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I have a question about the rule around not portraying jealousy. I might be misreading it, but they seemed to imply that jealousy should not be portrayed unless it is "overcome" by the end of the game. Jealousy is an emotion that virtually all humans experience, and I'm worried that disallowing characters from expressing an entire emotion by the end of the game isn't great for polyamory representation either. It sets a very high bar of "perfection" that most people can't live up to, and may make polyamorous folks whose lives don't live up to that high bar feel bad about themselves. Struggling with jealousy, especially if you come from a background of trauma around unmet needs or clinical anxiety, doesn't make someone a bad person or not polyamorous or imply their relationships will fail. I get that it's a negative stereotype that jealousy will destroy polyamorous relationships, and that many mono people assume that it isn't possible to have polyam relationships without jealousy, but I also want to see more games with polyamory that feel realistic while still being positive/happy representations.

Also, is it acceptable to focus on non-romantic or queerplatonic partnerships in the context of polyamory? What about content that focuses on aromantic spectrum people, queerplatonic relationships, and otherwise non-romantic polyamorous relationships? Aro people exist in polyamorous spaces, and I want to see their experiences in games as well. Arospec relationships get devalued so often and considered "less than" romantic ones.

(While I'm not currently in any relationships, I'm pretty sure I'm polyam and I'm definitely arospec.)

I would say feel free to let jealousy to be in your game for realism, but face it - with too much jealousy or without overcoming jealousy, there can't be truly polyAMORous (love-full) relationships.


I wrote the above from also my personal experiences...

(1 edit) (+1)

Showcasing jealousy as a part of the story to be overcome is more than fine. My rule was to not let jealousy be the main thing showcased as it’s a problematic trope polyamorous people, like myself face. That our relationships don’t work because of jealousy etc… I understand romance stories and stories in general need conflict. What matters is they have a good endings and those stereotypes about us don’t win. And especially aren’t emboldened by the text created for a positive jam about good polyamory representation ❤️ 


As for the platonic representations of poly. I do acknowledge of course that those relationships exist and should be showcased. This is and was first and foremost a romantic centric jam for me. As I’m primarily a romance writer and by extension mostly a romance reader so I do prefer the stories submitted will be closer to that. 

Of course, anyone can make their own jam with their own set of rules to bring different types of representation if they want. 

My word is not gospel, these are simply the things I enjoy and this jam is very self indulgent. 

Here is my romance inspirational true story aimed also at manual for awesome dating: https://novelo.com/story/1396 .
Please let me know your opiion on it (polyamory is not directky show in the story but there is a PHOTO and a LINK to a web-pos also about it).