In Fat Princess, the game starts with two opposing teams (up to 16 per side), each with the other’s princess held captive. The object is to reach the other castle and retrieve the princess, in a ‘capture the flag’ style face-off. But there’s a twist, which lends the game its title. In order to make the captured damsel-in-distress more difficult to carry, she must be fed cake until she’s morbidly obese.
Combat will figure into the game as well. Team members consist of classic fantasy characters such as swordsmen, archers, priests and wizards, clashing with the other side’s units in bloody battles. But fighting has to be balanced with feeding the princess, because she will lose weight if she isn’t stuffed regularly.
A game such as this one has naturally caught the attention of many people, and some are not pleased. Over at the blog Feminist Gamers, a scathing observation of the game’s core mechanic was posted. Contributor Mighty Ponygirl had this to say:
Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.
Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.
The game will be available on Sony’s Playstation Store service and is expected to be released sometime in 2009. The question of whether some details will be tweaked before then is yet to be answered.
Quad Says: Hey, I’m all for new and innovative ideas. It’s one of the strongest legs the video game industry has to stand on. That said, blatantly making fun of obesity is rather childish. And as far as the question of sexism is concerned, I am feeling some of the same vibes I did when this game came out.
