/olution 0+ is game made just for women 7ut, $y incl
uding women in our testing ## we made it a game accessi$le to women
.e/olution 0+ is the ,rst in a series of three games, and Wu said the n
e?t game will see se/eral impro/ements, $ased on what Giant Spacek
at has learned from the creation of their /ery ,rst game
".e/olution 0+ was written in phases, o/er the course of se/eral years
7ecause of that, it occasionally su4ers from une/en pacing <he se8u
el is a tighter, more focused story >ou see 2oliday e/ol/e as she's not
$eing sent to die, $ut the one sending people to die <he things she $e
lie/es are not as simple when she's in charge ## and she wrestles with
that," she said
"I think where we can do $etter is to di/ersify the $ody types a $it mor
e I am e?tremely tall and skinny ## and that's re@ected in our characte
r models 7ut, when we made the character designs $ack in '+&&, I di
d not understand just how much female gamers wanted a /ariety of $o
dy types In the se8uel, you're going to see other kinds of women repr
esented ## $ecause we are all $eautiful<witter9 https-DDtwittercomD>E6
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