The representation of furries in games: a battle against prejudice

Abstract

The furry fandom is a community of people who enjoy anthropomorphic animals (with human characteristics, such as walking on their hind legs and having facial expressions). Its participants are called furries and tend to value friendly and collaborative interactions. Hate speech is not encouraged within the fandom. The effort to combat prejudice against the furry fandom and the idea that it is composed of strange people with bad intentions is constant, and therefore the combination of furries and gamers can create greater empathy between them. Thus, the initiative was taken to create a fun fighting game to play with friends, where anyone can learn, featuring charismatic anthropomorphic characters full of personality and representation, so that players can identify with and feel affection for them. Using the MDA methodology for planning, the game was produced with the Construct 2 program for programming and Adobe After Effects for the animations. Super Furry Fight was completed with expectations of further development in the future.