5 Beautiful Computer Games With An LGBT Message

These computer games explain complicated experiences, and they are a delight to play.

1. Mainichi

mattiebrice.com

Mainichi is a game in which you are a trans woman going on a simple outing: a coffee date with a friend. Depending on the choices you make when getting ready and ordering coffee, people react to you differently, and you feel differently. However: there are no right choices, as you learn -- the game never ends, but repeats the scenario over and over.

Download Mainichi here.

mattiebrice.com

mattiebrice.com

mattiebrice.com

Mainichi is rough to play, and it wears on you, but that's what's so powerful about it.

2. A Closed World

gambit.mit.edu

In A Closed World, you fight "demons," who are depicted as your father, your brother, your lover's parents, your lover, and, finally, your past self. You vanquish the demons with logic, passion, and ethics. They damage your composure using those three tactics, as well.

Play A Closed World here.

gambit.mit.edu

gambit.mit.edu

gambit.mit.edu

The game is heartbreaking, mystical, and a little confusing. You won't regret playing it.

3. Lim

mkopas.net

Lim is a very abstract game about not fitting in. You are a flashing, rainbow square traveling along a path towards the finish line. However, the other squares you encounter on your way are not rainbow -- they are brown or purple, and they repeatedly punish you for being different by ramming into you. You have several options: "blend in," which will also have negative effects, or allow yourself to be shoved out of the maze, where you are no longer terrorized, but you are completely alone.

Play Lim here.

mkopas.net

mkopas.net

mkopas.net

But only play it if you are okay with loud sounds and shaking graphics. And fair warning, you will be surprised at how you are affected on a deeply emotional level.

4. Situate Yourself

youtube.com

Situate Yourself is a choose-your-own-adventure game in which you live your life as an LGBT person, navigating important life decisions around which rights you have in America. Each choice you make results in a positive or negative result, as well as an informative page teaching you about LGBT rights across the country.

Play a prototype of Situate Yourself here.

sarahpipergoldberg.com

sarahpipergoldberg.com

sarahpipergoldberg.com

You'll learn important information about LGBT rights in America, as well as the kinds of difficult decisions you must make when you don't have some of those rights.

5. Dys4ia

newgrounds.com

Dys4ia allows you to play simple games throughout a personal story of transitioning. It highlights the difficulties of jumping through the hoops that are required of this person as they struggle through the transition. It is biting, funny, and very smart.

Play Dys4ia here.

newgrounds.com

newgrounds.com

newgrounds.com

It will not only help you see the complexities of transitions and the systems in which they occur, but it's really cute and fun.