Alora Fane

I haven't done much this week, annoyingly! So here's some rambling about sexual objectification again (yay), a revised roadmap for tasks I've done and still need to do, and some thoughts about scripting snags re character psychology that I'm currently in the process of working through.

I've done frustratingly little this week... again. The usual mental illness is the cause, though I wish it didn't interfere as much as it did... Bleh. So I'll mostly be writing about some related stuff rather than actual progress this week.

Sexual objectification... again

Pretty much all the comments last time were about the sexual objectification topic - since I suppose it's the kind of thing people are more likely to have opinions about than the specifics of an in-progress game - and I tried to reply to them, but eventually got too worried about saying something offensive or 'wrong' in some way so I decided to just stay quiet.

I've encountered some things over the week though that seemed relevant to it. I don't want to talk about it in detail again, but I'll at least mention them.

One thing I saw was this literal, unabashed porn game which did ∞ a Kickstarter ∞:

I'm not making a porn game (obviously??), but it's interesting that this extreme example of sexual objectification in action made like 2 million dollars from its Kickstarter. I wonder how much of that was because the company that made it was apparently fairly large (I read something that suggested it was, but I don't exactly play porn games so I wouldn't know), and how much was because it stirred up controversy (which is how I found out about it) and people backed it because they were getting frustrated by everything else telling them that they need to suppress their sexual feelings constantly. I don't know; I've not exactly looked into it, but I could understand that psychological perspective.

By contrast, I also saw this comic (I think it's a comic?), also in the context of controversy:

It's about the gay, overweight, gothy daughter of an otherwise sexy superhero (who I've only ever vaguely heard about; I'm not interested in comics). From what I gather, it sold very poorly... though I've also seen a lot about how comics in general are a dying form of media, so that probably has as much to do with it as anything.

I suppose the two things these bring to mind are:

1 - If you're one of the ones finding any hints of sexual content in Atonal Dreams distasteful, are you repulsed by the first one and supportive of the second? Do you feel I'd be taking a better path were I to do something similar to the second one?

2 - The first path earned a whole lot more money.

Games attract an overwhelmingly male audience, so them appealing to the so-called 'male gaze' doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. It's not as if depictions of men in romance novels - which attract an overwhelmingly female audience - are considerate of hypothetical male readers' feelings.

I used to put hypothetical female players' feelings first, and honestly it's because I was hoping that if they saw that and liked what I'd made, they'd like me, and I'd be less lonely. Now I cringe at that, and would rather just make things that appeal to my own male perspective. It's not like I'm making outright porn or anything! I just don't want to be puritanical for what are essentially political reasons.

I'd probably have a very different opinion if I had a partner or daughters or something, but I don't. I did talk with a female friend about all this, and her thoughts are in line with my own about it all. Though it was interesting hearing her perspective since she dislikes the hypocrisy of so-called feminists criticising the male gaze on one hand while posting sexy, skimpy Instagram selfies on the other.

It's all exhausting to think about though.

Revised roadmap

I suspect that's all anyone will comment about, but I also want to actually talk about my own game in a way that's interesting/valuable to me. I spent some time this week reading through all the old blog posts I'd written about it (when I had no energy to do actual work), and while it's usually frustrating to feel I'm coming along slowly or even getting nowhere, seeing how much I actually have done is... well, it's nicer than feeling like I'm getting nowhere, anyway!

I set up a roadmap a while back, but quickly failed to meet the naively optimistic deadlines I'd set for myself, and largely neglected it after that. I've revised it now to look like this (which you can see on the main alorafane.com page):

These seem to be the stages I've done already and still need to do, I think? They're not all equal in time costs! The initial concepts could be said to stretch back all the way to mid-2019, when I was devising Divine Dreams - then called the 'MARDEK Reimagining' - while others, like character design, might only take a few days. So I've finished fewer than half of these tasks, but the remaining few likely won't take as long as I've already taken.

One of the embarrassing recurring themes from my old posts was how hilariously inaccurate my predictions for how things would take were, so I won't even attempt to estimate a date for anything!

This script stage seems like a particular wall though...

Scripting

I suppose I've been struggling with what could be called writer's block, or maybe just general reduced motivation. If you ever read about the productivity habits of anyone who focuses on writing, I imagine you'll see a lot about struggle! It's tough.

Something I'm having to do at the moment is figure out how the three dream sequences ∞ I talked about last week ∞ will work exactly. I have sketchy plans for all of them, but going from those sketches to actual dialogue lines is challenging.

I was trying to write the dream which is formed by Collie's mind, and joined by Savitr. In it, she pictures herself as a Blight Wolf - which is what she grew up as - and the dream would explore her struggles with that part of herself... though this struggle with the self seems to be a common theme for all the characters, and I'm concerned about it seeming too repetitive. Many of them struggle with feelings of being trapped, for example, or they feel profound guilt about harm they've caused others in the past. Things that consume my own mind.

Collie, though, is Courage elemental, and the whole thing with her is that she used to be wild, untamed, and now she's trying her best to become tame, which is why she's a dog but used to be a wolf. Lots of metaphorical layers which I find interesting, especially the connections to actual gameplay mechanics (taming). Her main thing is that she's supposed to be suppressing some deep anger - which is how Courage manifests darkly - which is different to the usual self-loathing sorrow that I naturally experience and can more easily write.

If Collie is angry, is she angry at herself, or at something external? It shouldn't be the same as Savitr's, Pierce's, or Ossoum's troubled feelings; I can't have everyone be consumed by some kind of self-loathing! It should be distinct from Destruction's darkness in particular; dark Courage shouldn't be about wanting to destroy things exactly.

Something that occurred to me while brainstorming was this contrast:

That could kind of work, and it'd be interesting to explore both angles, but she's less dressed as a Blight Wolf, and more covered as a Cherub, so the aesthetics clash with the metaphor, if I were to go with that.

I need to just do some more brainstorming; sometimes it takes several sessions to work through a particular problem, as has been the case with other plotting snags previously. I get through eventually! Most people probably won't think or care too much about the specifics of character psychology anyway, but for some mysterious reason (HAVE I EVER MENTIONED MY DEGREE) it's of particular interest to me!

Overall, I'm annoyed I didn't get more done this week. Lots of mental stresses and distractions. Hopefully next week I'll be more productive!

8 COMMENTS

MontyCallay101~4Y

I am by no means an expert here, but I feel like it's somewhat of a misrepresentation to say that the "progressive" side of the debate is completely anti-sexual content, which is a rather radical position! The idea of the puritanical anti-sex feminist is somewhat of a strawman, considering that these things are debated even in academic circles (see [LINK] More often the issue seems to be with how the sexual content is presented, rather than there being sexual content at all, so I think your worrying about having to be "puritanical for political reasons" isn't really necessary.

I find your choice of "things to bring to mind" interesting, considering that I don't think your comparison of these "two paths" makes sense here! Comparing a successful porn game with an unsuccessful progressive comic book seems intentionally done to make a point - I don't think you can compare these two works, from completely different forms of media with completely different audiences, and conclude from that that there exist two "paths", one of which is more lucrative than the other. Pornography in particular often seems to evade mainstream criticism entirely, considering how taboo the subject is.

Your writing on this subject recently has come across to me as "I'd like to include sexual content in my games, if only it weren't for those puritanical radical leftists, what with their double standards!"
Realistically, I don't think you're going to have to worry about being "cancelled" or face any significant political scrutiny, which is perhaps one of the advantages you have as a small indie game developer! It's probably more important to think about what is and what isn't acceptable to your audience, which, from my understanding, is fairly politically neutral as a whole. If you can figure out what you're okay with and what your audience is okay with, I'm sure you'll find a balance that makes sense.

At the end of the day, I think it's a good thing that you're thinking about these things and considering where you want your games to fall in all this! The fact that you're putting so much effort into thinking about the characters and their psychology surely bodes well for the game! Whatever you go with, I'm sure you'll be able to find the right place for sexual themes. I wouldn't be worried about saying anything "wrong" here either, since you're coming at this from a position of good faith and making decisions in your position is by no means straightforward. If anything, better to discuss and make mistakes now than once you've amassed that large fanbase!

I find your choice of "things to bring to mind" interesting, considering that I don't think your comparison of these "two paths" makes sense here! Comparing a successful porn game with an unsuccessful progressive comic book seems intentionally done to make a point - I don't think you can compare these two works, from completely different forms of media with completely different audiences, and conclude from that that there exist two "paths", one of which is more lucrative than the other. Pornography in particular often seems to evade mainstream criticism entirely, considering how taboo the subject is.

Your writing on this subject recently has come across to me as "I'd like to include sexual content in my games, if only it weren't for those puritanical radical leftists, what with their double standards!"
Realistically, I don't think you're going to have to worry about being "cancelled" or face any significant political scrutiny, which is perhaps one of the advantages you have as a small indie game developer! It's probably more important to think about what is and what isn't acceptable to your  audience, which, from my understanding, is fairly politically neutral as a whole. If you can figure out what you're okay with and what your audience is okay with, I'm sure you'll find a balance that makes sense.

At the end of the day, I think it's a good thing that you're thinking about these things and considering where you want your games to fall in all this! The fact that you're putting so much effort into thinking about the characters and their psychology surely bodes well for the game! Whatever you go with, I'm sure you'll be able to find the right place for sexual themes. I wouldn't be worried about saying anything "wrong" here either, since you're coming at this from a position of good faith and making decisions in your position is by no means straightforward. If anything, better to discuss and make mistakes now than once you've amassed that large fanbase!

Tobias 1115~4Y

And yet I can't help but wonder whether comments like this are the polite face of people privately talking or thinking about how I'm being vile or lost in some undesirable political way or something... It must be nice to be surrounded by people who echo and support your viewpoints, but I can only imagine it.

Essentially everything I'm saying stems from the fear of negative judgement that's characteristic of social anxiety/avoidant personality disorder, and which has been exacerbated by criticism I've got in the past, and recent comments re the 'sexual' content of Atonal Dreams (Collie specifically) which make me paranoid of the negative consequences of that, which is frustrating since it's not like it's even all that sexual. There were a bunch of posts I wrote while developing Sindrel Song with similar insecurities about how it'd be received (and then it went mostly unnoticed in the end, which might happen with this too).

I mentioned those two examples purely because I encountered them passively during Reddit browsing over the course of the week, and found it interesting how different the reactions to them were. Though I suppose they're not comparable. It's not as if I was searching for them purely to make a point.

It's because of comments from what little audience I have here that I've been worried about this, rather than general vilification of some imagined politically-affiliated horde. It's just... 'interesting', I suppose, how I'm doing a lot of things similarly to when I made my old stuff, but I'm hearing surprising concerns about them now that I'm not used to. Nobody complained about the sex jokes or sexualised characters (eg Elwyen) in MARDEK.

Everyone seems to be more political than they used to be, and obviously all our perspectives of the world are being shaped by the values held in the bubbles we've fallen into. I just worry a lot that the one I've fallen into is different to the one players might be in, I suppose, and things like this feel like a sign of that.

I just want to make something people can enjoy...

Essentially everything I'm saying stems from the fear of negative judgement that's characteristic of social anxiety/avoidant personality disorder, and which has been exacerbated by criticism I've got in the past, and recent comments re the 'sexual' content of Atonal Dreams (Collie specifically) which make me paranoid of the negative consequences of that, which is frustrating since it's not like it's even all that sexual. There were a bunch of posts I wrote while developing Sindrel Song with similar insecurities about how it'd be received (and then it went mostly unnoticed in the end, which might happen with this too).

I mentioned those two examples purely because I encountered them passively during Reddit browsing over the course of the week, and found it interesting how different the reactions to them were. Though I suppose they're not comparable. It's not as if I was searching for them purely to make a point.

It's because of comments from what little audience I have here that I've been worried about this, rather than general vilification of some imagined politically-affiliated horde. It's just... 'interesting', I suppose, how I'm doing a lot of things similarly to when I made my old stuff, but I'm hearing surprising concerns about them now that I'm not used to. Nobody complained about the sex jokes or sexualised characters (eg Elwyen) in MARDEK.

Everyone seems to be more political than they used to be, and obviously all our perspectives of the world are being shaped by the values held in the bubbles we've fallen into. I just worry a lot that the one I've fallen into is different to the one players might be in, I suppose, and things like this feel like a sign of that.

I just want to make something people can enjoy...

MontyCallay101~4Y

"Nobody complained about the sex jokes or sexualised characters (eg Elwyen) in MARDEK."

Exactly! That's very similar to how I think it would normally be with Atonal Dreams - I don't think the average player really cares about these things in the way that you're worried about. Nor do I think that you've put off any of your fans (that I know of). People have their own opinions and worldviews and they may or may not align with yours, but I don't see this necessarily leading to any conflict or preventing any enjoyment of Atonal Dreams.

Honestly, the way you're (seemingly) opening up discussion and criticism on this again and again probably isn't doing your anxiety any favours! What started with a few comments about an early draft of Collie combined with your fear of judgment and becoming exposed to political outrage from Reddit etc. has ballooned this topic somewhat out of proportion! When I'm polite in my comments it's not because I'm cringing behind your back about whatever you're saying, but rather because I want to reiterate my confidence that I think you're fine with the path you're on at the moment.

"Nobody complained about the sex jokes or sexualised characters (eg Elwyen) in MARDEK."

Exactly! That's very similar to how I think it would normally be with Atonal Dreams - I don't think the average player really cares about these things in the way that you're worried about. Nor do I think that you've put off any of your fans (that I know of). People have their own opinions and worldviews and they may or may not align with yours, but I don't see this necessarily leading to any conflict or preventing any enjoyment of Atonal Dreams.

Honestly, the way you're (seemingly) opening up discussion and criticism on this again and again probably isn't doing your anxiety any favours! What started with a few comments about an early draft of Collie combined with your fear of judgment and becoming exposed to political outrage from Reddit etc. has ballooned this topic somewhat out of proportion! When I'm polite in my comments it's not because I'm cringing behind your back about whatever you're saying, but rather because I want to reiterate my confidence that I think you're fine with the path you're on at the moment.

kalkra19~4Y

At the risk of stating the obvious, porn is entertaining in a way that telling people not to watch porn isn't. While I'm not familiar with the comic that you mentioned, it seems like it might be the kinda thing that hits the reader over the head with a message, which never works well because people read comics to be entertained, not to be lectured to.

Regarding the scripts, I thought the breakdown of naturally evil vs. naturally good was an interesting one. In particular, Collie's way of looking at things seems to be more healthy, but I can't help but feel that at the end of the day Savitr will get better results. It would also be interesting to see how that colors their perceptions of other people.

Ptyrell37~4Y

You should just have 10-20 women play the game before you officially release it, and see if they think anything needs to be changed. I'm guessing they won't think so, but the vast majority of us here probably won't be any help. Even better if the women don't follow your blog and who will be more impartial. I liked the idea someone posted before about asking women on reddit to play it, though maybe a more general subreddit than a feminist one. Or maybe half from a feminist one and half from askreddit or indygamedev or something.

I've been waiting 9 years for Patrick Rothfuss to release the 3rd book of his excellent series following The Name Of The Wind, but he seems to not be close at all to finishing. That's what I instantly think of regarding writer's block! Coincidentally, the second book in the series had some somewhat unexpected sexual encounters that I felt awkward reading 9 years ago. Didn't seem like there was any objectification in it though. Perhaps depth of character and development is what makes the big difference. That's part of why I feel like none of us can really be good judges of Collie's behavior since we don't know her full character as is portrayed in-game.

I've been waiting 9 years for Patrick Rothfuss to release the 3rd book of his excellent series following The Name Of The Wind, but he seems to not be close at all to finishing. That's what I instantly think of regarding writer's block! Coincidentally, the second book in the series had some somewhat unexpected sexual encounters that I felt awkward reading 9 years ago. Didn't seem like there was any objectification in it though. Perhaps depth of character and development is what makes the big difference. That's part of why I feel like none of us can really be good judges of Collie's behavior since we don't know her full character as is portrayed in-game.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I'd be very surprised if 10-20 women played the final game of their own accord, and I doubt there's much overlap between the personality traits of people who post in feminist subreddits and people who'll play this particular indie game. I wonder if female authors of romance novels ask on men's rights forums whether the guys there are okay with the content, and what the results would be if they did. I'm more concerned about 'male feminists' being offended than actual women.

It seems to be a common thing for authors to take eons to write their books! I think the Game of Thrones guy is taking forever too? (Though I'm not interested in that so I'm not sure.) I'm eager to get something out sooner rather than later though just so then people can see that what I'm trying to do probably isn't like what they're assuming...

bkjnt2019~4Y

Tobias, I just want to say that you have literally done absolutely nothing wrong. There is nothing whatsoever objectionable in anything you have shown for Atonal Dreams, or indeed anything you have done in the past for any of your other games. In the scene which (I think?) you're concerned about, the male character is obviously, blatantly, far more sexualized than the female character. And there are valid and interesting plot and thematic reasons for all of this; it is all completely justified; it's not rammed in there to appeal to male gamers' base sexual urges. Now, it is a possibility that you will at some point encounter a deranged person on the internet who takes offense to something in your game. It could be a man or a woman, and they could be mad about absolutely anything, because those people just thrive on outrage; their complaints are very rarely in good faith. Please do not overestimate the amount of people like this there are in the world. There are very, very few of them, even if they like to scream loudly. And most importantly, their complaints are reflections of their personality, not of anything you have created or any flaw of yours. So I don't think it's right to say you're somehow abandoning the wishes of hypothetical female players, because there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of your plans in the first place. I also don't think it's useful to note that a porn game made by a big studio sold better than some comic about an explicitly ugly character. There is a huge market for porn today because there is an enormous population of young lonely men who are addicted to porn. It's not too different from literal drug dealing. These people do not want to play an RPG where the characters talk about their feelings and tame monsters. They want to watch strangers having sex for twelve hours a day. To reiterate: you haven't done anything wrong, you're doing a great job, and I'm excited to see how the game comes along.

boothnat3~3Y

I came here from the Year in Review post, so I thought I might as well comment on it.

At least from my perspective, there isn't a problem with sexualization in and of itself. Heck, I was somewhat positive about Subverse initially, at least until the devs affiliated themselves with a fascist. I just don't think the calls for suppression of sexual desires necessarily came entirely, or even necessarily entirely, from feminists. I've taken up selling NSFW writing, for instance, and I've found that the 'liberal' and 'feminist' spaces and people I deal with are quite fine with the idea. Then again, feminism isn't a monolith. So-called feminist organizations in my country have called for things I disagree with, but I'd still consider myself a feminist.

I do feel like the comparison(between subverse and the comic) is a bit lacking though. 'I am not Starfire' looks to be another comic that doesn't look particularly impressive, wasn't necessarily written too well, and just generally didn't have much to sell itself on. When I go to what I'd consider feminist spaces and search for it, even they consider it to be 'low quality YA' or 'a shameless self-insert'. Although there's nothing wrong with self-inserts, of course. Some of my biggest stories could be called those.

Subverse, on the other hand, came from one of the most popular 3d porn studios I know of- StudioFow has produced some of the most high-quality, feature-length stuff when it comes to animation and sound on the net.

Regarding the hypocrisy of the male gaze vs the posting of skimpy selfies, though- I feel like that's not really a sensible comparison either. At least from my perspective, one can want better representation in media- since good representation has, as far as I'm aware, been shown by science to cause social good, while also wanting women to have the right to show off their bodies or 'be active' sexually.

When it comes to, say, objectification of 'barbarians', I feel like there's a distinction to be drawn between a power fantasy and objectification- Male barbarians are very often drawn as these big hulking tanks that could beat up a humvee, but female barbarians, while wearing 'similar' clothes, will be only a little bit muscular, while being oddly conventional in all other aspects. There's an old saying which essentially goes 'past a certain point of fitness, you're not getting muscular for yourself, you're getting muscular for other men', and I think that applies. When I play a video game, I feel it's noteable that most of the time male outfits will look cool, even when they're somewhat sexy, while female outfits will be contorted in genuinely hilarious ways to get some midriff showing. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I'd want to wear an outfit like, say, Quiet's, but it's worth noticing that a lot of the games seem to provide exclusively that experience for women, because those characters aren't really intended for women to feel powerful playing.

Something I've had a lot of fun with recently in this regard is Final Fantasy 14- while that game still has some oddities when it comes to armor and such, I appreciate that it's a place where you can opt-in to looking like a tin-can or swimsuit model regardless of what gender you're playing as.

This isn't to say, however, that I think sexualization is never justifiable. I like sexy characters, sue me. I do feel like it is uneven- and when people argue that men are sexualized too, they often point to examples of male empowerment. I think it's worth noting that women found the Kratos in the new God of War- a caring father- far more attractive than the equally muscular and strong Kratos of one thru three.

Anyway, that's plenty of rambling, but ultimately from what little I've read it seems like what you're doing with it is pretty cool. Collie seems like a fun character, and I like exploring relationships between characters in fun ways like you seem to be doing.

So, uh, ramble over, I guess.

I came here from the Year in Review post, so I thought I might as well comment on it.

At least from my perspective, there isn't a problem with sexualization in and of itself. Heck, I was somewhat positive about Subverse initially, at least until the devs affiliated themselves with a fascist. I just don't think the calls for suppression of sexual desires necessarily came entirely, or even necessarily entirely, from feminists. I've taken up selling NSFW writing, for instance, and I've found that the 'liberal' and 'feminist' spaces and people I deal with are quite fine with the idea. Then again, feminism isn't a monolith. So-called feminist organizations in my country have called for things I disagree with, but I'd still consider myself a feminist.

I do feel like the comparison(between subverse and the comic) is a bit lacking though. 'I am not Starfire' looks to be another comic that doesn't look particularly impressive, wasn't necessarily written too well, and just generally didn't have much to sell itself on. When I go to what I'd consider feminist spaces and search for it, even they consider it to be 'low quality YA' or 'a shameless self-insert'. Although there's nothing wrong with self-inserts, of course. Some of my biggest stories could be called those.

Subverse, on the other hand, came from one of the most popular 3d porn studios I know of- StudioFow has produced some of the most high-quality, feature-length stuff when it comes to animation and sound on the net.

Regarding the hypocrisy of the male gaze vs the posting of skimpy selfies, though- I feel like that's not really a sensible comparison either. At least from my perspective, one can want better representation in media- since good representation has, as far as I'm aware, been shown by science to cause social good, while also wanting women to have the right to show off their bodies or 'be active' sexually.

When it comes to, say, objectification of 'barbarians', I feel like there's a distinction to be drawn between a power fantasy and objectification- Male barbarians are very often drawn as these big hulking tanks that could beat up a humvee, but female barbarians, while wearing 'similar' clothes, will be only a little bit muscular, while being oddly conventional in all other aspects. There's an old saying which essentially goes 'past a certain point of fitness, you're not getting muscular for yourself, you're getting muscular for other men', and I think that applies. When I play a video game, I feel it's noteable that most of the time male outfits will look cool, even when they're somewhat sexy, while female outfits will be contorted in genuinely hilarious ways to get some midriff showing. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I'd want to wear an outfit like, say, Quiet's, but it's worth noticing that a lot of the games seem to provide exclusively that experience for women, because those characters aren't really intended for women to feel powerful playing.

Something I've had a lot of fun with recently in this regard is Final Fantasy 14- while that game still has some oddities when it comes to armor and such, I appreciate that it's a place where you can opt-in to looking like a tin-can or swimsuit model regardless of what gender you're playing as.

This isn't to say, however, that I think sexualization is never justifiable. I like sexy characters, sue me. I do feel like it is uneven- and when people argue that men are sexualized too, they often point to examples of male empowerment. I think it's worth noting that women found the Kratos in the new God of War- a caring father- far more attractive than the equally muscular and strong Kratos of one thru three.

Anyway, that's plenty of rambling, but ultimately from what little I've read it seems like what you're doing with it is pretty cool. Collie seems like a fun character, and I like exploring relationships between characters in fun ways like you seem to be doing.

So, uh, ramble over, I guess.