Students Blog

Sissy Fights is a turn- based online game where players pretend to be schoolgirls and attack each other's "self-esteem" points. The object is to bring down the other girls’ self-esteem points before losing all of your self-esteem using methods such as grounding, scratching, group teasing, tattling, and blocking by sucking a lollipop or cowering. When your schoolgirl avatar loses, you can choose to stay and watch the current game or go back to the chat room to join or create another game. If you stay to watch the game, then you're allowed to communicate with the other players still in that game.

The social metaphor of the game is that each player, represent my avatar, looks like a schoolgirl. When the player text messages other players, the mouths move and a text bubble above their head forms. The social metaphor that Steve Di Paola and David Collins refer to is on Live Traveler where characters speak audibly when players speak into a microphone. The major drawback in Sissy Fight is that the spoken text coming from the avatar does not look like it is actually pronouncing those words. Furthermore, this game removes the players from a full social interaction because, as pointed out by DePaola/Collins, players must type. That isn’t natural and is similar to the example given of AOL chat rooms not being a full 3-D social metaphor.

The metaphor carries on the game mechanic because players are using the social abilities to gang up on the other girls. In fact, there are two winners in this game, the last two remaining girls. However the only means of communication (I don't believe there's any whispering) is through the characters’ text bubbles above their avatars, which everyone can see. Thus, the easiest way of gaining up on someone is by using a means of communication other than that offered by the videogame such as face-to-face, AOL instant messaging, or telephone. For example, players referred to each other not by their avatars but by their actual names when communicating in the game; they had met before playing. Later in the game, they had chosen who their victim for teasing would be without telling each other through their avatars. This removes the player from an immersive experience in her game.

However, the metaphor to a real 3-D social environment does allow other social interaction. Before starting one game, a player wanted to find out where in Australia everyone was from before playing. The two Australians who live nearby did not attack each other, even when one is about to lose. In this match, the game was secondary to having a conversation. I find text messaging to be a distraction from the speed of voice messaging (In fact, this entry was written using voice recognition systems). Furthermore, the game allows players 80 seconds to choose what tactic they will use each turn and a time counter tells everyone how long it has been. If everyone chooses their tactic, the counter immediately skips to 10 seconds left. After a few games I found myself checking my e-mail in between turns, especially when players would talk instead of choose their tactic and take the actual 60 seconds. Also the Shockwave-based game does not cover-up the computer clock. Even though I take a few seconds to think about whether I should counter or attack, the decision process does not take me long as my level of concern for the game is also low even though I can invest up to 30 minutes in a game.

Relating Sissy Fight to Nicole Lazzaro’s four emotional keys for why we play video games, we play Sissy Fight for the people aspect in one-upmanship. For example, the most devastating attack in self esteem points you can give to many players at once is tattling. However I never saw retaliation against the tattling player. Sissy Fights has some hard fun because there is tactical strategy guessing what the other players' maneuvers will be, and there's some alternate state because not everyone who plays is an elementary school girl. Furthermore, how one looks and chooses her name affects game play. Usually, the first characters that lost were Characters with sexual references in their names or looked mean with a buzz haircut or Mohawk. I found very little easy fun emotional state because there is little to explore in terms of the character or the story. The only part that has a little bit of easy fun was in choosing how the avatars look, which shockwave allowed me to complete within seconds.