Looking at Dys4ia

Dys4ia appealed to me for multiple reasons. It deals with femininity and identity which is a main theme I find myself exploring over and over again in my work. It is a vulnerable game that gives the player a glimpse into Anna Anthropy’s experience of gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy. Although I haven’t played the game myself, watching the walkthrough I thought a game was an effective way of letting the player experience the frustrations of the roadblocks faced by Anthropy. While a cis player can never truly understand the experience Anthropy went through, and the game doesn’t seek out to have that effect, gameplay allows someone to inhabit the body of someone else like an avatar in a much more intimate way than just by reading about the experience or watching a video. It’s one thing to read about how frustrating an experience is, it’s another to experience the frustration of not being able to progress in a game because of unfair rules and red tape.