Lupi

@lupi

cow of tailed snake (gay)

they/them/moo
chimoora.zone/

avatar by @citriccenobite

you can say "chimoora" instead of "cow of tailed snake" if you want. its a good pun.

i ramble about aerospace sometimes
I take rocket photos and you can see them @aWildLupi

I have a terminal case of bovine pungiform encephalopathy, the bovine puns are cowmpulsory

they/them/moo where "moo" stands in for "you" or where it's funny, like "how are moo today, Lupi?" or "dancing with mooself"

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Lupi @lupi10/10/2023, 11:04 PM

Mark, Panther Fairy @starkat1138

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 2:24 PM

A thought experiment for Cohost.

I did this year's ago on twitter, and was pleasantly surprised and horrified by the results, but,

What's the earliest videogame you can recall, to feature an explicitly black, or PoC, protagonist? Create A Character does not count.

Just a wee thought.

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 9:10 PM

A followup.

People have said Sports Games. I wouldn't count that. Sports don't typically have a narrative, or a 'protagonist', unless your American Football game is about a singular player and his story.

Kudos to people who are saying Streets of Rage 1! Adam was a black playable character. However, he's less of a protagonist, I feel. He is part of the story, but, so are Axel and Blaze.

Last time I brought this up, I think only one person brought up Shadow Man, a 1999 N64 game. The protagonist, Mike LeRoi, is explicitly of colour, and it's not irrelevant to the game, or the comics it's based on.

However, a massive kudos to @wirelessmouse for mentioning a game I know, and am aware of: Elder Scrolls: Redguard, from 1998! Redguards may be a fantasy species, but they are explicitly of colour. This is, so far, the earliest narrative in videogames that features a black protagonist.

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in reply to @Behemous's post:

Rose @modernmodron10/10/2023, 2:30 PM

depressing but I think the earliest I can remember is like, the walking dead

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 9:42 PM

What's more depressing is you might have been too young for the launch of GTA San Andreas, oohgh

Rose @modernmodron10/10/2023, 9:59 PM

Oh yeah, I was old enough probably, but I wasn't into those games at the time

PinballsWizard @pinball10/10/2023, 2:54 PM

probably disney's aladdin on the sega genesis?

Ike @isaaclor10/10/2023, 3:04 PM

Yeah Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove lmao

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 9:40 PM

These are quite early, but, regrettably, I dunno how good they are? They tie in to a movie that, admittedly, is not white, but it's a product for that movie.

Th Esteemed Deed Commemorator @spineflu10/10/2023, 3:16 PM

ff6? general leo

Vixie Foxpaw-Moondew @VixieMoondew10/10/2023, 3:25 PM

oh that is a FASCINATING question

Vixie Foxpaw-Moondew @VixieMoondew10/10/2023, 6:36 PM

it says a lot that the only easy mode early answer is "sports games" and i think "protagonist" is a stretch

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 7:02 PM

I wouldn't rate it, honestly. They're built from real world rosters, and those can get very large. I also don't count some ensemble games as hard, Streets of Rage 1 being very early, but, 1/3 of your playable characters. That's not a black story, honestly.

Çyn @Cyn-Cedilla10/10/2023, 3:29 PM

There are older games, but maybe the first one in my personal play history is Final Fantasy 7? Assuming JRPG party members count.

The first time I remember it feeling like an intentional, considered decision was maybe Beyond Good & Evil?

Implicit, but worth a mention, the Kongs in Rare's Donkey Kong Country/Land games are very 80s/90s Cartoon Black-Coded (the kids and their rap music and boomboxes and backwards hats, plus whatever the hell was going on with Funky Kong), which should raise some dang eyebrows because they're... literally cartoon apes???

jeroknite @jeroknite10/10/2023, 4:05 PM

Do games made in Japan with Japanese characters count?

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 5:39 PM

It depends

Dragaroth @Dragaroths-hideaway10/10/2023, 9:36 PM

yes, but then you're going to get people claiming they're actually white, or white passing or etc etc etc, so maybe best to just ignore that category.

Th Esteemed Deed Commemorator @spineflu10/10/2023, 4:05 PM

also ff4 has Yang as a playable/protag character, but that feels like more of squaresoft playing in genre space than intentional representation.

ida “https://deerz.one/” deerz @idadeerz10/10/2023, 4:37 PM

first thought: GTA San Andreas
second thought: probably the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series

SomedayNS @SomedayNotSoon10/10/2023, 5:11 PM

"Recall" is GTA San Andreas.

"That you can think of/find without googling "first black game character" is a much harder question. My answer is Streets of Rage 1. 1991.

Dragaroth @Dragaroths-hideaway10/10/2023, 9:35 PM

old dungeon crawler for the NES, or SNES. to hell with remembering the name of it, but the little town outside the cave had plenty of diff people

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 9:38 PM

Those are characters, and black characters, like, at ALL on the NES is something I really don't recall at all, but, those aren't protagonists.

Dragaroth @Dragaroths-hideaway10/10/2023, 9:48 PM

NGL I'm so out of it I absolutely did indeed miss the 'protag' part of the post, true.

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/10/2023, 9:54 PM

That's okay, we're all out of it at some time.

Cody · Mushroom.Haus 🍄🏠@mushroomhaus10/10/2023, 11:23 PM

I would go with Prince of Persia, though AFAIK they never specifically call it out outside of context clues from the story and setting.

ketra @ketra10/11/2023, 12:24 AM

Prince of Persia was my first thought as well. It's the nature of representation -- sometimes your identity is explored in detail, sometimes you're just an anonymous Persian prince.

Belarius @belarius10/10/2023, 11:42 PM

Without having read the comments, the earliest that comes to mind is Shadowman (1999). The overall aesthetic feels very much like a video game based on a comic book written by two white dudes in the 90s. :eggbug-nervous:

A Mouse of Many Suplexes @Behemous10/11/2023, 4:27 AM

I really enjoyed Shadow Man at the time but, yeah, it was definitely written by white people

Xīn Jīn Mèng @xinjinmeng10/11/2023, 3:18 AM

🤔 My first guess would be "Bruce Lee" from 1984.

"The Castles of Dr. Creep", also 1984, has a black character as one of the playable options, but the manual doesn't have a backstory, only describing the 2-player protagonists as "you and your companion". Castles of Dr Creep

Another entry from 1984, "The A Team" has you play as B. A. Baracus (a role made famous by Mr. T) on the Atari 2600, in a re-skin of an older game named "Saboteur". A-Team

Xīn Jīn Mèng @xinjinmeng10/11/2023, 11:37 AM

Imagic's "Riddle of the Sphynx" (1982) casts the player as the "Prince of Egypt", but it doesn't specify which era or dynasty.

Xīn Jīn Mèng @xinjinmeng10/11/2023, 11:43 AM

🤔 Depending on how one defines "video game" and, ahem. ancient Sumeria, "The Sumerian Game" from 1964 (!) is a text-based resource-management game that casts the player as leaders in the Fertile Crescent around 3500 BC. This game would later be ported as "Hammurabi" or "Hamurabi" [sic] to the BASIC language in 1971, and there would be numerous imitators after that.

in reply to @Behemous's post:

ketra @ketra10/11/2023, 12:25 AM

Shaq Fu. A game I know nothing about, but it exists.

@Simbionis10/11/2023, 5:26 AM

While the earliest one I could think of off the top of my head was Shadowman, or maybe Turok if you put Native Americans with POC for this, this got me to do some digging.

The earliest I could find was a Commodore 64 game called Ghetto Blaster from 1985 where you play as black protagonist Rockin' Rodney, though being a C64 game it might be too much on the simple end for what your looking for here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_Blaster_(video_game)

Also shoutouts to Daley Thompson's Decathlon from 1984 which might be the first sports game to have a black athlete as the solo star of the game.

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