but never is a promise, and you can't afford to lie

(Continued from part three.)

So, where were we? I think we were still on the comments from January 20th...right, where |FTG| Comte de la Fère fails utterly to grasp the concept:

Screw that, wouldn't it make more sense for the game developers to, you know, not make it rape? That crap offends people, just make a normal teen pregnancy game.

Barring the fact that I'm fairly sure you'd likely decry a "normal" teen pregnancy game as, oh, say, glorifying teen pregnancy, your problem is that rape is offensive, so rape shouldn't be mentioned? You do realize the world we live in, right? Where an upsetting percentage of men still believe that "if she hadn't dressed like that", or "if she hadn't flirted so much", or "if she hadn't gotten drunk", or "if she hadn't turned him down", she wouldn't have been raped? For once we have a game where--at least in the demo--there's no victim-blaming. She's relatively faceless, so outside of being a pretty understandable teenager, with pretty understandable teen motivations, the bulk of the dilemma is what to do now, not what happened then.

But you still think because it's not a "normal" teen pregnancy game, it shouldn't be offered as a Steam option? How narrow your worldview must be, Comte.

From Max Overload:

This isn't a game, it's a Powerpoint Hydra, and an ugly one at that.

I have no idea what you mean. What's a Powerpoint Hydra?

From spyke2009:

Not a game. No gameplay, it's a badly written choose your own path adventure book in E-Format. They have the right to exist, but they're not games. No, just no.

It belongs on newgrounds

Newgrounds still exists? But barring that, visual novels have every right to exist on Steam, and every right to be considered games. Granted, most of them are the equivalent of harem anime or dating sims, but there's a ton already on Steam and being sold on a daily basis. So how is this one, part of the same genre, then not a game?

From Batman on January 21st:

Downvoting this for 2 reasons
1. It doesn't look good. Graphics - if you want to make it a choose your own adventure - that's fine, but make the screens convey an emotion. Choose your visuals wisely - fonts, buttons, make sure it looks decent. It doesn't have to be expensive to look tasteful.

2. It doesn't look like it will have the maturity to tackle the subject well. This ties in with the previous point, as my main point of reference are the screenshots. The screenshots don't show anything resembling nuance in the game - which isn't to say there isn't going to be, but I sure as hell am not excited to play it.

You know you've failed to convey the emotion of a raped 14 year old when your game looks... silly. It looks too immature, and it's sad because I want games that explore dark parts of humanity... but you can't make it look like something a 12 year old will post on their facebook in an attempt at sounding deep or insightful.

So, because it doesn't feature the "dark parts of humanity", you're not interested? For the love of all things, make up your damned minds! It's not 'dark' enough, so it's not a good game. It's too dark, so it's not a good game. It focuses more on her being a teenager, then her being shattered and bleeding in an alley somewhere, so you're meh on the concept?

Really, what sort of striated, narrow definitions are y'all using here??

From The Knave of Hearts:

Promotes loli rape... Much glurge, do not want.

How does a game about the painful consequences of an unwanted and undesired act promote pedophilia in any way? I'm confused.

From Amon_Wraa:

Short Story Simulator 2015: Child Rape Edition

REALLY?!?

And finally (at least for now), user T-Wrecks:

Oh boy, Depression Quest 2 -_- No thanks, I like my games to actually qualify as games. Save the bland teen fiction for the middle school library.

Oh, for the love of--it's not Depression Quest 2. Grow the hell up.



Maybe it won't matter, in the end, because the voices against will outweigh the voices for. Still, if for no other reason than that it's not your typical fire-at-things-until-dead game, it deserves more consideration than just "ew lolicon not a gaem lol". At least, in my opinion.