Gay and Lesbian characters in Valet Hustle iPhone game

We’ve got a review of Valet Hustle going up tomorrow, but we wanted to highlight this title because it features main playable characters that are gay (male playable) or lesbian (female playable). You may recall way back when the iPhone first released we discussed whether or not it would be the device that would be a game changer with regards to published titles featuring more openness by featuring gay player characters or storylines. Valet Hustle is the first we’ve come across and it actually looks pretty cool. The game by Factory Games has you playing the role of either Akira or Ren and you’re responsible for managing the Valet Service at various glamorous venues around the world, starting in Tokyo and then moving on to New York. Gameplay is touted as “frantic combination of resource management and puzzle elements.” We were saddened this morning however when a rather large gaming site went with the old “promotes homosexuality” as their headline. I wonder why something featuring gay characters ‘promotes’ something. So all FPS games promote violence, all driving games promote unsafe driving? Jack Thompson would love those headlines. Our full review of Valet Hustle will go live tomorrow (Thurs AU).

7 Responses to “Gay and Lesbian characters in Valet Hustle iPhone game”

1. Hutton says:

   February 25, 2010 at 9:43 am

   This looks crap, Very Male Lesbian fantasy. Come on we want, we need some good roll models. How about a female squad in MW2 now that would be fun.
2. coolgame17 says:

   February 25, 2010 at 10:45 am

   I researched and I found a site that video game where the phrase “promote homosexuality” is used. But I will not be at all surprised to learn that more than one site as I spoke.

   In any case, I find it unfortunate that this game is released as iPhone only.

   Otherwise, I love the site Lesbian Gamers! ^^

   PS: Sorry for my English ^^’
3. ThatLezBean says:

   February 25, 2010 at 5:38 pm

   Thanks for pointing this one out y’all or I know I would have missed it. I was addicted to the little airplane game so I think I’ll like this one. I’ll check it out for sure.

   I don’t think its male fantasy lesbian, she looks pretty cool. Provided she doesnt hit on a guy in the game I’ll be happy.
4. andrew says:

   February 25, 2010 at 5:59 pm

   Hi Hutton,

   As one of the screenwriters for Valet Hustle I wanted to give you some background on how the opening cinema was developed.

   When myself and my writing partner Lulu started to work on the screenplay, it was much more involved. Ren was shown in a number of different scenes that better represented Ren as we imagined her prior to the opening kissing and expulsion scenes.

   During development of the cinema, we ran out of money so we had to make some hard choices with regards to how to jump start Ren and Akria’s backstory (it’s very hard to get funding for a videogame, much less one that features gay and lesbian protagonists).

   We didn’t want to go with the usual videogame/movie cliche of introducing their sexuality as some form of “shocking” revelation later in the story, so we decided to introduce both Ren and Akria’s sexuality early in the game.

   If the first cinema comes across as a “Very Male Lesbian Fantasy”, then perhaps we made the wrong choice in terms of what to cut. We didn’t intend the opening scene to be titillating, we wanted our audience to see that in many schools there is a very high degree of institutional prejudice hence most of the screen time was dedicating to dealing with Ren’s expulsion.

   Otherwise a female squad in MW2 would be cool, but I can go one better: a video game version of Aliens 2 where you can play Vasquez. Now that would be an awesome female videogame character.

   Sorry for the long post.

   Cheers,

   Andrew
   Factory Games
5. Bri says:

   February 25, 2010 at 8:22 pm

   Nice.

   As others stated thanks for letting us know about this. There is so much rubbish on the app store now that the chance of me finding this title was pretty slim.

   Lesbian lead character = count me in!
6. Bri says:

   February 25, 2010 at 8:23 pm

   Dunh and how cool that the screenwriter wrote about the game here.
7. Tyler says:

   July 10, 2010 at 2:06 pm

   Game sucks won’t even work… Don’t buy it