A part of living is finding out who we are. Our personality, interests, and goals eventually come to define us — but how much of ‘us’ results from social perceptions? Bound within the constructs of our society, it seems that the freedom to choose then becomes questionable and full of constraints.

The game Dys4ia displays this idea built from the author’s experience with gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy. She wanted to relay her personal journey moving forward as a trans person and, most importantly, how societal perceptions influenced her. Through a series of symbolic mini-games, she reveals her struggles in transforming to a person she came to be.

At first glance, the use of retro bright colors and pixelated art is apparent; it seems to illustrate a period of time the author felt was difficult and overwhelmed with emotions. She confides this with four simple levels of game play. The first describing embarrassment with her appearance: (1) Using a Brick Breaker layout, she shows that she has to constantly defend herself from feminists rejecting the author’s gender (2) Correct others addressing her with the masculine pronoun (3) Get cut by razors while shaving her mustache and (4) Secretly make her way through the Women’s bathroom stalls like a spy. Everything was dark and cloudy to her, until she realized she should go on hormones.

This brings us to the next level, where some amount of frustration is shown. The first mini-game encountered is the search for a ‘good’ clinic. Using a magnifying class, the player will move it around the circle of clinics until a flashing purple on one clinic indicates that it is the correct one. This is followed by the next mini-game, in which she demonstrates the difference between the clinic she chose and the others. She does this so that the player understands what it is like to go for a medical review and not feel insulted by having her gender questioned all the time.

However, this doesn’t mean that everything will go as smoothly. Now she must battle between the prescriptions she has to take and the toll it takes on her body. The sensitivity, mood swings, and physical changes all made her feel strange and alien-like. But she had a girlfriend and family to support her, and after awhile things seemed to be getting better. She felt like she could be addressed as a female and her confidence out shined the negativity of her haters. She could finally be ‘pink’ as symbolized in the last level.

By choosing a game as an outlet rather than a book, the author is able to converse her thoughts in a way that can be easily visualized and understood. She did not need an avatar with a face or clothes, because we often have stereotypes of what a trans person would look like and we don’t want to focus on the person them self but their experiences. As a result, her mannerism in which she expresses her feelings empathizes with the player no matter which gender they identify with.