1. What’s your favorite kind of video game to play with your family?
Minecraft! There’s nothing like running from creepers, playing house, and discovering vast, dark caverns together. It’s hard not to bond over shared resources and deadly danger.
2. What’s your favorite quality in a male game character? Female game character?
I’m a dainty, bisexual trans guy – a lot of the hypermasculine, jaded, 100% heterosexual men who populate the video game landscape are hard for me to relate to. I tend to connect with younger, more emotionally well-rounded male characters, especially those who are canonically gay or bisexual. Respect for women is essential, and a sense of humor doesn’t hurt. Sora and Riku from Kingdom Hearts, Cloud from FFVII, Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, Anders and Fenris and Varric from Dragon Age 2, and Garrus and Thane from Mass Effect are a few examples of male characters I love. All of them form deep emotional connections with other characters (and, in some cases, with the player) and widen the landscape of possibilities for male characters.
I’m less picky when it comes to female characters, though I tend to especially love queer women and women with unconventional gender presentation. I love women survivors and women whose stories give them agency and respect, though I also sympathize with the many female characters stranded in sexist narratives. I also love it when women get to wear proper armor on the battlefield! Some of my favorite fictional women include Aveline and Isabela from DA2, Tifa from FFVII, Tyrande from Warcraft III, Ashley and Liara and Jane Shepard from Mass Effect, and Lara Croft.
3. What kinds of game do you avoid?
MMOs involve too much time and monetary commitment for me!
4. What’s your favorite quality in your gaming buddies (kids or not)?
The ability to laugh off mistakes and have a good time. Gaming with friends isn’t the time to get critical – it’s time to have fun, mess around, and enjoy some friendly competition or co-op. That said, passion is also great!
5. What’s your main fault as a gamer?
I like to go really fast. Sometimes this means accidentally leaving people behind or falling off platforms a lot – and sometimes it means I skip important exposition and get confused because I never check the codex entries. I blame a lot of childhood exposure to Sonic the Hedgehog. Some of my favorite games are those that make me care enough to slow down and completely savor my time in the world. See: why I desperately wish I could skip every cutscene in Skyrim but would never miss a line of dialogue in Dragon Age.
6. How has gaming shaped your identity?
In more ways than I can count. Video games introduced me to many of my favorite stories and tropes, and dramatically widened my understanding of storytelling in general. While I certainly enjoy reading and watching other types of media, games let you struggle in ways that books and films don’t. I loved both the Lord of the Rings and Warcraft III as a child, but the tension of watching the Battle of Helm’s Deep never quite compared to playing through Battle for Mount Hyjal – the intense 45-minute survival mission that ends the WC3 campaign. Good games strike the perfect balance between being incredibly stressful and incredibly satisfying, and that has influenced me hugely as a writer. If I could write one book that made a reader feel anything like the way Dragon Age 2 makes me feel, I’d be happy forever.
Video games have also helped me come to terms with my gender identity. As a deeply interactive medium, games let you try on different selves and experience the world as whoever you might want to be. Though I haven’t always realized it in the moment, the men I tend to play in video games are very reflective of the kind of man I want to be.
7. What’s your idea of a miserable gaming experience?
Anything where the difficulty escalates too quickly, or where the controls aren’t sufficiently explained. There’s nothing more frustrating than getting stuck in a game because you were never given enough time to master (or even learn) how to play.
8. In which virtual world would you choose to vacation?
Mass Effect, before everything went terribly wrong.
9. Which game did you find most visually appealing?
The original Bioshock is still one of the most stunning games I’ve ever played, and proof that a powerful visual style can make up for older graphics – it’s a game that has aged very well in part because the design of Rapture is magnificent, even next to current-gen graphics. Bastion also has gorgeous style.
10. Which game soundtrack would you listen to on repeat?
Journey, Assassin’s Creed II, and Final Fantasy VII are my go-to favorites – although LittleBigPlanet has a great, entertaining soundtrack too.
11. Which game has your favorite story?
I’ll always have a soft spot for Final Fantasy VII and Warcraft III, two of the earliest games to shape my love for gaming in general. They both feature the kind of sprawling, epic fantasy narratives that I find irresistible – which is probably why Dragon Age is now at the top of my list of favorite game stories. Dragon Age combines epic fantasy with a gritty, living world and a narrative that makes room for marginalized people. And it also makes me cry a lot. Mass Effect is a close second. (Can you tell I’m a fan of Bioware?)
12. What are your favorite gaming snacks?
Chips and guac and hard cider. Beef stew if I’m settling in for hours of building in Minecraft.
13. Who’s your favorite video game villain?
Sander Cohen from Bioshock, Reaver from Fable 3, and Rufus Shinra and the Turks from Final Fantasy VII.
14. Which video game ability/item/superpower would you most like to be gifted with?
Flight! I’ve always loved the freedom and perspective of swooping around and seeing the world from above. Although super strength would be good too. (In a shocking twist, my City of Heroes character was a flying tank. Like, a tough guy who takes damage for the rest of the team, not an actual tank.)
16. What video game character would you pick to cosplay if you had unlimited time and resources?
Reaver! You can’t beat that top hat.
