“It’s not just a game… it’s a Gayme!”
July 22, 2018 7:09 AM   Subscribe

Caper in the Castro was probably the first LGBTQ computer game. The player takes on the “the role of a lesbian private detective, Tracker McDyke, in search of a kidnapped drag queen, Tessy LaFemme.” The adventure mystery game was designed for Apple’s HyperCard, by C. M. Ralph, and released in 1989 as CharityWare, which meant that if people enjoyed playing, they were encouraged to “make a donation to an AIDS Related charity of your choice for whatever amount you feel is appropriate”. Adrienne Shaw of the LGBTQ game archive wrote about the game and interviewed Ralph last year.
posted by Kattullus (14 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh, I forgot to make clear that the first link takes you to a playable version of Caper in the Castro.
posted by Kattullus at 7:10 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Ummm, be careful of the stairs. I learned the hard way.
posted by Fizz at 7:18 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


How did I not know about this when I was into just about every Hypercard thing ever made?

But really, right now I just love to think that my original Macintosh, which was once just impossibly advanced and complex compared to the text-based computers that came before it, is now so primitive that the whole thing can be emulated in a browser.
posted by rokusan at 7:45 AM on July 22, 2018 [3 favorites]


This is great. I love the whole aesthetic and the setting takes me back to the Twin Peaks bar...from this game I guess Divisadero was a rougher neighborhood back in Hypercard times.

Back in the days of Deja Vu we thought interfaces like this were amazing.
posted by johngoren at 7:56 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Semi-related questions: Carmen Sandiego is queer, right? I mean, she's always been queer in my head canon. I'm not sure why, maybe the fashion? Wondering what others think, because this game makes me want a more openly LGBTQ version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Or does that already exist?
posted by Fizz at 8:13 AM on July 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


It did at a couple of Halloween parties I went to in college
posted by saturday_morning at 10:36 AM on July 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


1989? Rocky Horror (IIRC billing itself as "Original TV Game!") came out on the Spectrum in 1985. I guess that just proves the article's point though.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:36 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


My first reaction was a bit of shock. If someone put out a game today with "Tracker McDyke" looking for Tessy LaFemme," my first thought would be that it was a trollish reactionary piece, or at best some tone-deaf cis-het white dudes being "edgy."

I think that means we've progressed, as a society. I'm not sure, though.
posted by Scattercat at 11:51 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


rhamphorhyncus: Rocky Horror (IIRC billing itself as "Original TV Game!") came out on the Spectrum in 1985.

LGBTQ Games Archive lists it as a game to be investigated, so they’re aware of it.
posted by Kattullus at 11:52 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


If someone put out a game today with "Tracker McDyke" looking for Tessy LaFemme," my first thought would be that it was a trollish reactionary piece, or at best some tone-deaf cis-het white dudes being "edgy." I think that means we've progressed, as a society. I'm not sure, though.

I oscillate on this myself. Have we progressed, or just lost our sense of humor? My appraisal varies day to day.
posted by rokusan at 9:07 PM on July 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


Semi-related questions: Carmen Sandiego is queer, right? I mean, she's always been queer in my head canon. I'm not sure why, maybe the fashion? Wondering what others think, because this game makes me want a more openly LGBTQ version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Or does that already exist?

As far as we know, Carmen's first love is impossibly audacious heists

so I'd imagine she's probably ace
posted by Merus at 10:01 PM on July 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


I mean, it's not like camp is entirely dead: RuPaul's massively popular, and I could see someone like Anna Anthropy (she of "Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree") or Porpentine using names like that. No, larger-budget studios wouldn't touch it, but larger-budget studios were never going to touch campy queer stories anyway: I'm glad that we're getting serious, earnest, nuanced queer content like Gone Home from larger studios and standard big-budget game romances, too.

More to the point, I think it's just that tastes change. Personally, that style of parodic humor doesn't really land for me. Look at the difference between MAD and McSweeney's, or McSweeney's and dril. Yep, I get the joke, she's a lesbian and her name means lesbian, is that all? Kind of like Terry Pratchett's first two novels versus the rest of them: you can have a sort of smirking insinuation that everyone knows the game where part of the pleasure, I suppose, is being part of an in-group that gets the puns and references, but if that's all you've got... Sorry, but "Tracker McDyke" is about as clever as the Harry Potter parody starring Barry Trotter, Lon Measly and Ermine Cringer.
posted by storytam at 1:25 AM on July 23, 2018


> If someone put out a game today with "Tracker McDyke" looking for Tessy LaFemme," my first thought would be that it was a trollish reactionary piece, or at best some tone-deaf cis-het white dudes being "edgy."

If the game was produced by a member of the LGBTQ community and promoted within the community, I am willing to believe they were using a vocabulary that was usable/acceptable by their peers circa 1989.
posted by ardgedee at 4:26 AM on July 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


I recall a DOS games collector recently found ads in a magazine for some queer games from the 80s, but no one else has heard of them, so they may never have come out. I wish I could find that tweet.
posted by Canageek at 7:58 PM on July 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


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