This is me sticking to my guns, friendo. My comments section, my rules. There are plenty of other places on the internet where you can rage unfettered.
All right, that's enough. Your points are made. I appreciate the spirited back-and-forth over a Twine game I wrote in five days, but it's not worth descending into personal attacks.
Thank you so much for playing! I don't really think of any of the endings as being the "good" one, tbh, although the "Solipsistic Bitch" ending comes closest to being a healthy resolution, I guess...?
Just seeing this comment for the first time, sorry that I didn't respond earlier.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't make the connection to blood libel myself, and I wish that I had. The research exists and so does the start-up Peter Thiel is associated with, but you're right that otherwise the reports appear blown out of proportion, in part I'm sure due to the very anti-Semitic trope you mention.
As you point out, the game's been out for about a year now and I'm not actively working on it anymore. However, I'm still making a note to myself to revise these passages the next time I have the opportunity, because 1) I can, and 2) had I realized this connection when I was making it I'd never have written the jokes into the game.
(If any readers passing by are about to cry censorship: don't.)
I may not be able to update the game on other platforms/services, specifically Philomela (which is soon entering read-only mode) and Tap (which is handled by another company), but I'll try in any event. Any other websites besides those and itch which mirror the game are doing so without my consent so unfortunately there's not much I can do about them.
I want to thank you for bringing this issue to light, and also apologize to you and to anyone who may have been hurt by the game's inclusion of this awful trope. My ignorance is not an excuse and my intentions don't absolve me, but I can promise to get the content out of the game in any way that I control and vow to do better going forward.
So when I play a Call of Duty game, and my only input for how to resolve a situation is shooting someone, does that mean that Call of Duty isn't actually a game, that it's just political propaganda shoving a point of view down my throat?
Or, maybe, games can both? In fact, all games ARE both! Every game has things you can and cannot do. Every game has a point of view for what is "acceptable" in a given situation. And what it determines is "acceptable" is based largely on the attitudes of the people who made it.
I made a game with the point of view that being a billionaire IS, in fact, immoral. There are no ways to play my game where this point of view is not central to its design. If you refuse to give all of your money away, you get the Bad End. The fact that my game's point of view conflicts with your politics doesn't make it less of a game, anymore than Call of Duty conflicting with MY politics doesn't make IT less of a game.
Not every game needs to align to your viewpoint. And if it makes you uncomfortable, you can stop! "Stop playing the game" is a perfectly reasonable response in this situation. There are games I've stopped playing because they pushed politics I found reprehensible; there's no reason you can't do the same. I once read a very interesting article on someone who couldn't play Bioshock Infinite because it features a baptism, and it was against the player's religion to engage in something like that -- so they stopped! It's really that simple.
Hmm. To be honest, there may be combinations even I don't know about, but Stexe mentioned one choice that is very useful. Apart from that, just some general guidance...
There are certain cases where you don't need to exhaust the full list of options to advance to the next leg of the story. Try looking for opportunities to skip ahead sooner.
There's no real nickel-and-dime-ing involved. You only need to click on a handful of options and most of them are big-ticket items (that is, in the billions).
If you've EARNED money at any point (by going to the bathroom, talking with your nibling, etc), you can't access the secret endings at all and will need to rewind or start over.
And that, right there, is why I'm stepping in and asking you both to chill.
Plasma, I say this with all possible compassion as someone who used to work as a game moderator for children and teens: This isn't the place for you and I think you know it.
You have a good head on your shoulders and you're going to be a force to reckon with when you get to adulthood, that's very clear from your posts. I wish I had been as good of a writer when I was 14! But there are things you aren't considering and all of this is very out of proportion for a single mention of ICE in a text game.
I've been following your comments from the beginning -- I get notifications every time there's a new comment on my game's page -- and that's twice now you've brought up that you're a minor, as though that should excuse gaps in your knowledge. It might explain those gaps, but "explain" and "excuse" are two very different things. Your age doesn't mean others are required to go easier on you when they push back on your arguments.
This was a game written by and for adults. Most of the people you'll find discussing it online are also adults. I think on some level you're aware of this, or you wouldn't bring up your age like you do. While I don't want to discourage you from learning more about these issues, the other commenters here also aren't obligated to educate you. You need to find a more appropriate space with people your own age and adults who have the right training and experience to guide you. Maybe that's a classroom and teacher, or a cool librarian, or a forum or youtube channel geared toward students of history or ethics -- there are a lot of resources out there! But I guarantee they'll all have more meaningful takeaways for you than the comments on an itchio thread.
To Helmic: I'm not sure if you were aware of the other thread before this where Plasma mentioned they were a minor, but now that that fact's been established, I hope you'll heed this warning to disengage as well. All told, you were both good at keeping things fairly civil, but like I've told Plasma already, this isn't the right setting for this.
