In 2010, working with Koduco, a game development company based in San Francisco, Anthropy helped develop theiPad gamePong Vaders.[5][6] In 2011, she releasedLesbian Spider Queens of Mars, a homage toMidway's 1981 arcade gameWizard of Wor with aqueer theme and "some fun commentary on master-slave dynamics."[7] In 2012, she releasedDys4ia, an autobiographical game about her experiences withhormone replacement therapy that "[allows] the player to experience a simulation or approximation of what she went through."[8] Anthropy says her games explore the relationship betweensadism andgame design, and bills them as challenging players' expectations about what the developer should create and how the player should be reprimanded for errors.[9][10]Triad was included in the Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition curated by Jon Cates (jonCates).[11]
Anthropy co-wrote the bookA Game Design Vocabulary withNaomi Clark (game designer). Keith Stuart forThe Guardian called it one of twenty books every player should read, writing that, "this excellent manual gives you an entire framework and language for thinking about how games are constructed."[12][13]
Anthropy's first book,Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, was published in 2012. The book promotes the idea of "small, interesting, personal experiences by hobbyist authors ...Zinesters exists to be a kind of ambassador for that idea of what video games can be."[14] The book also deals with an analysis of the mechanics and potentialities of digital games, including the role of chance in games and that games may be more usefully compared to theater than film ("There is always a scene called World 1-2, although each performance of World 1-2 will be different").[15] Anthropy criticizes the video game industry for being run by a risk-averse corporate "elite" designing formulaic video games.Zinester calls for consumers to see video games as having "cultural and artistic value" similar to artistic media such as comic books. The video game industry does not allow for a diverse cast of voices, such as queer voices, to give their input in game development, which stifles the creative process. Anthropy writes:[16]
"I have to strain to find any game that's about a queer woman, to find any game that resembles my own experience"
^Brice, Mattie (2017). "Chapter 9: Play and Be Real About It". In Ruberg, Bonnie; Shaw, Adrienne (eds.).Queer Game Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 78–79.ISBN978-1-5179-0037-3.
^Cates, Jon (November 2018).Chicago New Media, 1973-1992. University of Illinois Press. p. 9.ISBN978-0-252-08407-2.
^Anthropy, Anna (2012).Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. New York: Seven Stories Press.ISBN978-1-60980-372-8.
^"Afternoon In The House Of Secrets". Auntiepixelante.com. July 30, 2007. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. RetrievedJune 11, 2015.
