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[Udderdude]

But the original animation is problematic as well because she doesn't look quite casual. When the pants fall off it's almost like drapery falling off to reveal a statue. Ripley looks distracted when she undresses so the scene seems more natural.

It's supposed to be about the style, she's clearly removing them quickly so she can get in the damn mech, and this has purpose behind it.

Another, much, much larger problem with your character is that she's not wearing Ripley's panties. Instead you choose some kind of heretic black thong. I guess Ripley won't be smiling down on you from her cryotube as she drifts across the starry sky.

You're comparing a high resolution film to a low resolution pixel animation where there's literally no room for extra detail.

Also, the URL in your profile goes to some sort of spam blog for shady alt med health products .. D:

Also also, I can't be the only one that noticed most of the people hand wringing and pearl clutching over pixelated panties haven't posted here in years, or very sporadically over the years (one post a year, etc.) Did someone shine the Kotaku symbol up in the sky?  Where the hell was this thing linked?

[Sheepolution]

So can we have a poll about this and be done with it? I think the fact that it raises this discussion means it brings attention, and that you should keep it. 

[wzl]

Obviously, in order to move and react fast enough, the exoskeleton reads bio-electric signals with sensors which are required to rest on the skin directly. Panty-mystery solved.

Awesome work. Don't let this debate get in the way of your vision! Obviously it draws a bunch of attention, so mission accomplished either way.

I love your attention to detail and the execution.
Cheers!

[R.D.]

Nice Art-Style. Reminds me of "Risk of Rain" somehow. And dat menu... Sweet!

[oahda]

The fact that so many have raised an opinion, whether they're usually here or not, should be a good indication that the matter is worth consideration, at the very least. In the end, the game belongs to its creators, who are free to reason and eventually decide about this as they wish, be it in the favour of the one camp or the other.

I actually didn't notice this the last time, so my consistent praise – which, however, remains – did not take this into consideration. I'm not a mech driver myself, but I don't think I'd do it in my underwear, at least. That's all the input I'll give. The room for the legs in a car is pretty cramped, too, but you don't see people drive cars in their underwear very often. Good ventilation is key.

The most preferable thing would of course be to show that someone can be pantless without it being a sexualisation, but the fact that this is a hard thing to do is society's fault, not yours. It's got to be pretty clever to work. Not sure if this is enough to make the point clear to those who are always ready to analyse things in the worst way possible.

[Conker534]

Skydsgaard please post something new so this silly debate will end.

[McChunks]

As a lurker of TIGsource, who has just made an account, I would like to present you my two reasons why I made my account right now.

To say I absolutely love how your game looks. Keep up the good work.

My second reason was to tell everyone who honestly couldn't deal with panties to grow up. Seriously, you're just creating an argument for the sake of creating an argument.

[oahda]

Skydsgaard please post something new so this silly debate will end.

Once they've gotten people started, it will never end.

[PiedotTaste]

Although it is a shame, I agree that the "silly debate" should probably end. Although I think it is worth continuing, nobody seems willing to discuss it in an equal/fair way. Sorry for being a lurker who turns up and stirs trouble, I thought I'd contribute to the discussion when this situation came up because it is an issue close to my heart, but people are not very open to the topic here it seems.

Those who have critiqued the "panties" situation have been relatively well mannered and rational in their points, yet their messages are discussed either directly or indirectly as if pointless, trolling or without any logical merit. ("Creating an argument for the sake of it", "they should just grow up", "silly debate", all methods of diminishing an argument in the view of peers without actually providing a basis).

I, for one, would be perfectly happy to find out I am "wrong" about my opinion on this subject if presented with a reasonably persuasive rationale - I think all of us who criticised it would be. We aren't trying to attack the game, everyone has been very forward with their praise for this game. It looks amazingly beautiful. We're just putting forward our opinion, and will of course respect the final decision of the artists in the game, and cannot force our opinion to be accepted by others.

It just seems a shame though that currently the artwork implies that the game's main protagonist is primarily a power suit, and secondarily a bit of pixelated eye candy

[Sam B]

Amazing work, and slightly saddened that 8 or so pixels can be referred to as "sexy."

[Sved]

I, for one, would be perfectly happy to find out I am "wrong" about my opinion on this subject if presented with a reasonably persuasive rationale - I think all of us who criticised it would be.

Being in underwear indicates she owns the place and lives alone there, all in a split second of animation. The animation is not sexually suggestive and the character behaves in a practical way.

You imagine sexual content or believe this woman is objectified. I see narrative context. Should devs cater for you and change something because of your arousal or beliefs? It's up to them, but in my experience, modifying whatever you do for offended people leads only to more offended people voicing out changes to conform your work into theirs.

[Alpha Zulu]

I'm following this one with great interest and love the art so far. I also have to say that I find the criticism of depicting the protagonist in underwear is absolutely stupid.

Did any of the panty-protesters ever consider that the mech may contain some haptic technology that required bare skin for sensory feedback and input? Or that it may be a homage to the seminal sci-fi character of Ripley from Alien (a pioneering strong female role)?

But even if this weren't the case, and it was just for the sake of being sexy, so what? Do you have a problem with female sexuality? I think the juxtaposition of female sexuality and high tech lethal hardware can be and is interesting. What's your problem with it? I've yet to read a cogent criticism against it. Personally I think Skydsgaard should incorporate this more into the game. I think it could add an interesting subtext.

But, foremost, I think people who possess rigid ideologies and try to impose that ideology on ARTISTS and their works are repugnant. I think the proper response to someone criticizing a work because it doesn't adhere to their way one should think is dismissal, because it is an absolutely worthless criticism. They're not seeing the work for what it is, but for what they want it to be to satisfy their own, quite frankly, narcissism or zealotry. Because only a narcissist or zealot could look at the world and be compelled to reshape it in such a way that agrees with only their own point of view.

[Hangedman]

I've no opinion either way about the animation, I don't mind it, I could see why people would complain, but...

But, foremost, I think people who possess rigid ideologies and try to impose that ideology on ARTISTS and their works are repugnant. I think the proper response to someone criticizing a work because it doesn't adhere to their way one should think is dismissal, because it is an absolutely worthless criticism. They're not seeing the work for what it is, but for what they want it to be to satisfy their own, quite frankly, narcissism or zealotry. Because only a narcissist or zealot could look at the world and be compelled to reshape it in such a way that agrees with only their own point of view.

...this makes no sense, and is a theme I see underlying a lot of complaints against people who call out art as problematic.

Art involves two+ people, the artist and the observer. It doesn't exist in a vacuum, and artists don't work in a vacuum.
You can't not impose yourself on art, because interacting with art is imposing your perspective on it. How we interact with art is what art is.
You're imposing on it right now by demanding that it remain the same, and never go unchanged based on perspectives that you disagree with.
Which you have every right to do, but don't pretend you're defending it.

Get off your high horse cause it's been beaten to death

[Blambo]

Get off your high horse cause it's been beaten to death

So good.

Alpha Zulu, how does someone objecting to the way something is depicted in any way sully the art? Skydsgaard can choose whether or not to include it and can be as receptive or unreceptive as he/she wants.

It's not like the critics are actually meaningfully pressuring any change, and even if they were it's not really your responsibility to help skydsgaard deal with that. What's with the weird aversion to voicing a specific response?

And objecting because it doesn't fit with a critic's "rigid ideology" is something called subjectivity, and that doesn't interface with the objective qualities of a piece of art (though it does inform the interpretation of that stuff).

like just because I find the story of call of duty to be a jingoistic shitfest doesn't mean the mechanics or stuff they worked hardest on is automatically bad

[Conker534]

I want to throw up

[oahda]

It seems the sensitivity of the subject at hand is changing the rules of this game. Would Alpha Zulu be so keen on having nobody express their opinion in disfavour of this artistic choice, were this a two-page debate on other details of animation, on colours, or something else? Would he tell people that they're in no position to express dislike for the colours the artists have chosen?

It's funny.

What's also funny is that people somehow will interpret the above paragraph as me expressing an opinion against, or in favour of, the panty thing if I do not put this disclaimer at the end of it. I haven't said a word about that in it. I'm being very Swedish and neutral.

As a developer, I wouldn't complain if my devlog had a heated discussion going on in it; free and constant bumping! I bet this was their ingenious plan all along.

STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN, however, is the worst thing that could be said, because STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN almost always equals a woman who is half-naked and aggressive for no practical reason other than being written by male directors who are as subconsciously (or consciously) misogynic as anyone but trying to hide it by calling her STRONG AND INDEPENDENT, so please don't pull that card; it's practically an insult. It's sometimes also slightly misandric, seeming to imply that men are thugs who cannot fight properly because they're blinded by her sex appeal and cerebrally drained of all thought- and willpower by their hungry libidos – that's not how the human biology works.

I know this isn't what Ripley is.
Note that I have still not said a word about whether that is the case with this game's particular character.

Those, however, are cases of genuinely sexualised clothing, movement, suggestion and so on. A normal pair of underwear is no different from what you'd see on the beach, and she's being very casual about her movement – she drops the pants and gets in the mech. She's not performing a poledance around it.

That was an opinion about the panty thing!

I walk around pantless at home all the time. I bet most of us do. And then we go to the beach without a problem. Would this discussion be here if this game's menu was set on a beach? I think not. Yet here you see just as much, in a just as casual and non-sexual fashion, for a brief second, in a situation that may well make sense, and off you go, debating with your blood and tears.

Spend your activist energy on helping women appear topless on the beach without feeling or being sexualised, instead, and this discussion probably wouldn't even arise, because it would be considered normal and sexual thoughts wouldn't even spring to life in your minds. This is sexualised, but this isn't? Heck, the latter picture even shows more.

My (female) friend (and her male friend), who goes to a school in the US, studying advertisement stuff, recently shot and edited a three-picture photoset of herself and her friend, butt-naked, depicted as being on an LSD trip, just not showing any of the taboo areas (sexual organs and female nipples). Was this her (and if her, why not him too?) being a promiscuous whore, sexualising herself? No. It was an attempt to lessen the popular hysteria about these taboos. A reaction. There was nothing sexual going on in the pictures. They just happened to be naked. And this character isn't even naked. She's not doing anything sexy. She's jumping into a mech in the course of a second.

DoA is fanservice and sexualisation. Zero-suit Samus might be (probably is). This is not.

It would become, however, if we later in the game saw male after male jumping into a mech without taking his pants off, but we haven't gotten any such indication thus far.

[Reilly]

Pantygate 2015

[oahda]

Pantygate 2015

if this is your way of saying that this thread has already been ruined and this discussion is going to continue into 2015

then you are right

[Conker534]

 

I just don't see whats wrong with if for example, a male did not take his pants off to get in the machine.

Or if it was ONLY the man that took his pants off, either way doesn't bug me.

[oahda]

I just don't see whats wrong with if for example, a male did not take his pants off to get in the machine.

Or if it was ONLY the man that took his pants off, either way doesn't bug me.

If it's only one male, it's possible he just doesn't like taking them off, but the female doesn't have a problem with it. Sure thing. We may even uncover from the story that he's shy and can't bear doing it. We don't have enough statistical data to determine. If ten males did not, and only she did, though, one is left to wonder why. Of course, the case might be that she actually is supposed to be sexualised or sexual. In which case it's up to the devs to determine whether they want to be wite cis scum and take what comes with it. Sure thing.

I think the point in either case is that it unfortunately still seems to be an accomplishment on the market today* to make a female character who is not sexualised in some way, which really would make it more interesting if she were not. Which would earn the devs more respect, because they'd – quite bizarrely – actually be somewhat pioneering.

However, again, I don't feel that the woman in this game is being sexualised from what I have seen so far. Currently, her pantlessness may even be a well-needed reaction against the view that every naked female leg is sexualisation. That feels more misogynic to me. Such an attitude makes me feel like we're back here.

* I am well aware that this is much less prevalent in indie games.