A game about the tough task of being a woman

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Perfect Woman (Xbox One)

BY PETER LU & LEA SCHÖNFELDER

Perfect Woman is about the impossible performances of being a woman. It takes you from the first breath to the last in the life of a woman, making a number of decisions that affect the trajectory of her life along the way. But it’s not just the choices you make that determine her fate: each step in her life is followed up by a performance of that role, the Xbox’s Kinect tracking your full-body movement as you try to match the positions shown on the screen. Whether it be working in a sweatshop in a third-world country, conducting dolphins as a magical princess, or teaching a class as a professor in science, if you can’t contort your body to society’s demands you will only find failure. Perfect Woman is a tongue-in-cheek game but it’s built on a serious message about gender norms and the pressures of conformity.

Perfect for: Women, men, dancers

Playtime: 10 minutes (and the rest of your life)