LifeLine 2018 v1.0 Released!

When I initially began thinking of ideas for an intervention type game that engages in critical play, I knew I wanted it to be centered around my experience of transphobia. I wanted people to understand what it’s like when I am misgendered in class, when I am denied access to healthcare because of my identity, when I am not allowed in certain spaces because it is physically unsafe for me to exist. I wanted that experience to be something that cisgender folks see and understand. Initially, I wanted my game to be a virtual interactive fiction game where players play as a Trans Lifeline volunteer, on the night of the Trump Memo leak, when call-in rates quadrupled. I used the open source code from Nicky Case’s Coming Out Simulator, 2014 as the base for my game. 

I got about halfway through coding it when I realized that the context in which people were intervening was unclear. Were they intervening in the context of transphobia in daily life, or were they intervening in the context of that specific night at the Trans Lifeline call center? I realized that I wanted folks to intervene in the context of daily transphobia, so I changed the narrative and decided to allow players to play as me. I wanted people to feel and experience the transphobia I encounter on a daily basis, and I wanted folks to be able to intervene in those situations where transphobia is particularly clear. More importantly, I wanted cisgender folks especially to see how they perpetuate transphobia every single day even when they don’t mean to or realize it. 

The final product of the game goes through 5 different scenarios, all of which are true stories, to replicate one full day. Players choose the response they want to give when prompted and the story unfolds from there. Ultimately, the fate and order of how the story ends remains the same, but I hope that people will play through the game more than once so that they can see the different paths the game can take.