Video games can help struggling transgender teens. A review of ZZT by Anna Anthropy
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I’ve never played ZZT. I’m not transgender. And for a book that aims to enlighten the reader on both fronts, it’s got some problems.
Welcome to Burning Books. I’m Caleb, and I want to help you love video games even more. And today I’m excited to share with you a story of a transgender teen who credits a particular video game with giving her the confidence to explore her gender. But the book itself does have some problems.
But before that, a reminder. I’m reviewing all Boss Fight Books releases, so if you are interested in watching the video reviews I’ve done so far, click the link to the playlist in the description below.
ZZT, by Anna Anthropy, spends half its pages explaining to the modern gamer what ZZT is, or what it was. And I’m part of that audience. I’d never even heard of ZZT prior to reading this book. And what was ZZT? It was an early 90s era ASCII based top down adventure PC game that became popular in large part due to its world editor and small file size. Small files were important during the time of dial-up internet and during the time when IRC chat rooms ruled. The melding of anonymous conversation allowed by chat rooms with self-expression through game design is the story Anna Anthropy wants to tell. And it’s a very interesting story.
She sets up the promise of this story succinctly when she describes creating her first AOL handle:
“It was the first time anyone would ever give me the opportunity to choose my own name. Much later I would realize that I could identify myself online as a girl and no one could prove otherwise.” (pg 48)
This is the story I want to read. I have little experience with non-binary gender identity. But I’d love to learn more.
The problem is, I have to wait many pages before learning more. Everything I just told you about ZZT–all 100-ish words– is all this book really needed in terms of describing ZZT. But the author, in a seeming desire to make the reader feel they got their money’s worth in terms of word count, stretches the ZZT-heavy first half of the book for way too long.
The first half feels long in part because it’s disjointed. It lacks any coherent narrative, constantly bouncing between describing game assets and detailing the game’s development timeline and sales strategy. And if the argument is you don’t need a narrative to document ZZT as an artifact, I will agree. However, the book doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be a document of an artifact or if it wants to be a memoir of a teenager coming out at trans. I’m not convinced these two stories can live comfortably in the same binding.
And I get the sense the author may feel the same (I haven’t spoken with her, so this is just the sense that I get). The second half of the book is so much more confidently told. The first half spends too much time describing the intricacies of ZZT, at times bordering on tutorial. To the unacclimated newb, the details lack any sense of import. It’s just an infodump that the reader can skim through without repercussion. If I, as a reader, don’t have faith that the information presented is important for me to remember, then that’s a red flag that the story has problems.
To the acclimated ZZT player, the infodump serves no purpose beyond reminding the player how basic ZZT was, with commentary that doesn’t go much beyond “remember when we had to imagine a Yen symbol was a torch…that was crazy, right?”
But I understand that if the author had moved fast on the ZZT stuff, the book couldn’t be called ZZT. And maybe that’s what I’m arguing here. Anna Anthropy’s story-as it’s told–isn’t book-length material. It’s essay material.
But that second half is really great. I would place it comfortably in the canon of literature that explores video games and gender identity. Here’s where I, as a capable reviewer, should be able to say which books I’d place it alongside, but sadly the only book I’ve read that might fit into this canon is Zoe Quinn’s Crash Override. A book I loved, by the way. If you have any suggestions for books that explore gender through the lens of video games, please let me know in the comments below.
Do I recommend this book? It’s hard to say. If you want a personal story of a teenager learning about her own gender identity, then yes. But maybe skip to page 70. If you want a document on the history of ZZT, maybe. But there are more comprehensive and readable places online.
ZZT has made me want to explore Anthrophy’s other work, particularly Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. I was really into zines for a brief time in college, but I never thought of them as having video game content. Sounds interesting to me and I may read it in the future.
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Mentioned
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Music Credits
8bit Dungeon Level Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
