Tag the game as female-protagonist.

[Dago]

So I don't have to waste time on research.

[Nordblut]

Have you tagged games like Indiana Jones as male protagonist?

[Francis_Mallman]

Originally posted by Nordblut:

Have you tagged games like Indiana Jones as male protagonist?

The problem here needs to be addressed though.

This studio, when its game releases, can choose to ban every single person who mentions DEI, and it can lock every single thread that has the words DEI in the OP.

But it’s going to end up banning a lot of people and locking a lot of threads, essentially censoring legitimate criticism or concern in the guise of removing ‘hate speech’.

Most of us don’t care if we’re forced to play as a female character. Black, white - we don’t care. What we actually do care about though is when we feel that a studio was never going to choose to create a white male lead.

That actually is discrimination.

Just create games with people in them. Men, women, blacks, whites, all colors in between. Just don’t make decisions in the background that make me feel you’re trying to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

[cbelle]

Originally posted by Francis_Mallman:

Just don’t make decisions in the background that make me feel you’re trying to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

LOL.

[yellowbrickgames_devs]

Hey there! Thanks so much for your feedback folks, we always appreciate when people take time out of their day to chat with us. 😊

Regarding Eternal Strands, there had been a lot of discussion internally at early stages of development to see what would be feasible for our game. In fact, we would have loved to have had a customizable character (we had concept art of this already made!), but with the resources we have as a small independent studio, this was one of the features that unfortunately did not end up making it in.

What this allowed us to do, however, was focus on a tight-knit story based on one protagonist that we created to ensure that the resources we had for our gameplay, narrative, VO, and more delivered a good experience all around. And for what it's worth, we're really proud of the story & characters we created and what we were able to do with our team size!

That said, we know the game won't resonate with everyone and we completely understand that. We do have a free demo coming January 21st, so if you're still interested in checking it out, the demo features the game's first few hours and progress carries over. If you still feel it's not for you, that's completely okay! We still appreciate the time you took to message us about this.

Hope everyone has a lovely day!

(P.S. Because we have a small team, we do ask that the topic remains on Eternal Strands - if this starts veering off into a broader discussion of the industry as a whole, we will need to lock the thread. Thank you so much for understanding!)

[Slatepaws]

I have the game wish-listed, but i am cautious. two yellow flags, female protagonist without use of customization. The art style is reminiscent/has hints of the 3d version of cal-arts.

[Noir]

I for one don't think having a female protag somehow 'flags' a game as 'problematic'. She looks cool, the art style is neat as well (does remind me of a slightly less comic Fenyx Rising though that looked neat as well) and from there, you just hope for no political bs injection and just a good fantasy story with fun gameplay. Unless their art director is also an unhinged lunatic, this game will be just fine.

[Slatepaws]

Originally posted by Noir:

I for one don't think having a female protag somehow 'flags' a game as 'problematic'. She looks cool, the art style is neat as well (does remind me of a slightly less comic Fenyx Rising though that looked neat as well) and from there, you just hope for no political bs injection and just a good fantasy story with fun gameplay. Unless their art director is also an unhinged lunatic, this game will be just fine.

It's a yellow flag because while not all games with female protags are 'woke' to use the short hand. All games that preach 'woke' have female protagonists. Because they cannot stand any sort of 'male' depicted in a positive and competent role.
thus if a game has a female protagonist, that isn't female because you the player chose it on a character creation screen. It's a yellow flag of caution.
Simple pattern matching.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Slatepaws:

It's a yellow flag because while not all games with female protags are 'woke' to use the short hand. All games that preach 'woke' have female protagonists. Because they cannot stand any sort of 'male' depicted in a positive and competent role.
thus if a game has a female protagonist, that isn't female because you the player chose it on a character creation screen. It's a yellow flag of caution.
Simple pattern matching.

If you go by that logic, if the game has a white male protagonist, it's a yellow flag for being white supremacist. Because while not all games with white male protags support that message, every game that does also happens to have a white male protag. Sounds pretty dumb if you ask me. Also DA:V was the most cringe inducing 'woke' thing I have ever seen and you could play that as a man - as far as they managed to actually convey a man.

[Zadeify]

Those "trailblazers of tolerance" have only themselves to blame for ruining the image of female leads. I'm one of those who can't take female protagonists seriously anymore because they always have to be manly girl bosses and ugly as hell to prevent "male gaze". You don't drag the modern day problems in videogames and call it escapism.

Another problem is that far too few address the problem and blame it on incels who have nothing to do with it. I identify as non-buynary as long as this trend exists. Indiegames tend to lack the problem and I'd rather give them my support instead.

[yellowbrickgames_devs]

Hey folks - as mentioned in the previous comment we made, since this is veering off into a conversation on other games and the industry as a whole, we'll be locking this thread to ensure all topics are related to Eternal Strands and only Eternal Strands.

We really appreciate civil discussions and conversations, but as we are a smaller team, we'd like to ensure we can keep the Steam threads here as on-topic as possible to manage our resources appropriately. Thanks so much for your understanding and hope you folks have a lovely day!