While all of npckc’s games appear to be cute, compact titles that give players a space to find comfort, others brush upon and explore heavier topics, such as what remains to be troubling issues that continue to negatively impact the LGBTQ+ community in Japan.

On top of having developed a larger following through the positive response towards a game like one night, hot springs, npckc continues to make games whenever they can. They discuss what drove them to work on their first project and the real-life issues that needed to be portrayed. Working around and inspired by their own limitations in game making, npckc also encourages prospective developers to take a chance to finally make something whenever they are inspired.

How and why did you start to make games? What are your sources of inspiration? You have a very cute artstyle and aesthetic: Was that influenced by anything?

I think I just wanted to make something fun and interactable at first. I remember seeing the game engine bitsy and thinking, Wow! I bet I could make something with this—and that’s how I made the first game I ever released on itch.io, a short bitsy game called you have to go to work.

Usually when I release short games on itch.io, I’m doing it for game jams, so the themes for the jams are my sources of inspiration. I like to browse the jams page on itch.io to see what jams there are and if there are any interesting ones, I try to think of a short idea I can make and join the jam.

For my art, it’s just the kind of art I am personally capable of making. I don’t really think of myself as an artist, but I can handle simple drawings and it gets things done.

What are some of your approaches when it comes to making a new game from start to finish? How do you come up with new ideas and how do you settle on what type of game it should be?

Since my games are generally on the short end, I don’t actually do much planning outside of having a general idea of what I want to make and then scoping it down into something I am capable of making on my own. I usually like to start with character sketches first if the game has characters in it, and then I decide on the art direction from there.

What led to the creation of one night, hot springs and later A YEAR OF SPRINGS? Was it drawn from any personal experiences? As one of your most known games, have your thoughts on the series changed since?

one night, hot springs was made because I saw an article in the news about somebody having the police called on them because somebody else thought they were in the wrong gendered bath at a bathhouse. It wasn’t so much the article itself but the reaction online to the article was really awful, so I wanted to make something that went against that.

The compiled trilogy A YEAR OF SPRINGS is the continuation of that story, though I didn’t originally plan on making any sequels. The second game in the trilogy is similarly based on a real-life event, starting off with the decision by the Japanese Supreme Court to uphold the requirement for sterilization and surgery before trans people in Japan can change their legal gender.

When I talk about A YEAR OF SPRINGS, I try to make sure to mention that this is the situation in the current day. Right now, as of May 2022, Japanese trans people still cannot change their gender without being sterilized and having surgery. Bathhouses and other gender-divided spaces usually do not have any guidelines on where trans and nonbinary people “fit” in these places. Gay marriage is still illegal on a national level in Japan.

I hope that in the future I’ll be able to say that A YEAR OF SPRINGS as a series is no longer a “factual” [depiction] because the statements I mention above are no longer true.

A lot of your games explore themes around relationships, identity, and learning to develop self-confidence. What do you hope to be the main takeaway for players of your games?

I hope that whoever plays any of my games feels better after playing it than they did before. I never want somebody to come out of my game feeling beaten down or defeated. While I do discuss heavy topics at times, I don’t ever want that to be the sole focus of any game.

I also hope that my games might encourage other people to make their own games and tell their own stories. All of my games are very personal to me because they’re about things that I personally care about, and I think the world would be better with more people sharing incredibly individual stories through their creations.

What advice can you give to people who are interested in making games and telling stories without a professional background? What can they do to start?

Just do it! You can say, “I want to make games” forever, but it won’t mean anything until you actually put that to action. I don’t have a professional background at all (I’m just somebody making games out of my kitchen) and my first game on itch.io is a tiny little thing you can play in your browser, but without taking that first step, I would never have made any of the games I’ve made after that.

Start with something small so you can get into the habit of releasing stuff into the world for other people to see, and don’t stress about getting it perfect. Join a game jam and make a tiny game in a couple of days. Just tell the stories you want to tell!

one night, hot springs is available on both PC and Android mobile devices. A YEAR OF SPRINGS is available across multiple consoles and on mobile devices. The rest of npckc’s continuously growing body of work can be followed on their itchio, and on their main website.

The post Springs and Short Games: An Interview with npckc appeared first on Gamesline.

After these things became public, Eurogamer followed up with both Voidpoint and 3D Realms, the publisher of the game. 3DR made an honestly concise and smart apology, stating that from now on, their contracts would be written to terminate any developers that included hateful language or actions in the game. Voidpoint also promised they would donate $10,000 of profits from the game to The Trevor Project, an anti-suicide and general LGBTQ advocacy group.

Now today, Voidpoint’s co-founder and origin of the transphobia Richard Gobeille hopped on the Steam forums to say that actually no, nothing would be changed.

We’ve caused a recent controversy suggesting Ion Fury game content was to be censored.

We will absolutely NOT be censoring Ion Fury or any of our other games, now or in the future, including but not limited to by removing gags such as gaming’s most controversial facial wash.

We do not support censorship of creative works of any kind and regret our initial decision to alter a sprite in the game instead of trusting our instincts. 3D Realms and Voidpoint stand together on this matter.

Last but not least, please respect our need to keep our community forums clean from hateful messages, spam, or off-topic threads. We recognize our mistake and have received your message loud and clear!

Later, 3D Realms echoed their previous statement to Jason Schrier at Kotaku that any future games they publish would be without hateful language in it, however, they decided to keep the “Ogay” soap.

“However, a portion of our community made it loud and clear they felt removing ‘Ogay’ was censorship and should be protected by free speech. Voidpoint wanted to listen and we respected this decision.”

Instead of committing to what they said and removing all of the offensive material, both companies decided to bend over for bigotry and kept a really dumb joke in the game just to court the homophobes in the audience. There was talk that Steam reviews were being bombarded with bad reviews complaining about the “censorship”, but Steam’s anti-reviewbomb tech didn’t catch it. It’s unknown if that means there wasn’t really as much as claimed, or if Steam just wants to help the bigots make their screams louder. Could be both, honestly.

3D Realms seems to be continuing to work with Voidpoint, at least for the time being. There was also zero actual consequence for Gobeille’s remarks on Discord, save for a promise he’ll undergo “sensitivity training”. Voidpoint claimed on their Twitter that they still plan to donate the money to The Trevor Project, but they haven’t yet, which I have also personally confirmed with The Trevor Project themselves. Their Twitter is also mostly Gobeille arguing with people about his horrid views, so that’s fun.

All in all, this is all pure disregard for marginalized people. There is no sign of any improvement or actual care involved with the actions of those caught saying and doing what they did, and even if they donate to a charity, their actions still put LGBTQ people in the crosshairs of bigots. 3D Realms and Voidpoint would rather have shitbag’s money than respect others, so don’t purchase Ion Fury.

The post Ion Fury Devs, 3D Realms, Continue to Dig Down appeared first on Gamesline.