“The Boob Jam is a game jam,” reads the official site. “We’re inviting game developers to make games about one of video games’s very favourite subjects: Tits!”
It might sound like something one of the more misogynistic developers might decide to do, or something you'd see as part of a game show with handfuls of scantily clad booth babes standing around, but it's not, it comes from the mind (and jokes) of Jenn Frank, writer for Unwinnable.com and the disembodied voice in Super Hexagon. What does she want developers to do with boobs? Something different.
“Make a game that talks about boobs without resorting to the ‘straight male gaze,'” is the only instruction for the Boob Jam. It's based around the concept created by a few joking tweets Frank made, one of which said. “What if you had to watch a sexy videogame character also buy bras, cry softly when she can’t find one that fits, and go in for mammograms?”
It's a bit graphic, but she has a point. It's described further via the Boob Jam site, that breasts are almost entirely used in video games as an aspect of a character that is exciting to look at. There's a long running gag in fighters like Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur that the characters' chests are far too big to be practical, but rarely are they a topic beyond that.
Frank also announced that her favourite Soul Calibur character is Ivy.
The point of the Boob Jam is to highlight that they're more than just eye candy for male gamers. Frank and others don't want to see less breast meat, they just want to see what other contexts they can be placed in, to perhaps make them more relevant to a more varied audience and perhaps explore what else they can mean to gamers.
Some suggested game types from commenters have involved breast milk shooting heroines, bra size shopping woes, a stealth game based around hiding your cleavage or finding a quiet place to breast feed your child because many locales consider it sexual and unwelcome in public society.
Remember when these freaked everybody out?
Boob Jam is set to take place from now until the end of September, so if you want to be part of it, do some brainstorming and send your submissions over to the official Tumblr page.
KitGuru Says: I'm down for this. What sort of breast based games can you guys think up (this is a chance for KG readers to sound progressive here, let's steer clear of the dumb stereotypes people).
This is awesome! More t*ts! Lmao.
Breast based games? Let’s see.
Tomb Raider
Deadpool (fanservice)
Skyrim (probably)
Assassins Creed III: Liberation
Lollipop Chainsaw
That’s all I can think 😀
~Kira
“or finding a quite place to breast fee”
quiet*