Heather Kelley is a genius. As well as being a game designer on Thief: Deadly Shadows, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and other games including a forthcoming undisclosed PSP title, she's also active in the women in games movement and Chair of the IGDA's Women in Games SIG. In her spare time (cough), she's managed to concoct an award-winning game idea that teaches women the finer points of female sexual arousal.
Lapis is only a demo at the moment, but after the honours were bestowed upon her at the Montreal Games Summit last month, the idea is to take the title to the Nintendo DS handheld, where the stylus and microphone can be used to stimulate the nose and tail of a digital bunny rabbit as it spirals towards firework-flavoured ecstasy. This is undoubtably the best female orgasm simulator that gamesblog has had the pleasure to play with (although please note that neither Greg nor Keith decided to touch this story with a 10-foot pole).
Before the description gets out of control, here's the low-down from Heather's site:
Depending on how you touch the bunny, it reacts to being touched.
Players manipulate the creature (bunny) on the touchscreen, which gives them magical energy to fly
You can touch the bunny in different ways – stroking, scratching, tickling, etc
Also can use the microphone to talk, sing to, blow on the fur…
The bunnies are analogous to female anatomy… not literal looking, but evocative ...
Many of the visuals of the game levels were taken from interviews with actual women about their surprising fantasies and thoughts during arousal and orgasm. Others are my own concoction - nonsensical cuteness and whimsy, or psychological symbology, intended to appeal to the female target audience and to reflect the fascinating, unpredictable synesthesia that can occur during female sexual arousal
Mmmmm, cupcakes.
Also worthwhile is the presentation which accompanies the demo. It delves into the process Heather went through in order to create the game, including rejected ideas (Left Hand of Darkness 1 & 2, Feeling around in the Dark) and her personal challenges (Reaching a New Market and Improve Actual Sex).
The hope is that the game would entertain females - without them ever needing to understand the sex metaphor. But at some point when they did start figuring out the connection to their own sexuality and pleasure, they would have learned some ideas and techniques behind sexual satisfaction
You can read an interview with Heather here, at the IGDA's Sex in Games SIG.
A great insight from that article:
Did working on a sexually-themed design change any preconceptions you had about sexually themed games?
It changed my preconception that sex-related games need to be about intercourse. My as-yet-unchanged preconception is that a game like the one I designed could never get funded, distributed, or properly marketed, but I welcome someone to change that one too!
Too true on both accounts. Congrats to Heather, albeit belatedly, for creating a game with sex that's whimsical and female-friendly!
Thanks Jack!
