My videos on game research and history.
- Be a Girl in Earthbound — Genderhacking!
Today I’m talking genderhacking – changing the genders of characters in videogames!
Featured Genderhacks:
- Transternalbound: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9714/
- The Legend of Zelda: Linkle’s Awakening DX: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9438/
- Pokémon Red/Blue Gender Selection: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4205/
- Roll-chan: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1704/
- Bowsette: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4163/
- Trans Ness: https://gamebanana.com/mods/470255
Notes:
- Transternalbound, Linkle’s Awakening screenshots taken by me.
- Pokémon Red/Blue Gender Selection screenshots from Zeera the Zesty.
- Mario image by Shigehisa Nakaue (artist) / Nintendo (owner) – Super Mario Wiki, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77729344
- Megaman image Copyright 2018 Capcom
- Link image from Tips & Tactics, Nintendo of America, pg. 6 (https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/File:TLoZ_Link_Blocking_Artwork_2.png)
- Linkle image from Hyrule Warriors (https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Linkle?file=HWL_Linkle_Crossbow_Artwork.png)
- Roll-chan and Bowsette screenshots from Zynk Oxhyde.
- Trans Ness image by Viv R.
- Pokémon’s Gender Transitions
Over the years, Pokémon has offered players more and more gender expression – here’s a quick rundown!
Special thanks to Rayn Olsen for fact-checking me. Also shout out to https://www.spriters-resource.com, https://www.serebii.net, and https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net for preserving game history!
To learn more about Pokémon biology, check out @kiraETSA !
- All Characters are Trans Now!
Representation matters and LGBTQIA+ folks make our own.
Recommended reading: Dym et al.’s “theyre all trans sharon”: Authoring Gender in Video Game Fan Fiction.
Zelda images from https://zeldawiki.wiki.
Metroid image from https://www.metroidwiki.org. - D&D is the Source of Videogames!
Dungeons & Dragons was once the most popular game ever and early programmers chased its magic. I run through a quick history tracing D&D to the earliest games to now.
The awesome Dr. Nick LaLone can be found at https://nicklalone.com/ and Bluesky @nicklalone.com.
Research
We’ve written a handful of papers on this:
- A Tale of Dungeons & Dragons and the Origins of the Game Platform
- Paper to Pixels: A Chronicle of Map Interfaces in Games
- A Quest?!: The Secret Life of Gameworld Punctuation
Credits
- Screenshots of roguelikes taken by myself and Nick.
- Original D&D image from Nick.
- Spacewar! image cc-by-2.0, Flickr user Joi.
- pedit5 images from OldGames.sk.
- Photographs of Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork taken by me from the Game Worlds @ ACMI exhibit.
- Metroid’s Samus is Trans
Samus, from Metroid, is trans – AMAB – assigned male at backstory!
Sources
- You can check out a scan of the original manual from Games Database or the reprint from Nintendo (that I used for my reproduction).
- Samus’ identity is revealed in the November / December 1989 Nintendo Power issue.
- The Super Metroid comic can be found at Metroid-Database.com.
