There's a hidden vibrator in 'Tacoma' and here's why that's important
The creators behind the 2013 hit Gone Home left an unmentionable for players to discover in their latest and newly released indie darling.
Set on a space station, Fullbright's Tacoma grounds its extraterrestrial backdrop in the personal stories of its passengers. Unlike so many other space games (like the recent Prey, for example), the the objects that litter each area of the station aren't just a bunch of meaningless junk.
Each character's room, and many of the objects included in them, are often imbued with personal significance. Which is why we jumped for joy at this discovery by Paste's Holly Green, who found a vibrator in the bedside cabinet of married lesbian couple, Nat and Bert.
As Green succinctly put it, on the whole, "it’s not often you see a casual reference to the sex life of a videogame character meant to denote a level of intimacy, rather than be presented to the player for titillation."
It may seem small. It may even sound tame compared to other instances of sex toys in games (Green points to Saints Row's dildo gun). But that would negate the entire context surrounding the vibrator in Tacoma.
The inclusion of an object that's almost exclusively for female pleasure, in the drawer of a lesbian couple, is nothing short of revolutionary for video games.
The other male-dominated titles available on Xbox are, more often than not, created by studios predominately populated by male designers. As a result the objects they include and don't include in their games are often colored exclusively by male experiences.
But this small addition to Tacoma showed us something we're far too unaccustomed to seeing in games. Female sexuality -- specifically, a female sexuality that exists outside male fantasies and perspectives.
Nina Freeman, a level designer on the Fullbright team (and a personal friend), told me more about the decision to include the vibrator in their game.
She explained that when the team is thinking about ways to decorate and populate a character's bunk, "we are trying to think about how to make it feel lived in. We really want it to feel like someone was there before you, going about their daily lives."
Specifically, they try to bring a sense of realism to the spaces, but not realism in the usual video game definition that focuses on hyper-realistic graphics.
Fullbright's version of realism is meant to "help the player more intimately understand the characters, by offering them a glimpse into their everyday life." Fullbright aimed to accomplish this by not only "placing objects that convey our story beats, but also random things that people just have around -- whether that's some hand soap, a snack, or a sex toy haha."
The sex toy, from Freeman's perspective, contributes to not only making Nat and Bert's space feel more human and personal, but also "says something interesting (also fun and relatable) about their relationship."
By the point players are able to discover the toy, they already know that Nat and Bert are married. So, Freeman said, "Of course it should come as no surprise that some evidence of their sex life might be lying around by their bed."
Green explains the powerful effect this minor inclusion can have on a player:
It sounds ridiculous, but ultimately it’s humanizing ... I appreciate that small moment for what it is: a positive acknowledgment of female intimacy that had nothing to do with the player’s arousal or approval. ... [The vibrator] wasn’t there to turn me on. Rather, it was to remind the audience that while we often strip homosexuality of its, well, sexuality and sanitize it for heterosexual consumption, gay people are still human beings in need of touch and intimacy and stimulation. Yes, it’s about who you love, but also about who you love.
Overall, the brief moment -- and the entirety of Tacoma as a whole, actually -- did wind up leaving us thirsty. But what we're craving isn't more porn in games.
It made us thirsty for more games about actual, real people, specifically people from across the whole spectrum of sexual orientations and perspectives.
Topics Gaming
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
