DEVLOG: Approaching Different Relationships (Patreon)

My ill-fated attempts to become a successful novelist  (both the site and the book are in italian only, but I wouldn't call it a blockbuster success :D) showed me I was very interested in telling stories to an audience. That's something that brought me where I am today in fact: I just figured out that the best way to tell stories for me was developing videogames, and feedback seem to appreciate my way of storytelling.

General Practitioner has been praised many times for its conversations, its characters who are natural and different and each of them pursuing their own interest and agenda, without adapting to the player's choices. I mean, Aaron has his own view about gay relationships, as most gay people do, because no one is alike one another, and that's not something revolutionary in telling a story, but it's definitely something that is appreciated.

While writing the stories for Vanessa and Aaron for 0.0.27 update I faced another challenge (this game posed me many of them): how to actually tell a story of homosexuality without sounding false and cliché, how to write an heterosexual storyline which intertwines with that one without sounding naive or offensive? And most important: do you need a gay writer to write gay stories? The answer is, in my case: no, you don't.

That's why I struggled for days to create something interesting in the game, something that would've been recognized as a real story for most homosexual players, something that I hope will entertain you and also make you smile a little. People who won't pursue a gay relationship in the game will still access this story, as it's part of the doctor's past where the player has no power upon, and helps to define the man he has become today.

Are we just the sum of our past deeds and experiences? What would've been different if we acted differently 15/20 years ago? Are we sure everything would've worked better for us?

Yes, it is a bold endeavour and maybe those are stories that people clicking on the "Play" button of General Practitioner are not interested in reading. But somehow I believe that's not true, as most people loved the relationships in game more than they love the nudity in it, and since I started making videogames to tell stories and not mainly to show pixel-art nudity, believe me when I say I'm very happy to know my stories are appreciated and read by thousands of people.

So maybe, just maybe, my attempts to become a novelist weren't so ill-fated eventually.