I'm not offended, but I am amused. Who do you think made this game? Not straight people, trans people, nerodivergant people, and people of color. Many of the team falling into multiple of those categories. But you're only allowed to have one or two of those or it's just going too far! It's ridiculous that people not like you made stories that were relatable to them and comment on the actual real world implications of what it's like to be a part of those communities. It's great that you're not a total "anti-woke" troll, but your critiques are still entirely silly.
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Wow. I spent a lot of time writing out my thoughts, trying to give honest feedback without being offensive, and you call my critiques "entirely silly"? That's pretty disappointing coming from a developer...
Just because your team falls into various diverse categories doesn't automatically make your storytelling immune to criticism, unless you created this game just for your own team and didn't care about the average user in the first place. My issue wasn't with inclusion in general - it was with how you crammed everything in at once, making it feel forced and unnatural.
Again, it is good to stand up for representation of marginalized groups in media, but what I've been trying to say the entire time is... was it really necessary to put every single one of these topics and groups in one short game instead of using a gentler approach and saving some of these topics as main points for future games?
I'm really shocked that you are disregarding other players' feedback and even think their opinions are silly. There is nothing wrong with having different opinions and agreeing to disagree. Isn't the point of releasing a game to have a wide range of people play and enjoy it?
If you can't handle critique without getting defensive, maybe you shouldn't respond to reviews. I gave your game a chance and shared my honest opinion. Calling that "entirely silly" just makes me glad I stopped playing when I did. I don't regret buying the DLCs, I just regret reading your answer and seeing how you really think of people with different opinions. All the best.
I think you're very naive with hopefully a lot to learn. This isn't a critique on how well our characters were written or how accurate they were to real people in those groups, your problem is clearly that they are what they are in the first place. You are saying "Hey, people who put in the time and effort to make this game, can you include less of yourselves in it so it stops being off-putting to people who don't want to read about you?" Can you really, truly not see why I can't take it as reasonable advice?
But congratulations on finding your first made-by-and-for-queer-and-neurodivergent-people game ever. You might be shocked to realize one day that there’s lots of games like that and it turns out there’s no such thing as a story with an "unnatural" amount of “inclusive characters”. People have made games where every character was gay and/or trans or so on and that doesn't make it "forced". The world doesn't have ten queer people who aren't allowed in the same room. Often, people who are minorities hang out with other people in that community.
Our players themselves are queer, and trans, neurodivergent, and people who are willing to empathize with those groups without getting uncomfortable when they realize the game isn't including them for the benefit of helping straight cis people feel at ease with them, it's actually so the people in those communities can have something that makes them happy.
"Was it really necessary to put every single one of these topics and groups in one short game instead of using a gentler approach and saving some of these topics as main points for future games?"
Yes, it was! Minorities aren't just talking points. They're not some theoretical concept that only exist to be side characters in fictional stories. They are alive in reality. They play games and they make their own games. The whole world doesn’t revolve "average players" who don't mind seeing minorities in a "gentle way" as long as they’re not "crammed in". Please realize that.
I don't reply to real reviews, and if this had been somewhere other than a public comment section I wouldn't have engaged. But I'm not gonna let our players see a comment like yours and not make it clear that we're not here for you. They don't deserve to be talked about like this, so I will continue to disagree with you.
Also, check out our second game in this series. You think we included everything woke here? Not true. Our Life 2 is even wokier!
And I will add one more thing that might be a missing piece here. We already knew what you said. Anybody in a minority group who intends to make stories more about their own experiences and those of people like them know before they even start development that some players are going to dismiss the game for being woke. That's the reality of being in the minority! But we did anyway. No matter how many “average gamers” tell us to tone it down on the “PC nonsense”, we’re simply not going to. We’re just as allowed to make games that center on us as anyone else is.