Indie puzzle game Blobun has lesbians laughing because of a joke setting that is likely angering some straight players.
Blobun has a “lesbian toggle” that allows players to eliminate all of its lesbian content. That seems like a bizarre choice from an inclusive game developer until you realize that Stephanie, the protagonist of the video game, is gay and so turning off the lesbian content means erasing her from the game, making it unplayable.
No lesbians allowed? No game for you then!
Jess, a video game collective who created Blobun, said the idea came after helping with a friend's video game ad campaign.
“It all started a while back with our friend’s game Buck Up and Drive, which features billboards with various fake advertisements,” Blobun developer Jess said in an email interview with Polygon.
Jess convinced Buck Up and Drive creator Fábio Fonte to add trans flags as possible advertisements and encouraged him to add a “Pride toggle” to the game that turned every billboard in the game into a Pride flag.
“Some people were angry about it, but on the whole everyone loved it and thought it was really funny,” Jess said.
But with Blobun, they took this a step further by making the game unplayable if the “lesbian toggle” is used. The feature ended up being so popular that in the demo they expanded it so that if it’s turned on, not only does Stephanie disappear from the game, but players can’t view the credits, and Stephanie’s silhouette is even removed from the logo.
“Guys, gals, and nonbinary pals...we gottem,” Jess captioned a photo of the “lesbian toggle” in a thread on Bluesky.
“warning!!!! our game has lesbians in it. Do NOT play Blobun on itch or steam!!! or you will see the lesbians………………………..,” they continued.
Screenshot via Bluesky @cyansorcery.com
Jess said that some people have been angry about the comical addition to the game, but most people think it’s funny.
“It’s been really funny so far seeing people’s reactions, whether it be confusion because they didn’t realize what the toggle was doing, laughing because they figured out exactly what the toggle was doing, or (in rare instances so far) being upset about it,” Jess said. “It was really important to us though, especially in the current political climate, to put this in the game — both to represent ourselves, our friends, and many people out there as well as to filter out the kind of people we don’t want playing our games anyways.”
