Gay orc
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Again, those are things that inform the life of a lot of gay men like me in very specific ways, but rarely get represented positively. It’s hard to see positive images of fat people in any medium, let alone queer games.
Ah, that’s Ferdag. Which is why Scottish game designer Mitch Alexander is creating Tusks, the gay dating sim about orcs that’s far less ridiculous than it might initially sound.
Originally, Alexander came up with the idea while playing Skyrim and roleplaying as a gay orc who was part of an orcish stronghold.
The language used to describe them, their physiology, their culture, their relationships is constructed to emphasize how inhuman, how other they are. Aside from being a mashup of words that aren’t usually seen together, the game explores diversity in a way that feels more natural than overly conscious. Along the way, the player can begin friendships and relationships with the various members of the group, including a selkie a long way away from home, a gentle-giant orcish warrior, and a polyamorous trio of orc chieftains.
Current features (FUARLANG build):
- A two-hour-long (approx.) playthrough of the main storyline of Tusks - with far more to see over multiple playthroughs and decision branches.
- Almost 120,000 words of dialogue, story, interaction and narrative, spread across multiple different routes, exclusive scenes and interactions so you can replay, or simply have a more personalised journey through the game.
- A cast of eight queer characters to interact with, including a selkie farmer, a very eager human, five very different orcish men, and a boar who does it all for the ~*aesthetic*~.
- Several romance-able characters, with their own unique romance routes!
- An NPC autonomy feature, where other characters can make their own decisions and vote on decisions for the group!
- Randomised in-game Scottish-orc-name-generator for your main character!
FUARLANG build changelist:
- Around 12,000 words of new content - most of which is concentrated in the final day of the story!
- The full main story of Tusks! This update completes the group's journey through Alba.
More information
Download
Install instructions
When you download the game, simply unzip and open the folder, then run "TUSKS.exe" (for Windows machines), or the appropriate executable for Mac or Linux machines!
One orc in the group rejects the idea that big, beefy orc men are necessarily skilled warriors. If anything, an innate human experience of male military groups would—as evidenced by the ancient Greeks—likely swing the other way without certain social interferences.
The character I find fascinating is the orc with one arm.
VICE: First question: Why orcs?
Mitch Alexander: One of the reasons I wanted to explore orcs is because they’re almost always the outsiders. Which is odd, considering that the ancient Greeks—responsible for the most formidable armies in all of human history—viewed homosexual relationships as an integral bonding experience for soldiers.
You could argue that, on both a biological and conceptual level, there is nothing more masculine than two male comrades sharing physical and/or emotional intimacy.
There are probably more games that aren’t specifically about sex. I have a fairly good handle on both in my day-to-day life, which I’m very thankful for, because it means I can make games like Tusks without just giving up out of a sense of fatalism. It’s a mutual exchange, and susceptible to unforeseeable variables.
Though Tusks is a game that’s very personal to Alexander’s experience as a gay man, he hopes others will play it and be inspired to explore the specifics of their own identity through fantasy and game-making.
The Spartans knew that, yet you find this aspect of their philosophy oddly absent from contemporary representations like 300.
It’s extremely loaded and can’t just be dismissed by saying, “It’s just fantasy, it’s meaningless.” For a lot of people, it’s easier to identify with the monster of a story than the hero we’re supposed to root for.
“I’ve found that in games exploring power, relationships, and sex, the messages can often be undermined by the fact that the player is the only empowered, autonomous agent in the entire world.” Though games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age purport to include progressive sexual mechanics, relationships are often reduced to saying the right things and giving the right gifts to unlock access to another character’s body.
So, instead, Tusks uses what Alexander calls an NPC Autonomy Feature, allowing non-player-characters to respond differently to certain situations in different playthroughs.
Another is missing a limb. And without any caveat attached to it like, “It’s gay if you kinda read it this way,” or “It’s gay, but it’s a tragic love story that ends horribly,” or “One of these characters is gay and it’s not like, A Thing, and also you never see them kiss anyone so it’s not all in your face about it.” I hope it doesn’t remain unique in that respect for very long, though, if it ever was in the first place.
But, even if people are not as inclined to making a game about smooching orcs, I’d be happy to see others adapting the concepts in Tusks to fit their own experiences with identity.”
There’s no official release date for Tusks, but Alexander hopes to have a playable demo released by the end of April. Wether those relationships result in platonic or romantic interactions is determined by a complex system of variables.