The thread about playing as Mirai

[[APro] MadjackMcMad]

Tangledeep is a game about a heroine going on an adventure to explore a mysterious forest.

Zircon, the lead developer, wrote some thoughts about it here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/628770/discussions/0/1699415798764230393/?ctp=2#c1699415798765502628

I made some analogies to other games here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/628770/discussions/0/1699415798768625268/#c1699415798768691321

Please read over those two posts, they will help you understand our point of view. It's not about making a statement or sending a message. If you don't believe that, I'm not sure what we can do to prove it to you. I wish I could show you what all of our conversations on the topic were like, because they were brief and mundane.

If you can't enjoy Tangledeep because the character you're controlling isn't a dude, that's unfortunate. Maybe this will be the game where you give it a try, and see what it feels like to tell a story where the main character is different from you. If you don't like that idea, we aren't judging you. Personally though I think life is better when you have the ability to see things from an outside perspective.

Here are responses to some frequently mentioned thoughts:

"But other roguelikes let you choose your gender!"
That is a true statement.

"Is this game intended for a female audience?"
It's intended for people who like RPGs, roguelikes, and fun. If you like exploring dungeons while grabbing lots of loot, we were thinking of you.

"Mass Effect let you play as either gender while telling a story, and Tangledeep could do the same."
Also a true statement. It would require resources that might be better spent elsewhere. Mass Effect had a big ol' Bioware budget.

If you want to talk about it, this is the thread to do it. Other threads on this topic will be locked. Why? Because unfortunately they always seem to turn toxic. People start arguing, the name calling begins, and it no longer becomes an exchange of ideas. No one wins.

Do not use this thread to insult other people, call them names, or otherwise be a bad citizen.

[The Faceless Man]

this is just my opinion, but that's a silly reason to lock threads. there is such a thing as over-moderation. discussions here will likely turn toxic as well. there's no such thing as a peaceful debate, we're too different from each other. but at least you're only locking them and not deleting. +1/2 for that. (deleting is basically censoring)

[RT1]

This isn't a debate though. It hasn't been for the threads that have been locked, and it won't be in this one. Not because I said so, obviously, but because nothing short of ridiculous amounts of money, a lot of human hours and a greenlight given by the dev will appease the complainers, who simply need to man up (intended) and deal with it or look for other games to play.

[[APro] MadjackMcMad]

I have genuine sympathy for people who feel "I like this type of game, but I don't think I'd like playing as a girl, and now I'm sad."

That's waaay different from someone who says something like "This game is feminist trash because you are FORCED to play as a woman," that's just silly.

To the first person, I still think the game is worth a try. Getting past that mental block is a positive thing for anyone. When I read a book, watch a movie, or play a game where the story is about a girl, I don't feel like I can't relate. If anything, it helps me relate *more* to the people around me in real life. That's a win.

[RT1]

+1

[Tyrir]

Originally posted by APro MadjackMcMad:

Tangledeep is a game about a heroine going on an adventure to explore a mysterious forest.

The game doesn't feel like a story about a specific character who happens to be female, as the devs have stated/intended. It feels like it is ... well, a roguelike where you create an arbitrary character before you even start the game's story.

This game doesn't feel like Final Fantasy 6 that follows the story of a specific girl. It isn't like Chrono Trigger where the game follows the story of a boy named Crono saving the world (that you can rename). It isn't Witcher where you take on the role of a person named Geralt who has a backstory, a personality, established relationships, established roles/purposes in the his life and the setting, etc.

Tangledeep doesn't feel like a game where you play through the story of a specific person. In fact, your characters ostensibly die repeatedly, and you recreate a character frequently a la roguelike games.

The above quoted explanation from the dev feels like retconning given that the game's story doesn't present the character as a specific person with backstory or personality. I expect there will be complaints because the quoted explanation is incongruent with players' experience of the game, and it will evoke suspicion of a hidden political agenda. You would have been better off saying "Whoops! We didn't have the time to make male sprites before release for arbitrary reason X!".

Anyway, I just came to the forums to ask if I overlooked a character sex option, but maybe I'll make some popcorn and stay. :)

[Impact Gameworks]

Originally posted by Tyrir:

The above quoted explanation from the dev feels like retconning given that the game's story doesn't present the character as a specific person with backstory or personality

Since I can't tell from your profile, do you own the game? Have you played through the story and beaten it? If not, how can you make that kind of statement on the story?

No, it's not a story-driven game to the extent of Chrono Trigger. That doesn't mean it can't have a character with a personality and backstory. In fact, aside from NPC interactions and key story scenes, the flavor text to every single item in the game in the game is presented from the viewpoint of the main character. Again even if you ignore the cutscenes entirely, the flavor text alone reveals a lot about the character.

Originally posted by Tyrir:

You would have been better off saying "Whoops! We didn't have the time to make male sprites before release for arbitrary reason X!

There isn't anything arbitrary about it. We're a small self-funded indie developer. Back in July 2017 (days after we launched into Early Access) I was explicitly saying that we were not working on male sprites because we had to prioritize our art budget on more jobs and fleshed out animations. Check it:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/628770/discussions/0/2132869574255516646/

Prior to our Kickstarter campaign in early 2017 we didn't even have directional animations for the player character!

[[APro] MadjackMcMad]

Originally posted by Tyrir:

Tangledeep doesn't feel like a game where you play through the story of a specific person. In fact, your characters ostensibly die repeatedly, and you recreate a character frequently a la roguelike games.

There's a story, it appears maybe you haven't seen it because you haven't played very far? To be fair, I think one of the places where I personally failed is in not bringing more of that story closer to the beginning. Who knows, I might have a chance to to fix that.

Originally posted by Tyrir:

The above quoted explanation from the dev feels like retconning given that the game's story doesn't present the character as a specific person with backstory or personality. I expect there will be complaints because the quoted explanation is incongruent with players' experience of the game, and it will evoke suspicion of a hidden political agenda. You would have been better off saying "Whoops! We didn't have the time to make male sprites before release for arbitrary reason X!".

Yeah I could say that but I'd be lying. Having read this paragraph... maybe you haven't played the game at all? I'm curious as to how you can say Mirai doesn't have a personality, but the story is delivered through text and not everyone is big on reading things.

[FDru]

I avoid games which only allow you to play as female, because of the trend of awful games that have tremendous influence from gender studies majors with literally no qualifications in life other then telling people how to make ♥♥♥♥ games (and other products, of course). It's actually not about disliking female characters, obviously some of the greatest games and films have had female leads... it's just about trends and expectations.

It's a very unfortunate situation in what I think was a medium that was already getting very good about giving players options to play with the kind of character they want and offering a ton of diversity, that so many developers have adopted policies of forcing what seems like vengeful diversity on players and only giving them choices of characters that they in almost no way will relate to or find appealing.

That said, this game delivers a pretty good experience despite the character choice and I'm glad I gave it a chance. But there's a reason it sat in my wishlist for such a long time.

[Tyrir]

Originally posted by Impact Gameworks:

Originally posted by Tyrir:

The above quoted explanation from the dev feels like retconning given that the game's story doesn't present the character as a specific person with backstory or personality

Since I can't tell from your profile, do you own the game? Have you played through the story and beaten it? If not, how can you make that kind of statement on the story?

No, it's not a story-driven game to the extent of Chrono Trigger. That doesn't mean it can't have a character with a personality and backstory. In fact, aside from NPC interactions and key story scenes, the flavor text to every single item in the game in the game is presented from the viewpoint of the main character. Again even if you ignore the cutscenes entirely, the flavor text alone reveals a lot about the character.

I've only played about 2 hours so far. Perhaps the story becomes more central to the game experience further in with the cutscenes you mentioned, but that's far beyond character creation, which was why I was looking for info about character customization info in the first place.

Originally posted by Impact Gameworks:

Originally posted by Tyrir:

You would have been better off saying "Whoops! We didn't have the time to make male sprites before release for arbitrary reason X!

There isn't anything arbitrary about it. We're a small self-funded indie developer. Back in July 2017 (days after we launched into Early Access) I was explicitly saying that we were not working on male sprites because we had to prioritize our art budget on more jobs and fleshed out animations. Check it:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/628770/discussions/0/2132869574255516646/

Prior to our Kickstarter campaign in early 2017 we didn't even have directional animations for the player character!

Fair enough. I admit I haven't followed the development history. I only just found the game the other day via steam recommendations. My response was based on the explanation in the initial post above, particularly framing it with analogies to player characters in witcher, chrono trigger, etc, which is what other players are also going to first see when visiting the forums.

Originally posted by APro MadjackMcMad:

Originally posted by Tyrir:

Tangledeep doesn't feel like a game where you play through the story of a specific person. In fact, your characters ostensibly die repeatedly, and you recreate a character frequently a la roguelike games.

There's a story, it appears maybe you haven't seen it because you haven't played very far?

That could be it. My response was as a player with only a couple hours of gameplay.

Originally posted by APro MadjackMcMad:

Originally posted by Tyrir:

The above quoted explanation from the dev feels like retconning given that the game's story doesn't present the character as a specific person with backstory or personality. I expect there will be complaints because the quoted explanation is incongruent with players' experience of the game, and it will evoke suspicion of a hidden political agenda. You would have been better off saying "Whoops! We didn't have the time to make male sprites before release for arbitrary reason X!".

Yeah I could say that but I'd be lying. Having read this paragraph... maybe you haven't played the game at all? I'm curious as to how you can say Mirai doesn't have a personality, but the story is delivered through text and not everyone is big on reading things.

I probably shouldn't have said "personality" as you can see there is some sense of personality e.g. quirkiness in your dialog responses.

What I was getting at is that the character doesn't have a deep, established presence in the setting like the player characters do in the other games that the devs pointed to as analogies e.g. Geralt in witcher (the first thing you see is he has a relationship with another character in witcher 3. He also has a clear personality conveyed in voice that cements the player character as a living person in the setting.), or Crono (the first thing you see is his bedroom, and he has a mom that's telling him not to oversleep.), etc.

If the character doesn't have a backstory, a pronounced personality would also suffice to convince the player that the player character is more than a customized character.

Obviously, I'm not saying characters in the game have to be like that (or not like that), but hopefully the ambiguity explains why someone might be surprised when they hear the explanation in the original post.

Two other things come to mind.

1) The job sprites didn't appear to be the same person when I first created a character. Looking back in hindsight, I can see how they were intended to be e.g. same hair.

2) You're working against the roguelike trope of repeatedly creating another custom/random character to throw into the dungeon to meet his/her demise.

[People Are Dumb]

Without reading much into this, I think (just stating my opinion here) it's kinda sad that people apparently seem to care about what gender their character is and you should just disregard them without going as far as explaining anything about that. In what year are those people living? 1850?
To be fair, there was a time when I cared about that, but I wasn't even 14 then. You know, when I wasn't aware that it's just a game and the gender doesn't matter at all...

The only valid reason I'd accept here is: "It's hard to immerse myself if the character doesn't even reflect my gender". Everything else would be unreasonable, though.

[Ryth]

Originally posted by FDru:

so many developers have adopted policies of forcing what seems like vengeful diversity on players and only giving them choices of characters that they in almost no way will relate to or find appealing.

I find women appealing. They're beautiful, sensitive, and smart.

[Zowieanna Zanthia™]

The game should not matter whether you play as female OR male, its just a game for goodness sakes. I am so far enjoying this game, besides you wouldnt even know if really female of male anyways. Males can have long hair, just as females have short hair. I say play the game and enjoy the game for what it offers ok.

Im still fresh and learning the game, died already 2 times at level 4 :P I like the summoning helper, Im hoping to gather some strong pets to help me , thats if I get that far. I though I had me a craby pet but sadly I didnt.

Anyway its a very nice game and not everyone will like it, BUT alot will. Playing a female character is NO big deal ok, lots of games you play as just males, so what, get over it people.

Keep up the great work and I do hope you decide to add more to this game AND I would also like to see more Achievements added at a later date if possible please.

[DarkThemes]

Honestly Mirai is a character, and the choice of a restricted gender makes it easier to empathize with the character. The sprites she has for each class have very different flavours, meaning that you aren't stuck with any one type of character.

The depth and gameplay of this game outweigh the minor hit to roleplaying of a female only character. Keep up the good work; there are not many games able to balance risk and progression like this. Other games struggle to keep the difficulty in pace with the player's skill, but in this one I was still being challenged after a few hours of gameplay and a stockpile of good items.

[Hex: Maidenless]

Potential buyer here, came to the forums to see various opinions, thought I'd chime in here.

Whle I personally don't have a problem with playing with a gender-locked character, it is short sighted of people to discount those who have difficulty relating to a character for those reasons. Individuals have differing capabilites of immersing themselves within a work, some people like myself are arguably too good at it (Maladaptive Daydreamer, nowadays they're trying to call it Fantasy Prone Personality), and others have extreme difficulty where their focus on the world can be broken by a single detail out of place.

I remember when The Surge was about to release there was a similar thread on it's forums. A female gamer was upset because The Surge, a Dark Souls inspired game, was gender locked to a male character in spite of the fact that Dark Souls itself has always allowed for extensive customization, and she insisted she would be unable to play it because of an inability to connect with the main character. People had pretty much the same reaction to her that some people are having here with this game.

Point is, don't discount people who have this issue with ficiton. What might be a "minor hit to roleplaying" for /you/ could be extensively significant to someone else.

Though I would not fault the Devs for taking the more budget-friendly approach, given their size.

[Tanarri]

It was explained dozens of times, including in this thread, that gender-lock is mainly because of limited resources, while you just compared Tangledeep's situation to two AAA titles.