We’re also addressing sexual orientation, but in the game mechanics themselves, rather than in character design: there’s a mission called Seduce Target, where you can choose who you’re going to seduce, and it allows any combination of characters to seduce one another. It’s not a terribly deep exploration of sexual preferences, but it’s there and it’s real gameplay. There are many other axes worth exploring one important one we are skipping for now is class/income-level, because I couldn’t figure out a way to address that meaningfully in a game about a high society cocktail party while still keeping the game focused on the core perception and deception skills. We’re also looking to keep the cast diverse in the sense of the archetypes we include. We definitely acknowledge and embrace some spy and mystery cliches, but we want to tread carefully and push further.

Is it okay to have a character in a traditional aristocratic outfit from a country as long as there are others of the same race in more modern business or party attire? I think so, but we need to be careful to not slip into racial stereotypes and harmful cliches. This is a very inspirational sketch showing the diversity of silhouettes in the Corpse Bride movie: On a more superficial note, we also look at aesthetic diversity, especially when it comes to the silhouettes of the characters. In SpyParty, the silhouette is incredibly important for instant visual recognition, even when lowlit. The less confusion between characters, the better the Sniper can keep track of suspects. Hats and interesting hair styles are a big part of creating the character’s silhouette, as you can see in the group shots. Okay, enough generalities, here they are! Remember, these names are all placeholders until we pick real names for them.

I think we’ll probably end up involving the community in naming the characters, but it’s not time for that yet.

Spyparty alice