User Experience

Image Description: A woman stands in a featureless room. She has long strawberry blonde hair that covers her otherwise bare breasts. She has one well-manicured hand on her hip, and the other on her thigh. She is wearing only a silver ring on her left middle finger and a small circular silver shield over her groin, held in place with a thin silver chain.

Caption: “Why did you change my character designs?” Audrey demanded, barging into Felix’s office.
“Marketing thought your female warrior design was unattractive.”
“She’s a barbarian. She isn’t supposed to be attractive, she’s supposed to be a badass.”
“That’s a pretty sexist attitude. Attractive women can be badasses.”
“You made her into a stick-thin sex object in a metal bikini! Her armor is totally impractical! It doesn’t provide actual protection!”
“Sure it does, it has the same stats as the male armor. And the male characters are sexualized too, just look at all their muscles! Besides, we have to make certain aesthetic choices. For realism.”
“It’s a fantasy game!”
“So why does it matter if she has ‘practical’ armor? You’re just not making sense, Audrey. I think you’re too emotionally invested.”
She glared at him, then sighed in frustration and stomped out.

When Felix woke, he brushed long hair out of his face with a willowy, manicured hand. Looking around, it only took him a moment to recognize the surroundings. After all, he’d been looking at them for over a year now. He was in the game! Level 1!

A note had been coded into a nearby wall: “I’ve given it some more thought, and you’re totally right. In fact, I made some more badass aesthetic adjustments that I think you’ll really enjoy! Make it to the end of the game, and we’ll talk about your user experience after.

- Audrey”

Commentary: At one point I had a different idea for this picture, and I might get around to doing it at some point...