Bloodstained Feedback Survey is live!

Filled up the survey a tad late, I'll admit (busy with writing). Thanks for allowing us to give you guys some feedback.

Seeing where the conversation went, my two cents about the Vepar situation:

I don't care. I care about the game being good. A game with huge breasts can still be awful. Please focus on making a great game instead. That is all.

Whether or not the original design is silly is a subjective opinion, but...

I personally think there's a  assumption we shouldn't be making here: that IGA created the original design.

The way it actually works is the director/producer (in this case, IGA) gives an idea or some guidelines to the artists, in this case Inti Creates (or the person Inti outsourced to, which is also a common practice). So the description is something like "make a monster who's a fish with a naked girl on top."

This would be IGA's vision. Now, it could be a lot more detailed, obviously: I don't know exactly what parameters he gave, but then again none of us do. For all we know he gave ten pages of background lore for the character. But there's no reason to suppose things such as the color scheme and the size and breast physics were part of it - normally this is left to the artists to interpret. What comes back, though, is not always what the creator had in mind.

This is specially true of something that is put up on the demo - even if the creator wants to change it, they might not have enough time to make it.

What I'm trying to get at is that we shouldn't suppose the model in the demo is what the monster would have looked like had IGA not gotten any feedback on it from backers. That they took the backers opinion into account when making changes means that IGA agreed with them.

Now, maybe some people will say "but IGA would never have allowed anything not consistent with his vision in the original demo!"

Like I said, that's not necessarily the case: it could simply be they didn't have to change it, or were waiting until later in the development process to make the changes.

More importantly, though, consider this: if you gave the same instructions to 10 different artists, I guarantee you'd see 10 different color schemes and bust sizes for the model. And maybe IGA would have been fine with say, five of those, and all those would have different color schemes and physics. Also, if among those five he was fondest of model a... if the lead artist/modeler insisted on, say, model c,, then IGA might compromise. Yes: there is compromise within dev teams. It's rare that any one person, even the producer/director, gets exactly what he or she wants on everything. There's not just one artist (as in creative person) on the team - there's a lot of them, and a respectful leader has to somehow accommodate their differing views while making sure the finished product is also consistent with his own.

So to talk about an original vision is misleading. We could talk about a team vision, but then consider that the team has changed dramatically since the demo was launched. Changes to the art direction are a given.

Finally, I don't have a link to the post, but I do remember Mana saying, very clearly once, that creative decisions were not that straight forward: that were was a creative push and pull between ArtPlay and the developers, and that user feedback can help tip the balance.

What I'm trying to say is that IGA probably has as much say on this project as he's had with any other - and probably more, as he's part of the brand this time. And every change made has be consistent with his vision of the game.

That's what Angel-Corlux is trying to say, if I'm not mistaken.
  

dareka everything you say in your message are assumptions. You are assuming the involvement of IGA in the development and the weight of his decisions in the final look of the designs. You are also assuming the way in which his team works.

Well, we can spend our entire lives making assumptions, but one thing is certain: IGA approved a Vepar design. Some people outside the development team demanded to lower the tone. The monster was redesigned and the tone was lowered. End.

Now we can assume that maybe the original design would have been changed anyway. Or maybe not. Or maybe they would have made her breasts even bigger if they had not received the feedback.

Whatever the case may be, the only thing we can assure is that they have lowered the Vepar's tone, and it has happened after offended people expressly demanded it. These are external pressures, and external pressures are hardly compatible with the vision of a creator. This can also be an assumption, of course. But at least there is a cause and effect relation that justifies it.

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DOUBLE POST ALERT!
A WILD DOUBLE POST HAS APPEARED!

....


Here's some interesting bits about the survey and answers from Bloodstained Facebook page (also known as Angel-Corlux )

It's not even about "that" group of people to be pleased, by being granted their request (censor)... It is about allowing that group to stomp on other people's wants, expectations, artistic tastes and general aesthetic and enforcing their agenda on the whole, in a "justified" manner at that; even though the attempt to sugarcoat it, is pitiful at best... It's about open blackmail (to developers), even though carefully played as "being offended" and oppression to the majority, especially the old timers, to whom all this nutjob phenomena like "triggered shenanigans", are completely alien and alienating... Fun thing is, the very same people who cr_p on freedom of expression, are the same ones yelling for freedom in art/speech/whatever.

Them (that group) being hypocrites is one thing, but them being mentally ill and deep down actually wanting the very same thing that they themselves demand to be gone for others, is another. They need (professional) help; not granting their each and every request, on agenda at that, ugh!

If you make toggles, I want an option not to see the boobs at all, please 😀

Anyway, even though I think those are still huge breasts, I don’t care. The design is much better and most people agree. I cannot believe someone thinks this is about censorship, this whole thread is going in a wrong direction that does not make sense.

The idea for the survey is very good, but considering one question has to do with the exclusive content, maybe this feedback should come from backers only. I also don’t understand why is such a problem giving this one boss and weapon to backers only.. It is such a small symbolic part of a game, that the general public does not need to care about. We are all still getting the full game.

Normally, it should be topless, exactly like the Succubus in Sotn and even offer on disc the close-up portrait, in dir with files. Sotn's spiritual successor should stay true to the original's style, after all!

^_^

Just saying. It is truly inconceivable, the regression instead of progress, in freedom of expression and censor in art, in modern times. Back in 1997 they got it right! Same reason anime ported overseas suck so much and americans are always on the lookout for the uncensored versions. Now i got sad...

taburisu

Look, I respect your view, and I'm not trying to change your mind.

I'd just like to clarify a few things, for the sake of the discussion.

1. I have indeed worked in the game industry, the Japanese game industry to be exact, as a programmer and translator. While I'm hardly what you would call well-connected individual, I've seen the creative process first hand. So my assumption on how things work are based on first-hand experience.

2. I personally don't remember anybody demanding the breasts be made smaller.

There were various opinions on this. Some people were bothered by them, but stated various different reasons: some did say they felt it was gratuitous fanservice, others said it did not fit the tone of the game, others said it simply looked silly, etc. Correct me if I'm mistaken: you believe this to be an excuse; that people say this instead of admitting they are offended by the sexuality of the content. I honestly don't  know if this is the case: I am inclined to believe some people, at least, were telling the truth, but since this a matter of who and what you believe, we can agree to disagree.

3. What I was trying to say with my post is this: there's no reason to believe IGA was particularly attached to the size of Vepar's boobs. We don't know what things he specified in his request for Vepar, but logic and experience tell me a specific color scheme and boob size were not one of them. So I posit that changing the size of the boobs is not necessarily changing his or anyone else's vision.

4. What I feel is that if the devs are telling us this is not a case of making changes to appease backers, I think we can believe them. They've been extremely honest and transparent throughout.

5. IGA was willing to find a new publisher, find a new developer and delay the game over a year to fulfill his vision for this game. That should tell us all we need to know about whether he's the kind of developer to compromise his vision over the risk of upsetting people.

Anyway, I kinda feel guilty about contributing to derail the survey feedback thread over this matter. If we wish to continue discussing it, I think we should take it somewhere else. Maybe a it's own thread.

EDIT: Wow, while I'm writing this, Angel-Corlux suggested just that! I totally agree, let's move it somewhere else!

From what it sound like, personally, it may be that the former is the true way it's going. At least, that's what it's sounding like, that the Retro stuff is more or less being transformed into this spin-off.

That being said, I do concur with this being clarified, if just for the community's benefit.