Virtual Reality (VR) developers create experiences that result in both gender dysphoria and euphoria for Transgender and Genderqueer individuals. Avatar Creation Interfaces (ACIs) and the game mechanics associated with them engage with these effects. Since all experiences in VR begin with a body in space, ACI mechanics can inform a more inclusive experience for Transgender and Genderqueer individuals. Research of ACIs’ effects on people with gender dysphoria and euphoria is limited and does not address the subject in VR. Given this knowledge gap, research on the euphoric and dysphoric effects of embodiment that Transgender and Genderqueer individuals have within VR is constructive. To this end, as part of a qualitative study, survey data from 29 individuals and interview data from 7 of those individuals were analyzed using the emergent method of grounded theory analysis. The data suggest that ACI VR experiences that give interactors creative agency, greater gender diversity, and the opportunity to be embodied in mundane and gender-affirming situations are dysphoria relieving and euphoria inducing.

Through an archaeogaming framing and an object-inventory method, the purposes and meanings of video game bathrooms are put forward with a framework. The framework assesses each video game bathroom based on its immersive qualities, ludic affordances, and ideological commentary. By analyzing games and establishing the framework, this article addresses how designers employ these affordances to use bathrooms as representative spaces. While bathrooms in video games contribute to a sense of place through environmental storytelling, they also represent situated perspectives on privacy, cleanliness, dirt, gender, and other ideological concepts. This article places video game bathrooms in a larger history of bathroom representations in media. However, unlike other media, video games enable players to view themselves in different bodies within bathrooms, engage in potentially taboo behavior, and interrupt conservative or traditional understandings of bathroom use. This enables designers to take spaces that are political, in some cases even dangerous and antagonistic, and make them playful.

Natural movement and locomotion in Virtual Environments (VE) is constrained by the user's immediate physical space. To overcome this obstacle, researchers have established the use of impossible spaces. This work illustrates how impossible spaces can be utilized to enhance the aesthetics of, and presence within, an interactive narrative. This is done by creating impossible spaces with a narrative intent. First, locomotion and impossible spaces in VR are surveyed; second, the benefits of using intentional impossible spaces from a narrative design perspective is presented; third, a VR narrative called Ares is put forth as a prototype; and fourth, a user study is explored. Impossible spaces with a narrative intent intertwines narratology with the world's aesthetics to enhance dramatic agency.