Shortly after her latest, greatest--in my opinion, at least--creation,
Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars, hit the 'net, Anna Anthropy (aka
auntie pixelante) agreed to answer a few questions about what prompted her to make this turned-on-its-ear
Wizard of Wor clone, why she had to censor it and how she feels about the LGBT media's "dismissive" response to it.
The Gay Gamer: You wrote on your site that you've been thinking about this game for four years (after Owen Grieve and his students gave you the name). What prompted you to finally create a game around that name? Did it come to you in the middle of a marathon session of
Wizard of Wor?
Anna Anthropy: I was really focused on
Wizard of Wor for a while, yes. I've always been impressed by how conscious the designers seemed to be of tension and pacing, between the speeding up of the maze, the radar-only invisible monsters, the high-stress worluk encounter at the end of each dungeon, and the surprise confrontations with the wizard himself. I like to use my games to get people to investigate older works that i want more people to play, like
Bomb Jack with
Mighty Jill Off and
Monuments of Mars with
REDDER.
GG: My first reaction upon playing
Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars was along the lines of, "Man, this would have been
perfect alongside the games at my childhood bowling alley/arcade." It gives me a vibe--in terms of sound and graphics and even gameplay--similar to the one I get/got from games like
Robotron and
Sinistar. Is that the kind of reaction you were shooting for?
AA: I've always admired the sort of design decisions that the arcade format promotes: Games need to be fast, to teach the player the rules as quickly as possible, to communicate everything that happens in the game clearly. These games from 1980s arcades--particularly Vid Kidz and Midway games--informed a lot of my ideas on game design, and I wanted for a long time to make a game that I could place side-by-side with them.
GG: I really like the one-handed nature of the game. Why did you decide to go that route--by eschewing the shoot button?
AA: Because it was an extra button I didn't think I needed. I felt like I could fit the player's entire vocabulary into the buttons she uses to move the protagonist. Relegating some of the most important actions to a secondary function is distance I thought the game didn't need. And I think it does a lot to characterize the spider-queen: She's powerful enough that just a glance at a woman is enough to ensnare her. So much of the game followed from that decision.