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.
