Recent events in the last pair or three months, both internal and external to the IF community has led me to seriously assess the future development of Isekai, with a large spectrum of options, which I list here, in decreasing order of severity:
abandoning the project entirely, giving the current source code next amnesty day
putting the development on hold until at least January 21, 2029
turning it into Italian-only choice-based IF (an hard work, but feasible)
moving the perceived (on a side of the atlantic) âaifâ and âkinkyâ components in an external choice-based IF in Italian, giving the password for the specific component. (Personally I dislike this, because in last analysis, 50% of US people donât deserve this humiliationâŠ)
allowing post-release someone else, preferably from the UK side of english, building a âbowdlerisedâ version (I will never concede writing ad usum delphini, period. but I think I can pretend that is a (crank)case of dojinshi fanfictionâŠ)
releasing as source code only
Iâll open this public community debate on these options, and Iâm open to other ideas, with a firm, non-negotiable point: the perceived âaifâ and âkinkyâ components are here to stay, period.
I would suggest either source code only or separating it. I donât think this nessecarily means password. I actually donât know Isekai, but I think removing ANY IF project from the internet would be a loss.
I guess the question is: what are you hoping to get out of this project, and what problem are you trying to solve with these options? (I think I know, but I think itâll be helpful for you to lay this out.)
In regards to the adult content, one option Iâve seen frequently is to have the player opt in or out to it at the beginning of the game. From a player perspective I find that the smoothest option if you think itâs turning people away from your game. That said, if this is about First Contactâs performance in IFComp this year I think there may be more going on here than just the presence of adult material since that didnât prevent Sextuple L from scoring quite highly. Thatâs why Iâm curious as to what your goal is here specifically, since there may something else you can do to achieve the reception you want.
My advice would be to tell the story you want to tell, in the way you want to tell it, and be transparent to readers about what to expect. Some may like it, others may not. But thatâs art.
Iâll add that for stories like this, transparency serves both as a content warning and as an advertisement! Per @Pebblerubbleâs suggestion I know that AIF does very well on Itch.io, so despite the reservations that @Piergiorgio_d_errico has expressed about the nosiness of the platform it might also be the best place to connect with people who will appreciate what heâs making.
itching reservations aside, the other suggestions are good: personally I suspect that the low performance re. 6L stems not only from the weak english mated to an constructed lexicon (I follow Tolkienâs lesson in worldbuilding; his Matter will be much more weaker without the QuenyaâŠ) but also from a misplaced national pride (simplified to the extreme, something akin to âIF is an American thing because was invented hereâ), hence the nature of some of the options I put on the table.
On trasnparency, I admit that the dev diary is hopelessly outdated; tonight or tomorrow Iâll update it, explaining many things, explicitly asking for feedback on the ideas, accepting the risk of mild spoilers.
on the opt-out option, is by far the easiest solution, but I know that thereâs people who donât play AIF or games with sexual content for genuine, rational convictions, and is a pity that they canât play it for solid, genuine and honest ethical reasons. (hence the 4th and 5th optionâŠ)
Another thing is a question of perception, this time mine: I feel that the split on the debate on romance in IF was, at least ill-timed, but the core issue canât explained without spoilers without reference to said debate.
summing all up, Isekai HAS adult content but is NOT an adult IF.
Thanks for your comments, and
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
I agree. I donât think pride has too much to do with it.
One thing I think might have played a part in the lower score of First Contact is (from reading the reviews, I havenât played it) lack of content warnings (which, yes, from what Iâm seeing on reviews, they should have been there), and some other things.
I think the adult IF or bowdlerization idea is a bit of a red herring. People are pretty open to a lot of different sorts of content, and I donât think anyone felt your work should be censored. While I think it is wise to advise people regarding whatâs in a game, I donât think thatâs always about people being fragile, or religious, or sensitive. Or American. Sometimes people just like things more or less, and helping people find games they like is a way to reach a receptive audience. Telling people about your game does that.
I think that these questions arenât a good substitute for testing, though. I do a lot of testing. Maybe more than most people feel like doing, but you know Iâve never felt like I tested too much. Testing doesnât just have to be about tech and bugs. It can be about content. If youâre wondering how something is coming off, get a varied group of people to look at it.
It doesnât mean you have to do everything they say. Iâve changed a lot of things based on feedback. Iâve left some things alone. For instance, some people donât like reading a lot of continuous text in parser games. I wanted to make a game with a lot of continuous text, so I did it anyway. Even if you donât change anything, you wonât be surprised by reactions to things. Youâll be prepared, or youâll consider various release options. Youâll be informed, even if you decide not to change anything. And because youâre informed, youâll have choices.
(E: testers also say things like âI would have liked a heads-up about this or that thingâ)
I wouldnât make any public decisions without taking stock, maybe sharing some work with people you trust, and seeing how you feel after that.
Spot on. My experience has been you can publish any content you want, but you want to give people an opportunity to know what theyâre getting into and a choice to opt-out. The last thing you want is someone who definitely will not like your game or be offended to play it. Transparency is a good thing and spoilers are good for people who donât want to be surprised by game content. Players know themselves well enough usually that they know if they need to be spoiled. And IF is good because itâs possible to build in warnings that are interactive so players donât see them if they donât need to.
One thing not to get hung up on is âcontent warnings will spoil my gameâ - if a person is sensitive to content that spoiler is actually good. Sometimes just knowing ahead that a game is going to involve suicide doesnât mean the person wonât play, but they can be prepared for a trigger so it doesnât take them by surprise.
Itâs the easiest thing to put a notice on the front page and provide links with additional links with increasing detail and spoilers readers can pick and choose.
Example of how content warning can be structured:
This is a work of fiction including mature content and is recommended for adult readers.
Content Warnings:
adult language
mild violence: a fight scene without weapons between adults. Blood is described but nobody is seriously injured or killed.
descriptions of nudity: a scene including a nude male model in an art class contains blunt discussion regarding his anatomy.
verbal abuse: a character is frequently referred to as âbitchâ and âcuntâ by another character in her presence.
Within IF you also need to make a distinction: if you say something is âAIFâ it sets up the expectation that this is a âsexy game that includes sex to turn you onâ lumping it in with pornography as opposed to âerotic IFâ which could be a more sensitive but still explicit and sexy or serious exploration of emotions and romance. Most people understand the difference between erotica and porn and can make the decision for themselves autonomously.
I will say, figuring out the right content warnings is (at least for me) very far from a trivial matter! In Familiar Problems, thereâs a joke about a college drama class where you can (unsuccessfully attempt to) recite the âTo Be Or Not To Beâ soliloquy from Hamlet; that deserves a content warning for mention of suicidal ideation, presumably, but in context, itâs not a description of wanting to die, itâs a description of trying and failing to perform the most famous monologue in the English language. How do you warn about that?
In other wordsâyes, definitely include content warnings, but figuring out the right ones to use is also definitely a skill that takes practice.
Oh, of course. I meant itâs a simple matter structurally to include layered âinvisi-cluesâ magic for your content warnings with regard to not revealing spoilers to those who donât want them. Figuring out the content of what to warn and reveal does require some authorial mojo.
Thatâs hilarious! Hamlet on its own probably has a lot of heavy lifting done in that itâs already getting a warning that itâs basically a paranoid on-stage massacre of friends and family members.
For a work that references the famous speech, Iâd just spell it out in the deep full spoiler content warning
discussion of Hamlet referencing suicidal ideation of âto be, or not to beâ
for thoroughness.
One other advantage of thorough content warnings: They demonstrate the author thought about what in their work could be sensitive. This establishes a level of empathy and reader trust that the included sensitive content isnât thoughtless or careless.
The kink and the content warnings are BOTH red herrings.
In First Contact you learn in detail about things that have happened and will happen. Meanwhile three people fall in love without conflict, doubt or hesitation.
Whereâs the story?
Itâs this Isekai thing that youâre talking about, right? OK, well thatâs what people will want to play. Finish it and release it, and, as someone said above, some people will like it and some wonât.
Most reviewers of First Contact found the story and the worldbuilding intriguing, including the adult themes (which have a fun and wholesome vibe compared to something like Game of Thrones).
The most criticized aspects were the low player agency and lack of polish in the writing. For the latter Iâd suggest collaborating with an English speaker, giving them editing powers and working the text back and forth until everyone is happy.
Seconding this - the adult content didnât factor into my rating of First Contact at all, really.
I think as other people have mentioned, good signposting for those kind of themes are probably more likely to help you find an enthusiastic audience, rather than the opposite. I know that youâre not keen on itch but I can tell you that my one game that has the âadult contentâ tag (for un-erotic reasons) gets MASSES more traffic from it.
many things is to be tackled in the proper page, that is, the dev diary; two points here:
Pacian and n-n: the lack of story and agency stems (again) from the confines of the IFComp; realistically, I should use the âofficial timeâ for the Ătest, but I feel that is a cheating, so I strive to start with ~40-50% of the code in place.
(I apologise for not having tackled the âlove at first sightâ issue in First Contact; Iâll discuss it in the postmortem later; suffice to say that is an oversight of mineâŠ)
as Daniel and Hanon point in a rather elegant way, thereâs issues in the content warning; Iâm definitively not anti-woke, but I understand that the sense of measure and balance is lost, and personally I think that my stock contest warning should be: "absence of blood and gore; cruel to puritans"
(notice âcruelâ and not âcrueltyââŠ) whose is also an excellent synthesis of the EU side of the permissibility divide, IMHO. but I digressâŠ
Isnât easy keeping track of the content warnings, whose canât cover everything (incidentally, the diversity of species on Railei symbolises not only the diversity of races here, but also the much larger diversity of ideas, and ideas includes also the oneâs own perception of sensibilitiesâŠ) and that âdepiction of breastfeedingâ definitively is an understatement re. what happened, leading straight to the âkinkâ oversemplification⊠but back on the point, I think that many of Isekaiâs contents are more properly âtagsâ in the IFdB sense. (e.g. a married interspecie (=interracial in Earth context) lesbian throuple) than âcontent warningâ. On the latter, sensitivities is definitively a major case of YMMV, so, even without the spoiler issue, the content warning blanket WILL be always short.
hope to have tackled all the comments here. Time for a (belatedâŠ) brekafast !
Speaking as a fellow Italian, this has not been my impression of this specific space at all.
And, look, I get it. Iâve also had some unpleasant experiences on the English-speaking internet. US-centrism is a legitimate issue. But not every American is like that, especially not in such a friendly and open community. If you approach every single interaction you have with the idea that youâre talking to an ignorant American and that theyâre looking down at you for being a foreigner, then those interactions are likely going to be unpleasant ones, and it wonât be because of anything the other party does.
To support what has been said: I donât engage in any social networks whatsoever, except for this forum, which isnât really one. I appreciate the rationality and moderation in the way people here express themselves, which has allowed me to overcome some of my own silly prejudices (for instance, I now use version control software, although I wrongly thought it was unnecessary for my specific case).
Some people in this thread are encouraging you to follow through with your project and idea: some players will love it, others will dislike it, and still others will be indifferent; thatâs life. But life, precisely, is short, so the real criterion that matters is this: is this project truly important to you? If so, see it through, even if it means replanning it around other personal priorities. Your game will find its players, and they will be grateful for it.
Yeah most people donât identify as âpuritansâ, so that content warning is going to come off as more combative than informative. Regardless of your personal feelings itâs better to write something purely factual (and frankly, as dry as possible). Again, this is half warning and half advertisement so being aggro and nonspecific will turn off more people than the most boringly written CW.
Think of it like this, perhaps: if Isekai were an Italian movie, what rating would you give it? I have no idea how Italian movie ratings work, but in America it might be something like R (nudity and sexual content). Even if it would garner a lower equivalent rating it Italy the reasons why are important and will let people draw their own conclusions. You may consider it the equivalent of PG-13/14+ and thatâs fine, as long as the reasons for it are clearly spelled out.
I agree with everyone else that it looks like the content and content warnings are only a small part of why First Contact has been received the way it has, but even the most polished version will suffer if you donât market it appropriately. And that is frankly part of what a CW is for.