Sissyfight.com
By Zoë Agnew
Do you recall high school, or junior high even, as an out-and-out
battle over popularity and social acceptance? In case that impression
of your school days is not solid, SissyFight is here to help you regain
your memories. Sissy Fight is a shockwave-based game that reduces
all of your worst memories of adolescent cattiness into a simple game
of biting strategy. The goal is to publicly humiliate your opponents,
meaning your fellow classmates. You begin by creating your character.
You choose from a variety of faces and hairstyles to embody the look
of a fierce competitor. Most of the visual possibilities are sour-faced
and mean looking, while others border on alien. Then you choose a
name for your character and enter the school for the competition.
As my character "Ugly Face" I was able to make a passive,
but good start simply by letting the other players fight it out. During
each turn, you choose from a set number of responses, such as scratching
someone's face, making fun of another player, or, my personal favorite,
to suck on a lollipop to show just how little you, like, care.
You begin with a set number of points that are slowly whittled down
if other players scratch you or make fun of you. Or the points grow
if you scratch others or successfully make fun of another. But beware
the lollipop: if you try to make fun of someone and they chose to
suck their lollipop, then the insult goes right back in your face.
The game suffers a bit from the element of luck: strategize all you
like, but like a game of Rocks, Paper, Scissors, your success depends
a great deal on chance. Playing over the internet with someone you
know fairly well would help make strategy more crucial to winning.
Still, SissyFight is a brilliant commentary on the pettiness of high
school popularity, albeit a very, very unsubtle commentary.