I like the way Wikipedia raised awareness of the attacks on them in Italy from Berlusconi. They put a giant banner on top of the site.
I wish Itch would have let people search for and access the pages of affected games, but instead of the usual page with screenshots, comments and a purchase button, an overlay should read “Due to demands from our payment processors [and list them], we have delisted this game.” And preferably give the specific terms of service it violates.
Instead of deindexing and/or delisting games outright, I really wish Itch would put an overlay on affected games that describes the reasons for that specific game to be deindexed/delisted. I understand that would require quite a lot of work to implement, but I think it would dispel suspicions of nefarious blocking of LGTBQ+ content.
Given that many people talk about all aspects of LGTBQ+ life as inherently pornographic and harmful to children (e.g. two men kissing eachother), it’s easy for people (including me) to strongly suspect this has and will disproportionately affected LGTBQ+ projects and creators.
Thanks for your thoughtful response! I agree with you regarding the issues related to kids being on the internet. However, there’s two sides of that coin, as well. I’m thinking about for example people like me who were born disabled. When I was a kid, internet gave me the freedom and exploration I couldn’t have in the physical world. I could also express myself more freely when I wasn’t bound by my limited ability to talk and write (with a pen).
It’s easy to only look at the harmful effects on kids, such as unattainable body ideals on social media, or hate speech flourishing on Twitter and elsewhere. I think a lot of people disregard the beneficial effects the internet has had on people. The ability to find a community of like-minded people, for example. My disability is extremely rare, and I’ve only found others like me thanks to internet.
With that said, I think most people can agree on that young kids shouldn’t have access to NSFW content. But as you say, that’s mostly the responsibility of parents to decide on how to raise their kids.
To me, this whole operation to target Itch and its payment processors isn’t really about NSFW stuff, at least not primarily. It’s about targeting LGTBQ+ people and making it more difficult for them to make money and share a community. But they pretend it’s about “protecting children”, so fewer people will object to what they are doing. It’s typical for people who hate sexual minorities to use the excuse of protecting children. Then if someone argues against them, they can always reply with indignation and feigned disgust. “What monster are you who want to allow innocent children to be harmed?” It’s impossible to argue against that, at that point.
Great game!
I have a suggestion though. My disability makes my short-term memory quite bad, so I often forget what the various abilities do. It’s great that you see a tool tip in the reward menu, but I would really like to be able to get those tool tips on my deck, too. The same goes for enemy intentions. No tool tips make it hard for me to play effectively.
I read one of your replies to a previous comment that under-explaining is a design choice of yours. I get that, but for me and others with memory impairments, it would really help to get reminders of what stuff does, in the same way as the player can bring up the controls at any time.
Cute and interesting game. I will write a more comprehensive review at a later date, but so far I’ve discovered two negatives I think you could potentially improve upon.
First of all, I want to applaud you for cute graphics and simplicity of game play. I like that you only have to use a mouse. This game is one of those “easy to learn, difficult to master” kind of games.
Now, on to my negatives and suggestions on improvement:
Negative 1: After a while (moon 30+), the board becomes very difficult to keep in order. It may be because I’m disabled and I have a hard time keeping track of multiple things at once, but I’ve heard others also complaining about this.
Suggestion 1.1: Make the cards movable and stackable while the game is paused.
Suggestion 1.2: Make each new card automatically stacked to an already existing stack of the same type if it exists, regardless of where it is. For example, if I have a stack of three bones to the far left and kill a creature on the far right that drops a bone, I would have liked it if that new bone gets stacked on top of the other three.
Suggestion 1.3: Remove the coin cards and have them only as a counter. I’m aware that would defeat some of the theme of everything in-game being a card, but I think that removing coin cards would greatly reduce the clutter.
Negative 2: As I mentioned, I have a disability that makes it difficult for me to keep track of multiple things at once. Thus I often forget about idle villagers and production units such as farms. I get that the hectic nature of the game is intended, but for people like me it gets a real problem.
Suggestion 2.1: Enable an option to auto-pause the game when a villager’s current task is done and/or when a production unit has an empty queue. By having it an option, people without my type of problems could leave the option disabled for a more hectic experience.
Good game. I like the art style, the card stack and the fact that all character’s cards are in the same deck. It’s difficult, just as these kinds of games should be. Perhaps a bit too difficult at times; more on that later. I haven’t written a full review yet, but in the meantime, here are some suggestions for improvement:
When I have gotten around to write a proper review, I will come back with it and also give the game a rating. I’m looking forward to the release of the full game. You have a really nice foundation here.
