I wasn't referring to the issues over what Apple was willing to put on the Appstore. What struck me is that it seems like the intended narrative is that the venues get weirder and weirder. I.E. you encounter the couples completely covered in leather and then the bears later in the game. However, you also encounter the "interracial couples" later than the "white couples" as though that's something weird. Not only that, for a number of levels all you see are interracial couples like you're putting fires out at some sort of zebra club venue. So, my thought was that before you get to the places that are just leather couples and/or bears, the couples you encounter should just be random rather than exclusive and you should probably incorporate light guy/dark girl and dark guy/dark girl combos as well and perhaps reexamine the other particulars like how apparently blonde women won't be seen with a light-skinned man, etc.
Wow, that's a good point. I was pretty in-and-out about the identity politics of the NPCs. It has been so long, I can't remember what I did. I'm pretty sure I used USA population metrics to seed the race... or maybe I didn't... I honestly can't remember. Your observation about an increasing weirdness is true though and something that I didn't realize. The short answer is, yes, I probably should have randomized race. I feel like in the two years since I released this, my views on race and sexuality have changed. Strangely, almost all my solo work since then has avoided human normative representation -- I've used things like slime monsters, animals and non-corporal gods. In a large part, HOT MESS (for me, many people worked on this game) was about my naivety around matters of gender and love. It was a ode to a chaotic mess I felt like I was and that I made. I threw in shallow references to a Japanese feminism I had no hope at understanding, allusions to 20th century love hotels and tried to tie it all together with a disjointed attempt at theologizing a Ke$ha album. All in level names (or so I think -- I always hope concentrating on inane details loops back to macro-feel). It was also a blunt admission of some of the breaking decisions I made with lovers earlier in my life. A mad glee, not (only) of destruction but also. Sort of like the maenads through the filter of overly-quantitative 2013 internet life... or a glitch bacchanalia. Anyways, I really wish I knew where to go identity-politics-wise. I am very drawn towards representing the player as female (as was the avatar in my favorite Secret Library game, COOL PIZZA (although that was Matt Marchini's design)). I am less clear about how to portray race. There is a lot of talk about cultural misappropriation lately, but I hope that doesn't mean that we see less culture-mashing and sharing. I think the best thing I can do is be true to the realities and optimisms of my time. I would hope my work connects beyond languages and skin colors, but thinking about your comments I think I went off the rails. Thank you for the crticism.
Is it gone? Not available in the german appstore anymore. Checked my purchase history and it's also gone! Fortunately, i got a copy on itunes. That's sad!##
