Shakespeare's Landlord Chat #6 - But Seriously Folks

WARNING: This episode may cause trigger warnings due to descriptions of sexual violence. Jean is back this week from the Jalloo Festival of Animation and Gaming, and Blair is back from a Costa Rican tech trade delegation. This week we are talking about Serious Games: video games that do more than just entertain. We get into the violent details of Chapter 5 in "Shakespeare's Landlord". Lily Bard is a character who was kidnapped and violently raped, and physically scarred by her attackers. This forms the basis of her character. Lily is a survivor who keeps people at arms distance. But there are other topics of racial hatred and violence contained within Charlaine's Lily Bard series. We discuss the challenges of adapting these novels as interactive works. Our goal is to create a work that creates empathy with victims of violence and abuse. We talk about the games that have made a difference for us in dealing with mature subject matter. I mention the board game version of the video game "This War of Mine", and in particular a Tom Vasel's review that claimed that TWoM is a GREAT GAME but that he wondered if he would ever play it again due to the intensity of the emotions that he had while playing it. (see his review here) We wonder if people might lose enjoyment of our game because of the inclusion of Lily's triggers; however, our audience lets us know that the reason they return to the series is because of their love for the Lily Bard character and her growth. We can only hope to achieve this in the making of our game.