Golem Kitty

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience

If you see a fawn laying down on the ground all alone, leave it alone. It is not lost, it does not need your help, do not pick it up, do not move it.

This behavior evolved to keep deer young safe. The baby is very small, very quiet, and hard for most predators to see. A young fawn cannot keep up with a fleeing mother deer, which is their primary problem-solving strategy. So while the mother goes elsewhere to graze, the fawn stays safe and hidden. The mom will be back.

Also: unless that baby bird you see doesn't have feathers, leave it too.

leave their young in the tall grass

or bushes to hide.

The thing about fan feedback is that sometimes, it CAN be valuable! But not at face value, and that's the other half of the problem. "Oh, my players hate my potion mechanic, I should probably axe it" NO. THEY are not experts in your game design, YOU are.

Fan comments should be sorted into three categories:

People who know what you're trying to do and want to help you reach that (DO NOT COUNT ON ANYONE BEING LIKE THIS)

People who like the idea but don't study game design so don't know what would fix it AND fit your vision (90% of players)

People who want your game to be EXACTLY like their ideal game and do not care what you have in mind/do not want the game you're making (DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE AT ALL COSTS)

Number 2 is where you need to be able to dissect, if you want to take in feedback at all.

"My character feels too slow"

Gut reaction: Increase player speed. <- WRONG. You are doing a patch job based on blindly accepting randos' critiques. You're gonna have cascading problems from this (NPCs too slow in comparison to PC, enemies need rebalancing to account for the speed, world size and clock need adjusting, etc)

Reasons your character might feel too slow:

Animation speed doesn't match the movement speed (slightly too fast, needs tweaking so players don't feel like they're running in place)

There isn't enough to do/see between point A and point B (players are too focused on walking, they get bored without things to look at)

Time moves too fast (clock is running at too fast a timescale, players don't feel like they can do everything they want to before it runs out)

^ THIS is what you should be taking away from user feedback. Rinse and repeat.

Everyone hates the potion mechanic? Maybe it's useless compared to the other options around, or the minigame for making them is too difficult. Tweak balance to give it more use/enjoyment.

This character is too mean? Maybe players feel like they don't have the option to be mean back, and it's making them feel like a doormat. Maybe they're tired of so many characters being mean, so you should add one or two more nice characters, or make your already-present nice characters a touch more sweet. Maybe the aggressive commentary or snarkyness needs better pacing to feel like it's earned.

Or maybe your commenters requesting this are part of that 10% that want your game to be JUST LIKE "game I played before but slightly to the left" and you should IGNORE THEM.

You can't please everyone. You SHOULDN'T please everyone. User feedback has its place, but YOU have to develop the critical game design skills to recognize what the ACTUAL problem is beneath the complaints, if one exists at all.

Your target audience should be:

YOU

Your best friends/mutuals who you want to like your game

That's it

STICK TO THAT. Fill out your vision! Get an actual QA team that knows game design and have THEM give you feedback on the mechanics you doubt! As long as you're committed to your vision, you'll cultivate an all new audience who loves what you've made, how you've made it!

What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself

She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.

All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.

Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.

He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.

The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.

And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.

Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.

And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.

I'm afraid they'll become engineers and sign off on bridge designs that collapse - and people will die.

I'm afraid they'll become medical professionals who don't know what they're doing - and people will die.

Made this post about 15 minutes after the repair guy who fixed the pump on my dishwasher packed up his tools and left, as the dishwasher was whirring along doing my dishes from that morning.