First Person Scholar: “How to include women… sort of.” …You previously talked about not really having realism as a goal, that sincerity and accuracy are part of the goal but not realism. Do you mind expanding on that?

Christine Love: Sure. I think realism is… a tendency to get lost in surface details. If you want to learn something about the way people are, about the way people act, the way things unfold, the way social systems work, I don’t think realism is what you should be focusing on there. Realism is trying to make sure every single blade of grass looks perfect. But what does that actually teach you? So a lot of stuff I do, I deliberately exaggerate. I find that subtle is sometimes useful, but very rarely, frankly. So… Analogue looks at a real historical situation. I don’t exaggerate any of the historical attitudes. If anything, they’re a little underplayed because I thought the audience might be completely turned off if it went to the real historical level. It’s a fundamental looking at an extreme situation. It’s looking at something that’s an exaggerated form of sexism by our standards, and the hope is that a player can look at that and then learn from it. They can go, “Oh, that’s kind of similar to what we do here, actually. Oh, wait marriage is about that with us, we just don’t see it, because we’re slightly more subdued.” So realism is about presenting the world the way you see it. But I’m not concerned with what you already see. I’m concerned with what you’re not seeing.

I did an interview with First Person Scholar, and I think it’s one of the best I’ve done in a long time! Just a really good conversation. You can read it here.