Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters have been depicted in video games since the 1980s. In the history of video games, LGBT characters have been almost nonexistent for a long time, reflecting the overall heteronormativity of the medium. While there has been a trend towards greater representation of LGBT people in video games, they are frequently identified as LGBT in secondary material, such as comics, rather than in the games themselves. In 2018, Gamesradar’s Sam Greer pored through thousands of gaming titles and found 179 games with any LGBT representation: Of those 179 games, only 83 have queer characters who are playable characters. And of those, only eight feature a main character who is pre-written as queer as opposed to them being queer as an option.
Homophobia has been widespread in men's association football, also known as soccer, throughout the world. Journalist Matt Williams stated that being a gay professional player in football is still a taboo, which journalist Simon Barnes has said will never change. In February 2013, football magazine When Saturday Comes described homosexuality as a "continuing taboo" in the sport. John Amaechi, the first NBA player to come out, has blamed football's "toxic" culture for the lack of openly gay players, while English former footballer Clarke Carlisle has called for more education to be given to players to combat homophobia. In June 2022, it was revealed that homophobia made up the majority of abuse aimed at footballers, 40% for men and 27% for women.
Anna Anthropy is an American video game designer, role-playing game designer, and interactive fiction author whose works include Mighty Jill Off and Dys4ia. She is the game designer in residence at the DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media.
Ronin is a turn-based action platform video game developed by Polish indie developer Tomasz Wacławek, designer at Polish indie studio Flying Wild Hog, and published by Devolver Digital. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 27 May 2015 into Steam Early Access and left it on 30 June 2015. A later update for the game introduced builds for OS X and Linux on 15 October 2015. A PlayStation 4 port of Ronin was released on 1 November 2016.
Itch.io is a website for users to host, sell and download indie games. Launched in March 2013 by Leaf Corcoran, the service hosts over 500,000 games and items as of April 2022.
merritt k, formerly Merritt Kopas, is a Canadian video game designer and developer, as well as an author and a zine creator.
The Republia Times is a free-to-play indie browser video game created by Lucas Pope, released in April 2012. In the game, the player takes the role of the editor of a newspaper torn between personal opposition to the government and threats to the lives of the editor's wife and children if the editor does not generate loyalty among the population.
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is an indie bartender simulation video game with visual novel elements, developed by Venezuelan studio Sukeban Games and published by Ysbryd Games. The game was initially released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on June 21, 2016, and ports were later released for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, with the Vita port developed by Wolfgame and published by Limited Run Games. The game puts the player in the role of a bartender at the eponymous VA-11 Hall-A, a small bar in a dystopian downtown which is said to attract the "most fascinating" of people. Gameplay consists of players making and serving drinks to bar attendees whilst listening to their stories and experiences.
One Night Stand is a visual novel video game developed by Kinmoku. Players take the role of a man who wakes up from a drunken one-night stand beside a stranger and must piece together the events of the previous night. It was based on a free game Kinmoku wrote for a game jam at itch.io. One Night Stand was released for PC in 2016, and Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019.
Tracks – The Train Set Game, commonly referred to as Tracks, is an indie simulation video game developed by British indie studio Whoop Games and published by Excalibur Publishing for Microsoft Windows. Originally released onto Itch.io in February 2017, the game was added to Steam's Early Access program in September. Tracks – The Train Set Game sees the player build a wooden toy train track. The video game was fully released on 11 October 2019.
Butterfly Soup is a visual novel developed by Brianna Lei and published in September 2017 for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The game has the player follow the perspectives of four queer Asian-American girls in Fremont, California, alternating between their first year of high school in 2008 and when they were young children. The coming-of-age story follows them as they join a baseball club and centers on the romance between the main character, Diya, and her friend Min, while also exploring the interactions between the characters' four different personalities.
Baba Is You is a puzzle video game created by Finnish independent developer Arvi Teikari. Originating as a short demo built for the 2017 Nordic Game Jam, the game was expanded and released on 13 March 2019 for PC and Nintendo Switch. Mobile versions were released in June 2021. The game centers around the manipulation of "rules"—represented in the play area by movable tiles with words written on them—in order to allow the player character, usually the titular Baba, to reach a specified goal. A free update titled "Baba Make Level" was released on November 17, 2021, featuring over 150 new and previously unused levels and a level editor with online sharing.
Nicky Case is a genderqueer Canadian indie game developer best known for developing video games such as Coming Out Simulator and Parable of the Polygons, both released in 2014. Case's most recent game, Adventures with Anxiety was released in 2019. Adventures with Anxiety is an interactive choose-your-own-adventure narrative game. Case's works are characterised by their interactive design and the recurring goal to “.. help people understand complex systems.” Besides designing and developing games, Case is active on their website and blog, regularly updating posts, short stories and comics about mental health, games and media culture, and recently, COVID-19 safety. They also post blogs teaching others math, how to code and how to make games.
Game Maker's Toolkit (GMTK) is a video game analysis series created and presented by Mark Brown, a British video game journalist. The show examines and explains various aspects of video game design and is supposed to help viewers consider the design of games that they play and to encourage developers to improve their craft. There are also more focused stems of the series, discussing issues of accessibility in video games or level design. The first GMTK video was published in 2014. The series is hosted on a YouTube channel of the same name and it is funded by viewers via Patreon.
Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning is a 2018 horror video game created by American indie developer Micah McGonigal, known by the pseudonym Mystman12. The game satirizes educational games of the 1990s through poor graphics and similar themes, and later deconstructed its elements into a metafictional horror genre in recent updates, such in conclusion of a package version Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered.
Juno Morrow is an American multidisciplinary artist, independent game designer, educator, and photographer whose work often deals with existential and ontological themes. Morrow received her B.A. from the University of Houston in 2009 and her M.F.A. from Parsons School of Design in 2015. She is an assistant professor of game design at the City University of New York's Eugenio María de Hostos Community College.
Fortune-499 is a role-playing video game in which the player takes on the role of an oracle working in the "magical resources" department of an unnamed corporation, and has to prevent an acquisition by monsters after the company makes an initial public offering. In-game combat is card-based and takes the form of rock paper scissors matches. The game was initially released for Windows in February 2018.
Patrick's Parabox is a puzzle video game created by indie developer Patrick Traynor. Originating as a short demo built in 2020, the game was expanded and released on 29 March 2022 for PC. The game centers around playing with infinity and recursion by pushing boxes into and out of other boxes, sometimes in and out of itself, in order to win the level by putting boxes into their spaces.
No Players Online is a short horror game released on Itch.io, a website for distributing indie games. It was created by Belgian university students Adam Pype and Ward D'Heer and sound designer Viktor Kraus as part of the Haunted PS1 Jam in November 2019. Initially intended to be a twenty-minute horror game, the developers continued to expand the game into an alternate reality game (ARG) involving cryptic messages and secret passcodes. Players quickly solved the ARG on a dedicated Discord server.
