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Honey & Hot Wax

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Honey & Hot Wax
EditorsSharang Biswas and Lucian Kahn
AuthorSharang Biswas, Julia Bond Ellingboe, Kat Jones, Lucian Kahn, Jonaya Kemper, Yeonsoo Julian Kim, Will Morningstar, Alex Roberts (game designer), Susanne, Naomi Clark, Maury Brown
IllustratorsJana Heidersdorf, Jen McCleary
LanguageEnglish
GenreLive Action Role-Playing Game
PublisherPelgrane Press
Publication date
2020
AwardsIndieCade nominee, Indie Game Developer Network nominee

Honey & Hot Wax is an anthology of live action role-playing games on the theme of sex and sexuality, published by Pelgrane Press in 2020.[1] It includes games by Sharang Biswas (co-editor), Yeonsoo Julian Kim, Julia Bond Ellingboe, Kat Jones, Lucian Kahn (co-editor), Jonaya Kemper, Will Morningstar, Alex Roberts, and Susanne. It also has a foreword by Naomi Clark, academic chair of NYU Game Center and designer of the board game Consentacle,[2] as well as a chapter on consent by Maury Brown.

Games

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The anthology is divided into two sections called "This World" and "Other Worlds."[1]

The games in "This World" take place in real-world settings. Pop! by Alex Roberts is about an online forum of balloon fetishists. The Echo of the Unsaid by Sharang Biswas is about sexual tension between heterosexual male college roommates. The Sleepover by Julia Bond Ellingboe and Kat Jones is about teenagers who share information about sexuality and gender identity at a slumber party. Follow My Lead by Suzanne is about dominance and submission and is played blindfolded.[1]

The games in "Other Worlds" take place in speculative fiction settings. In the Clefts of the Rock by Lucian Kahn is a surrealist game about imagining human bodies as landscapes on other planets. Feeding Lucy by Jonaya Kemper is based on Dracula by Bram Stoker. You Inside Us is about a romance between a human and an alien who inhabits the human's body through symbiosis.[1]

Reception

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Awards and Grants

In 2020-2021, Honey & Hot Wax was nominated for an IndieCade award[3] and an Indie Game Developer Network award for "Game of the Year."[4] The collection received 2 grants from the Effing Foundation for Sex Positivity, a nonprofit organization for reducing sexual shame through art and education.[5][6]

Scholarship

In Nordic Erotic Larp: Designing for Sexual Arousal, game scholars Hanne Grasmo and Jaakko Stenros discuss Follow My Lead by Susanne for its use of non-verbal game mechanics through abstracted actions, examples of play, erotic engagement, power play, loosely scripted scenes, and gender inclusion.[7]

Reviews

Author Cecilia Tan called Honey & Hot Wax “a fabulous collection of ‘let's pretend’ games.”[8] Banana Chan for Dicebreaker listed the collection among her favorite games of 2020.[9]

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Performances

Honey & Hot Wax's game Pass the Sugar, Please by Yeonsoo Julian Kim was staged in Salem, Massachusetts as an immersive theater production by Intramersive, both in-person and virtually.[10][11] Kathryn Yu for No Proscenium called it "the standout this year" for immersive theatre productions "in its earnest urging for us to be honest and open about our pleasures and pains".[12] Kim also co-wrote the nonbinary storytelling game Women are Werewolves.

Publications

In the year following publication, Honey & Hot Wax co-editor Sharang Biswas and contributor Yeonsoo Julian Kim co-edited its "spiritual successor" Strange Lusts, an online anthology of interactive fiction about sex and sexuality.[13] Strange Lusts was published in 2021 by Strange Horizons.[14] In addition to work by Biswas and Kim, it includes pieces by Anna Anthropy, Nibedita Sen, and Natalia Theodoridou.

Biswas also wrote the chapter "Sex and Game Design (Part 2): Mechanics and Verbs" in the book Passion and Play: A Guide to Designing Sexual Content in Games by Michelle Clough.[15]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Honey & Hot Wax". Pelgrane Press Ltd. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  2. ^ "Naomi Clark". NYU | Game Center. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  3. ^ McAloon, Alissa (2020-09-24). "50 standout indie games nominated in this year's IndieCade Awards". Game Developer. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  4. ^ "Indie Game Developer Network announces 2021 award nominees". Dicebreaker. 2021-08-11. Retrieved 2023-03-28.
  5. ^ "Grants Awarded". The Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity. Retrieved 2023-03-28.
  6. ^ "7 Sex-Positive Organizations To Donate To This Holiday Season". Bustle. 13 December 2017. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  7. ^ Grasmo, Hanne; Stenros, Jaakko (2022-10-06). "Nordic Erotic Larp: Designing for Sexual Arousal". International Journal of Role-Playing (12): 62–105. doi:10.33063/ijrp.vi12.292. ISSN 2210-4909. S2CID 258274067 – via Trepo.
  8. ^ "Honey and Hot Wax". Goodreads. Retrieved 2023-03-28.
  9. ^ Chan, Banana (2020-12-21). "Games of the Year 2020: Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall co-creator Banana Chan". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  10. ^ "Pass the Sugar, Please?". Intramersive Media LLC. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  11. ^ Soloski, Alexis (2020-04-16). "There's No Place Like Home (Theater)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  12. ^ Proscenium, No (2020-12-17). "Unforgettable: Moments That Defined Immersive in 2020". Medium. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  13. ^ "Track Strange Lusts / Strange Loves's Kickstarter campaign on BackerTracker". BackerKit. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  14. ^ "Strange Lusts". Strange Horizons. 2021-10-25. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  15. ^ Noble, Barnes &. "Passion and Play: A Guide to Designing Sexual Content in Games|Paperback". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
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