Post by xeb in 🏹 Saintess of the Golden Bow: Extended Demo Release! 🏹 comments

🏹 Saintess of the Golden Bow: Extended Demo Release! 🏹 » Comments

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So-called "sensitivity readers" are just people who feel the need to get offended over nothing, on behalf of people who never asked for their "help." Sounds more like you let someone gaslight you into believing whatever you had in mind originally was "offensive." Contrary to whatever this person might be telling you (or echo chambers, of which itch.io is one), normal gays/bi folk aren't offended by everything, and are actually sick of being treated like infants. I'm guessing whoever this "reader" is, is American, or heavily influenced by them? Wouldn't surprise me at all, but it's odd, given your studio is listed as Polish on KS.

I can't tell you how to develop your own game, but I'd advise ditching the "sensitivity reader" and not buying into political ideologues telling you whatever you're doing might offend someone. Even if someone were offended, that's their own problem, no one else. Further more, your VN is a work of fiction; it doesn't need to conform to the real world.

While I wish you luck on your eventual KS (and was looking forward to it, myself), I no longer have a desire to back it. Over-correction and this bizarre fear of possibly offending someone even slightly has absolutely gutted modern gaming and media in general, and I have no desire to engage in it.

Transparent Games2 days ago

Hi xeb,

thank you for the thoughtful comment.

The changes we implemented to the script do not stem from the desire to be politically correct - as you're aware we are a Polish visual novel studio, not an American one and while our sensitivity reader was indeed American, we had the choice of what feedback to implement and what to omit. As you may have guessed, our level of sensitivity when it comes to LGBT and racial stuff is different than those of Americans, however, we found that there were some issues with people understanding the narrative of the game correctly, and that's where the need to have someone double-check the script came from.

Namely, we had people voicing the following issue: the original story of "Saint of the Golden Bow", the book Celeste reincarnates into, is a BL story. People voiced their doubts that playing as a female character makes the guys suddenly hetero, which is not correct. The guys are either bisexual or pansexual. You may be aware that there's a general issue with understanding bisexuality in some circles. That choosing a female partner does not suddenly change your sexuality, as that's not how it works. At least that's my (Anna's, the creative director's and writer's) experience as a biromantic asexual.

To address the following issue we added some subtle changes: it's mentioned that prior to the game the love interests had been attracted to men, but their Focus within the game is still on Celeste, the player character, since this game is at its core an otome game. But it's an otome game with LGBT themes, and we're proud to market it as such as members of the LGBT community. There was one more less subtle change added, but it's behind a choice - the player has the choice to talk to Levi about his attraction to Noah and Elijah. The content is optional. If it's something the player doesn't want to make sure of, it can be skipped. Since we're a while away from the final Kickstarter demo, our goal with the release of the current demo is also to judge if this change is subtle enough. If it's not what people want and doesn't clear the problems I outlined here, it will be removed from the Kickstarter demo.

Another issue that was addressed is Noah's relationship with his mixed race heritage. To make it more of an element of his character one scene was added where his connection to his found family, Tarik, is established earlier than it otherwise was - in his route. Racial stuff like that we have no way to know how to address as a Polish studio and this was the main reason we chose Shakyra Dunn who is also of mixed race to do a sensitivity read on the demo.

Let me know if this addresses your concerns. If you still choose not to back the Kickstarter - it's your very right to not agree with the changes, however, we wanted to explain where the changes came from and their real extent.

Thank you for raising those concerns to us.