What dancing and making games have in common

Today I was reflecting about dancing, which is something I’ve done for around 13 years of my life and some things I find it has in common with making games. The two are kind of far away, I say only “kind of” because dancing and playing are not that far. They both are part of rituals that have to do with being human and they are both two things that are universal.

I really like dancing because you can communicate with your body and everyone can join you and get to understand you, even feel your energy!

Dancing and making games are both inclusive and diverse, at least in principles. Anyone can dance and anyone can make games.

However, both are activities (probably like almost anything in life) where some people decide over who belongs and who doesn’t and who is allowed and who isn’t.

Sometimes I feel that real life is just living in a loop of Mean Girls where you are not in the group of the queen bees.

In the dancing world, some people decided that if you are not white and with a certain type of body, you can’t do it. Read that again:

You can’t do it

F* EXCUSE ME?

Imagine the insane amount of people that haven’t deared to sign up for a dancing class or kept going with a dancing course because they didn’t fit the standards of a bunch of insecure asses.

We are enough. All of us. And we deserve to be wherever we want to be.

I honestly can’t believe that some people say “you can’t do this, you can’t do that” and we “just” agree. I know it doesn’t work like that, but our brains blow my mind.

What about games, you are probably asking yourself at this point?

In games, as a game designer that has been in this industry for +5 years now, I’m afraid that it’s very similar. I think I lost the count of the many people that have told me that I couldn’t be a game designer or work in games.

Sometimes they don’t tell you this that direct. Sometimes they subtely just make sure that you go somewhere else by bringing you down because they think you don’t fit here.

Normally, this people that theoretically don’t fit in are marginalised folks and whoever is different than:

• Bob, the game designer
• Peter, the programmer
• Thomas, the artist
• Mark, the guy that can do anything

Bob, Peter, Thomas and Mark are conscious about diversity and inclusion and some time “in the future” they would love to collaborate with more women, LGBTQ+ or people from Africa.

:D

Fuck this shit

As I said earlier, we all belong here.

And we deserve to be wherever we want to be.

I think all the discriminations in this world come from people that are scared of losing something they think that belong to them because they are insecure.

This whole thing reminds me of my dog, Quesita, when she thinks that someone is trying to take away her licking mat and she growls.

I really wished that people could erase discrimination from their memories so they would keep dancing and making games.

Those are the stories and the dancers that we need.

You can dance.
You can make games.

And no one is entitle to tell you otherwise.