Looking Outwards 11 Ellan Suder

Short Biography of Angela Washko: Angela Washko has a BFA in painting/drawing/sculpture and an MFA in Visual Art. She currently works as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon. Broadly speaking, her work focuses on feminist issues, “creating new forums for discussions of feminism in spaces frequently hostile toward it.” For example, she has operated The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft since 2012.

“The Game” by Angela Washko is a dating simulator video game about pick-up artists, where the player is a woman being aggressively pursued by 6 men that attempt to. The dialogue is the strongest part of the game, but the rough graphics, almost horror-like close-ups, and intense music add to the disturbing quality of the experiences.

The player can choose between several responses that range from positive, where you accept and play into the PUA’s techniques, and negative, where you rebuke the PUA’s advances.

I really like the game as it is now. I think Washko could lean in further to the ‘dating simulator’ aspect. Right now it presents the choices in a fairly equal and straightforward manner, so most may just reflexively choose the options where you refuse the PUA’s, but adding an in-game scoreboard/consequences to each choice (for example, if you act ‘rudely’ and refuse a man you lose ‘social standing’) would add to the suppressive awkwardness of the exchanges and perhaps make the player feel more self-conscious of choosing the options where you don’t play along.