Still Think Game Designers Are Running Out of Ideas?

[Jason Tandro]

I present this MSNBC News Clip (Original story here):

"Once upon a time, there was a video game that inspired a controversy (as video games are sometimes wont to do).

It was the year 2008, and the game was called “Fat Princess.” Although this game had not yet launched and was not anywhere near completion, some folks took note of the game’s title, understood it to be a game in which players turn petite princesses into plus-sized princesses by feeding them cake, and decided it was time to get their pitchforks out and start waving them in the air.

These people — women who consider themselves feminists — declared the game hostile to ladykind, offensive to overweight people and, apparently, unsympathetic to the plight of royalty everywhere. And so they did what offended people do in these modern times — they blogged about how offended they were.


Some other people read these blogs, and — many of them being mean-spirited menfolk and the sorts of hairy trolls usually found living under bridges — started using their own blogs and e-mail accounts to call these women not-so-nice names (you know, to prove that video games and the people who play them really aren’t hostile to women).

And just like that, discourse on the topic of women, weight and video games had hopped aboard the express train to Flame War Town with some people accusing the pitchfork-wielding feminists of being a bunch of humorless video-game-hating killjoys and others accusing gamers of being a bunch of misogynistic mouth-breathing fanboys of the most Neanderthal kind.

Did I mention that no one had actually played “Fat Princess” yet?

Here we are one year later and “Fat Princess” has finally arrived on the PlayStation Network and I have finally played it and I am, as it turns out, a woman. All of this, I believe, qualifies me to say: I don’t know what the big fat deal is.


Artist Weng Chen, the woman who created the concept art for the princesses, believes portly can be pretty too.
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I’m a pro-woman kinda woman (Go women!) who would happily pay the dues to join Club Feminist (we do pay dues, right?) And yet, there’s not a single pro-woman bone in my body that is offended by this game. (Does this mean my membership application is going to be rejected?)

As video games go, “Fat Princess” is fun, funny and well-crafted. It’s done in a playful style and has a wicked sense of humor about almost everything. And while it does star two adorable and, yes, sometimes chubby cartoon princesses and does feature buckets of cartoon blood, I can’t say that it seems particularly hurtful or harmful to anyone.

Stick that in your cake hole
The skinny on “Fat Princess” is this: It is a fast-paced game set in a cartoonish fairytale world — a medieval world in which the Red Kingdom and the Blue Kingdom are engaged in a brutal war thanks to some magically delicious cake.

You, the player, are but a lowly subject in one of the kingdoms, sprinting about a chaotic battlefield trying to keep the enemy princess locked up in your castle while also saving your own princess from the opposing team’s castle. You’re also tasked with slicing, dicing and generally mowing down your enemies as fast as you can (cue the blood splatter). You can play the game by yourself, but it’s really meant to be played against others online in epic multiplayer battles.


“It’s basically all about cooperation, chaos, having a great time and just having a giggle,” says Craig Leigh, Titan Studios creative director and the lead designer behind “Fat Princess.”


In "Fat Princess" you are a lowly subject in a fairytale kingdom caught in a chaotic battlefield. Keep the enemy princess locked up in your castle while also saving your own princess from the opposing team’s castle.
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The fun is amped up by a couple of clever gameplay twists. For starters, while games often require players to pick a class or team role and stick with it, “Fat Princess” allows gamers to play one of five different classes (priests who heal, workers who build stuff, warriors who handle the close-range combat, etc.) But with “Fat Princess,” you can switch class at any time simply by changing the hat your character wears. Change up your game on the fly, try your hand at whatever role suits yer fancy … the frantic freedom is a blast.

Meanwhile, though it’s a “capture-the-flag” kinda game, you don’t actually try to capture a flag. You try, instead, to capture/rescue the aforementioned princesses. But in order to prevent the opposing team from rescuing their princess, you must feed her pieces of cake so she grows heftier and therefore becomes more difficult for your enemies to haul off.

Producer Chris Millar says the idea for the rotund royalty came about simply as an extension of the game’s zany, irreverent DNA (think Monty Python meets Itchy & Scratchy).

“The damsel in distress is a very archetypical situation, and the idea of the princess enjoying cake and eventually getting larger and harder to carry back, it just added to the overall nature of the game,” he says. “The game is just really silly overall.”

Both Millar and Leigh insist they were surprised by the big “Fat Princess” brouhaha. After all, they thought it was the blood and gore that was going to get people’s britches in a bind.

“We were worried people would be freaking out about the fact that it looks like ‘Animal Crossing’ but you can, like, throw a bomb and blow people to smithereens,” Millar says. “So we were caught off guard by the amount of attention the game got just for someone eating a lot of cake and getting big.”



[Note: I reccomend you visit the original page to see the hilarious artwork!]

[tay120n64]

Did you only just hear about this game?

I've known about it for awhile. It looks rather humorous, but I'm not really into strategy games.

[Freedan]

I remember reading all about the game when they first started advertising it. I never cared enough about it to actually get it, but it sounded like it was capable of a laugh or two.

I didn't expect such a huge eruption over it, but honestly, I shouldn't be surprised that someone takes offense over the most inconsequential things and blows it out of proportion.

[EverPhoenix]

its funny that people get offended over stuff like that, yet games where you can brutally and graphically disembowel someone get no attention at all

[inferiare]

its funny that people get offended over stuff like that, yet games where you can brutally and graphically disembowel someone get no attention at all

This. Games where OH MY GOD WE'RE MAKING GIRLS FAT!!!11onecactus is what gets everyone up in arms. But as EP said, stuff like say, Prototype? No one freaked out that the game was a huge gore-fest and you CONSUME PEOPLE to regenerate your health. Uh, where were they then? Seriously, Feminazis get their knickers in a knot over ANYTHING nowadays.

[Ratty Randnums]

Well, at least they're not talking about how video games are going to cause us to all go out and shoot up the nearest convienient location.**

I don't think it's *all* about the fact that a major part of the game is fattening a female character (though probably half the controversy would have never happened if it'd been "Fat Princes"). Another chunk of it is that we're going through an "Obesity Epidemic" in the USA - best described years ago here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G33WvuOw ... re=related IMO.

**One of the best episodes of "Penn & Teller's Bullshit" on just this subject http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peLMsYqlDd0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6lv3A0iMTI&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw23WyozVG8

[Mantaray]

This is a very silly thing to get upset over. First, people were worried about violence in games, then obscenities, and now obesity? Mhm, totally uncommon.

It could make people cut back on junk food, because they would not want to end up like that princess. A silly riot just further reminds us to not judge a book by its cover. You have to read it first to have your own fair opinion. Yeesh. Feminists.

[SoulBlazerFan]

The actual issue here is people need a reason to be mad at one another. People WANT to debate. People want controversy. They want to be heard. It isn't about the game whatsoever. Do you think Jack Thompson gives two shits about games? Reverend Al Sharpton gives a shit about black peple being oppressed, or Jessie Jackson? They all have their pockets lined as it is. This just get's them more attention, what their looking for, and it is another annoying and useless human need.

I'll give a similar idea; remember the Don Imus controversy? He said something really idiotic- he called a varsity girls basketball team a "Bunch of nappy-headed hos." He went to apologize to Sharpton on Sharpton's show, and end the controversy. But Sharpton kept at him, ripping him apart, and Imus blurted out "You people never let up, do you?"

"You people," of course, meaning the goons, who attack anyone and everyone because they want their due attention.

Now, my honest opinion is he wasn't refering to black people when he said "you people." We all know that. Sharpton and the black community knew that, as well. However, if you're famous, once you've said something, it's over, and he couldn't very well try and actually defend himself- calling Sharpton and his people "Goons."

If Al Sharpton read this, I'd probably be on a pitchfork myself. But the reality is this; people need reasons to be mad.It's a weak, interal human issue. But that's what it comes down to, doesn't it? We all must fill our inner voids somehow.