Dys4ia is a game about the journey of a transgender and their decision to begin taking hormones. This is an interesting game as there is no way to actually win or lose at the game it is more of an interactive story about Anna’s journey, but does follow the basic concepts and mechanics of the game. The player uses the arrow keys to perform actions and sees the reaction of the game. The game uses the different scenes, colours and text to convey how Anna was feeling at that specific time of her story.
For each different scene of the game the arrow keys generally represent different objects however the core mechanics are usually the same. The arrow keys are generally used to move things that are a part of Anna’s life and obstacles that she needs to get past. All of the audio triggered by player actions are also personal audio sounds, this shows that these actions that you make as a player was her actions too. Often times you are able to see the progression of her story when you see a similar scene from before but instead showed in different colours and different text, from this simple change you can see the progression of her character and how she has changed her perspective on the same task/situation.
As you continue to play you see the obvious difference in colours and audio, this change above represents the change in the way Anna sees herself and the change in her approach. You can see that in the first image she (the shield) is shown as blue, this might indicate that she still sees herself as a man whereas in the second image she (the shield) is shown as pink which might indicate that she is starting to think herself as a woman. This technique is used multiple times throughout the game as an indicator of progress of the character.
Dys4ia is a game that shows a person’s story through different scenes and uses text, audio and different scenes to show how she was feeling at that point in the story.
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