Personally i would have preferred a friend path, rather than the options given.
Being her friend with no romantic involvement would have been preferred.
Same
This isn't a donation situation. People are paying their money each month in exchange for various things promised in each tier. Most devs don't publicly release their games; you have to pay. If they do release them, it's an older version or a stripped down one. If the dev were just looking for someone to pay their bills, they'd be on a site like gofundme. Instead, they're on patreon or subscribestar and saying "give me X each month and in return you get Y". The warm fuzzy feeling of helping pay their bills is in there, but that's not why most people support devs any more than my employer is interested in donating money to me each paycheck to help pay my bills. It's an exchange.
In many of theses cases, part of the exchange is an express or implied influence on the game itself. You're given advance news on the game itself. You're being literally presold on what's coming for the game. In Luxee's case, people were a little worried about Luxee focusing on a trans character in the next game, but Luxee assured everyone that her content would be optional. So far it's not really, and you're guilt-tripped if you don't go the romance route. Luxee also has all of these characters out there, but if they finish with Nea because that's where their interest is and just starts cutting other characters because they don't feel like doing it, I'd argue that's not a good move on their part. Maybe not illegal, but also not cool.
Note: Edited above paragraph to add text at the end I somehow lost on posting.
You make a good point, but I don't know if Nea's suicide can be said to be consistent with that of most trans youths. Obviously, suicide is a huge issue among younger trans people, and its fair game to touch upon that in any kind of story that features a trans character. But it needs to be handled with care, which I don't really think it was. Nea doesn't kill herself ultimately because she's trans, or at least in my passive interpretation of the events. She kills herself because she was rejected. Of course, we'll read into it what we want, and I can't say I'm right with any certainty.
Even if we say that Nea killing herself makes sense in the context of being a trans youth who was rejected by her crush, or even without that, Luxee forces us into that situation. The player doesn't make any choices that lead to the masturbation scene, or in leaving without saying a word. The choice comes after the fact, and it's a poorly phrased question about whether you're interested in pursuing Nea romantically or not. At least I think it is, because I'm honestly still not sure. But either way, we're forced into a situation where we basically have to choose between becoming romantically involved with Nea, or her killing herself. Except at the time it didn't seem more than "I'm opting out of the sex stuff, but still want to be friends". Now, if the player was allowed to make any decisions leading up to this that led Nea on, or led directly to the masturbation scene, I'd be more inclined to agree with you. I'd still argue the suicide feels out of place in it's context, and the suicide of a trans character specifically was handled very poorly. I'll go back to the fact that unless Nea's suicide is inevitable in every path, the paths that should lead to it should be the ones where the player lets Nea get bullied, or bullies her herself, or through player choice misleads her about their relationship. To have the friendship path be the one that kills her doesn't seem right, especially when presumably not saving her from bullying results in a worse situation. Of course, the romance path where presumably the MC romances her and screws or even romances other women doesn't seem like that's going to go too well for Nea either. If rejection is bad, being cheated on and betrayed is going to be far worse. I just don't see Nea being okay with being part of a harem, and honestly, even though I'm not the one to give her a romance path myself, it seems like she deserves better out of life and better than the MC.
Couldn't have said the first part better.
As for your reply to Fried, the suicide does make a little bit of sense in terms of what real trans people go through, but the rapid pace of it given how little content we have at this point in relation to how far ANY person would have to be pushed to commit such an act quickly diminishes what little sense it does make. In short, the route was NOT handled with care like this subject should be, there was no build up, there was just death. It turned from Nea jumping because too much bad was going on to death for the sake of killing a character in an attempt to invoke an emotional effect on the player. Of course, the emotional effect did happen, just not the one Luxee or any developer would have wanted, it was clearly supposed to be sadness over the death, but instead it invoked anger at Luxee because there is no choice, just the illusion of choice in that it gives us 'pursue Nea romatically' or 'don't pursue Nea romantically,' which in reality is exactly what you said, either 'pursue Nea romantically' or 'be the reason Nea dies,' which, like you also said, guilt trips the player into making the romantic 'choice.' I absolutely agree on the pathing, we rescued Nea already, yes Nea has some lingering effect from the bullying and suicidal tendencies don't just disappear, but there was nothing left to push Nea toward those tendencies. If anything should have resulted in suicide, ignoring the bullying and therefore allowing it to push Nea into suicide would be the path to it, not telling Nea you just want to keep it platonic.
Yeah the player (MC) really got thrown in the deep end with this, you only really have 2 choices, get involved romantically with Nea, or don't, one leads to suicide, and the other leads you to being romantically involved with someone you may not want to be.
If you get immersed in to the game and the story, the player is made to feel like an asshole if you let her die, but on the other hand you might just want to stay friends with Nea without the romantic involvement, but you don't get that choice.
So you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't, you're forced to make either of the 2 choices which you might not want.
Exactly
Yeah, that's the dilemma a lot of people are in. They made the choices that felt right to them. Stop people from bullying Nea, and befriend her. But then be railroaded into a scenario without your control, and then be punished for what wasn't a wrong choice at all. But at the same time, you have the MC being this nice, sweet guy to Nea actually without any apparently ulterior motive, while most of the time looking at any other girl and wanting to hit that harder than Chris Rock's face. The MC is living two lives, and I don't see them integrating too well so it still feels like I'm playing two games at once. Maybe Nea's death and the disparate natures of the MC depending on if he's with Nea or pretty much anyone else. He's nice to other girls, but seems to be part of the plan to seduce them. With Nea it was just him being nice. So we see the MC honestly being a good guy, and not thinking with his dick, and it gets someone killed, again because of choices made by Luxee and not the player that led to a choice that shouldn't have resulted in Nea's death, but did because that's how Luxee decided it was going to be.
Again, exactly. I find myself in a dilemma where I like the character, but I also see a need for the same character to get help to avoid ghastly consequences that we already know about. Going into Nea's route, given the trans part of the character, I knew exactly what I was getting into, that suicide was a potential problem, and I did not feel comfortable with going into romance with a suicidal character due to the potential consequences should I make a mistake later, consequences we are debating even now, consequences that have already reared their ugly head once. You've said it yourself, Nea does not seem like the sharing type, so what is Nea going to do when it comes to light that Nea is not the only person for the MC? Logic leans toward exactly what we have already seen, Nea will commit suicide in some way, possibly by jumping as we've already seen, possibly by some other means, and maybe even right in front of us, on screen. I want no part of that. Luxee then proceeded to railroad people like me into the very thing we were trying to avoid.
Well, I said that 'I think' in my comment based on the content she has over other girls in the game. Also, Why is it have to be an obsession when the dev put a trans character in the game. Sound like you have a personal problem with it.
I don't know Luxee personally whatever he is have a fetish toward trans girl, have a trans friend, or is trans himself I don't know. Something I know is that I don't care which is which. If Luxee wants to put any type of fetish in his game he can damn well should do whatever he wants.
Well famous and infamous is just two sides of the same coin.
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I wanna make a comment about Nea and trans women. I know a bit about trans people, but not sure if I know enough about the subject. Regardless I still wanna share my opinion about it and I also open to criticism if I get anything wrong.
In general, I think being trans woman is harder than trans man. Society treated trans women worst than trans men just like gay guys are treated worst than lesbians. I think it is because society generally hates anything deviating from masculinity. Secondly, hormone therapy would change the trans man's voice, given facial hair, and adam's apple. No one can distinguish cis man and trans man who taking hrt more than 6 months without they telling it. It is not quite the same with trans woman when their hrt won't change their voice and the adam's apple will stay forever without surgery if it is already too late.
Fortunately for Nea case, she got her hrt early but that was not all that would make it easy for her. She has an abusive father that doesn't accept her identity and she got bullied in school for her identity. Her early hrt not gonna hide and protect her from being bullied if everyone knows about it. Those rejection and bullying is can cause harm mentally to everyone especially if it aims directly at your identity as a human being.
I don't wanna argue with anyone if they don't like Nea and wish her off the game. I also understand the criticism about Nea suicide off-screen if you didn't romance her. I don't know if that is the correct thing to write, I'm not sure myself. I just wanna make a comment about Nea and trans women in general so maybe help people understand more about her character.
You're right, it is not an obsession just because Luxee put a trans character in the game. It's an obsession when Luxee starts neglecting other routes in favor of that character and when the developer makes the same character a dependency for most of the others in what little content they have. There are several points where Nea is required to progress other characters, so other characters can be entirely locked out at those points. It doesn't even have to be Nea, any character would make it an obsession.
See that's just it. I do not care if it was "justified" by real shit and how it is to be trans. It is written and handled poorly. It literally makes a character I love into one I hate because anyone who does that to someone ( i.e. leave them to feel responsible for their suicide) is regardless of all else...a piece of shit imo. I can understand the pain. Believe me. But I will die on the hill of anyone who does it (suicide), especially in such a manner, to do such devastation to a friend or lover is a selfish piece of shit who never really loved the other person in the first place. It isn't just that she did it but HOW she did it. It's horrible. She did it in such a way as to have maximum negative impact on the MC. And again yes, I understand most suicides are an impulse decision in the moment. That does not change her actions into martyrdom. Is it realistic? Yes. I'm not arguing that and never have been. I am just upset the dev made a character I truly loved into one I no longer do. With that one stupid scene.
Indeed, hurting the people around you by taking your own life, regardless of reason and even with the sheer tortuous pain of being the one suffering that badly, is a low blow. I still like Nea, though, which is why I am still so affected by the railroading Luxee pulled. You're right, I do not believe Nea to have truly loved the MC, I believe that to be a reverse Stockholm Syndrome effect, basically feelings for Nea's savior that are only really there because he was the one holding the spotlight that showed Nea the way out of the darkness only to fall into it again if he rejects romance.
Nea although we could say is a tragic figure is also an adorable person. What fried described above is the correct analysis perhaps if Luxee had chosen also a middle path of the friendship there was less "hate" for the projected situation.
Because I read somewhere that a person who is ready to commit suicide doesn't care about the others, this isn't possible by that person because he/she can't bypass the inner psychological trauma and can't see the others and how will effect them. In her/his eyes there isn't light only dark clouds. The mind is totally focus on all the reasons why she/he should suicide and there isn't any solutions because it doesn't search for solutions. The whole situation with Nea was ongoing for several years if I remember correct.
There would be no less hate, the ones that hate Nea would still hate Nea, nothing will change that. However, there are some of us, myself included, who don't want to go full romance with Nea for various reasons, but still want Nea to be around as a friend. This middle ground would have prevented backlash from that side of the player base even if the haters would continue.
I've never seen the part where you don't help Nea at the beginning, so I guess I'm not familiar with how that path goes. Realistically, if anyone at a high school dies in any way short of suicide bombing an orphanage, people are going to build memorials and talk about it. Come to think of it, they'd probably talk about the first one too. Although obviously this is likely because of Luxee sticking to the idea of "okay, no Nea at all this route".
I still think it's a horrible implementation of suicide for a trans character. If it's a statement on trans suicide, it's a clumsy one. If Nea "had" to die somewhere in this game, it could have been handled much better. As you said, it's a strawman approach to the situation where the player is forced into this with a lot of bad choices and bad luck thrown into the mix. I personally don't like games with no win scenarios, be it Mass Effect where you have to choose which character dies, or this game where you choose between Nea's death, or moving ahead with a relationship you're not yet ready for as a player, and that Nea as a character may not be ready for either because she's mainly falling for the first guy to not actively hate her. But there's enough vagueness with what Luxee intended, what they have planned for the future, and just how to interpret what happened where we'll probably never find agreement on this. I have taken issue with some choices in PL, only to have them redeemed later, like when Luxee had you take one character's virginity while you were too drunk to remember it, only in the next update to have another path where you got the scene everyone wanted. Of course, perhaps the feedback then helped some in the matter. Although Luxee had admitted to working non-linearly on their games.
There's only a small amount of people that hate Nea, although they are vocal. The people that are arguing against Nea's suicide? We like her. We just don't love her. It was a punch to the gut when she died, and it felt like the intent was to punish the player for not choosing the romance route. A sizable portion of the player-base was just rather arbitrarily punished for liking Nea and wanting to help her, but not be more than that. We'd probably see less of the transphobes except Nea's suicide is s sore point with many people that took that friendship path, and it keeps getting discussed. It's like trying to have a conversation on [pick random country here that's newsworthy for something] and some guy keeps sidetracking it with racist or other prejudice stuff.
VERY clumsy, like an elephant trying to perform Swan Lake and falling flat clumsy. Luxee made it a no win scenario, you either take the path you don't want or you get a different result you still don't want. I know what you're talking about with the drunk scene in Parental Love, it was
Ada's first time while she was at the
gaming tourney. It did seem a bit rushed, but it didn't seem like a decision made by Luxee to rush it, it genuinely seemed like what a real drunk person might do in the heat of the moment due to lowered inhibitions and other circumstances. However, this and that are not quite the same as the suicide feels very much like a decision by Luxee to simply take his ball and go home against the haters, taking the rest of us on the same ride the haters are on if they are even playing and not just saying what they are because there's a trans character according to the tags and outside information without having seen said character in game.
A punch to the gut from a heavyweight champion boxer. It was pretty clear to me that that is exactly what Luxee intended, it's a railroading attempt gone terribly wrong. However, transphobes will be transphobes, we cannot stop them, so the best thing to do would have been to ignore them, both literally with whatever technological functions are at the user's fingertips and literally as in exert the willpower to give them the cold shoulder and never engage with them. Like any group of that sort, when they see they are getting no response, they would move on, it's bully handling 101, never give the bully a reaction, that's what they want. The transphobes already got their reaction in the form of Nea's suicide, victory is theirs, Luxee lost both the battle and the war on this one.
I don't disagree.
Was her suicide on the non dating path handled badly? - Absolutely.
Should there be a path where you can just be friends with her or ignore her entirely without her dying? - I think so.
The thing I don't understand is how some people here hate her so much that they are glad she died on that path. Someone even stated that she is going to eat pavement every time or that they wouldn't even let her near the other LIs that option given.
Maybe I'm just naive but that's hate on a level I don't understand, for a character in a video game mind you.
If someone is that hateful, on a spiral down so fast I don't even want to imagine what such a person would do IRL when real people are involved.
I think that's scary.
This is the way of the transphobe, like any type of bully, they look for a reaction from their victim. If they fail to get one they leave, but if they get a reaction, victory is theirs and they stick around for more. The proper way to handle a bully is to never let them get under your skin, even if it gets near impossibly difficult, you must never give them a reaction or they win. I have been a victim of it myself, in middle school, though not for any particular reason other than maybe my physical disability making me appear weak enough. Mine reached the point of physical violence, my right eye has never been as good as my left because of it, they threw a pretty good sized rock and it hit dead center just after I had closed it in reaction to the incoming projectile. This is how far a bully is willing to go to get a reaction, they will do whatever it takes, their methods will escalate until that happens or until they get bored or caught red handed, whichever comes first, and it CAN get deadly as rare as it is. I could very easily see not just suicide if we were to ignore Nea entirely, but outright murder by the bullies if Nea somehow managed to keep from reacting long enough for the bullies to escalate their methods that far.
Just to clarify, i don't hate Nea, nor trans people/characters, i just would have liked an option to stay friends, not have to either romance her or let her suicide, there should have been a middle ground option.
I like Nea's character, i just don't like either of the 2 options given to the player in the game, that's the only issue i have with it.
Same
I think we need to define "subscription site". It's certainly not a subscription like one would make to a magazine - I give them $X and in return I get twelve monthly issues. Patreon is a way to give money to support a creator that you like - absent any explicit promises from the creator, that's all it is. I like what you create, therefore I give you money (and thus some financial security) which helps give you some freedom to create without having to flip burgers (or fewer burgers), and I can enjoy the things you create with that freedom. There is no implicit agreement for you to give me anything in exchange for my support.
Now, most creators do in fact offer things to their supporters - early access, free tickets, etc. - to encourage support and build relationships with their patrons, and if they explicitly promise something and don't deliver, the patron is free to stop supporting that creator, but there's no contract there. There is certainly no implied right of the supporter to have input into what the creator is creating.
I am a patron of a band, because I like their music and I like them as people. In exchange for my support, I get some benefits - free tickets or VIP upgrades to a show, my name in the credits on their albums, an invitation to a Patron-only annual concert. Because they like interacting with their patrons, they also have some online events (a book club, an music discussion group) that we can participate in. But I have no implicit right to creative input into the songs that they write (nor would I want that). If they decide to become a death metal band instead, that's their right. I'd stop my support because I have no interest in that genre of music, but I wouldn't feel that they owed it to me to keep making music I like.
Except when the creator themselves say they will do something, then it is no longer absent said promises because one has been explicitly made. Then there are only two paths out, upset supporters and other players by openly stating you have discontinued that promise or deliver on that promise. I've seen a few developers explicitly state they will do something specific, though only two have failed to deliver after the fact, Luxee being one of them.
There is no right to input necessary for this, this isn't the patron directing the content, this is the developer saying they will go a certain way.
I'm one of that crowd.
The thing is - You can state the fact you like Nea but don't want to romance her only so often and TYPING IT IN CAPSLOCK is only that effective too ...
When this whole discussion started, for me it was mainly about the games' background and the paths provided.
I can't point at posts, but in my mind, the idea of only befriending Nea was always out there, but never confirmed officially.
Despite being a patron of Luxee, I was never active on Patreon besides adjusting pledges and almost all my info stems from threads here and the occasional look at a dev's discord.
If I remember right, when the first question comes where you can ignore Nea completely, the info from Luxee at the time was, that he confirmed the existence of a friendship route and that the path between friendship and romance wasn't set in stone but supposed to be intertwined for some time so you had multiple opportunities to opt-in/out.
At first, I was only going along with A69, because I wanted to see where Luxee would go with the game as I was unsure about the Trans content and its prominence as I'm not into that. I knew Luxee wanted to do a game with a Trans character though.
Then when it came out and Neas' story evolved, I got interested/invested in that part of the game too, and hoped there would be an option to just be her friend.
I was so happy when that was confirmed. Then with the next set of choices that option seemed to have been removed for no apparent reason, but I chose the romance option temporarily just to not close her part of the story.
Temporary because I wasn't sure I would continue on with the story later on in case there was no other option to friendzone her later on.
Then I read on here about the alternative I never encountered.
It sounded to me like an overreaction from Luxee because of the discussions about her going on, but also like it was pretty silly as a reaction because no one it could have been pointed at would ever see it because they would have had to play a pro-Nea path up to this point.
Whatever the reason, it seems, the implementation wasn't the smoothest - unless he wanted 'this'.
The whole debate for if the suicide was selfish, realistic or whatever - I can't say enough about that topic to participate.
I have no idea how a suicidal person thinks, and each person is different. Even if there was only a 1% chance for Nea doing what she did - it wouldn't be impossible, just statistically unlikely.
The posts from fried regarding this are really well put together though and definitely worth a look/read!
Ultimately, it doesn't count how correct of a representation these events are, though.
The game does contain/touch heavier topics, but it didn't really have those super dark vibes at the beginning.
And the late events don't match that well with what was promised or at least suggested.
I didn't come here for "MOAR DRAMA" and technicalities like 'I confirmed a friendship route, but not that it wouldn't lead to death.
Therefore, I'll wait for the next update and based on that decide if I want to support this game further or not.
I'll even, most likely, continue to have a look at this thread from time to time if I don't, just to see where it went.
And in case I would stop supporting Luxee/playing A69, I would most likely give a new game at least a chance.
Indeed, very well put, though I cannot say the same for myself on the last part. When I drop a game for something the developer pulled, I drop any game they developed. I did this to another three games over content removal a few months ago, only one of which had content removed, but all three made by the same developer.
I will also be waiting for the next release to see if maybe Luxee realizes mistakes were made in the heat of the moment and actually does what was confirmed.
Part of the issue I have with it is that despite all the hell she was through before being directly because of Nea being trans, what finally drives her over the edge, literally, is embarrassing herself in front of her crush and realizing she possible scared him away. Yeah, you can kind of tie it back into her being trans but I'll stand behind the ideas that it wasn't really an accurate representation the trans suicide issue, nor good storytelling, nor fair to the player.
Don't get me wrong. I can see how Nea being so close to edge that maybe this was the one thing that pushed her over the edge, although story-wise that's not really anything specific to the trans experience, which Luxee seemed to be doing a good job of trying to portray. I'm not an expert on it in any way. But ultimately when she killed herself, Nea was less transgirl unable to take the active torture of other people resenting her for existing, and more cis girl who had been abused or had mental health issues and then kills herself because of a combination of her screwing up, followed by the MC then making it worse without the player being able to stop it other than choosing to love her versus just be a friend.
If that's the way Luxee really wants to play it, good for them. As dev, they can do that. Can people not like it? Yep, they have that right. Had Nea's suicide happened under different circumstances that were perhaps more consistent with what came before and more thought out, and possibly due to clear bad choices by the player, I think there'd be a lot less criticism. As it stands, a lot of us think this was done like this at least in part by Luxee to spite those that didn't like Nea, even though they weren't likely to be on that path.
Exactly, it was portrayed as not the bullying that pushed Nea to jump, not that Nea's father is an ass who can't accept his own flesh and blood regardless of who that flesh and blood is, but the fact that the MC didn't want to go full romantic. I get that there were other factors, but it was not portrayed like those factors were the last push. The last push is the absolute most important point, it is the key in determining why Nea, or whoever the character is, jumped. If the last push is made out to be romantic rejection, then the cause of the jump is made to be romantic rejection. This then railroads the player into one choice if they want to keep Nea alive, romance. The accuracy of the jump to real life ends before the jump even occurred, at the fact that suicide happens. No part of why Nea jumped is accurate because of the above, because even trans people don't commit suicide just because they were romantically rejected. Had the final push been the bullying or Nea's father, then it would be entirely accurate.
I have no doubt there would be less criticism if the jump had clearly been because of what went on in Nea's life or if it had been clear bad choices were made by the player, which obviously isn't the case because there is only one choice that sends Nea into the jump, not accepting Nea romantically. I absolutely think that Luxee did this out of spite, but in doing so, not only did Luxee lose because that's exactly the kind of reaction the haters wanted, but we got dragged into this mess by default because there is no middle option.
Which isn't something exclusive to being trans. And she in turn abandoned and betrayed the MC.
I'm not saying that you can't rationalize it as making some kind of sense. You can always make an argument that A eventually leads to B. My argument is that if Nea needed to die or commit suicide, this wasn't at all a good way to do it. Can Luxee do what they want with their game? Yes, not disputing that. Could the events hamfistedly thrust upon the player lead to Nea's suicide. Yes, I guess. That seems to be one side of the argument here. The other side is "Does this make a whole lot of sense?" and "Does this make for a good story?" or "Does this really reflect the reality of trans people in its execution?" I think those are all negatives. There were literally so many ways of having Nea's suicide be a better story and make more sense than this. This is assuming that Nea had to die at all which I don't think should be taken as a given, or should only happen through bad choices by the player. A major goal of the game should be saving Nea, but that goal is for some reason inextricably intertwined with the player wanting to be romantically involved with her. As players, many of us wanted to help Nea, but then were basically forced into a bad ending without us making any bad decisions, or even knowing that one decision would lead to her death. There's a lot of arbitrariness on Luxee's part to make this all happen in just the way it did. Ultimately, the sole reason Nea dies is that Luxee decided to kill her on that path, for what are perhaps vindictive reasons.
It is not, anyone can fear being abandoned or betrayed. Everything you said rings extremely true here.
If your point is that people on both sides are defensive on their respective sides, I fully agree. There's a lot of going in circles here, the occasional transphobe butting into the debate, and also some people occasionally acting in bad faith and twisting words around. So basically, another day on the internet, except maybe louder than some others.
An insane amount of it, this is the worst case of a thread spinning its wheels in midair in a failed attempt to move forward that I've ever seen since joining the site. I don't think anything but closure on this matter from game development can solve that, in other words, when we see whether Luxee puts his foot down or not.
