So this morning I get up and find my partner has IMed me about a game design decision… it read something like this.

her: just wanted to mention it while I thought of it. do we want to limit wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend to only apply when the NPC and escort are different genders? I don’t care either way

Naturally, I read that and was totally thunderstruck. And here was my instant response.

me: ::LOL:: You know what. Normally I would actually say no… let’s not confuse players with homosexual partners. But because I am so pissed off over prop 8, I think we should have them!
her: lol. does it help if it is easier to allow it?
me: Yeah, but now I get to say it was a deliberate choice regardless. Mwaha.

So there we were, with homosexual characters in our game. ::LOL:: Naturally we take it to playtest and, as predicted, the first playtester who ran into a (clearly) female sprite who was looking for their wife became extremely puzzled. “Wait, is this a guy?? … no… I guess… they must be lesbian??”

Me and Brandi are totally cracking up in the usability room and Tracy is just staring with this “what is wrong with you” look on her face. We finally manage to explain it to her and she tries really hard not to laugh while telling us that it probably is way too confusing to have in the final version.

Though on the other hand, another playtester came out to find us after his session was over and was like, “dude! I was so excited when I thought your game was a reaction to the whole prop 8 mess and was really disappointed when I found out it wasn’t.” XD

Ah well. It was entertaining, regardless.