The future of *Isekai*

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Yeah, what I eventually went with was:

Features comedic depictions of necromancy, undeath, blasphemy, hubris, consuming strange creatures, murder, and mistreatment of graduate students. Includes Shakespeare quotes discussing death and suicidal ideation.

Because I want to warn people that it talks about suicidal ideation (that can be a huge trigger for people), but I also want to make it clear that it’s not a game about that. It’s all about setting the right expectations for the player, imo, so that they know what they’re getting into. Someone looking for a dark, melancholic work is going to be disappointed if they open Familiar Problems and find slapstick comedy.

It’s not necessarily about puritanism, either. Some people will find the irreverent jokes about religion painful instead of funny. Some people will be disgusted by the idea of consuming magical creatures (I know someone who’s utterly repulsed by Dungeon Meshi for that reason). Some people will be hurt if blindsided by the fact that the player character has to murder someone in the game, even if it’s played for laughs. Not every game is for everyone, and these people probably won’t enjoy Familiar Problems, so it’s in my best interest as well as theirs to warn them in advance—I don’t want someone to play my work just to hate it, after all!

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Draconis

Yeah, what I eventually went with was:

Features comedic depictions of necromancy, undeath, blasphemy, hubris, consuming strange creatures, murder, and mistreatment of graduate students[…]

There is something to be said of the “brobdingnagian” type of content warning - for an example look at Cragne Manor’s warning. If you’ve got a lot of stuff, there’s no reason to be cagey about it.

I actually watched a “disturbing iceberg” video last night and the YouTuber just said “Be aware if you have any triggers about anything, you may want to click away because something in this video will probably trigger them.”

@laurenodonoghue

I know that you’re not keen on itch but I can tell you that my one game that has the ‘adult content’ tag (for un-erotic reasons) gets MASSES more traffic from it.

You speak the truth. There is a huge audience for erotica-and-more on itch, especially if you tag games appropriately and click that “adult content” meta box so it gates people who haven’t opted in to adult content.

My itch games sorted by views

[Denk (Kenneth Pedersen)]

Perhaps submit to an Italian comp first and get feedback. Later you can translate to English for IFComp as translations are allowed.

[n-n]

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

Pacian and n-n: the lack of story and agency stems (again) from the confines of the IFComp; realistically, I should use the “official time” for the ßtest, but I feel that is a cheating, so I strive to start with ~40-50% of the code in place.

In my understanding IFComp does not have time restrictions for development (unlike other jams, where all the work must be done within a time period). Some entries in a given edition will have been years in the making.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

Kenneth, Isekai isn’t material for IFComp since day 1 (everyone know that a sure-fire mean of securing the last place was functional toilets…) but if one compares the PEGI and ESRB criteria, one can easily figure that is nigh impossible cover all bases (or, more frankly, all asses) with one set of CW.

Tabitha and Encorm, I thinked that was clear the sarcasm in pointing to the above with an extreme catch-all…

Daniel, on irriverent jokes about religion (or precisely, a specific branch of theology) that there’s a daemon and an angel deeply in love and with an healthy sexuality, is obvious that one can’t refrain from poking heavy punch on scholastic theology (that is, the canonical “people whose discuss day and night about sex of angels”…) but, seriously, who takes seriously a “scholastic-bashing jokes” CW ??

In the end, on CW, let’s determine these after the public RC, after the IFComp '26, and, more generally, adding “suggesting CW” to the list of ßtesters activities seems to me not a bad idea…

the para above serendipitously allows a seamless answering to the just-in n-n’s post; my works now officially require a major collective proofreading, possible, in Isekai’s case only thru a public RC, that is, automatically disqualified from the comp.

Hope that now I have a pair of hours for giving some love to the languishing dev diary…

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[n-n]

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

the para above serendipitously allows a seamless answering to the just-in n-n’s post; my works now officially require a major collective proofreading, possible, in Isekai’s case only thru a public RC, that is, automatically disqualified from the comp.

The international scene is big, so I don’t think extensive testing and proofreading is incompatible with submitting to IFComp. I remember @mathbrush recommending to use 25 beta testers, which is a larger group of people than the whole Spanish IF regular player base.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

honestly, do you think that is feasible forming and handling a score, or even only a dozen of closed-beta testers ??

Anyway, I’m more interested in adding a “backgarden” of sort to the IFComp than in relaxing the “public ßtesting is also a public release, hence disqualying” rule.

aside that if I partecipate to the IFComp, even without getting bad mood at the end, will obviously have an impact on Isekai development, so is out of question that I join the '25 and '26 editions.

another point is that in writing the dev diary the bad mood reraise its ugly face, and I apologise for having suddenly ended at roughly somewhat less than half the diary entry; near-back to square one on the future of Isekai, If I feel chilled out in writing openly about it…

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

Anyway, I’m more interested in adding a “backgarden”

That’s what Spring Thing does, and it works there, but I don’t agree there should be changes to IFComp, because it honestly works pretty well as is.

Also, like n-n said, there is no time limit for IFComp. You can spend years working on a game and people will not change their judging based on how long you spent to make it. John Ziegler spent four years writing Prince Quisborne, and by golly does it feel like four years’ worth of stuff! That thing is polished fantastically for something as enormous as that, and each room has so much content, and random events will happen. It’s truly fantastic. And it’s not like it got rated down because he spent so long writing it. It would’ve probably been much worse without that extra time!

… So time is not a thing that IFComp is holding against you. And neither is having lots of betatesters.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

one can easily figure that is nigh impossible cover all bases (or, more frankly, all asses) with one set of CW.

Nobody expects you to cover all bases. Detailed CW are a good thing, but general content warnings can at least put people with triggers on guard.

It is a bit distressing that you seem to be arguing “nobody can know what in this game will possibly trigger someone.” The author should be that authority and be empathetic enough to understand their story and their audience’s expectations. To say that you don’t understand your own work to that extent is kind of a bad thing, regardless of cultural differences.

When I write trigger warnings I know I’m preventing some people from playing my work, but that’s why you do it. There’s no point in hiding a surprise animal-cruelty scene from someone for whom it will cause distress to “not spoil the game”. If someone ends up crying in a bad way due to your game, it’s spoiled.

Writing in another language is very difficult - you’ve seen how I’ve misunderstood the point of some of your postings, and I’m pretty good at reading comprehension.

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

my works now officially require a major collective proofreading, possible, in Isekai’s case only thru a public RC, that is, automatically disqualified from the comp.

All works require major collective proofreading, not just yours. And, in general, IFComp doesn’t disqualify games based on content unless they are just flat-out illegal. We had an entry Rod McSchlong Gets Punched in the Dong this year which is just an extended dick joke. I’ve entered robotsexpartymurder which had extensive scenes of flat-out pornography and it placed sixth that year. Of course it was quite extensively content-warned (Mathbrush himself said it was “title as content warning”) and I have to believe that the severe content warning actually helped in this case; the content warning prevented people who would be averse to high-scoring a “porn game” from playing it and thus voting for it.

[pieartsy (Aster F)]

Erstwhile had 19 playtesters and took 3 years to make

[kamineko (Drew Cook)]

Repeat the Ending took maybe 18 months of a disabled, not-employed person working all the time. There were 14 playtesters. If more people had volunteered to test, I would have taken them (please consider testing my next game)!

I say this sometimes: every competition game gets a lot of playtesting. Sometimes that’s private. Sometimes that’s in forum review threads. It’s hard to escape testing, but you can choose the timing and place of it.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

we all agree on playtesting; but where I don’t agree is that insistence on my partecipation to the next pair of IFComp; I have plainly pointed that working for the 'Comp detract time to the development of Isekai (Incidentally, I remind that is still a provisional name…)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

let’s test this poll mechanism, seeing to figure if people really prefer Isekai as a competition entrant:

How do you like Isekai being released ?

• I’m fine with being released outside of a competiton
• I like Isekai being released in a competition, and I accept that is entered in the lone non-grading competiton, the spring backgarden, accepting the delay in release, from end 2026 to spring 2027.
• Actually, I don’t really have an opinion. Please release when you feel it complete (and tested)

Thanks for your contribuition and
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.