The Melbourne Queer Games Festival is all geared up and ready to go. This first time gaming event is set to showcase over 50 games queer based games this coming October 22nd & 23rd. Check out more info from the press release below.
The festival is a volunteer-run effort that exists to shine a spotlight on the year’s lgbtiq games. MQGF is a relaxed, low-fi, online event held over two days in Melbourne by a small team of volunteers who love queer games. It includes a livestream, website, game bundle and awards program.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of submissions,” says one of the festival organizers, Luke Miller. “We were hoping for twenty games and we received over fifty. The games range from coming-out and transitioning stories to full-blown sci-fi action. A lot of them are intensely weird. There’s plenty of romance too, from the starcrossed boys of StarCatchers to the mysterious older women in Love On The Peacock Express. Trans games, in particular, are having a moment. Games such as That Boy is a Monster and Saving You, From Yourself, really present their subject matter in a universal and accessible way. People might be surprised.
Some useful links:
Showcase of all games: http://mqgf.com.au/2018/showcase/
Shortlisted games: http://mqgf.com.au/2018/awards/
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/queergamesfestival
Twitter thread about the games: https://twitter.com/QueerGamesFest/status/1046669267003834369
The stream will start Monday evening 6.30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time (AEDT).
This is about Monday 7:30 am UTC and Monday 2:30 am in Winnipeg Canada time.
The MQGF jury will be handing out four small awards during the evening:
- Technical award: for a game that excels in technique and craft
- Jury award: for a game that is fearless about the freedom, limitless and undefinable strangeness of queer
- Silver and Gold awards: for two games which show overall excellence in game design
Melbourne Queer Games Festival has also announced their “Bring it Back” game – Anna Anthropy’s ‘LESBIAN SPIDER-QUEENS OF MARS’. It’s a retro arcade game made in 2011 and a classic of the queer gaming scene. Inspired by Wizard of Wor and originally featured on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, the game is an early example of lesbian, bondage and consent themes in games.
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