it was really hard for the team it was a
lot of the team's first time putting a
lot of themselves in the game feeling
like they had representation of some of
their feelings and reflected on them
personally
it's always going to be harder to to be
open-minded and open-hearted and
insensitive and considerate that's
always harder than being inconsiderate
always but it's a challenge that i think
is healthy
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by having a content warning we're
showing that we are open to hearing
about people's experiences that we are
sensitive to how people are feeling
we're not just putting it out there and
we don't care how you feel
signals and vulnerability in that way
which i'm glad we did i think it's still
it's the responsible thing to do
especially if you're in a genre that
people might not be expecting these
negative encounters i mean you put the
content warning in meaning that you were
cognizant
of the fact
that this could be tricky material for
some people did that ever come up in the
play testing process
internally and externally once we reveal
the full plot to people because it
wasn't available at the various game
events we went to at pax we didn't show
anything about the plot at all there was
a strong recurring feedback that they
wanted less of him they were like once i
understand his nature i want i don't
want to interact with him anymore
because in real life i'm not going to
text some dude i don't like i'm just
going to i'm going to ghost him i'm
going to block him i'm going to get rid
of him i felt it was still important to
the themes of the game
to have that final resolution with him
but the intent and the reality is if you
totally ghost him after meeting him you
don't have to interact with them like
your your president will take care of it
and then you have your final boss titan
like that's kind of the only encounters
you have a meeting and then eventually a
boss fight some of the tech behind how
that works has a couple of bugs which
made people think they had to interact
with them and that's also added fuel to
the fire of people feeling uncomfortable
that they felt forced into texting with
this guy that they had identified as
abusive
what was kind of the genesis character
what what was your goal this character
and to what extent do you feel like you
accomplished that in the creation game
and this was my first long form writing
and it took a lot of iterations but my
goal was to have a satisfying character
growth moment and once i realized that
doing that with the protagonist was very
very difficult because i wanted it to be
a self-insert capable character so i
couldn't sort of impress a certain
emotional growth onto the player that
had to happen in another character i
followed a lot of the standard book
screenplay
advice about how to do that but it still
took a lot of trial and error and play
testing my main goal was to show some of
the nuances of romance and how it can be
really hard and it's really easy to do
it wrong that's based on my personal
experiences like i have been a woman on
the internet it turns out
and i have experienced some things and
eric isn't based particularly on any one
person that you know any resemblance to
real people is completely coincidental
and it is a work of fiction but it is
the lived reality of a lot of people and
i've also gotten private messages that
it's been cathartic for some women who
have been through similar things that
they they said wow it's really great to
actually see a creep
go through an arc and regret and
apologize because that never happens in
real life
do you think that the kind of ownership
or feeling of ownership that kickstarter
gives people over a project
may have like in some way or another
contributed to kind of the at least
initial reaction
genres in which you are more likely to
be playing as yourself that the
character you're playing might be named
after you that you might customize them
and and really make the choices as if it
were you
to then see
yourself encounter
even very fictionalized stylized
versions of past trauma
i think can be more triggering or more
difficult emotionally than
seeing a fictional character go through
it passively i hope more people make
more queer friendly and marginalized
gender friendly games but it is
difficult i think that's at the heart of
all of this they have the expectation
combined with this poverty of options
even in spite of the kind of initial
reaction to all of this and the blowback
and the discourse do you still like
ultimately feel good about the thing
that you've made
i'm extremely proud of what we made and
i'm extremely proud of my team it's the
best game we've ever made i don't regret
making
any of it i i love boyfriend engine and
i'm glad that a lot of people are
connecting with it of course we'll
always try to learn from everything we
do and always make it better
you