nesdev.org

Myask wrote:

M_Tee wrote: ... having the other one kidnapped...

Love Story did some of that?

Yeah, it does.

Myask wrote: There's kind of a Morton's Fork here, between "only has creator-type" and "cultural appropriation"...and "properly" including a culture not the creator's costs time/money/influence, and may still bring cries of cultural appropriation

True, but when a character is something like "generic school kid", there's no risk in "generic dark/tan/light-skinned school boy/girl", and there's definitely no risk in giving the player a choice.

Myask wrote: Now consider if/when the generator spits out what amounts to blackface, a result not very possible with the small, indistinct faces in Lizard.

It seems to simply have 2-3 palettes predetermined for various skin tones, plus a few hairstyles. For it to make an offensive result, an offensive result would need to be programmed in there to begin with, so that's not an issue.

darryl.revok wrote:The palette situation for the game I'm currently programming is very tight. I need a palette for skin tones, and two palettes for pants unless the players are going to be the same colors and nearly indistinguishable. So that's three palettes to which I'm permanently tied. If the characters varied in ethnicity, then that's four palettes for the entire game. As it is, even, three fixed palettes and one variable seems like it will be hard to manage. But I suppose Contra did it.

Another issue with NES palettes are that a black person, if drawn with an outline, would need to be outlined in black, or lack a color for shadow, as far as I can see. This would limit backgrounds to being non-black. A lot of NES games tend to use a lot of black in the backgrounds to hide details and seams.

I wouldn't imagine that anybody here is fundamentally opposed to including people of other races in their games. There are undoubtedly considerations from a development end worth discussing. Since this topic began I thought about doing some mockups of different ethnicities if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Sorry, didn't check this post before posting my last one.

Actually, Contra just had 2 for players because the red player uses the same palette for his pants and his torso.
If you devote a whole three, it opens up a word of possibilities. (Also, you can share the palettes with NPCs, so you can get a variety of range of enemies as well, once you bring in the fourth, if you let one of your skin tones share for bullets, which is totally reasonable)

M_Tee wrote:

rainwarrior wrote:Samus could have been anyone until she took her helmet off.

...and then she stripped as a reward for the player. Although likely corrected in later entries, the original Metroid is a poor defending example of gender representation in games.

The suggestion was tongue-in-cheek, and for the record they did not change the "reward" in later entries. Also the original manual refered to her as a man. (I think there's a lot of leeway to interpret Samus as trans, if you're inclined to.)

My point, though, was that you don't necessarily get to know all sorts of details about a character. If you show their skin, you can see its colour, perhaps. If you'd like it to be up to the reader, hiding it is an option. Of course, details about a character can make them interesting too.


I think a lot of game manuals had biographical information on their characters because they didn't feel confident that the fantasy could be fully realized in the sights and sounds of the game. The extra detail were there to help make it feel more real in your imagination. These days we usually expect a game to do this on its own; manuals aren't really part of the experience anymore, even when playing old games (that were clearly made without that expectation).

Most old manual writing was pretty bland, with bland characterizations. They weren't really trying to make a new and interesting character, they were trying to borrow one you already knew. Rastan was deliberately using Conan to fill in the gaps in their expression of the character.

In Rastan II the second player was black, by the way. I think it's mostly just practical (the player sprite is mostly skin, so it's the best thing to swap palette with), though it might have been inspired by Wilt Chamberlain's character in the second Conan movie.

Anyhow, the lack of diversity in characters is a self re-inforcing problem. Any time you're imitating previous work, you're reinforcing its biases. You have to go out of your way, to get a different result.


My own feeling is that the most interesting thing you can do is to try and make the player think and interpret. Give them subtle details that hint about their past, but don't give them everything; a rich combination of hint and mystery. Give them something to ask questions about, and discuss with others. If a character is gay, for example, think about the ways that it has affected their past, or how it might inform their actions. Being a good writer in this way involves developing an understanding of people and psychology, and if that sounds like a lot of work that's probably because it is. Good writing is difficult. Blatant characterizations and borrowed tropes are a lot easier.

There's value in just giving explicit biography for characters too, though, especially in a game that has a lot of them. The difficult part is how to make use of them. Valkyria Chronicles, for example, had a lot of stats on each character that had biographical justification (penalty on grass if they have hayfever allergies, a lower aim stat justified by poor eyesight and glasses, various relationships with other characters affecting stats when they're near), and learning about each of them was to your advantage in gameplay.

M_Tee wrote:Also, I've frequently referenced the randomly generated player-mechanic of Lizard as inclusiveness done right... and the similar randomization in Super Russian Roulette (where everything except the character's complexion is randomized) as a blindly missed opportunity. That has a large part to do with why I backed Lizard and not the latter.

Thanks. I have multiple reasons for doing this that I could go on at length about, but I'd like to leave it to interpretation.

Also, I'm a big fan of people who take matters into their own hands.

Is the ninja's girlfriend just a pink ninja? If so, giving the player the option of selecting the pink or purple ninja at the beginning, having the other one kidnapped, and never revealing gender of either would probably be the most interesting way to handle the subject, especially considering that purple has no implied gender association. You could take a step further and also use another gender-neutral color, such as yellow (pretending the NES actually had a yellow in its palette) for the second ninja.

Or, the player could play as the purple until the ending, where in the ending, the purple character is "kidnapped" and the player controls the previous hostage for 2nd quest (higher difficulty level, palette swap for character playthrough). This could actually be a rather interesting way to turn the trope on its head.

Interesting. Rescuing a kidnapped loved-one is such a trope, isn't it? I mean even for movies.

And, I like rainwarrior's comment about Samus could be anyone under the suit. I suppose any character whos skin tone is never revealed (wearing a costume/suit) should allow a user of any ethnicity imagine that the character could possibly match their own. Maybe it's better to NOT have a 'reveal' moment.

That's a great option!

I mean, gender identity or sexual orientation is a lot less visual than gendered appearances and skin tone. Ambiguity is perhaps even more useful than in the skin tone example.

In my game, since it's absolutely trivial to implement a palette swap, allowing variation in (honestly pretty ambiguous) cultural background is just such an obviously easy feature. Male and female characters are present. The characters are mostly faceless and pretty small, so I feel no need to give them explicit background information. If somebody sees PPU color $35 as the skin of a white person, an asian person, a middle-eastern person, or anything else, it's up to them as the player.

Guilty wrote:If I play a game set in modern day New York then I expect there to be a wide range of colors. If I play a game set in a fantasy world full of European architecture I expect fantasy-European characters.

There are two issues I have with such a view:

The first is that Europe had exposure and interaction, including trade, with the Near East, the Far East, and Northern Africa starting long before the eras commonly used as source for Eurofantasy. These include, but are not limited to: The Silk Road, Alexander the Great, The Persian Conquests, The Roman Empire, sea trade, etc.

Simply put, an entirely white Europe is a fantasy construct (Link, Link, Link) as is also evident in the fact that persons of color represented during these time periods have often been painted over or are frequently cropped. (Link) On top of that, there is a wide range of appearance within any ethnicity. For example, Joan of Arc was a short, dark, and stocky French girl. However, she is often romanticized as frail, pasty, and blonde.

Second, fantasy is fantasy. As creators of fiction, if we choose to depict a fantasy world populated with solely white characters or heroes, then the creation of that white-fantasy world is entirely on us. "Historical Accuracy" also completely loses its merit when a dragon walks into town. How can having a non-white character break one's suspension of disbelief when goblins, gremlins, goos, and magic don't? Further reading (a fantastic round-table discussion from a diverse group of fantasy authors.)

rainwarrior wrote: Anyhow, the lack of diversity in characters is a self re-inforcing problem. Any time you're imitating previous work, you're reinforcing its biases. You have to go out of your way, to get a different result.

This is very true, and I'd say that in regards to the lack of diversity, probably 90% falls on the "well, I was just imitating previous games / genre material, etc." But, if we're not trying to better the work of the past, I see little reason to imitate it. And, as hobbyists, it's an uphill battle to improve upon the technical quality of the work created decades ago by teams of paid professionals, but inclusive content and increased cultural representation is an easy way to improve upon what has been offered before.

Also, unlike commercially-produced games, there is no corporate pressure to conform. As part of only a handful of people actively developing NES games these days, I feel that we hold a larger share of responsibility in what we add to the already-limited NES library.

mikejmoffitt wrote: ... If somebody sees PPU color $35 as the skin of a white person, an asian person, a middle-eastern person, or anything else, it's up to them as the player.

Forgive me, as I'm not sure if I've seen shots of your game, so I'm not aware of the exact circumstances. But, don't you think that, out of eleven reasonable skin tones, selecting the lightest, pinkest one, and stating that "it's up to the player to interpret race" feels like a bit of a cop out?

EDIT: Just saw your game here. The typical schoolgirl outfits show its influence in anime–which does get localized in a number of different regions. So, I'd say that although a full range couldn't be interpreted, a wider range than I had previously assumed could be. Game looks good, by the way.
I added some suggestions in your thread for it.

I don't think a mostly-light-skinned cast needs to be justified, and in fact, attempts to justify it are what leads developers into hot water in the first place.

Take my project for example, the players' skin tone is $27 (tangerine orange) because they already wear white and a lighter tone ($37 for example) wouldn't look good next to white. There's also a darker color, blue $12 or red $16 depending on which player it is, which is both an accent color and the outline color. That's all the thought that went into the skin tone. Any other explanation would likely be PR making something up in response to being under fire on social media, so it'd be untruthful and full of contradictions, and that's what gets devs in trouble.

M_Tee wrote:

mikejmoffitt wrote: ... If somebody sees PPU color $35 as the skin of a white person, an asian person, a middle-eastern person, or anything else, it's up to them as the player.

nesSkinTones.gif

Forgive me, as I'm not sure if I've seen shots of your game, so I'm not aware of the exact circumstances. But, don't you think that, out of eleven reasonable skin tones, selecting the lightest, pinkest one, and stating that "it's up to the player to interpret race" feels like a bit of a cop out?

EDIT: Just saw your game here. The typical schoolgirl outfits show its influence in anime–which does get localized in a number of different regions. So, I'd say that although a full range couldn't be interpreted, a wider range than I had previously assumed could be. Game looks good, by the way.
I added some suggestions in your thread for it.

Just to re-voice my clarifications - My post was pretty poorly written, it's not clear at all. I have full intentions to include many of the tones listed, I was rather trying to explain why I don't feel the need to be more specific about what $35 is supposed to refer to, and leave that to the discretion of the player.

I didn't read this whole thread, but my game will have a female protagonist.

Also there will not be a striptease at the end of the game where a better in-game accomplishments means more clothes taken off, this is not particularly gratifying for womens as a whole, despite having a female protagonist (hem hem.... Metroid ...)

In the linked article, I found a game incredibly similar to mine, which is incredible considering I didn't know about that game at all. Same genre, same mapper, and also a female protagonist. But the comparison stops here.

Can we have striptease with a male character please?

Espozo wrote:Can we have striptease with a male character please?

It's going to be such a missed opportunity if they don't include a bare-chested solid snake or something like that as an extra model for the photoshoot mode, if Konami & co. decides to release a Metal Gear Solid remake someday.

edit: anyway, the practical palette examples in this thread changed my mind about the "race" issue, since I'm not really an artist I thought skin tones weren't really a forte of the NES' video hardware... turns out I'm wrong. I'll definitely keep in mind the "ambiguous skin tone" thing, since trying to do decent "race" portrayals always felt too much like a walking on eggshells kind of situation to me.

More crotch bulge plz.

If you're making a game for yourself, I think you should represent whomever you want. Representing yourself (or people you know) might be important to you. There are sprite versions of myself in a few of my early game projects. I wouldn't fault anyone for doing this in their homebrew project. It's a natural thing in fiction to draw on people you know to create your characters; this isn't just an indie thing. A lot of good writers will go out of their way to meet and learn about new people, because it improves their palette of experience to draw from.

You don't have to make only characters who have the same background as you-- of course you don't-- but if you feel you shouldn't it probably has a lot to do with your lack of experience with that background. Solve this problem by doing research, meeting people, reading, observing, thinking. And of course, try to recognize where your concept of something is based on movies and dumb stereotypes rather than an experience of real people.


If you don't have a strong idea about who your character is, though, it's worth thinking about what you ended up choosing, and whether it could be different. Is the character's race motivated by the setting, by their past, by a particular fantasy, by a desire to represent someone you know, someone you don't know, no-one, everyone at once, someone impossible, a play on common tropes, humour, or...? If you don't have a reason for it, get one. There are good reasons to choose ambiguity too, I don't want to characterize that as the product of weak goals. I just want to stress that it's important to have a goal, here.


"I don't want to make my character race/gender/etc. X because I fear social backlash."

The only thing I can say about this is don't let fear motivate you, and have enough thought about what you're doing that you care about why your character is who they are, so that you can stand up for it. If you expect backlash, is it because you think you're doing something wrong, or is the expected criticism intellectually bankrupt? If you actually feel guilty about what you're doing, it may be worth changing your plans. If you feel good about what you're doing then stick with it. If you don't know what you're doing and are worried that everything you choose is wrong, then you probably should spend some more time trying to figure this out for yourself.

If you have goals that motivate your choices, it will help with this problem.

To be blunt, "diversity" is just about the last topic that comes to mind when I design a game. That said, my first game was about a cat, the second game about a white female elf. Games just...don't really touch on politics, for me. I know legions of insufferable people have made a big fat hairy deal about it, but in the words of Garfield:



Games are about childhood lightheartedness, not heavy grown up political joy killing nonsense.

Just my two cents!