Well I'm a girl
I just happen to lurk more on the forums than talk, partially because I'm super busy with school most of the time.
I'd love to be testing as well, but I had to turn it down due to real life crap
too many final projects to be immersing myself back in Aquaria world. The first time I played it, I could literally sit there for like 6 hours playing. I was obsessed.
As to something someone said on my brief run through of this thread: just because the main character that you play as is a girl doesn't make the game a girl game. Just like playing a game with a guy avatar doesn't make it a guy game... although I gotta say a few games I've played (mainly old school RPGs from like Super Nintendo) made me feel a little weird about naming my guy character with MY name... which is of course a girl's name
. "SARAH has kissed Nina" I actually got something like that in one of these games. Also... there aren't a whole lot of "good" games out there (in my tiny amount of experience) that either have a neutral target/ambience or which target girls (and aren't horse training, makeover, Barbie games... which are meant more towards helping shape girls into the "girly-girls" society wants us to be). I grew up with platformers on the actual consoles I had, and I played RPGs on emulators on my comp... I loved things like Bahamut Lagoon (although some of it pissed me off EDIT: I didn't like Yoyo... she was... well, a yoyo, between the two "love" interests, and I also didn't like that she seemed so weak in some of the parts of the game, in spite of the fact that she was one of the more powerful fighters because of her summons) and Breath of Fire, Breath of Fire II... some others I don't remember, it's been quite a while. I loved Mario and Sonic, Kirby... which could be kind of gender bending actually, since you don't really know what Kirby is. I grew up with Tetris and Dr. Mario and Zelda (still love the first one, too). I used to like playing those fighting games all the time, even if there's no real point to them. I've played a few shooters, strategy games, etc. too, and some of which are most assuredly more "masculine" than feminine, but that's probably on par with most games out there.
I think Aquaria is one of those rare, special games where it has many elements that pull both genders in. I love the shooter aspects, although my mouse is almost always messed up, and so sometimes it's a bit hard to get coordinated. I love exploring, and I love the puzzles. The singing/color matching and symbols are all really up my alley, because I love that kind of stuff, too. I love merpeople, I love watching fishies, and I obsess about the music.
I don't really game much anymore, in terms of platformers and action games and whatever. I've stuck mainly to... Aquaria, a single MMORPG, and some puzzle games in the last years. The MMO pisses me off, because there's bugs galore, and because I'm at a point where it's hard to really get things going anymore. I still love Aquaria even though my comp needs some upgrading to really perform well with it. Puzzle games are still good but are sometimes too easy for me. I literally beat one in like 2 hours and felt like I'd been cheated because I bought the full version (and I found out later that I could have just reinstalled the trial and been able to continue playing because the game didn't take into account that I'd used my 60 minute trial up in a previous installation >.>).
So, I guess my next set of questions is: Do you consider puzzle games feminine? What other gaming styles do you consider feminine? Why does playing a "feminine" game make you uncomfortable (if it does)?
Hmm, all sorts of things to type out, but I think I should quit for now. Procrastination is evil, and yet I do it every day.
