A new month-long trans-positive game jam is currently underway and accepting submissions for games focusing on trans youth issues, in order to spread awareness of the issues faced by transgender people in modern society.

#JamForLeelah was organised by Matthew Boucher and Kara Jayne , in response to the recent suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a 17 year old transgender girl who struggled with her gender identity – especially when it came to her parents, who reacted in an extremely negative way to Leelah’s coming out by refusing to accept her regarding her gender, making her attend therapy sessions with Christian therapists, and placing heavy restrictions on her life; feeling as though she would never be able to get the life she wanted, Leelah took her own life, leaving behind a suicide note on her Tumblr with a final message that the Jam organisers have taken to heart:

“The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that’s f***ed up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”
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I approached The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with little in the way of expectations having missed the first two games in the series. The sprawling open world action RPG is most certainly not my forte but knowing series’ pedigree I thought this might be a great opportunity to introduce myself to Andrej Sapowski’s dark fantasy world. And so I sat down to see what developer CD Projekt RED’s latest had to offer a total newbie.

Right off the bat players are introduced to the game’s key plot points by way of cutscene. Geralt, the white haired star of the series, seems to be hunting for his black haired lover Yennefer who wanders around a world at war leaving magical destruction in her wake. Geralt’s young ward, Circi, is also being hunted by a nocturnal skybound terror known as the Wild Hunt. This opening pre-rendered cinematic did a wonderful job conveying the basics of what was going on without bogging us down in exposition. Unfortunately this understated opener is preceded by a shorter, hand-drawn intro explaining the basics of the world in the most overwrought of fantasy cliches. This was the challenge I faced in breaking my Witcher cherry: for every part that left me surprised and refreshed there was another that felt par for the course.

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Okay, fine. I caved. I bought Dragon Age: Inquisition.

And I am obsessed.

I’m as surprised as anyone, really, since I couldn’t make a dent in Dragon Age: Origins. But here you go. And in this week’s episode, I share my initial thoughts about Inquisition… and how I played the beginning twice!

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Dear Diary,

It was a freakin’ mass exodus from Geneva this week. Well, attempted mass exodus, I should say. I cut most of them off at the pass. To find out which one I let go, read on!

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After more than six years, Club Nintendo is shutting down. The loyalty program allowed Nintendo fans to register their games and systems and complete surveys in exchange for Coins, which could be redeemed for all kinds of random Nintendo swag from playing cards to T-shirts and game download codes.

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I know I said I was going to talk about the games I’m playing right now, but Nintendo went ahead and announced a US release date for the New Nintendo 3DS XL. Of course, as with any Nintendo announcement, it’s not without its share of controversy. I have some thoughts which I share in this week’s episode… you’ll find it after the jump!

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Hello everyone,

My name is Dylan aka 8BitHomo bringing you a video talking about the one key difference between being a heterosexual gamer and a non-heterosexual one.

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