Godot and the Crazy Green Haired Power Tripper

 

(Rambly wall O text warning)

Since I use Godot as my primary game engine, I felt that my thoughts on the matter should be posted on a public forum.

Many moons ago I started on my game dev journey. I began with Unity because it met most of the criteria I was looking for in a game engine.

Shortly after I purchased a Unity 5 license, they decided that things were going too good for them, so they hired an EX CEO of Electronic Arts to ‘improve’ things…. (I know I’m being hyperbolic, but I don’t care)

Unity then changed from a pay once per version license to a subscription. I very much dislike subscriptions as I feel it’s very much like ‘ask big brother if you can use the tools to make your game when he allows you to’. Also subscriptions are a lot like that scene in Star Wars when Vader said ‘pray I don’t alter them further’.

I saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time to part ways from Unity, which was kind of hard as I had just started to become competent in its use. But I figured that it they changed the way people would pay to use Unity commercially, then there was nothing stopping the new CEO from making more ‘changes’. (And yes, I called it!)

So my journey to find a new game engine began. My first obvious option was Game Maker. But dropped that idea when I found out that I would have to connect to the internet to ‘validate’ my license constantly. Freedom of use is very important to me and I want to be able to use my tools without checking in with the ‘parole officer’.

I don’t remember if I tried other game engines, but one sort of just popped out from the rest. The blue robot looked a little tacky but the interface felt decent and there were several tutorials to help me start.

The engine was a good match and it was open source. Which gave me confidence that I wouldn't see another EA sabotage.

As the saying goes, if there is a will, there is a way. And the disturbed, mentally and emotionally unstable, always find a way to make life uncomfortable for those that just want to be left alone.

Last week my feed on YouTube was getting folded with news of a ‘community manager’ flexing their authority to ban and silence those that they deem below them.

So to summarize what I learned:

-The ‘community manager’ for the official Godot Twitter account posted a politically ‘Left’ leaning comment as a reply to a totally unrelated post on another Twitter account.

-The ‘community manager’ started a banning spree, not only banning members for ‘hateful comments’, but also banning members for simple criticism such as request to stop bringing up wedge political issues on a game engine forum.

-An unofficial account for Godot on Discord had problems too as a moderator partook in similar activity for similar criticism.

-This kind of ‘over moderation’ has been going on for quite some time, and current events just happen to be the straw that broke the camels back.

The Godot ‘spokesman’ would then respond to the controversy with a non-apology, apology.

So basically a hateful and spiteful individual that enjoys hiding behind the ‘rainbow shield’ kept their job and the victimized have to go through a somewhat time consuming and arguably invasive process to get themselves un-banned. Assuming they are even allowed to be un-banned….

As a full supporter of free speech I find the official statement to be disheartening. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if someone really supports obvious bad policies in the name of social justice, or they are just too much a coward to stand up to the bully (yes this is bullying, I don’t care if it’s in the name of goodness and justness). Having lived through the bullshit p(l)andemic I’m leaning on the latter. People become stupid and cowardly when they face potential ostracization from the collective.

I learned a long time ago that you don’t win arguments by banning people you don’t agree with. You put forth your best argument in the most coherent and simple to understand way. A lot of times I can tell when I can’t change the mind of the person I’m arguing with, but that doesn't stop me from putting forth my best arguments and supporting facts. If anything it lets anyone else that is ‘listening’ in on the conversation to hear my take on things and understand where I am coming from.

Squelching and banning have become far too common method of silencing rational people. It’s hilarious that these people that get offended so easily in the online sphere somehow manage to find the ignore button when they are the ones in power, but complain that they are powerless to personalty silence people the don’t want to hear. Most social media allow the end user to personally block a user that they do not want to listen to.

It’s very obvious that these people are just using the protected status of the various ‘minority’ groups to get their jolly’s by harassing the people they don’t like. They quickly check off all the boxes, arise to power and then bully others. They enter spaces of hobbies and activities that they obviously don’t care for and once they get in, start forcing change through coercion and intimidation. If they actually cared for the hobbies and activities they become a part of, their mindset would be very different. Game doesn't have enough ‘representation’? Make your own game (and I’m not saying this to be an ass. I really mean it). Personally I think that 99 percent of these people just want the attention. They don’t care what kind it is.

I believe that these people are not only, not helping the minority groups they claim to be a part of, but they are actually causing more damage long term. The type of behavior that is being allowed to pass is outright antagonistic, at some point the dam is going to break. Public opinion will shift and it will likely shift very quickly. No one if going to remember the quiet gay couple that just wanted to be left alone. Instead they are going to remember the abuse they suffered at the hands of the multi color haired, emotionally unstable crazy person that claimed to be a part of that group and all the supporters that enabled these people to enact this abuse. Their real opponents will take full advantage of the situation to push their own agenda.

One thing is for sure, the Godot dev team needlessly tarnished their reputation for the sake of the colorful haired, emotionally unstable power tripper.

If it were me, I would have let the community manager go, apologized for the senseless and hurtful banning’s, then un-ban everyone and pick up the pieces later.

For the time being I will continue to use Godot. The reasons for this is:

-It is very difficult to just change engines on the fly. The next engine I pick up will probably be easier to use as I’m getting more proficient in general, but I still don’t feel like starting from square one right now.

-The problems seem to be isolated to their social media for the time being. I don’t overly care for Twitter in general, and as long as I can ask question and get help, this wont effect me directly.   (Also I'm banned on Twitter...)

-There will always be bad days. Not one company exists that has had a clean run with no issues. No matter where you run, problems will always find you. If you lose your cool every time something happens, you will be running forever.

A fork of Godot called Redot gained a fair amount of renown during all of this. I won’t jump on it right away for the above reasons. But I will follow its development with interest.

I won’t comment on the unofficial Discord and the other unhinged crazy over there. Even though the Discord was used somewhat officially at one point, it has been let loose and replaced with an official outlet to the best of my knowledge. But I imagine you will probably know how I feel on the topic regardless the lack of commentary.…

Anyway that’s all I got to say on that.

The Overreach of Payment Processors and the Future of NSFW Content.

 

Wall O Text Warning  

 

TL/DR: Catering to peoples sensibilities, weather on the right or the left makes everything rigid, bland and miserable.  And will ultimately effect how much personal freedom I have to illustrate what I want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9yCMNpV-I

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqaz3MmCvwE

Even though I don’t have much of a following, I believe that silence is one of the greatest enablers of tyranny. So I will speak, even if it’s just into an empty void.

                                                                                                                                                         

Over the past few weeks I’ve been hearing a fair bit about payment processors, namely MasterCard and Visa doing full crackdowns on NSFW artiest. This has caused several middle men like Patreon and Gumroad, places I considered using to fund my future game development journey, to toe the de-fund the anime tiddies line. I believe the justifications given for this change is to save ‘the children’ (how original).

While crack downs on ‘immoral' words, thoughts and arts like this is nothing new, I have the feeling we as artiest and customers are heading for a showdown between freedom of artistic expression/consumption to a new revisiting of shaming people who like strange different things and ‘dangerous’ thoughts that some would try to convince you is outside the sphere of ‘normal’.  IE: it's not popular and it makes some people feel uncomfortable, so let's ban it.

The reason I believe this time is different, is I have been observing an ever growing trend since the start and end of the state of emergency over the last 4ish years. There has been a very visible uptick in the tired old trend of ‘won’t someone please think of the children?!’. The crazy woke left has lost a lot of political and social pull over this time and the power vacuum has begun to fill with the crazy religious right. A trend I believe is intentional and motivated by the same bad actors who profit greatly by having people fight with each other, all while they rob them from their blind spot.

At any rate, I don’t feel like going down too many rabbit holes about the inner clockwork that has brought about this change, and simply want to just state my case to why I feel this will lead to nothing good.

The arguments usually given, is for the well being of ‘the children’ and in some cases (if they can shoehorn it in) women too. Its been my observation all throughout my life that when someone brings up women and children as a reason or defense in an argument, they often don’t have any solid ground to impose their claims. This is a very dirty tactic as they know most people deep down do not wish harm on the vulnerable, and don’t want to be seen by their peers as such.

Thankfully we have a wonderful tool called the internet. And while some people may think the internet was a mistake, I feel this is by far the greatest of weapons against tyranny that any single person can use. In the past one would have to worry about getting stoned in the street, but on here we can say what we want without fear of such reprisal in most cases.

Anyway the idea that anime characters drawn on digital paper causes harm to the aforementioned is absurd. The most convincing arguments that I heard are:

                                                                           

‘It makes people violent criminals’. No it does not. This is the same argument as violent video games (music, books, etc) make people violent/do criminal acts. This is as easy to disprove as looking at the sales figures for games like Grand Theft Auto. If there were any reasonable backing for the above claim, we would be in serious trouble given the sheer popularity of the above mentioned title. Besides, there is no social activity without sin. Every social activity that has ever been done, has at one time been used as a proxy for someones bad conduct. The only reason this argument has any social standing is because video games are a relatively new medium.

‘It corrupts the minds of people, especially the CHILDREN!’. When you decided to have children you should have done a cost/work analysis. A lot of us that indulge in NSFW content often do so BECAUSE we have done the cost/work analysis. Your job as a parent is to keep your child from wandering off into places you don’t want them in. Producers, Customers and Vendors usually put tags and labels on these kind of things. This, I honestly see as a courtesy because it has never been easier for someone to read a review or do a search on anything, enabling the end user great freedom to curate their own lives to the finest detail.

There is no excuse for letting your child run around unsupervised. They do not need to wander around the internet and they do not need a smartphone with full internet access. If you provided it for them, you police their conduct. Your child will grow up in a few years anyway, it is nonsensical to think we should make far sweeping changes for an issue that will remedy itself in that time. And for all you know, at some point sanctions like this may even impede your, now grown up child's, adult life.

I grew up in a time period were parents would plop their kids in front of an R rated slasher film. The world did not come to an end and most of us did not grow up to become Freddy Kruger. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m fairly certain your child will survive in the unfortunate event of seeing anime titties, should your valiant efforts as a care giver and guardian fails.

The next argument(s) I often hear are more specific to anime styled artwork. Whereas it is often cited that characters look too young, and thus must be children (and yes I’m getting tired of typing this word). And because of this, the story that has this art style attached to it, warps and twists into something that will cause the end of civilization.. Unless you are writing the next installment of the Game of Thrones series.. (I guess because George doesn't use the anime art style he can get away with everything)

There is also character archetypes used that employ traits often found in children (typically referred to as ‘loli’). Although these traits can be used to illustrate a child character, more often than not, they are less about the characters age and more about portraying a character with exceptional vulnerability or very defined immature mental traits.

The opponents of anime artwork will also claim that depicting a child character in a violent/degrading situation will create ‘problems’. Most stories that use elements like this I feel the author is actually trying to make the viewer uncomfortable. I believe it is similar to the horror genre, you are not suppose to be ‘happy’ or ‘comfortable’. And more often than not, it actually works.  Some people appreciate these bitter emotions.

At any rate, the only 'problems' I've personally observed is people acting irrational an immature because they  can't handle their own mental state.  Most of the time I believe this behavior is caused by the viewers own guilt.  As they feel they may have crossed the line, they frantically throw everyone else under the metaphorical buss in an attempt to somehow exonerate themselves of, supposed 'wrong thinking'.

Despite popular belief, adult women come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes the author is just filling the void with diversity (yes, actual diversity). And it is just the viewers jealous ego and dirty mind filling in the imaginary blanks, or trying to prove or dis-prove ‘something’ to someone.

None of the claims I’ve heard are rationally backed. And if you removed the social discomfort, all complaints would quickly become non-issues. And if they personally feel uncomfortable, the best solution is to leave the room and respect those that are not scared to be uncomfortable.

                                                                         

While I’m only doing this as a side hobby for the time being, having limited means to get funding will influence what path I take as a game developer moving forward.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but this current game is actually an edited down version of a game I wanted to make previously.

That game was suppose to be a full fledged farming sim, complete with everything you have come to expect from this genre. The monster girls part was going to be a part-time or full-time profession that your player character could do to earn a living along with farming crops. The monster girls would also be a common part of the story, with several scenes already written in my mind and character interactions including them as an intricate part of the story.

This project took the monster girl ‘job’ part of that game and made it a stand alone experience. This cropped the massive project I had in mind to a more manageable scope, with the limited time I had available to work on game dev. It also provided me with much needed practice with programming using the Godot engine.  I was hoping to get much needed feedback as well.

My original goal was to get the game to a state were I could periodically update it with new items, monster girls and areas. Then I was hoping to start getting some funding via subscription based sites like Patreon. If the money coming in was good, I’d start making plans to do game dev full-time.  Being able to work on game dev full-time would enable me to work on this game and work on other games in the background.

Unfortunately that’s kind of a pipe dream at this point, and I only have so much time to invest. Unless there is a significant change in the course that the payment processors are taking or a viable alternative appears, I’ll have to change course myself if I intend to make game dev my next day job.

So unless something major happens, I will be getting this game to the next release (full gameplay loop). After that I’ll likely start working on the original concept I had in mind, as unlike this game that game can be made SFW. Unfortunate though, as I wanted to graphically illustrate the love and romance with the various marriageable characters. There are also a lot of other things I’ll have to censor, from no on and the foreseeable future....

Suffice to say, things look very depressing to me right now.  As there will never be an end to the demands for censorship, me and many other creators will live under the jackboots of constant fear of being de-funded.

This showdown was bound to happen sooner or later.  Some developers/publishers employed the use of splash screens, making various nonsensical statements such as the fictional characters 'are over 18', which to me sounds a lot like 2+2 = 5.  

The problem with this solution is it tries to evade the 'bully'.  And if you've lived long enough, you know very well you can only evade a bully for so long before they catch up to you.

I feel the real solution is having people stand up and push back.  Something that is very difficult given the social stigma surrounding NSFW content.  It's a good idea to at least acknowledge this problem by posting a couple of words on a public forum.  Comments are like a petition, while they don't immediately do anything, having a show of solidarity will have an effect at some point.  At the very minimum, it lets others know they are not alone.  It also allows big companies that may be to afraid to speak out, konw that they do have their customers support.

There is also the outright hypocrisy that should be pointed out, as sites like Only Fans (basically electronic prostitution) and anything labeled as LBGT+ always seems to get special exemption status.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to drag Only Fans or anything LGBT+ down to my level.  I'm just pointing out that if Only Fans (that is outright porn) and LBGT+ get a pass.  While completely factious illustrations usually intended for a hetero sexual male audience gets the ban hammer, if this was about saving anyone the payment processors would be going after everyone equally, regardless of social ramifications.

I hope there is enough of an outcry eventually and maybe even some lawsuits from the big companies like Pixiv.  Otherwise we will eventually move into a very regressive world where freedom of thought and expression will be strictly regulated.

Thank you for reading my rant if you made it this far.  Until next time.

Happy New Year!

 (Figured I should brush the dust off this blog every now and then,  Mirrored from Itch)

 

​So the new year is finely here!

I know a lot of shitty things have happened and will happen, but for some reason I feel very hopeful for the future for the first time in a long time. To me it feels like all the metaphorical (and real) dirt and crap that has stagnated the western world for so many years is finely being addressed.

How will it be addressed? How will all this end? Your guess is good as mine. But for me the fact that things are moving again has given me hope for the future!

With that said the big announcement that I wanted to share with all of you is that I finally got accepted as a Steam Partner! I will publish “I Couldn’t Become A Farmer, So I Decided To Capture And Breed Monster Girls Instead.​” on Steam in the near future. (Sorry no store page set up as of yet)

This likely won’t happen immediately as Steam is a little more demanding when it comes to PR material, and that will take me time to make (It makes me appreciate how easy it is to publish to Itch)…. I also want to get the project to my next development goal before publishing to Steam.

This project will still be published to itch as I have a nice audience here and people seem to like the Android build (its been downloaded over a hundred time already!). The game will still remain free on Steam, I’m releasing it there purely for the clout! I’m considering funding alternatives like Patreon and Subscribe Star as I would like to do game dev for a living instead of the current day job down the road.

But I’m still ways off from that as I want to get the game to v1.00 first, iron out as many bugs as I can and build more of an audience.

And with that all said, my next goal will be a full game-play loop! It will likely take me some time to get there as I still have a lot of assets to make and things to program. But I’m confident I’ll get there eventually.

I got quite a bit of work done during the Christmas/New Years break so I’m feeling super satisfied right now!

Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone! Here’s to future prosperity and wellness! And the metaphorical closet finely being cleaned out!

I’ll drop a status update at the end of the month, until then take it easy! 

 Arkinum