Post by JAG in List of shadowbanned NSFW games

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UPDATE: This game has been re-indexed as of August 14, 2025.
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It appears that one of the educational games published by our nonprofit program, Gaming Against Violence, is not appearing in searches now.

Stuck in a Dark Place is a game designed to teach young people about the meaning and importance of consent:

"This narrative-based game covers many different aspects of consent through eight chapters. [...] Stuck in a Dark Place includes discussions of non-consensual sexual activity including assaults."

This, and several of our other games, are played in classrooms in conjunction with the free lesson plans we have published for use by educators.

Although the game is rated "T" (ESRB) and "12+" (App Store) we added the "NSFW" label on itch.io to avoid re-traumatizing those who have previously experienced trauma. We take a trauma-informed approach to game production and provide content warnings on our games whenever applicable. Marking it as "NSFW" is just one way we strive to avoid creating harm. This is clearly not an adult game.

As with all of our games, it is also free.

link to the game: https://jag.itch.io/stuck-in-a-dark-place

We have opened a support ticket.

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HH Richards139 days ago(+2)

It looks like itch has mass shadowbanned anything with the nsfw tag, & your game was unfortunately caught up in the crossfire. If it's not actually nsfw then maybe remove the tag?

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JAG139 days ago

Thanks. We are considering that but are waiting to hear back from itch first.

(1) We are not certain if removing the tag will automatically un-shadowban the game.
(2) The tag has been helpful in preventing folks from inadvertently playing a game they would otherwise avoid. Too many people do not read warning labels. In the past, we've had a few people who did not pay attention and wound up being upset by the game.

If itch does not fix this then we will try removing that tag next. We do believe that there are some NSFW games that are not adult games but how those labels are interpreted seem to be determined differently by each community.

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InkSpider139 days ago(+1)

Removing the tags was my prior solution but that doesn't seem to be working on my end anymore.

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