Steam Release Delayed Indefinitely... Voting for New Years?! (Patreon)

I've been putting off posting this for a few days since it really bummed me out.

🚂 So about Steam...

Basically after creating the unique steam assets, having our store reviewed 3 times, our build reviewed 2 times, I added debug modes, gallery unlocks (for the steam moderator team) and corresponded with a few different steam staff members, they suddenly and promptly pulled all our progress and summarized the response to something akin to "Sorry your game has 'grey areas' in terms of character maturity.

They only gave the poor example of using "high school" in a video game as being a grey area. Never once do we mention "high school" in any of our dialogue, and the school is not even a big part of our story. Of course it seems likely they just tell this example to everyone.

I tried to contact them again after the fact, but they simply replied and copy pasted their message as if to say "go away".

I was actually vaware this scenario exists for game developers, where steam accepts almost everything in the NSFW space except for potential 'grey areas' in terms of character age, and I even PROACTIVELY removed a CG that I wondered could maybe set them off.

As far as I know, Its literally impossible to republish your game after this judgement. They don't let you know which parts are questionable and you are basically barred from resubmitting.

But alas it was all effort for nothing.

It really bums me out, especially as an indie dev who has wanted to get a game on steam for so long, and to be nearly over the finish line, checking steamworks every day and they remove you from the race entirely. I excited to give everyone with lifetime pledges over $20 free keys and a monstrous push to our marketing and visibility by having our game in the steam catalog.

I took time out of the roadmap, to make the steam builds for Win and Mac, because I thought it would have a net positive on the marketing and visibility of the game, and unfortunately I have nothing to show for it now, except that we're further away from our roadmap. :(

That's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. I don't really know if it was Lily or Molly or who, they didn't say, but I don't really care, they can suck my left one.

Psychologically it's been a kick in the nuts, but the best thing to do now is just refocus, refocus, refocus. We'll continue to build this without them. We'll continue to build the greatest visual novel to ever exist.

I also didn't want to end the year on such a somber note. So therefore...

🎉Polls Incoming!

It's not all sad news! While working on the build we were able to finalize some missionary animations, we also have tons of art now for Pixie & others, with more coming! In fact - We need your votes!

We're ahead of schedule for artwork now, so we'll have you guys vote on your fav current character for bonus scenes, and also have you vote on another open world action for all girls ^^

Stay tuned, I'll release polls and leave them open for voting until a few days past new years. I have some ideas for what to include in poll, but if you have something in mind, leave a comment and get it in the poll :)

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Thanks everyone for your continued pledge, you really make this game possible I MEAN TRULY possible.

Much Love,

DIrty Sock