So during the Steam holiday sale, I decided to pick up this game, Read Only Memories. I was really only expecting a cute point and click adventure game, but well, what I found was a loooot better.

So basically, the game itself is a cyberpunk point and click adventure, as I said. But the part that's relevant to this sub is its progressiveness-this game handles diversity in one of the best ways I have ever seen. For starters, you can be any gender you wish-early on, the game asks you your chosen pronouns and includes a huuuge variety of choices, plus the ability to make your own. Plus, one of the major characters is non-binary, there's toooons of gay and PoC characters. The best part is that the characters themselves are not just that one character trait-in fact, many of them never comment on their gender identity or sexuality aside from their pronouns or meeting their spouse-it's just there. Not ignored, but not their only character trait either.

Meanwhile, a large part of the story is animal-human hybrids are being discriminated against. I don't wanna spoil anything but there are tons of comparisons to almost every progressive movement-the LGBT movement, BLM, and so on. Yet, just as the characters are, it's not hamfisted, forced, or preachy. It's important to the story, yes, but it's not just thrown in there to pander or anything like that. It's amazing.

That's not even to touch on the non-progressive aspects of the game-the pixel art is cute and retro, the balance of comedy and drama is pretty good, there's multiple endings, and so much more. What's important about this game is it basically refutes every point a Gator can make. The characters here are realistic (or, as realistic as a robot and cat-woman can be :p) and lovable, the options for diversity aren't 'forced on you', the story is great, all of it is great. Yet it includes the most diversity I've ever seen in a game. As a trans girl myself it was great seeing representation of people like me and parallels to my struggles within the story. I strongly reccomend everyone to check it out-plus it's on sale for the holidays, so it's cheap yo.

Oh, and interestingly, the company behind this, Midboss, also runs the GaymerX convention. Not really super important, but just kind of a cool connection. I hope this tangent made sense-I just really wanted to share this game because I find it hugely important and just plain fun.