So I discovered Matches & Matrimony, a dating sim game1 involving at least three Jane Austen books with most of the plot being provided by Pride and Prejudice, through Angie Gallant’s Let’s Play thread. 2
So why not? Especially since, not only is it available for Mac and Windows (and is probably simple enough to work on Wine), but it’s also available for just a couple bucks as Kindle Active Content.
Listen to Pride Radio Live for Free! Stream Dance songs online from this radio station, only on iHeartRadio. Rewind 10 Seconds. USSSA Pride Unleashed the Bats for a 10-0 Victory Pride Win and Henderson throws Perfect Game Pride At Home for Beijing Eagle Series Pride get the sweep on the Comets Pride Keep the Win Streak Alive Pride Take Game Two of Comets Series.
Read what our users had to say about Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire for PC at Metacritic.com.
WHY NOT INDEED.
The graphics are hilarious for the most part. That up there is my father, a sarcastic wit who needs to rein in his youngest daughter Lydianne 3, and my mother, a silly nitwit who is Lydianne in grown-up form. 4
Now with five games to go, the Bengals (2-8-1) are playing for pride — and a late win or two that might show the team has at least made some progress from the 2-14 finish last year. Pride definition, a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire For Macbook Pro
I’ll note from the start that the Kindle version puts a lot of text together instead of making you step through every single speaking part. This helps in all cases except for Mr. Collins. Well, technically it helps the most in his case.
You play as the second Bennet daughter, and your goal is to get married to the eligible bachelor of your choice. The flow of the game is like this:
Schedule activities for each weekday to raise certain of your stats (studying the arts will, for instance, increase your Talent and Sensibility, whereas going for walks will raise your willpower and reduce your propriety; most activities will also reduce your available energy).
Over the weekend days, you experience adventures where you get to select choices, some of which will not be available if you don’t have the appropriate stat raised to a certain level.
Your decisions affect what happens to the attachment/friendship levels from various other characters, and sometimes your stats.
A lot of the text is straight out from Pride & Prejudice and other Austen books, so the writing isn’t anywhere near as painful as it is for most dating sim games, and thus is actually witty, literate, and moving. There’s a surprising amount of strategy to the game—it’s not a simple dating sim rip-off, you have to actually work for each of the endings that aren’t “You, alone for the rest of your life, become Jane Austen.” Except you don’t need to work very hard to get Mr. Collins; he is an ending, but if you’re not careful, he cuts you off from the other eight endings. Truly, Mr. Collins is a first level boss if you care for anyone other than him, and you most likely will.
The Darcy endings (there are two) are the most difficult in the game to achieve, as in the game there’s no indicator whether what you just did made him like you more or less; you’ll only know at the end of a stage chapter how well you’re doing on his attachment meter. Fortunately, after your first play through, you can ask for help on each of the bachelors. You’ll need it particularly when aiming for Darcy, but you can steal Bingley from Jane, persist with the unwise action of pursuing Wickeby (aka, Wickham), pursue other bachelors from other Jane Austen books, and, yes, if you really can’t help it, marry Mr. Collins.
*shudder*
Where was I? Oh yes. This game is actually educational. After you reach the Darcy #2 ending you will have quite a thorough understanding of how their love story works—as the help says, it’s not Romeo & Juliet; both characters are flawed, and how they develop together is important to getting to the best end. Dare I say it, I found myself appreciating the original story of Pride & Prejudice on a deeper level afterwards.
I had rather a lot of fun playing this game, and it was well worth the $2.
If you’re a Jane Austen fan, like the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure genre, and don’t feel shy about resorting to a walkthrough when frustrated, I highly recommend this game.
Also, after this game, I appreciated the early (and fairly humiliating) killing of Mr. Collins in The Darcys of Pemberley. TAKE THAT, GUY WHO SAYS NO MEANS YES.
Notes:
There are dating sims for guys and dating sims for gals. Each sub-genre has different tropes, and the study of the differences and similarities, plus their general ignorance of anything other than straight relationships, would probably make for an interesting thesis for somebody. [back]
Of course, I discovered that thread through her Hatoful Boyfriend Let’s Play, an apocalyptic future pigeon dating sim. It’s a send-up of every trope in the for-women dating sim sub-genre and a thread I suggest you not read while simultaneously drinking something. [back]
Yes, there’s an amalgamation of certain Austen characters together. [back]
If you’ve been reading my blog for a certain amount of time, you know that these are infinite steps up from my biological parents. [back]
TeCo Theatrical Productions Launches the PlayPride LGBT Festival
IMAGE ABOVE: Six Texas playwrights will compete for favorite one-act as voted on by audiences at the PlayPride LGBT Festival in September. Pictured (L-R): Randy Frank Eppes, Bill Richard, Christopher Soden, Antay Bilgutay, Lon Rogers and Buster Spiller. Photo courtesy of TeCo Theatrical Productions.
What do an English teacher, an arts fundraiser, a published poet, a former Peace Corps volunteer, a theater critic, and a former Catholic priest all have in common?
They are all chasing after $1,000 prize money and bragging rights for the Audience Favorite Award in the inaugural bow of the PlayPride LGBT Festival, an evening of short one-acts penned by resident playwrights about the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community of Texas.
The festival, produced by TeCo Theatrical Productions in Dallas, shows September 4-14 at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center, an intimate venue in the popular Bishop Arts District south of downtown.
The festival was inspired by Randy Frank Eppes’ script Three Guys In A Bed, the story of a gay couple who pick up a guy to come home with them for a night of sexual pleasure. The morning after reveals the reality of who is actually in their bed and the discovery, disagreement, and discussion. The script was submitted for consideration to participate in TeCo’s annual New Play Competition last winter but was not deemed appropriate for the family-skewed audience that usually attends that competition.
But TeCo’s producers loved the script and decided to create this new themed festival. As with the winter festival, audience members at each performance will vote on their favorite one-act, and the winning playwright will be awarded $1,000 given to the local LGBT charity of their choice. Pride in winning will be their personal award.
Aside from Eppes, other works in the performance of one-acts include Mama’s Boy by Antay Bilgutay (winning playwright of the New Play Competition in March) Jerone has had a fight with his cosmetician boyfriend Carson, and when Carson drops by Jerone’s apartment to talk, he discovers the underlying fears that caused the fight; Water by Christopher Soden
Evan knocks on the door of a stranger to ask for a glass of water in the Texas heat; Foreplay by Lon Rogers A gay teenager visits a prostitute for surprising reasons; Pot Liquor by Buster Spiller When Jeffrey and his partner Montre come to live with his religious grandmother, issues of death and dying, fluid sexuality, and unconditional love are front and center; Trapped: A Confessional Tale by Bill Richard The awkward exchange of a priest and penitent in a church confessional leads to one of them feeling trapped.
A+C spoke with two of the finalists, poet Christopher Soden and former priest Bill Richard, about their works and outlook of the festival.
A+C: What was your inspiration for your selective one-acts?
SODEN: There’s a certain kind of straight man, so submerged in what I call “male warrior code” (an ideology ingrained in our culture) that they are profoundly uncomfortable with any sort of gracious or charitable impulses from or towards other men. Anything that feels remotely like tenderness or kindness is strictly forbidden, because they’ve been led to believe it’s a footstep on the path to male sexual connection. They can’t explore loving feelings towards other men because that might take them to a place that for them, is unthinkable. It’s an internalized homophobia. So, my inspiration for Water was simple: What if one man, because of exigent circumstances, were more or less forced to ask a stranger (a very butch guy) for a simple favor? A glass of water. Where would that lead us?
RICHARD: When I was a younger priest I had a rather uncomfortable encounter in the confessional with a woman who was convinced I had feelings for her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I felt trapped in my own confessional. I struggled to find a way to treat her respectfully and kindly. That experience was the kernel which generated the creation of my script. But in my play the priest is straight and the penitent is gay (and a man!). So the original experience was more of a launching pad, a catalyst, for coming up with something entirely new.
A+C: How can art, and theater in this case, alter the public’s view of the LGBT community?
RICHARD: When someone offers you a gift of any sort it disarms you in a sense. It removes a barrier. I sing with the Turtle Creek Chorale. Joining together with other men who love to make music is its own reward. But the power of choral music with its harmonic blend of voices wedded to meaningful lyrics has a way of entering the hearts of listeners, softening them and opening them to new understandings. The theater has its own power to build bridges with an audience. Playwrights create a world for audiences to ponder and experience. The viewers implicitly or explicitly connect with elements that ring true to their own experience or have epiphanies that challenge their presuppositions and awaken new understanding. That slice of life presented on stage is also offered as a gift for the audience to witness. From a safe distance a viewer less familiar with the gay community can see that, though many of the surface details and circumstances are different, there is a common humanity which underlies them.
A+C: Is the LGBT community well represented on stages in North Texas?
SODEN: Yes, I sincerely believe that it is. In addition to Uptown Players (whose season is built on representing the alternative lifestyle, and also produces a Pride festival of full plays), the rest of the theater community — Rover, Second Thought Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Contemporary Theater of Dallas, WaterTower, Jubilee — has certainly not avoided staging plays with gay characters and content. I am thrilled that Dallas has finally numbered itself among the major cities that host LGBT Theater Festivals every year. If I could make a wish list, it might not hurt to have a troupe dedicated to edgier, angrier queer content.
A+C: This PlayPride Festival is something new from a smaller longstanding company that isn’t directly tied to the LGBT community. What does that say to you?
RICHARD: I applaud TeCo for taking the initiative to host these performances. I have had the opportunity to read the other scripts and each one is excellent. And the thought of all six diverse perspectives on life in the LGBT community being played out together on stage each night is really amazing. The fact that it is being produced by a theater not associated with the LGBT community is both a sign of the progress society is making in reversing the marginalization known in previous years and also a positive step in furthering the “normalization” of gay people.
SODEN: I’m very excited about the new PlayPride Festival. I’m impressed that TeCo came up with this solution, when they felt Mr. Epps’ play was inappropriate for their more traditional, annual competition. They could have just as easily pulled the plug, and ended it there. But they chose to see it as an opportunity to provide a venue for LGBT playwrights. We live in the Bible Belt, and, as you say, they’re not directly associated with the gay community. Yet they stepped up and made a place for us.
Show dates are September 5 –14, 2014, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday performances only 7:30 p.m. nightly with a preview performance on Thursday, September 4, 2014. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. A discount rate of $12 per ticket will be applied to groups of 15 or more people. To purchase tickets, visit www.tecotheater.org/season.php or call (214) 948-0716. All performances at Bishop Arts Theatre Center in Oak Cliff.
—SCOT HART
Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire For Mac Osx
EDITOR’S NOTE: Buster Spiller has won the 1st annual PlayPride LGBT for Pot Liquor. The cast included Nadine Marissa Donaldson, Jerrica Roy, Gerald Taylor II, and Quinton Davis. Spiller plans to donate his $1,000 winnings equally to Living Faith Covenant Church and Abounding Prosperity.