Month: August 2015

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Sexy is not bad. Stripping is not bad. Wearing sexy boots is not bad. You know what is bad? Pandering is. Being a lazy designer at the cost of catching a wider audience is.
A bounty hunter who runs over rugged terrain does not need stripper boots, she needs something with treads and function that can *gasp* still be sexy. I can picture a hybrid boot design that is feminine but rugged, functional but badass.
You know what conveys things like “boosters” and “power” and “high jump”? Springs, coils, energy cells, treads, jets… you don’t have to be literal but you also might want to show, not tell, what a prop does.

High-Jump Stripper Boots! by stephlaberis

Very important quote from this article regarding Samus’s high heels, but it applies to character and costume design in general.

~Ozzie

(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)

Worth bringing back that there’s nothing wrong with sexy in itself, but there’s a time and a place for everything.  When you’re trying to convey epic action and epic danger is not the time for epic sexy time clothes.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Sexy is not bad. Stripping is not bad. Wearing sexy boots is not bad. You know what is bad? Pandering is. Being a lazy designer at the cost of catching a wider audience is.
A bounty hunter who runs over rugged terrain does not need stripper boots, she needs something with treads and function that can *gasp* still be sexy. I can picture a hybrid boot design that is feminine but rugged, functional but badass.
You know what conveys things like “boosters” and “power” and “high jump”? Springs, coils, energy cells, treads, jets… you don’t have to be literal but you also might want to show, not tell, what a prop does.

High-Jump Stripper Boots! by stephlaberis

Very important quote from this article regarding Samus’s high heels, but it applies to character and costume design in general.

~Ozzie

(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)

Worth bringing back that there’s nothing wrong with sexy in itself, but there’s a time and a place for everything.  When you’re trying to convey epic action and epic danger is not the time for epic sexy time clothes.

– wincenworks

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But people assure me that this is just all in my imagination and there’s nothing wrong with the state of games.

SSG warned me in advance about Sakura Clicker in a submission. Not only did Steam actively and repeatedly try to sell it to me, but today I came across a video of Jim Sterling demonstrating the “compelling gameplay” (headphones recommended for the dignity of yourself and those around you).

Karos Returns is apparently the sequel to the Russian language MMORPG Karos, which one of the commentors described as: 

“Russian Aion With Horrible Characters”.  As you can see… it’s not exactly getting rave reviews.

Cradle is allegedly quite good and arthouse… but personally I find their choice of imagery to use in the promotional pics and video to be somehow generic yet exceptionally creepy.  I am quietly confident there are better ways to showcase it than showing you removing the face and boobs from sexy gynoid… or at least I HOPE there are.

Microvolts Surge is, from what I can gather, a game that lets you play either as the pictured sexy lady, a poor imitation Army Man or one of a few offensive racial stereotypes… because apparently it’s that sort of game!

– wincenworks

BABD’s Steam Group and Curator Store Page (make my suffering worthwhile)

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“A group of college boys find their world taking a dramatic turn when a pretty girl joins them in their tabletop role-playing game (RPG) session.”

I can’t work out if this is supposed to parody or is just completely lacks self awareness… and I don’t want to financially support it by buying a copy.

It’s 2015! The Guild has been out for seven years now and World Famous Nerd Princess Felicia Day (thisfeliciaday) has shamelessly been playing DnD for longer.  Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress came out around the same time.  There are long lists of women who write RPG materials.  Women have been part of these games since forever!

How is “Oh my God! Does a girl really want to play a role playing games with us nerd guys!?” still a thing!? How did nobody in the publication process spot the obvious problems with these covers!?

– wincenworks

Ugh. This thing reeks of Big Bang Theory-style understanding of how male geeks look, behave and interact with women.

The only non-shitty “a girl joins a bunch of nerd boys in a roleplaying game” scenario that I recall is that Dexter’s Laboratory episode in which DeeDee, with no prior experience, proves to be a much more awesome Game Master than her brother.

image

How could she not be, though? She invented dungeon-forest!

image

And that was back in 1997. What went wrong since then?

~Ozzie

Posted on

“A group of college boys find their world taking a dramatic turn when a pretty girl joins them in their tabletop role-playing game (RPG) session.”

I can’t work out if this is supposed to parody or is just completely lacks self awareness… and I don’t want to financially support it by buying a copy.

It’s 2015! The Guild has been out for seven years now and World Famous Nerd Princess Felicia Day (thisfeliciaday) has shamelessly been playing DnD for longer.  Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress came out around the same time.  There are long lists of women who write RPG materials.  Women have been part of these games since forever!

How is “Oh my God! Does a girl really want to play a role playing games with us nerd guys!?” still a thing!? How did nobody in the publication process spot the obvious problems with these covers!?

– wincenworks

Ugh. This thing reeks of Big Bang Theory-style understanding of how male geeks look, behave and interact with women.

The only non-shitty “a girl joins a bunch of nerd boys in a roleplaying game” scenario that I recall is that Dexter’s Laboratory episode in which DeeDee, with no prior experience, proves to be a much more awesome Game Master than her brother.

image

How could she not be, though? She invented dungeon-forest!

image

And that was back in 1997. What went wrong since then?

~Ozzie

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Tidy up Tuesday #1

As you can imagine we get a lot of requests, asks, submissions, etc that we don’t end up posting for one reason or another.  Often it’s because they’re regarding a topic we covered some time ago or something else takes priority – so now we’re going to try doing an additional post every week to just tidy up.

thegreatwidesomewhere is currently doing a research paper on sexism within the video games and how it effects female gamers.  She would love for some of our followers to contribute by filling out this short questionnaire.

monkeytights asked what armor can inspire Varric to flaunt his bare arms in Dragon Age Inquisition: You need to dress him in a heavy armor (which needs to be made using material that remove restrictions)

magical-girl-kickline asked if it’s okay to submit battle/action costumes that are not technically armor. So long as it’s a commercial production and it’s an outfit the female character is supposed to credibly fight in – we’ll certainly consider it provided it fits within our Submission Guidelines.

We’ve been asked if we can recommend some blogs that regularly post good armor, we have a list on the Related Sites Page.  It also covers similar sites like Escher Girls and The Hawkeye Initiative.  If you’re considering submitting something that is kind of what we post but different, we highly recommend checking the related sites page.

Also not directly related to BABD but still important: A Kickstarter called Invisibility Blues: Exploring Race in Video Games is in it’s final days – they’ve already met their goal and have set some great stretch goals.  I highly recommend checking them out and considering supporting if you are able.

– wincenworks