Students Blog

I played this game with paper cards and 5 classmates for another class. I found that I feared both being singled-out and angering a classmate by concentrating attacks on them. Sissy Fight succeeds in making things “personal.” This cannot be avoided since communication and planning are essential to preventing a game of chance.

To allow for the natural communication and interaction of human socialization, the designers used text chatrooms, in-game text messages, and human avatars.
In order to create player investment and immersion in their avatar, the Sissy Fight designer has allowed players to customize the appearance of their avatar, name them, and create an identity through the combination of avatar, chatroom comments, and in-game actions. Sissy Fight avatars also have moving lips and display emotion when they are cowering in fear or choking on a lolli. DiPaola would agree that these metaphors and likenesses to humans creates an illusion we can accept, “We as viewers seem very ready to accept a character as a person, regardless of how fantastic their appearance as long as they have a recognizable face, are imbued with speech and follow certain familiar patterns of social behavior.” S. DiPaola

Just as young children and teens try to create an identity by adopting stereotypical wardrobes and patterns of social behavior, the Sissy Fighter avatar creation tool influenced me to create an avatar based on a convention, the “bitch convention.” I knew to chose a scowling face, mohawk haircut, and started making aggressive and inconsiderate comments in the message boards before subjecting myself to battle. This metaphor mimics real life in that children and teens assimilate into a group convention- such as goth, jock, or rap thug- and this new convention tells them how their convention is supposed to behave in most social situations. Insanity is often characterized by the inability to behave appropriately in varying social situations, and I felt this fear as a new player to Sissy Fight, unsure of the appropriateness of not chatting enough, rushing others to pick a move, and behaving aggressively in a chat-dominated environment.

A goth knows to always wear black and try to act scary, just as a “bitch” in Sissy Fight knows that she is expected to look tough and play aggressive. I found that adopting a “bitch” convention allowed me to coordinate successful attacks by messaging the 2nd player that entered a match, so the 3rd and 4th could not read my plans. My aggressive appearance seemed to help me rally other players to attack my target, based on the fearful belief that bitches are spiteful and quick to retaliate. I also tried a “princess” convention by creating a light, blond girl with a happy expression and a nice outfit. I adopted a pattern of social behavior that consisted of pleasantly chatting and seeming interested in the other players. I was not obnoxious, nor anxious to fight. I found that I was expected to cower, and after using 1 tattle, I was feared of using my second. By acting the part, I was able to connect with my avatar and get others to accept me. DiPaola calls this telepresence “binding the pair, the unification of the remote user and the corresponding avatar in the mind of the local viewer.”

Sissy Fight is about gangs of girls sticking together to chat and defend eachother. The game mechanic is carrier forward through identifying social outcast conventions and defeating them through a paper-rock-scissors conflict.

The game mechanic is a metaphor for paper-rock-scissors (p-r-c). Shaking your fist in p-r-c elicits anxiety, fear of losing, and surprise when the uncertain outcome is suddenly revealed. Sissy Fight intensifies these emotions through similar situations. Waiting for the combat reveal of each turn was much slower than p-r-c because the socializing was attempting to dominate the game time. In Bartle’s terms, I am an achiever while the majority of Sissy Fight Online players are socializers who alienate killers.

The tattle function can be used twice in a match. There is a negative psychological connotation to tattling that can elicit strong emotion all players. First, tattlers, snitches and rats alienate themselves by associating with the enemy- authority figures. Nobody wants to be a tattler/snitch because they create harsh punishment on others and their safety is at stake when the authority figure is not around to protect the tattler from retaliation. In the game, tattling causes a strong 3-point penalty to all other players who chose to attack, which can then lead to the group seeking retribution. The authority figure is the resource of two tattles, but using both is like the teacher leaving the room, subjecting the tattler to uninhibited attacks.

Lazzaro’s “People factor” dominates the reason to play Sissy Fight. Players typically do as much chatting as battling. If there were not griefers (killers) that were real people, I don’t think most players would have the satisfaction of defeating them. Since so much chatting is going on, the griefer (trouble-maker) is like a chat-room spammer. You can tattle on them to the moderator, get people to demean them, but there is not satisfaction like putting claw marks on their custom avatar’s face, for all to see. As a second motivator, I found that Sissy Fight is Hard-Fun when you have the weakest health. All the players know you need to recharge with your lolli and that this is a great opportunity to choke you. I had to develop a strategy of cowering and tattles to create uncertainty as to when I would suck my lolli.