But the reality is that any single game can’t be for everyone and developers shouldn’t be obligated to make that the case. Developers and publishers constantly tell us that they “listen to our feedback,” and if the criticism is loud enough, then we can even get the developers to change things (consider Mass Effect 3’s ending).
Often in video games we are conditioned to think that every game should be appropriate for us. Firstly, if a game makes you uncomfortable, then you absolutely have no obligation to play it. There are three points that I want to make here in response to this, because I do think that this is a pretty worthwhile and important conversation to have, in the context of the games-as-art movement.
#Boyfriend dungeon stalking Patch#
The developers may have built their game this way because Eric is integral to the plot and the message that they want to convey, but for some, it’s too much, and more than a few have suggested that the developers should patch in ways to take the character out of the plot. You can’t avoid the stalking themes he represents, and, if this is triggering to you, you’re going to be uncomfortable with it. You can’t avoid him as a character, as there are key scenes in which he plays a central role. That’s something you can turn off.īut not Eric. For example, you get messages from “mum” every so often, which might be an issue for some players that have less warm family environments. There are other optional elements within the game that might be triggering for some players. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that didn’t see it that way, and while the response to the game has been overwhelmingly positive, there have been a fair few people that have suggested that Eric should have been optional. You don’t have to empathise or align with Eric to realise what he brings to Boyfriend Dungeon, but ultimately you should see his narrative and thematic value. Passive content to consume and then move on. Without Eric, Boyfriend Dungeon would be trivial. Eric is where the fantasy presented by Boyfriend Dungeon can go wrong, and his presence helps ground the game as an artistic expression rather than entertainment content. He’s a terrible character, by design, and is there because, thematically, in a dating game (well, part dating game), Eric represents the risks inherent with dating. The reason I bring all of this up is I want to talk about what it does in reference to Boyfriend Dungeon, and one particular character in it.Īs Lindsay’s excellent review notes, Boyfriend Dungeon features a stalker-like character, Eric. It is a deeply uncomfortable, nihilistic book about bullying, and certainly anyone that reads it that has experienced bullying will be challenged terribly by it (in fact, everyone should be challenged by this – it’s a challenging book, and that’s the point of it). After Katie and Jesse follow up on some stuff from last week, the hosts discuss a video game controversy involving anthropomorphic weapons, and Katie interviews Meghan Murphy, who has been banned from major platforms for saying things like "men cannot become women.One of the books I write about in this month’s Dee Dee Zine is Kawakami Meiko’s Heaven.
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