And now you even have a genuine fat princess posting in your thread! (I’m a JAP from Long Island, okay?)
As a feminist, I see nothing offensive here. It looks cute, and I especially like the title.
Hay, what cud you have expected?
I can’t wait until the opportunity to call someone a “fat-hating, heteronormative asshole” comes up in conversation. 
My teacher gave me this adorable French-language book called “The Fat Princess”, set in Quebec with this precocious little girl who knows her swears, and now I’m deeply confused.
On review of the thread: I’m fat and a… well, uh, blue-blooded on both sides. I’m waiting for the PSP version so I don’t have to chop off a limb to get a PS3.
Are you a gay elf? That might explain why they kept it from you.
And you, in turn, have made the gamer in me cringe. If she rescues herself, that really doesn’t leave anything for the player to do. “Why can’t they solve their problems themselves?” is a question that could be applied to countless NPCs (covering all sorts of genders, races, species, and planets of origin) across countless games. But if you’re asking questions like that in earnest, as opposed to just doing something like jokingly musing that Pacman would be easier if he and the ghosts could just come to an understanding, then you’re missing the entire point of gaming.
But in the interest of humor, I will express my outrage at the lack of recognition given to NPCs’ rights. For far too long, game developers have turned a blind eye while various NPCs have been battered, beaten, and blown up. Your typical NPC has a life expectancy that’s drastically shorter than that of the main character. In fact, dozens or even hundreds of NPCs may be slaughtered before the player loses even a single life. Furthermore, in all but a few cases, NPCs aren’t given the luxury of reserve lives, the ability to reload on death, or continues. Hell, most NPCs don’t even have individual names.
I say this ends now. It is only fair and just that NPCs be given the same level of dignity and recognition as the main characters of video games. They should not be portrayed as dimwitted or otherwise confined to a fixed pattern of behavior. They should not exist merely as forgettable obstacles or scenery. They deserve a higher purpose and greater recognition.
Sure, as long as I can still slaughter them afterward.
-Vinyl Turnip, Liberty City’s most notorious mass murderer
quietly sneaks behind with a waving flag and subtle patriotic music
Um…so…are there any princesses that need rescuing around here?
Well, I haven’t trained any up yet, so you might want to come back in about a month.
You could capture one and train her youself.
No more Pun jabs? Doesn’t every princess need a palace in Punjab with adoring Punjabis, singing her praises in Pungabi.
Psst, they already have a union. Maybe you can join up.
I think it’s cute. And really, the first thing that came to mind when I read the article was, “Oh, some game designer took that old joke about ‘I’m not fat, I’m hard to kidnap!’ and built a game around it. How clever.” That, to me, makes more sense than the idea that someone deliberately set out to insult whoever the hell the offenderati thinks is being insulted here.
Shrug, Some People think that stuff like “there’s a lot of female night elves in WoW” indicate that “straight guys like tall leggy chicks who dance like they’re about to start pulling veils off more than they like short chicks with a serious case of curves who jig.” (aka “those nonexistant female dwarves”)
The same Some People think everybody who plays WoW is a straight guy who never gets any, lives in his parents’ basement, eats nothing but cold-unto-brickness pizza and wears a coca-cola drip.
Yes, thanks to a lot of dames who worked their buns off changing our culture you can respond to something you find insulting without your behavior being branded “unladylike.” But if it just happens to be at a feminist website, someone is bound to call you “strident.”
A feminist is a person who believes in gender equality in social, political and econimic issues.
There are feminists with pushy attitudes. There are feminists with traditionally feminine personalities. There are silly feminists and intellectual feminists and grandmotherly feminists. There are feminists with beards and balls. The thing that makes them feminists is their belief in gender equality in social, political and economic issues.
It is possible that you may be a feminist who isn’t at all upset by “the Fat Princess Game.” There are more of us out here.
Um, what’s NPC? (all I can think of it non-PC, but that doesn’t quite work…). This is probably why I don’t game–this seems boring to me. I think Pacman coming to an understanding with the ghosts makes no sense–that’d be like the lil chef being nice to the Evil Hot Dogs in BurgerTime (still the best game I ever played–it’s been awhile…).
That wasn’t what I meant at all. I can understand why it’s the quest and the obstacles etc that make the game challenging and that it doesn’t really matter what the object/person/character/creature is that you’re set on freeing or rescuing or whatever, but I think a more interesting game would be one where the object of the quest could also act independently and not always in their best interest (the getting fat bit works here, but I am thinking more of a Stockholm syndrome type thing–make it REALLY interesting). Other than that, I don’t really care about “heteronormative” stuff. I do have a question, though. If it doesn’t matter what the object to be rescued is, why does it have to be what it is? Why not make it something else entirely?
I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s fun. I don’t think that rescuing a fat princess is going to encourage chauvinism etc in anyone, I’m just curious. I’d rather a fat princess than hookers getting dismembered etc. I think I’m coming across here as disapproving, but I’m not, really. It’s all fun.
PC: player character. Also “toon.” The character a player is playing, as redundant and circular as that sounds 
NPC: non-player character. In a computer game, the “people” controlled by the computer.
In WoW there’s a quest chain where you’re asked to rescue a princess who’s been kidnapped by a rival king and
once you kill her captor, she proudly proclaims that you’ve killed the father of her as-yet-unborn child and that you can tell the prople who sent you (which can be the leader of two different factions) to basically KHA, cos she ain’t going back home, no way, no how! This is her home and her kingdom, now.
Well damn. I’m 5 years late to the joke, and it’s on the site that pointed me towards the SDMB to boot.
Nava addressed this, but to expand a bit: They’re the (usually) mindless, computer-controlled characters in games. Often, the exist as obstacles between the player’s character and whatever goal they’re trying to achieve. One obvious example is the aforementioned ghosts in Pacman. If they were smart, the game would be impossible – they could always box Pacman in, prevent him from getting the power pills, and kill him. Instead, they behave in a somewhat predictable fashion that’s still smart enough to provide a challenge but which allows a clever and skillful player to consistently outwit them, turning the situation into a game.
That was sort of my point – that the princess rescuing herself or Pacman making peace with the ghosts would be pretty boring for gaming. It’d be more of a movie than a game.
As a side-note, there’s a program called MAME which will emulate the old BurgerTime arcade game on a PC. It’s a bit tricky to get working (especially since you have to track down copies of the BurgerTime ROMs), but the nostalgia is pretty rewarding. Here’s a link to the menu-driven Windows version of MAME: http://mameui.classicgaming.gamespy.com/
The problem with that is that you’re adding more complications to a part of the game that really doesn’t need it. It’s not a simulation of being a princess but rather just a fun twist on Capture the Flag. The princess/cake mechanic is just a small twist on the underlying concept. An independent princess/flag would be a much larger twist and seems more appropriate to a different type of game. In particular, it would work better in a single player environment where characters can be fleshed out. Fat Princess is going to have 32 players at once – which should capture the frenzy and fun of the battlefields and playgrounds that it draws its inspiration from but which leaves less room for depth of character.
I’d argue that this question has the most merit but, strangely enough, is also the easiest to answer: Because it’s funny.
From the premise to the cute graphics to the hilariously blunt and descriptive title, it’s funny. Gamers everywhere will be lamenting, “Nooo! They keep stuffing my princess full of cake. Stop that! I’m coming to save you, princess!” It’s just funnier and more personable than an identical game mechanic where the princess is replaced with a flag and the cake is replaced with lead weights that’re welded to the flag pole.
I think part of the problem is that the off-site accusations that led to this thread were charged enough to put people on the defensive. So any questioning further on is likely to be misperceived as being part of the attack even if it’s just a neutral inquiry.
Now THAT I like! And what does Prince Charming then do? Stand around scratching his head? I’d love it if then that princess turned the tables on him and started chasing him, vowing vengeance. Then allies would be sought, and confrontations would be epic! Yes! I see it all…
I’ll game when it’s more than Capture the Flag disguised. Any chance of that happening? um, soon-ish? I’m 46…