Incel Tomodachi Design Philosophy

This is a design breakdown of my game Incel Tomodachi codeveloped with Cormac Bywater for my Alternative Game Development class at the University of Utah. You can find more info on the game here.

What is Incel Tomodachi

Incel Tomodachi is a video game developed by me and Cormac Bywater, where the player is given the responsibility of taking care of a virtual pet called Bort by feeding and cleaning him. There are also events throughout play, where the player must make a decision on Bort’s behalf, for example, how Bort chooses to spend his day. The impacts of these choices are visible throughout the game, as Bort becomes more perverted or lonely or radicalized, and it culminates in a player receiving an ending based on how they shaped Bort into an incel. The player is however prompted throughout the game to attempt to save Bort from becoming an incel by looking for codes hidden throughout the game to raise a hidden “good” stat.

Why make a game about incels?

While considered a fringe social movement, incels have a large and loud influence over different social and political movements as an outspoken minority. Certain highly influential people like Elon Musk are even influenced by online subcultures like 4Chan, and a significant portion of online language used today stems from 4Chan and other forums. Therefore as society adapts more of incel culture into the mainstream, everyone must be critical of how the bigoted perspectives of incel culture can too have an impact on larger society. The underlying principals of most incel theory are that all human interaction is based on physical attractiveness, women won’t date men of below average attractiveness, and men are entitled to sex with women; and these principals are used to justify misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and transphobic views that many incels adopt. The spread of this doctrine to mainstream society has an especially negative effect on lonely young men online, who are typically the most susceptible to it.

The throughline of the game

The first point we sought to argue in our game is that incels cannot be held solely accountable on an individual level for the hateful subculture. The anonymous nature of the internet and pressures from a capitalist society for men to conform and perform often results in extremism, and many forms of male ostracization such as porn addiction, gambling addiction, or hate mongering are often exploited by groups for political or financial gain. Targeting individual actors doesn’t help resolve a broader issue that hateful subcultures often manifest as a result of the internet. Our game therefore takes a stance that is more critical to how the internet has developed to foster the radicalization of young men by showcasing ways that harmful messaging is amplified online.

Our second point is that outreach and deradicalization of incels is possible, but it is often unpleasant and certainly reliant on the maturing of the individual rather than the efforts of people close to the individual. Therefore, while a player’s victory is contingent on the “saving” of Bort, it is entirely up to the player’s discretion whether they wish to help Bort or not. The success of the throughline is contingent on the fact that the player can either empathize or sympathize with Bort, otherwise the player has no emotional connection, and therefore no reason to care about the game’s message.

The importance of Bort the incel

When developing the incel pet the player would take care of, it was important that the character was identifiable as an incel, while still malleable enough for the player to project their own conceptions of what it is to be an incel onto Bort. For example, the player can choose whether Bort is interested in shooter games or MMA or anime, much like many men today are, so that the game avoids targeting a single storied idea of what an incel is. Instead we target the common patterns of incel development–sexual perversion, loneliness, radicalism, and bigotry–and highlight how those patterns can develop as a member of any online community.

The purpose Bort serves in relationship to the player interestingly varies depending on who the player is. In playtesting, we found that while certain players would consider Bort as external to themself, referring to Bort’s actions and choices as “his”, other players would see Bort as a more conventional game avatar and extension of the player, referring to Bort’s actions and choices as their own. Players engaging with Bort in the former way were more inclined to choose the most offensive options for most events, while more players engaging with Bort as an avatar were more likely to try to find a least egregious option. These paths made the tone of the game vary a lot between players, and forced our design to function for both players who sympathized with and empathized with Bort.

The design solution was to attempt to appeal to the first player by having grave consequences for Bort and others as a result of his incel actions. At some point during gameplay, the player is keyed in on the tone shift through harsher subject material and the tone of dialogue, and therefore inclined to shift the playstyle towards saving Bort. To appeal to the second player, we needed to reinforce the idea that the player “is” Bort by introducing the incel culture Bort is consumed by to the player through the use of popup ads that appear to interrupt gameplay. The content of these ads is degrading to the player, which gives that payer a desire to escape from the incel culture.

Manufacturing an unpleasant game experience

Keeping in line with the throughline of the game, we needed to create a game feel that was more uncomfortable than satisfying or humorous. A primary way we did this was through using off color dialogue and event choices. The game’s dialogue takes on a tone that is often scathing or intentionally bitter towards the player or towards the idea of Bort. The subject matter also neglects to censor more disturbing incel acts, such as specifying the type of porn Bort is watching or his bigoted remarks towards sexual assault survivors. The purpose of evoking this feeling in players is to not only make the player uncomfortable with incel culture, but to make the player skeptical of the predatory nature of internet anonymity. Because there is often no real accountability for actions taken online, users of the internet are typically more comfortable committing egregious acts online. However, the tone we’ve established in Incel Tomodachi seeks to deliver real-world discomfort and honesty into the digital space so that a player becomes more critical of their own or others’ online actions.

We extrapolate on this discomfort to also evoke a players’ sense of shame or self-loathing that is exploited by advertisers online to market products like body supplements or sex services to young men. The popup ads in the game are generally the most explicit in this effect, since they directly belittle the player by advertising online gambling, sex dolls, and viagra. There are also other visual elements that contribute to this feeling, such as stylized 3D renders and photographs used to create a familiar sense of ugliness.

Finally, a major touchstone of our design philosophy was to avoid the use of standard retentive gameplay patterns in the “winning” segment of the game. While much of the game revolves around selecting choices, closing ads, and feeding/cleaning up Bort, the path to actually “saving” Bort by rehabilitating him into society comes from an otherwise unused interface accessed by clicking on Bort himself. When a player clicks on Bort, they have access to the terminal, which only takes short text strings as codes. The proper codes are found through exploring specific event choices, or through playing through one of the “bad” endings. Entering these codes will trigger some “good” events that can better Bort as a person and eventually reenter him into society, however we avoid blatant feedback mechanisms to reward this hidden “good” stat. This choice was at the expense of some of the game’s engagement to reinforce a point that the extrinsic reward from the use of technology like games is often at odds with intrinsic motivations to improve oneself and others and do “good”. Games are a rather poignant example of how technology can be harmful when engineered to be addictive and engage harmful retention patterns like sex appeal, gambling, and hypercompetition. This combined with the anonymity of the internet are the breeding grounds for deviant subcultures like incels. Therefore, we designed the ending of the game to avoid those retention patterns so as not to undermine this point, and instead encourage the player to reject harmful retention patterns and counter the addictive nature of technology through personal growth. In other words, we wanted the player to touch grass.