There have been many books written from the female perspective, written by men. Often, the reader was completely unaware.

I’m not sure if I can believe that entirely. Maybe I haven’t read enough books ) but from my experience.. men got many things wrong about women and those writers are the exceptions that prove the rule. But I’m stopping here because I don;t want to get all sexist.
The ideas I presented are not my preferences, as I already said the FPSs are fine and could be even more violent; I should have mentioned “appealing to women” instead of “appealing to us”. I didn’t say those things with 100% certainty, BUT pure violence isn’t appealing to women in general – others have pointed that out also.
Having Alyx be the hero would be a nice change, but it wouldn’t make a difference to me

As for my own preference, I have a thing for tactical shooters (Operation Flashpoint is so beautiful..) and simulators.

Thus, a female mapper and game designer, creator etc is required.

I disagree. There have been many books written from the female perspective, written by men. Often, the reader was completely unaware.

I’m sure the reverse is true.

What matters is understanding what different types of players want; be they female, older, puzzlers etc. This can be done through actually asking them.

saving people from real earthling enemies with lots of puzzles and a strong storyline

I find this interesting. It may be your preference or you may in fact be representative of other female gamers.

I wonder if saving NPCs would be of interest to other female gamers.

Would you prefer that Alyx was the player’s persona rather than Gordon? Does it make any difference to you?

there just aren’t enough good games; neither mods nor retail.

Females don’t typically like video games like Males do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I never claimed there was anything wrong with that but instead of just accepting what other think I am suggesting that it may be possible to make an FPS game that does appeal more to females.

May be it’s not possible but who knows until we try.

The problem with making these sub-genres is that you will be catering to a very limited group of players.

Yes,, which is why I am suggesting making mods not games based on sub-genres.

Females don’t typically like video games like Males do, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Why it is seen as some sort of problem is anything but legitimate. just because somebody doesn’t like something doesn’t mean there is a problem. There are no minorities. When you come to think of all people as one collective thing instead of segregating them into whites, blacks, men, women, straight, not-straight (forum wont let me say the G word) etc, all these fake made-up problems just disappear.

What would men think if women tried to add some sort of masculine aspect to hair styling? would it seem at all appealing if there were machine-gun shaped hair clips and junk? no, it wouldn’t change. we still would find nothing to like about hair styling.

I’m working on Team Fortress 2 maps especially for children.
Yes non-violent, fun, single player maps for a Multi-player game.

In my opinion Valve is missing out on a big opportunity. Creating non-violent mods for children would not only be of market value but also for Media.
Can it currently be said the Valve Source Engine is not for children? Indeed.

As for female gamers…I’ve taken a lot of polls and have created things for female clans, for the most part it appears girls want more “fun”, and yes with a splash of color.

It is perhaps better to work from a specifc mechanic you thought up, then to fix yourself to a (sub-)genre before hand.

In regards to gender specific games. I feel that games are often taylored more to the male population, through the way the female role is presented. Males still have the majority of the leads, women often seem to designed on some impossible beauty ideal and female enemies are just as common as female lead characters.

leon
(SPY-maps)

genres are a yucky subject. people put more emphasis on genre than the art itself. those who limit themselves to particular genres are only limiting opportunities to admire art of different kinds. furthermore, perspective has little to do with perspective. (ie, First-Person). to better narrow down how games are classified, you should consider only what you do in the game, and the experience you have.

For more on this, see my article “Rethinking Genres”: http://gamesthatwontsuck.com/index.php?pg=genre.php

It’s very important to understand that games aren’t games at all – they’re works of art. art is not something you make FOR someone, it’s something you make for yourself that others might enjoy.

You mean “some” games are works of art then. I can’t really agree with the following statement since most works of art in the history of mankind have been made for important people (kings, emperors, popes) and the artist got paid for it.
Regarding maps and mods, I do agree with that definition.
Sticking to a predefined genre like the ones mentioned in this post might actually make the whole thing too artificial. I think mods should just be a mix of all those genres in order to be a satisfying experience you’ll remember. That’s probably one of the reasons I didn’t like Portal that much. It felt like some sort of tech demo for the portal effect and realism across the enviroments was mostly absent.

Games that are made because someone had a vision are the ones that do really well if they aren’t held back due to acceptance concerns.

It’s very important to understand that games aren’t games at all – they’re works of art. art is not somethign you make FOR someone, it’s something you make for yourself that others might enjoy. That is why thevast majority of retail games are crap – they’re just cash-ins.

Games require winners, losers, and scores. Quake 3 is a game. Half-Life is art.

I don’t know if your question is oriented into making different separate mods for different players

Yes, that’s what I am suggesting.

After I wrote this (6 months ago) I realized that in many ways there are many Zombie mods that have a very specific style of gameplay, especially when you consider they often are based in basic arenas.

I’m sure there are other things we could do in the same vein.