Breaks down our idea of symbols which get in the way of drawing! I know in drawing on the right side of the brain they suggest drawing the negative space around the eye instead of the eye itself.

I always enjoy the comments on this blog :-)

If you want to paint an eye, concentrate on the ear.

Kees Vollemans (I think)

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. -C.S. Lewis

I understand what you mean, though. I am male myself and none of these games that are supposedly designed for males appeal to me. I don’t like action, I don’t like combat, I don’t like sports or competition. The problem is that games, for the most part, are just business. And as such, the companies that make games, don’t care about what any individual likes, they just care about what products they can shift in large amounts. So only things that appeal to a) large groups of people and b) very low common denominators get made. This is another reason why it would be nice if games would be treated more as an artistic medium than consumer products.

Anyway, as for The Endless Forest, like I said, we didn’t intend to make a game for girls. It just turns out that the majority of players is female. So while these large corporations apparently seem to have trouble accessing theis “demographic”, we did it by accident. Proving that it isn’t hard at all. Perhaps they shouldn’t be trying so hard.

GAMES FOR GIRLS usually involve magic, animals and RPG PC type games which I think is so sterotypical of people to think. I know for a fact girls love to be scared by horror games + have fun with action beat em’ ups. *shudders* Just a lil annoyed I guess… I hate when peolpe think you can create a game for GIRLS as if every girl will like it. It’s certainly not the case with guys and guys!

I think Ben got it right suggesting that “more ’spectacular’ things” could attract more male players, without making the game violent, competitive or what have you. More generally speaking, I think possibilities for exploration would attract a subset of male gamers. This could include a larger topology of the forest, or a more dynamic one, or one where you can manipulate objects more. A while ago I made a ‘forest archaeology’ post and that would be an example.

This comes from the stereotype that women like interaction with people more, and men interaction with things. Oversimplified yes, but perhaps somewhat true? I for one would probably stay longer in the forest if there were more things to explore with (or without) folks rather than mainly folks to ‘hang out’ with. Particularly since the no-chat feature (which is cool by itself) limits the depth of hanging out.