Honestly, more "meh" bad than atrocious so far. Part of me hopes that it improves as I play more of it because I find bad games far more entertaining when there's a kernel of good in with all the rest of the shit. I guess it'd also depend on your tastes in games, how bad you think it is. However, high class art in video-game form this aint. It's target demographic will absolutely enjoy it though, it hits all the right notes for them and going by the reception so far, indeed they are.
Earthbound wannabes trying too hard to be quirky, funny, relatable, and jamming RPG tropes into a modern setting are a dime a dozen. I'll be honest there are games that fit the "Earthbound clone" bill that I do like. And then there is a pile of trash where the wannabes that failed end up. And lemme tell ya, that particular subgenre of indie game has some real stinkers. No matter how bad the rest of SLARPG ends up, I don't see it topping the likes of YIIK for example, in terms of sheer awfulness.
Disappointing that it's just generic "uwu lesbiaaaaaans" rubbish and not some amazing mess like YIIK.
Alex Yiik's Haruki Mikami fanfic is bursting with unintentional charm ...even if *his* coomer fantasy is about a certain mentally ill drowned woman.
I fully expect that one of the twists at the end of Deltarune just has Asriel casually call Kris 'he,' and when everyone looks shocked he acts confused at how they couldn't tell.
Despite everything, I really can't see Kris as anything other than a male and everyone just calls him "they/them" because they're just that clueless about humans. It can be tricky with kids, but by the time puberty kicks in, most people can tell. You can't fool the average human eye without Hollywood levels of makeup.
I've also seen some fanart depicting Kris as unambiguously female too. I think despite TobyFox's wishes, a large (but subtly quiet) part would rather the playable characters have a defined gender and this shows up in some fan projects, including ones with fan characters.
Personally, I think that the heavy insistence that Kris is nonbinary is due to potential future ramifications. After all, Kris is heavily male coded.
I think that Kris's sex is ambiguous to ward off any accusations of "queerbaiting" that the rabid fandom may have.
A love triangle is subtly forming between him and Noelle over Susie; even if he's not the one who gets her in the end, any explicit romantic depictions would cause shock waves. There's a certain entitlement regarding gay/lesbian ships on the internet and it's always a fireworks display at the very hint of them not being canon.
What only exacerbates things is that Kris's feelings are only beginning to be revealed two years after Noelle's visible intentions and the fact that the previous game already had a very popular lesbian relationship.
See, I don't get that. If you were trying to make a character their own entity separate from the player, wouldn't you give them clearly defined traits instead of being easily able to be projected on? I didn't understand this about Frisk either. Using they/them just sounds like you were too lazy to program in a gender option so you'll let the player fill in the blanks. Especially with Undertale, I think he should have picked something and stuck with it.
Frisk always seemed like they could be either and Toby finally said nonbinary for brownie points, but I could be wrong.
Frisk's sex is only really unstated for plot related reasons. Frisk even having a name and not just being a player avatar is technically a spoiler (as the game's interface muddies the water as to *who* you name in the beginning of the game).
Personally, I think that the heavy insistence that Kris is nonbinary is due to potential future ramifications. After all, Kris is heavily male coded.
I think that Kris's sex is ambiguous to ward off any accusations of "queerbaiting" that the rabid fandom may have.
A love triangle is subtly forming between him and Noelle over Susie; even if he's not the one who gets her in the end, any explicit romantic depictions would cause shock waves. There's a certain entitlement regarding gay/lesbian ships on the internet and it's always a fireworks display at the very hint of them not being canon.
What only exacerbates things is that Kris's feelings are only beginning to be revealed two years after Noelle's visible intentions and the fact that the previous game already had a very popular lesbian relationship.
Holy shit, I think you cracked the code. I've seen actual women, including lesbians, come along to ship Noelle and Kris as well after chapter 2 came out. That would be utterly unheard of if Kris was directly stated to be a young man despite clearly looking like one. This is 5D chess within fandom politics.
For those of you who enjoy this thread, please take a moment and check the Kennel Book Club thread, for @Roxanne Wolfmade a fantastic post about a special piece of media I'm sure you guys will enjoy:
I have tons of time to kill as I’m trying to get over my flu, so I have also made the noble sacrifice of acquiring the transbian furry rpg. (Unfortunately, based Heartbeat doesn’t seem to run on the steam deck.)
I unironically enjoy the pastel glitter vomit aesthetic, at least over small bursts. But 10 mins into the game it shows you a title card for the protagonist that basically says “I’m trans, if you haven’t noticed!”
It’s also very over the head about her gay relationship, despite them being together for only 2 months. Sure, they’ve been best friends, but do you really have to have a picture of you two hung near the mantelpiece? Do you really need the flowers in front of your house to match you and your lover?
Now that I have access to the main menu, I can finally change options like text speed. (You can change it earlier but im too retarded to map F keys to the deck). There is a slider in the options where you can set your politics and “ludonarrative dissonance” levels. Not sure if it does anything but I’ve set the politisperging to 100 and the gameplay dissonance to 41%, as it was intended to be played. I believe the default values were 92 politics and 66 lunacy.
I have tons of time to kill as I’m trying to get over my flu, so I have also made the noble sacrifice of acquiring the transbian furry rpg. (Unfortunately, based Heartbeat doesn’t seem to run on the steam deck.)
I unironically enjoy the pastel glitter vomit aesthetic, at least over small bursts. But 10 mins into the game it shows you a title card for the protagonist that basically says “I’m trans, if you haven’t noticed!”
View attachment 4143807View attachment 4143810
It’s also very over the head about her gay relationship, despite them being together for only 2 months. Sure, they’ve been best friends, but do you really have to have a picture of you two hung near the mantelpiece? Do you really need the flowers in front of your house to match you and your lover?
Now that I have access to the main menu, I can finally change options like text speed. (You can change it earlier but im too retarded to map F keys to the deck). There is a slider in the options where you can set your politics and “ludonarrative dissonance” levels. Not sure if it does anything but I’ve set the politisperging to 100 and the gameplay dissonance to 41%, as it was intended to be played. I believe the default values were 92 politics and 66 lunacy.
I've seen actual women, including lesbians, come along to ship Noelle and Kris as well after chapter 2 came out. That would be utterly unheard of if Kris was directly stated to be a young man despite clearly looking like one. This is 5D chess within fandom politics.
Hmm. Funny you mention that.
While I've seen Kris portrayed as both male and female when he's being shipped with Susie, I've seen him almost exclusively portrayed as male when he's being shipped with Noelle! (and this goes for both western and japanese artists)
I have tons of time to kill as I’m trying to get over my flu, so I have also made the noble sacrifice of acquiring the transbian furry rpg. (Unfortunately, based Heartbeat doesn’t seem to run on the steam deck.)
I unironically enjoy the pastel glitter vomit aesthetic, at least over small bursts. But 10 mins into the game it shows you a title card for the protagonist that basically says “I’m trans, if you haven’t noticed!”
View attachment 4143807View attachment 4143810
It’s also very over the head about her gay relationship, despite them being together for only 2 months. Sure, they’ve been best friends, but do you really have to have a picture of you two hung near the mantelpiece? Do you really need the flowers in front of your house to match you and your lover?
Now that I have access to the main menu, I can finally change options like text speed. (You can change it earlier but im too retarded to map F keys to the deck). There is a slider in the options where you can set your politics and “ludonarrative dissonance” levels. Not sure if it does anything but I’ve set the politisperging to 100 and the gameplay dissonance to 41%, as it was intended to be played. I believe the default values were 92 politics and 66 lunacy.
"100% match - it's literally you!"
Oo er! A bit on the nose there!
I'm wondering if the politics and ludonarrative dissonance sliders actually do anything. In any normal game you'd just get a list of discrete options instead of a percentage (which likely just boils down to one anyway. How do you decide if something is "78% political" or "39% contradicting the story in gameplay"?)
I'd wager that "Ludonarrative Dissonance" relates to the encounter rate considering what that term actually means (as opposed to it being a "Weird Wasteland" analogue) but I am by no means suggesting that a lazy indie dev won't misuse big words to sound clever.
"Don't call it 'unique', call it 'idiosyncratic'!"
I have tons of time to kill as I’m trying to get over my flu, so I have also made the noble sacrifice of acquiring the transbian furry rpg. (Unfortunately, based Heartbeat doesn’t seem to run on the steam deck.)
I unironically enjoy the pastel glitter vomit aesthetic, at least over small bursts. But 10 mins into the game it shows you a title card for the protagonist that basically says “I’m trans, if you haven’t noticed!”
View attachment 4143807View attachment 4143810
It’s also very over the head about her gay relationship, despite them being together for only 2 months. Sure, they’ve been best friends, but do you really have to have a picture of you two hung near the mantelpiece? Do you really need the flowers in front of your house to match you and your lover?
Now that I have access to the main menu, I can finally change options like text speed. (You can change it earlier but im too retarded to map F keys to the deck). There is a slider in the options where you can set your politics and “ludonarrative dissonance” levels. Not sure if it does anything but I’ve set the politisperging to 100 and the gameplay dissonance to 41%, as it was intended to be played. I believe the default values were 92 politics and 66 lunacy.
If I could, I would give you a "Semper Fidelis" but my account is too new for that. Thank you for your brave sacrifice, soldier. I hope you continue your reports.
This is... actually worse than I thought. I too can handle small bursts of pastel and I have a stronger tolerance for furry stuff than most here. I blame that on growing up during the 90's - tons of that stuff in kids' entertainment- and the first group of known furries I ran into this one general forum years back were actually pretty chill and not overwhelming with their hobby. So if anything, they left a slightly positive impression on me at the time. But even so, getting me to give a stamp of approval on something with anthropomorphic characters still requires some artistic and story-telling passion to be involved beyond just blatant self-insertion and wish-fulfillment and what little I've seen so far doesn't indicate that at all.
Also, the main two characters being an official couple after only two months? I know sometimes some people do just click together but even then, relationships take some time. I would ask if Brianna Wu wrote this but we all know she lacks any creative talent whatsoever, rather than being able to just produce something that is merely half-baked.
Also, the main two characters being an official couple after only two months? I know sometimes some people do just click together but even then, relationships take some time. I would ask if Brianna Wu wrote this but we all know she lacks any creative talent whatsoever, rather than being able to just produce something that is merely half-baked.
EDIT: DAMMIT DDOS LET ME GET THE REST OF MY TRANSPHOBIA OUT
ÉDIT 2: thank you, act 1 is complete
Unfortunately the site going down is screwing with my attempts at a post. Trying to insert screenshots has been nothing short of a hellish task when the farms disconnect every 2 minutes.
So far (halfway through the game now) it’s nowhere near a laughingstock compared to YIIK. But there are some choice moments I’ve laughed or eyerolled at, and the worldbuilding is of course lazy as it usually is in these kinds of magic animal settings. The soundtrack and general tone is very much reminiscent of Earthbound and 16 bit era rpgs, though I suppose it’s hard to make a quirky RPGmaker game that isn’t somehow compared to Earthbound.
Last time I forgot to talk about the prologue. Our protagonist, Melody the pink fox tranny, has no magical power and a slew of self esteem issues. Thanks to her insane witch friend (spoiler: also a tranny), Melody and her titular lesbian gf gain magical powers from a spell. Well, Melody does. The cis woman just gets to punch things really hard, I guess.
Part of this prologue segment leads you to a Kingdom Hearts-esque specialization choice to choose the source of Melody’s power, and since I’m roleplaying a tranny wish fulfillment episode anyway, I went for the obvious stupid choice. What can go wrong with basing the source of your power on your gf?
Super Transbian Wish-fulfillment RPG: Act I
Meet Melody, a bisexual tranny furry with a lovingly drawn gunt.
Unlike most animals on this island, Melody lives in a house alone outside of town. It’s not like she has social anxiety, she’s shown to be good friends with all the townspeople. I like to imagine this is supposed to be relatable to the real world isolation experienced by troons.
Melody has been holed up in her house for the better part of two weeks being an autist over learning magic, completely shutting out the world. Today feels like a good day to see her gf, whom she hasn’t talked to this whole time, nevermind that they all have iPhones in this universe.
Who is this boyfriend-free girl Melody is dating, you ask? Meet Allison, the lesbian wish fulfillment gf. The most insufferably written character in the game. She has two hobbies: Melody, and solving problems with violence. Note that she is clearly marked cis and lesbian, making this whole scenario even less realistic.
Not a moment passes without Allison lovingly talking to Melody, or lovingly (and grossly) talking about Melody. While somewhat excusable since they just started dating after a 8 year long friendship where EVERYONE was rooting for them to get together, she spends every waking moment sucking the girldick. This is too much for my shrivelled grinch heart. Disgusting.
One of the advertised gimmicks of the game is the ability to kiss Allison (and for Allison to kiss Melody) in the middle of battle for a 15% stat boost. I’ve never used this because the combat is already easy enough on the highest difficulty. I laughed out loud when the tutorial dungeon suggested reducing difficulty when the game is already piss-easy.
The save file also counts the number of kisses total, though unfortunately there are some mandated by the story preventing you from getting a perfect 0 smooches.
Immediately after reuniting with Allison, she and Melody kiss and decide to make the day into a date. They go visit the local diner run by a gap-tooth piggy npc and stuff their faces with cake while talking about their feelings. Miss Piggy reaffirms how perfect they are for each other. Note the very obvious gender neutral bathroom.
What stood out to me during their girl talk is how every other animal (party members included) seems to be gainfully employed, but there’s no evidence of Melody working anywhere. Again, #relatable to troons?
Examining the photo in Allison’s mess of a house reveals that Miss Piggy has thought they would be perfect for each other ever since 8th grade… despite Allison being a confirmed lesbo and the time and Melody only trooning out in grade 10.
Anyway they meet up with their crazy witch friend to LARP a little tutorial dungeon.
Meet Claire, certified transbian magician, face as square as a brick and dressed in trans flag colors. The game calls her third wheel, and admittedly I expected them to go all in and have Melody kiss all of them in a disaster polycule. Oh well.
Given that she canonically rains disaster onto the town every week by accident, Claire would be a literal lolcow if she existed in our reality.
The party clears the tutorial dungeon. The contents literally do not matter. The demo ends here… but we’re just getting started.
The plot kicks in and it’s in the form of interdimensional aliens ripping apart the fabric of reality. This was the last thing I expected so early in the game. Good on them….?
Our party of magical trannies destroy the base. They escape unscathed… for now.
Allison and Melody have a girltalk that night discussing the stress of the day. It devolves into them talking about their insecurities,
The chapter ends with an ominous line of communication between the alien boss and his master. They’ve recruited a local from the town to their side of evilll, but we don’t know who it is. Spolier alert: it’s the single npc who’s been mean to Allison, instead of like, a twist villain such as the leader of the paladins, who is a dark unicorn lesbo. Disappointing.
End of Act 1
After sleeping on it, I’ve realized that there is not a single father mentioned or shown, other than the wizard cat grandpa npc (and later on, ms. Piggy’s dad). 90% of the town’s residents look female, which only makes me conclude that this is a town full of troons. Allison’s mother gets repeatedly mentioned because she’s some famous adventurer who’s never in town, but not a word of her dad.
Not surprising, since mtfs often have a missing father figure LOL
At first I just laughed at this, thinking it's absurd, but now that you mention it, I actually wouldn't be surprised if he did. Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually expecting him to, but he is definitely in the same genre of quirky and cute indie dev who makes games about love and friendship and whatnot that appeals to blatant troosn, and he has on numerous occasions made characters that have themes that flirt with the idea. He's always extremely particular about pronouns for nonbinary characters in his games, correcting people's pronoun usage for Kris on the anniversary livestream of Deltarune for example.
Now as to why I don't think he will: Troon devs tend to be extremely online and in your face with all their social opinions. The fact that these quirks that Toby shares have come to be associated with troons is more the toons hyperfixating on the games they liked when they were yourn due to them being manchildren, making weird quirky games isn't inherently going to turn you into a troon. He's also never been aggressive about his beilefs or politics, at most retweeting some generic liberal stuff here and there. He's become rather successful and while there are certainly cases of troons who were successful but messed up their lives by trooning, they are the exception rather than the rule, mos troons are born out of miserable failed males with nothing else to look forward to in life so they give into their fetishes and delusions. And finally, Toby is fairly distant from the craziness of his fanbase, and good on him for doing that, it's probably better for one's mental health. Someone who was constantly in the weeds of fandom nonsense would be far more at risk of trooning out especially in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom. Also relating to that distance, he seems to enjoy his privacy so honestly any speculation as to what he really is like is moot. Love those games, but yes, the fanbase of them skews towards idiotic all inclusive progressive nonsense at times.
TL : DR, it would *kinda* fit the public persona and fanbase his games have cultivated, but for numerous reasons, Toby Fox is very unlikely to troon out.
I personally don't think that Toby would but he's long time friends with 2 artists who did (who are now both involved with DELTARUNE) and there's plenty more on the DELTARUNE team.
He's a strange man that keeps fucked up company but he just doesn't have that stench. That weepy creepy narcissist stench.
Personally, I think that the heavy insistence that Kris is nonbinary is due to potential future ramifications. After all, Kris is heavily male coded.
I think that Kris's sex is ambiguous to ward off any accusations of "queerbaiting" that the rabid fandom may have.
A love triangle is subtly forming between him and Noelle over Susie; even if he's not the one who gets her in the end, any explicit romantic depictions would cause shock waves. There's a certain entitlement regarding gay/lesbian ships on the internet and it's always a fireworks display at the very hint of them not being canon.
What only exacerbates things is that Kris's feelings are only beginning to be revealed two years after Noelle's visible intentions and the fact that the previous game already had a very popular lesbian relationship.
Frisk's sex is only really unstated for plot related reasons. Frisk even having a name and not just being a player avatar is technically a spoiler (as the game's interface muddies the water as to *who* you name in the beginning of the game).
Ever since that Earthbound mod, Toby Fox has been in a mad sprint away from his fanbase. Dude gets too much attention from the absolute worst people and has experience at avoiding both the career killing aspects of who he is around, and the constant horde screeching of “Make this work this way!”. If he does something off base, it will be because he just couldn’t keep running.
I wished we lived in the timeline where Andrew Hussie decided to make The Midnight Crew as a series instead of whatever the hell Homestuck was. The whacky adventures of four mafia wise guys would probably have created a much less cringy fanbase.
Andrew Hussie tried so hard to fight the hordes of crazy off you have no idea. I was there, just lurking on the MSPA forums during the Problem Sleuth days. No one knows where the mob came from, they just appeared one day and started making ships of the kids, hell he even called them all out on it in the early pages of Homestuck. That whole making everyone somehow related to one another through time travel bullshit puzzle? Yeah, that was his attempt to stop the shipping by making everyone related because it legit creeped him out. He couldn’t hold against the sudden tidal wave, though, so he just took the money and embraced the crazy.
Both Undertale and Homestuck are examples of hitting the right notes for a lot of the weird crowd. Some simply think “This is cool.”, others are complete psychos. Take both these pieces of media as a warning: When you create something, you will have no clue who will love your work, and that you may sometimes find that you’ll have more to fear from those that love and support you than from those that hate you.
I had to download an entirely new web browser (Thanks Kiwi Farms Movie Night chat!) just to gain access to the Farms and I still don't have access to all of the standard features thanks to the recent DDoS, like quoting or replying to posts.
@Frogget-me-not If it's not too much trouble, please keep a running list on any notable CIS male characters, even if it's just an NPC or shopkeeper. I say this because one trope that certain forms of media focusing exclusively on same-sex relationship fall into is the complete exclusion of the opposite sex. Now, I don't mean it simply doesn't focus on them; that's to be expected. What I'm talking about goes a step further.
Years and years ago, when the website was still up and #ChangeTheChannel had yet to emerge, I watched a video on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com that reviewed, of all things possible, a superhero themed, 3D (poorly) animated porn film. Obviously it was censored and cut to meet the standard of Blip TV (which still existed back then), but one thing that was hard to notice was that not a single woman was present on screen at any time, not even in the background. In what is supposed to be a New York sized city.
I have the mature filter turned off on Steam, so that my Discovery Queue doesn't filter out games based on blood or gore. Unfortunately, this means that I have to hit "ignore" on several sex games that I would rather not be recommended to me in the first place. Most of them are meant to appeal to straight men, but occasionally games meant for homosexuals or lesbians will slip in for whatever reason. While this is somewhat understandable for visual novels, which tend to have a more narrow focus and only a few locations, it's far less so for platformers or RPG games with safe town locations. Again, it's like the opposite sex simply doesn't exist within the games' individual universes.
For me at least, this is far more immersion breaking than any fantastical element. I get why you wouldn't focus on the sexuality of the opposite sex in those games, but surely they would still exist.
So I'm half-expecting the same to happen in Super Transbian Wish Fulfillment RPG. Just something to consider while you torture yourself play the game for the Farms.
@Frogget-me-not
Wtf does "Mackin' on" mean anyway? Who speaks like that?!
On the plus side, I found this video:
I'm sure this is what the developers had in mind...
I like how one of the dungeon rooms is entirely filled with that RM2k3 lava tile. I'm assuming that it's an intentional "glitch" effect but they should really stop stealing their maps from Don Miguel if they're trying to sell a game here.
Anyway. Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love did the whole "small business running a dungeon" concept way better.
If it's not too much trouble, please keep a running list on any notable CIS male characters, even if it's just an NPC or shopkeeper. I say this because one trope that certain forms of media focusing exclusively on same-sex relationship fall into is the complete exclusion of the opposite sex. Now, I don't mean it simply doesn't focus on them; that's to be expected. What I'm talking about goes a step further.
Years and years ago, when the website was still up and #ChangeTheChannel had yet to emerge, I watched a video on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com that reviewed, of all things possible, a superhero themed, 3D (poorly) animated porn film. Obviously it was censored and cut to meet the standard of Blip TV (which still existed back then), but one thing that was hard to notice was that not a single woman was present on screen at any time, not even in the background. In what is supposed to be a New York sized city.
I have the mature filter turned off on Steam, so that my Discovery Queue doesn't filter out games based on blood or gore. Unfortunately, this means that I have to hit "ignore" on several sex games that I would rather not be recommended to me in the first place. Most of them are meant to appeal to straight men, but occasionally games meant for homosexuals or lesbians will slip in for whatever reason. While this is somewhat understandable for visual novels, which tend to have a more narrow focus and only a few locations, it's far less so for platformers or RPG games with safe town locations. Again, it's like the opposite sex simply doesn't exist within the games' individual universes.
For me at least, this is far more immersion breaking than any fantastical element. I get why you wouldn't focus on the sexuality of the opposite sex in those games, but surely they would still exist.
So I'm half-expecting the same to happen in Super Transbian Wish Fulfillment RPG. Just something to consider while you torture yourself play the game for the Farms.
I'm honestly surprised that there's men in the game at all. Possibly a remnant of it's MLP roots? Considering that the game is explicitly set on a bunch of islands, I expected a nice big fantasy female space to invade.
Actually, I wonder if there's any trans-men in the game. (and if there are, I don't think we'll need to worry about them being subtle about it)
I had to download an entirely new web browser (Thanks Kiwi Farms Movie Night chat!) just to gain access to the Farms and I still don't have access to all of the standard features thanks to the recent DDoS, like quoting or replying to posts.
@Frogget-me-not If it's not too much trouble, please keep a running list on any notable CIS male characters, even if it's just an NPC or shopkeeper. I say this because one trope that certain forms of media focusing exclusively on same-sex relationship fall into is the complete exclusion of the opposite sex. Now, I don't mean it simply doesn't focus on them; that's to be expected. What I'm talking about goes a step further.
Years and years ago, when the website was still up and #ChangeTheChannel had yet to emerge, I watched a video on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com that reviewed, of all things possible, a superhero themed, 3D (poorly) animated porn film. Obviously it was censored and cut to meet the standard of Blip TV (which still existed back then), but one thing that was hard to notice was that not a single woman was present on screen at any time, not even in the background. In what is supposed to be a New York sized city.
I have the mature filter turned off on Steam, so that my Discovery Queue doesn't filter out games based on blood or gore. Unfortunately, this means that I have to hit "ignore" on several sex games that I would rather not be recommended to me in the first place. Most of them are meant to appeal to straight men, but occasionally games meant for homosexuals or lesbians will slip in for whatever reason. While this is somewhat understandable for visual novels, which tend to have a more narrow focus and only a few locations, it's far less so for platformers or RPG games with safe town locations. Again, it's like the opposite sex simply doesn't exist within the games' individual universes.
For me at least, this is far more immersion breaking than any fantastical element. I get why you wouldn't focus on the sexuality of the opposite sex in those games, but surely they would still exist.
So I'm half-expecting the same to happen in Super Transbian Wish Fulfillment RPG. Just something to consider while you torture yourself play the game for the Farms.
@Frogget-me-not
Wtf does "Mackin' on" mean anyway? Who speaks like that?!
On the plus side, I found this video:
I'm sure this is what the developers had in mind...
I like how one of the dungeon rooms is entirely filled with that RM2k3 lava tile. I'm assuming that it's an intentional "glitch" effect but they should really stop stealing their maps from Don Miguel if they're trying to sell a game here. View attachment 4151721
Anyway. Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love did the whole "small business running a dungeon" concept way better.
I'm honestly surprised that there's men in the game at all. Possibly a remnant of it's MLP roots? Considering that the game is explicitly set on a bunch of islands, I expected a nice big fantasy female space to invade.
Actually, I wonder if there's any trans-men in the game. (and if there are, I don't think we'll need to worry about them being subtle about it)
It’s impossible to tell if an npc is trans or not. There’s nothing that explicitly states it (so far) like it does for the PCs and I’ve been trying my best to examine every item and talk to everyone. Given the audience though, it’s probably a safe bet to assume that the he/him residents are trans men. We don’t see Piggy’s mom, and I don’t think I’ve seen or heard of anyone with two parents. This could be plausible. I’ll need to check who else uses he/him, but I’m confident in saying a big chunk of the characters are she/her. I think there may be more they/thems than he/hims.
I would have expected the big bad to be a cis male but the current major villains are a nonbinary object-head alien (he/him) and a dark meanie lesbian (probably cis). The second town the gang visits is a secret floating island populated by robots and friendly post-ironic cowboy zombies, which only makes me raise more questions about the worldbuilding. Some of the zombies plus this cool cowboy appear to be male-coded.
The more I play the more it looks like the plot never leaves the Sapphire islands (which, by the way, are probably named after Sapphic, the Trans term for women presenting people in love with women presenting people). This smaller scope might mean we will never see many more men, and that’s not what the target audience wants to see, anyway. Limiting the scope of your game makes sense for an indie project, though again it leaves a lot of worldbuilding questions on the table that may never get addressed.
I’ll drop a summary of acts 2 and 3 together later and point out the funny and melodramatic bits. It’s not really bad enough to be interesting.
Unsighted stars a bunch of androids/bots that go on and on about how all humans, except their creatr doctor, are bad and should be extinct. Despite some frustrations, it plays surprisingly well for a (pseudo-)indie soulsda, but the anti-human bullshit is so harsh, and repetetive, that I just couldn't keep on.
I feel like the lesson here is that being going trans immediately consumes any creative talent you might have. Like, if you start out a Tolkien level author, then trooned out, you'd maybe end up a suprisingly decent Archive of Our Own writer. Maybe.
(I can't believe it took literally two days for me to quote you due to DDoS attacks...)
You can't drop a bombshell like that and not elaborate. I'm genuinely curious about this, as I used to read Anti-Hero For Hire despite the bad art because I enjoyed the characters and writing, but dropped it when the art style got even worse.
With the farms flashing in and out of existence, I got bored enough to read Julia Serano's Whipping Girl since it was easy to access and I barely knew anything about it beforehand. I thought "ok, I could be persuaded to read one of the founding books of modern trans ideology, good to know and sympathize with arguments others have. Maybe I'll even agree with them more than I thought."
...I was in for a ride that shocked off my non-existing balls off. I am 80% of the way through and it is best described as someone spitting out their opinion in a rage while using their own experiences to justify it along with claims that have begun to fall into *citation needed categories of ridiculousness. There is a decent amount of text to pick at, so I will do a separate read along thread so the word vomit from me and Serano doesn't cloud up this one. Look forward to that whenever the site stabilizes enough for me to begin posting.
(I can't believe it took literally two days for me to quote you due to DDoS attacks...)
You can't drop a bombshell like that and not elaborate. I'm genuinely curious about this, as I used to read Anti-Hero For Hire despite the bad art because I enjoyed the characters and writing, but dropped it when the art style got even worse.
Well around the same time the art got more eye-catching, yet also unmistakenly ugly, a lot of the characters "came out", clothing is more covered, yet people's "curves" are everywhere, and storylines are quite stalled, basically Questionable Content in the action genre (though still nowhere near as redundant).
And as they say around here, the creator "trooned" out (though a while later), focuses more on AdventurersTwo and AFH updates have a longer schedule.
Submitted for your consideration: Tell Me I'm Worthless. Reviews mention fascism, sissy porn, and "the new gross" as literary subgenre. Gretchen F.-M. (Manhunt) provided the blurb ("[A]mbitious, brutal, and brilliant.") on the front cover. I expect great things, and by that I mean ludicrous author stand-ins and deeply unhygienic sex scenes, from this one.
