Queers in Love at the End of the World
| Queers in Love at the End of the World | |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Anna Anthropy |
| Writer(s) | Anna Anthropy |
| Engine | Twine |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | 2013 |
| Genre(s) | |
Queers in Love at the End of the World is a hypertext game by Anna Anthropy created with Twine.[1][2] Developed for a 2013 game jam, Queers in Love at the End of the World asks its player to choose how to interact with their partner in the last ten seconds before the world ends.[3]
Gameplay
Each playthrough of Queers in Love at the End of the World is ten seconds long.[3] A timer counts down from ten, and when it hits zero, the game ends.[3] For those ten seconds, the player reads through short narrative paragraphs and makes choices by selecting highlighted text, with each choice leading to a new outcome and more branching choices.[3][4][5]
Plot
The player character interacts with their lover in the last ten seconds before the end of the world.[4][6] The outcome is always the same: the world ends.[3][6]
Development
Anna Anthropy built Queers in Love at the End of the World in Twine in 2013 for Ludum Dare, a game jam.
Reception
Scholar Claudia Lo praised the game's embrace of queer temporality, as described in José Esteban Muñoz's Cruising Utopia.[5] At The Guardian, Cara Ellison stated that Queers "evokes an itinerant life better than any other game".[1]
The game was included in a 2018 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled "Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt".[6]
References
- ^ a b Ellison, Cara (2014-12-11). "A verse about Queers in Love at the End of the World". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
- ^ Macklin, Colleen; Sharp, John (2016-05-19). Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design. Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 9780134392226.
- ^ a b c d e Burak, Asi; Parker, Laura. "The power of Twine". Polygon. Archived from the original on 2018-04-18. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
- ^ a b Burak, Asi; Parker, Laura (2017-01-31). Power Play: How Video Games Can Save the World. Macmillan. p. 211. ISBN 9781250089335.
- ^ a b Lo, Claudia (2017). "Everything Is Wiped Away: Queer Temporality in Queers in Love at the End of the World". Camera Obscura. 32 (2): 185–192. doi:10.1215/02705346-3925194.
- ^ a b c Marshall, Alex (2018-09-11). "Playing Games Can Be Hard Work. So Can Choosing Which Ones to Display". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-05.