Rez’s Trance Vibrator Changed the Conversation About Women’s Sexuality in Games

Fifteen years ago this month, the beautifully synaesthetic Rez was released for the first time in the United States. Beyond the Tron-esque aesthetic that helped it become one of our absolute favorites, though, the game was notable for its unforgettable peripheral: something called the Trance Vibrator.

The odd little battery-pack shaped device was never released in the US; it was the sort of strangeness that was, at the time, entirely the purview of the Japanese side of gaming. The Trance Vibrator's only function was to buzz and bump in time with the on-screen music, delivering haptic feedback alongside the audio track's bass. But in doing so, it became the flashpoint for a discussion of sexuality in games that not only stands as one of the finest pieces of videogame writing, but casts a shadow over the discussions that have followed. Surprisingly little writing since has tread similar ground, which demonstrates how much has---and hasn't---changed in the years since.

In a famous interview, designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi called the trance vibrator "a joke, but a very serious joke... We always listen to music by ear, and you can watch the visuals moving, the dynamics in Rez, so it's kind of a cross-sensation feeling." In the same interview, Mizuguchi insisted that the device wasn't sexual or intended as a sex toy. Of course, quite a few players got other ideas. Players, for example, like Jane Pinckard, critic, writer, and current Associate Director at the Center for Games and Playable Media at UC Santa Cruz. On the blog GameGirlAdvance, she wrote about her experience playing Rez with her partner. After trying it herself, she decided to let him handle the gameplay while she focused on the peripheral. In a short, matter-of-fact piece, she talked about finding and following an obvious connection between Mizuguchi's "cross-sensation feeling" and her own sexuality. In her own words: