Melbourne Company’s New Video Game Features Gay Cop In The Closet
Image: This video game has you take on the role of a closeted gay cop. Photo: Stevivor/Youtube
While video games have come a long way from the usual heterosexual, cis-gendered characters or storylines, very few have taken a step further into the LGBTQI territory. However, a new video game from a Melbourne-based company, Up Multimedia, along with support from the Victorian state government and Film Victoria Australia, does just that.
The Beat: A Glam Noir Game is an investigative thriller game where you take on the role of a gay cop still in the closet who has to investigate a murder that’s happened in an unnamed city’s gay scene.
Over several days and nights, you track down clues and explore locations like a gay bar, a laundrette, and a beachside beat. Several of the locations were inspired by real places.
Inspired By Real-Life Locations
Game developer, Luke Miller went into detail behind some of the game’s iconic locations, like the laundrette and Black Rock Beach.
“In the 1980s there was a ground-breaking gay film from the UK called ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’. That film inspired a real laundry in Melbourne and we were luckily given permission to come in and take reference photos for a location in the game,” Miller said.
“It’s really great to have that link to gay culture from another time.”
“Black Rock Beach in Melbourne was a real cruising area that became famous in 1977 when it was discovered that the police were training their most attractive male officers on how to seduce men and then sending them undercover to make arrests.”
Miller explained that the cruising area was a combination of several beaches and foreshores but made sure to include the distinctive geology of Black Rock. Miller also spoke about getting permission to enter one of Melbourne’s gay bars for reference photos.
“The gay bar is this strange other world in which the main character steps,” Miller said. “We got permission to go into a real gay pub in Melbourne for our reference photos.”
The Beat: A Glam Noir Game is currently available on Steam and more information and details about the game can be found on their website.
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