“CLTRS”: Valuing and sharing the lived experience of women in the video game design process

Video games still too often convey limited representations in terms of gender, race, sexuality, and more. Studies have shown that these representations reflect the lack of diversity within production teams. When teams remain homogeneous, video game productions tend to reproduce unconscious biases in their works, whereas diversity allows creators to move beyond preconceived ideas. However, existing research does not explain how diversity is actually incorporated into the design process. Scholars often seem to assume that simply bringing together individuals with varied life experiences will naturally lead to different kinds of games.

This project, focusing specifically on the situation of women in the video game industry, proposes to rethink game design methods in order to value the lived experience of designers. The goal is to ensure that these experiences are integrated into the creative process and reflected in the resulting works.

In the current context, women — as well as other marginalized groups — who wish to create games must do so using tools and processes that do not take into account their worldview or lived experience within society. As a game designer and researcher, I aim to challenge this status quo by conducting a research-creation project that involves designing a video game based on my experience as a woman, and making explicit how this experience informs my design practices.

How do we reflect on our personal experience during the game creation process? How do we transform it, integrate it into a work?

The first outcome of this research is the exploration game “CLTRS”.

“CLTRS” is experimental in both its design and its intent. It challenges dominant ideas about what games can be by centering underrepresented experiences and rejecting conventional gameplay structures. Its symbolic interactions and intuitive mechanics offer a unique gamefeel that encourages introspection rather than mastery. By openly acknowledging the positionality of its creative director and embracing a feminist lens, “CLTRS” resists the illusion of neutrality in game development and expands the boundaries of video games as a creative and reflective medium.

CLTRS