What Is a Game Autrice? The Auteur Theory and Female Game Developers: Muriel Tramis's Example

This paper argues that auteur theory, which has historically centered male game developers, should be extended to include women working in commercial game design, using the career of French designer Muriel Tramis as a case study. The author contends that Tramis merits recognition as a game "autrice," a term the paper proposes to reflect the authorship of a woman creator. The paper situates this argument against post-structuralist critiques of authorship and against Aarseth's criteria for a game auteur, which require multiple recognized works and a distinctive design style. It notes that female developers have been largely absent from such discourse until the #GamerGate controversy drew attention to gender in gaming.

The study applies Astrid Ensslin's functional ludostylistics to seven games from Tramis's period at Coktel Vision, spanning 1987 to 1993 and 1996, which the author selected from a larger body of co-designed titles. Among the works examined are Méwilo, Freedom, and Lost in Time, which address slavery and colonialism, and Emmanuelle, Geisha, and Fascination, which subvert the pornographic genre and critique the male gaze. The analysis identifies five recurring features of Tramis's output: critical treatment of racism and colonialism, subversion of pornography, sophisticated culturally embedded puzzles, and authorial signatures such as her digitized likeness and black female protagonists resembling her. The paper also highlights claims that Tramis produced some of the earliest digital games on slavery and that Fascination and Lost in Time were among the first to feature black women as protagonists.

The author concludes that Tramis's selected output supports her classification as an autrice, noting that she herself signed her name as "authoress" in Geisha's credits. The study acknowledges its limits: it excludes her collaboration with Pierre Gilhodes and the educational Adibou series, and it recognizes that auteur theory faces growing difficulties when applied to the digital game industry. The research is presented as a contribution toward strengthening the position of female developers within game studies.