Mastercard and visa have reported to a couple news outlets that they are currently being swamped with calls and complaints. Keep up the pressure and try to (politely) insist that you leave a complaint via phone instead of letting the rep direct you to emails. It's way easier to be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of calls so each one counts for a bit more!
Regarding Steam, Adult Content Bans, and Making an 18+ Game
Hey guys;
There’s been a major shift in the gaming scene recently that could have some very serious consequences for queer creators and the adult content they make and unfortunately, TCM is (what I fear) a pretty prime target. I know no one likes reading long blog posts but please at least skim the following write up. A lot's going on and frankly, I'm very, very anxious for TCM.
Bear with me, the situation is complex.
What Happened:
Steam, the largest videogame marketplace in the world, caved to pressure from payment processors like Mastercard and Visa to delist games and effectively censor content that goes against the TOS of the payment processor.
This is incredibly shitty.
Visa and Mastercard now have direct say in what content is “objectionable” on the world’s largest gaming marketplace. They are the entities that get to decide what art is “degenerate” and what art is suitable for their advertisers.
Adult content has long been a target of Mastercard, which has been constantly putting pressure on companies like Etsy, OnlyFans, Patreon, Pornhub, Fansly, and more for multiple years now to deplatform and censor not only real-life content featuring real people, but also overtly fictional and drawn content as well.
LGBT+ art is a prime target for being slandered as deviant; we’ve seen it throughout our history, and this is only becoming more evident as queer sex workers, content creators, and artists are getting financially deplatformed all across the internet.
Several ultraconservative groups are behind the pressure on Mastercard, including swerf and terf clubs.
This goes beyond region or payment method. It doesn’t matter how you pay for Steam games; once a game is delisted, it cannot be purchased via any method.
Since this change to Steam’s TOS and as of this writing, over 80 adult games have been delisted, and I’d like to take a second to emphasize what this means. Being delisted on Steam is the same as having a game functionally permabanned. Delisting means that anyone who has the game can still access it, but the title is taken off the marketplace completely, and new players will never see it or be able to access it.
Steam is effectively being held at gunpoint. Without the ability to accept payments from the two largest, most duopolistic processors in the world, its continued resistance would likely destroy them as a marketplace. This attack on Steam gives Mastercard and Visa an unprecedented amount of power over gaming as a whole and has already had huge consequences. This sets a disturbing and wholly unfair precedent of disproportionately silencing queer and/or politically charged art.
What’s shocking about this is that in the past, Steam has worked to maintain a high level of neutrality in its content offerings. As long as games were rated properly and appropriate themes were disclosed during the rating process, Steam generally let explicit content slide even if their content was questionable to some. The problem now lies in the fact that corporate overlords have now taken the power to decide what is and is not artistic expression, and historically, that does not bode well for anyone challenging or commenting on the status quo. If you’re queer like me, you know you challenge the status quo by simply existing.
The Future is Unknowable
Unfortunately, it just got a lot murkier for me and for TCM. Because TCM’s queer leanings, its focus on sexualized men and monster fucking, the game will certainly be seen as transgressive to any remotely conservative leaning weirdo looking for a power trip. I don’t know if we’re on the chopping block and there’s literally no way to prepare.
I’ve heard several people mention Itch.io as an alternative, and, firstly, please understand that I adore Itch. Itch is where TCM got its initial start and early community from, and I owe a lot to Itch’s commitment to its devs and the freedom to produce whatever content they want. The problem is that if payment processors put pressure on Itch, too, they will be forced to acquiesce. I can’t stress enough that Steam is astronomically larger and more powerful than Itch- and if they didn’t have the resources or independence to hold to their ideals in the face of pressure from Mastercard, Itch won’t either. At this point, it's less of a criticism or doomerism on my part and simply an ugly, unfair fact.
This kind of uncertainty alone is enough to stagnate a lot of business in any industry. This puts the burden on me to either pre-emptively censor the game myself or to cope with the immense financial instability of going forward with unclear and/or unfair guidelines that- once again- disproportionately target queer creators.
We saw it with the widespread tariff confusion earlier this year that had a pronounced effect on global commerce. Stephanie Sterling elaborates on the burden of uncertainty in this video about YouTube’s unclear and inconsistent demonetization rules and the clamps it puts on artistic content. She’s a lot more articulate than I am and paints a really robust picture about why having vague content policies- like the ones Mastercard is pushing- throws a wrench in the whole creative cycle, especially for artists hoping to make a living via their art.
What This Means for TCM
Honestly, this could mean a lot of things, and unfortunately, I just don’t know what the road ahead will look like in 6 months. Or even next week. Because I really value transparency, I wanted to lay the situation out for y'all so you can hopefully see where I’m coming from and why this is so incredibly devastating to hear about.
I invested a ton of money into making this game. More than that, it's been about five years of my life with no other projects on deck, building this game and community from the ground up. I believe in this project, and I believe in queer adult entertainment that’s inclusive and fun and sexy. I really do.
But if I get financially deplatformed, I can’t create.
Essentially, I planned to invest my own money up front, offer the base game (Amir, Mori, and Akello’s full routes) for free, and then make DLC in the form of additional character routes and charge money for those to recoup costs and eventually get me out of the hole. I hoped that people would really enjoy the base game, get a feel for my writing style and Atlas’ art, and hopefully find that a paid DLC for another character is a worthwhile purchase. Now, I’m reevaluating how I want to move forward, and I wanted y'all to be a part of that 1) because I need you to see what factors I’m dealing with and 2) I’d like to give as much of a heads up as possible if plans change.
So, right now, the game is in a state called “Early Access”. This tells players that the game is still in development, still getting updates, and generally taking player feedback/bug reports into account as development furthers. Once the game is “completed,” I was going to take it out of Early Access and into “Fully Released”.
One option I’m now considering is charging for the game once it hits that fully released state.
People who already have the game will not be affected by this at all. You’ll get the Full Release without having to pay. (Anyone who has the game in their Steam Library before the changeover will get the Full Release for free.). The Full Release won’t have significant content changes but will probably have minor bug fixes, polish, things of that nature. I’m not sure what price point I would set it at. But like most options, there are pros and cons to this- namely, I made it clear that I wanted to keep this chunk of the game free, but I’m worried that might not be possible. The benefit to structuring things this way is that I may be able to recoup some of the development costs before a potential delisting, which would essentially terminate my ability to make extra content like I’d intended.
Talking Numbers
I would like to share my budget with you so that you can see the figures I’m looking at. Again, my ultimate goal here is gaining yall’s understanding first. I know it’s disappointing to talk money and numbers when we’re all surviving out there, but things are getting dire. (Note that these numbers are general but close estimates.)
Artwork includes: Sprites, CGs, Logo Design, Menu, GUI/UX assets and implementation, other In-Game Assets, Commissions for birthday posts/special occasions, Trailers, Animations, Capsule Artwork, etc
Ads, Hosting, and Business Misc includes: Ad runs on websites like Furaffinity and Tumblr, Hosting and Domain fees, Business Name Registration, Studio Peaches logo
Custom Music includes: 6 custom-performed and recorded tracks exclusive for TCM
The game does pull in some money on the regular, and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am for my patrons, kickstarter supporters, and for my itch donors because your generosity and loyalty have helped add some stability to this situation, and I’ve gotten good at making your every dime count.
And just for transparency, here’s what the Kickstarter ended up looking like:
Now, with Kickstarter, I have to emphasize that these numbers don’t represent failure- this was pretty much what I expected going in. Kickstarter is a great way to raise awareness of projects, and in that respect, the TCM Kickstarter was very successful, even if I cut it perhaps a little closer than I had intended.
So, now you can kind of start to see where the stress is growing. Over the past five-ish years, I’ve invested close to twenty thousand dollars into this project, and although I have wonderful patrons, backers and itch donors, I’ve barely put a dent in that debt. This is what game development costs for a game of TCM’s quality. Currently, I pay Atlas commission rates for their work, but I had hoped to be able to actually employ them. I personally have never been paid for the time and labor I’ve put into this game, and I work on it about 30 hours a week, every week.
TLDR
To recap, there are several reasons I’m taking the time to write this up today:
Prepare TCM community for the possibility of changes coming to the plans going forward
Inform the community of some very alarming developments happening on gaming platforms
Help show the community just how much game development costs, and how imperative it is to find a financially viable future for this project.
Prayer circle we don’t get delisted
The bottom line is: TCM needs to make money if it is going to continue being developed. If the game gets delisted and deplatformed, I might need to make serious changes to keep this project alive. I may need to make serious changes to mitigate what’s already happening to adult games.
Things are scary out there for artists and especially for queer artists. I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for TCM and no idea how much worse things are going to get before they get better. Transparency has always been a priority for me, so definitely expect updates and announcements as things evolve and change over the coming months. Just please understand that I may have to pivot or change tact depending on what Mastercard decides is a violation of their content guidelines.
For better and for worse, nothing is set in stone today, but that does mean I’ll need to continue monitoring the situation closely, and I’ll do my best to keep everyone informed of TCM’s development with as much notice as I can.
Finally, I encourage all of you to do further research into this on your own. I encourage you to sign the petition that the ACLU has been circulating as a first step towards fighting this unfair hold payment processors have on our content. I encourage you to talk to performers excommunicated from OnlyFans and Patreon for having “objectionable” material. I encourage you to talk to Furries who were booted from Fansly for being incorrectly labelled as deviants with bestiality kinks. I especially encourage you to look into the oppressive, hateful groups pushing for this kind of artistic suppression and pressuring Visa and Mastercard to tighten (comprised largely of swerf, terf, and bog-standard conservative purity politics). Send angry emails, support your favorite creators, and cultivate safe online spaces for queer adult content.
As always, please hit me up with any questions you might have- I can be reached in all the usual places: Here on Tumblr @tricitymonsters, on discord @pockatuck or via the TCM server, or even email if you have something longer to send > [email protected]
Some source links for you:
ACLU Petition: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy
PCgamer Article Breaking the Story: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-introduces-new-rule-prohibiting-certain-kinds-of-adult-content-that-might-make-visa-or-mastercard-unhappy-financial-deplatforming-in-action/
VICE Article that was pulled that lists the groups behind the push: https://web.archive.org/web/20250719204151/https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/
In the spirit of celebrating things that spark joy and build community^, @interact-if will be running a mini-series “Writing Spotlight”, which will feature beloved IFs in 6 main categories:
Best story/narrative (Epic/Exciting)
Best story/narrative (Cozy/contemplative)
Best world/setting
Best character
Most memorable choice/branch
How this works
Under each of these categories, vote for an IF (can be completed/WIP), either by: leaving a comment on this post, sending in an ask, or filling out this form.*
*Do include at least a sentence on why you’re voting for that IF / things you loved that made you vote for it). These lines will be compiled and I’m sure they’ll bring a little ray of sunshine to these authors.
If you’re leaving a comment or ask, do clearly state which category you’re casting a vote for (you can vote in multiple categories, but try to stick to 1-2 IFs in each category if possible)!
Do refrain from voting twice in the same category please, this is done in good fun :)
After voting closes
Do send in your by 27 April, and will be tallying the votes and reaching out to winning authors** in each category to do a small interview feature, in the hopes of uncovering some tips/tricks/advice on their techniques and writing process (especially in relation to their strengths e.g. world-building, character arcs etc.)
**I might have to see how this works out, some authors are a little more difficult to contact, but I’ll try.
Again, I hope this will all generate some positivity and love, plus maybe uncover some of the behind-the-scenes techniques/process behind the wonderful IFs that we love and talk about a lot! <3
^Especially in this turbulent time of Trump fuckery…
Last but not least, if you’d like to see any other categories featured in the next iteration, or if you have ideas for specific questions to include in the interviews with these authors, feel free to drop a message or a comment!
Looking forward to the responses, and hopefully this will be fun for everyone! :)
Surprise! Tumblr just got turned into an epic fantasy RPG, just like [your favorite appropriate media franchise]. And the Tumblr RPG's plot needs to have all of its characters covered, in roles both large and small.
That means that you are assigned to a stereotypical RPG role inside our new fantasy world. Spin this wheel to find out what you are now doing for a living.
How well suited are you for your new role?
Noooooo this doesn't sound fun :(
Not what I would have picked for myself, but... I'll make it work
while we're at it, please check out dashingdon's ko-fi page -- he's been running those servers on his own for almost a decade, so please show him some love, donate if you can, and say thanks!
I have a small update! I made a lot of small changes to the past choicescript draft. I'll still be working on rewriting the rest of the chapter today, so it's possible I might have another update up later! I also tested it on mobile and it works pretty well for me, but if there's any glitches I find I'll fix them ASAP. I know Alastair & Viktoria seem pretty unlikeable at first, but I'm sure you'll end up loving them. Viktoria and El are the characters I've enjoyed writing the most!! I'm really excited to rewrite meeting El in the next chapter. 🤭
With the public release of this new chapter we’re continuing with the Crown's development as a monarch, while romance and courtly intrigue build further:
Friendship scenes to deepen your Crown's relationship with the other characters outside of your main love interest
Diverging paths depending on whether you chose to meet the peri trader in disguise, or arrange a meeting with Kham instead
Within those diverging paths, you will make further decisions on how to handle the peri trader and/or Kham, with big consequences for future chapters
Romance specific scenes, of course, with your chosen love interest!
A and R both have very different scenes for their high romance and low romance routes! D and X romancers are in the clear... for now
If you find any coding errors, typos, pronoun mistakes and such while playing, you can report those through this form! Thank you for all your patience and support, I hope you enjoy the new chapter with the nearing end of 2024 💖
For those that are unfamiliar with the game
A Tale of Crowns is a high fantasy romance story, told in the form of a text-based interactive novel with choice mechanics. The setting is inspired by Kurdish culture as well as other historical settings in the Middle East such as Ancient Persia, but it also draws heavily from other cultures and countries in the region.
Your character is native to Arsur, a vast empire overseen by a single ruler known as the Crown. Unlike traditional monarchies, however, the title is not inherited through blood. Whenever the Crown dies, their famed golden eyes pass on to the one chosen by the Spirits of this world to be the new Crown. In this story, your MC takes on that role.
There are four different love interests to choose from, whose genders will be customized to suit the preferences of your Crown. You can find more info about them on the blog page!
Also note that this current version of the game is safe for those 16 years and older.
Like the premise so far? Play it and give it a try! The entire game is free!
If you enjoyed the game, please reblog! Share it with your friends! Recognition and reader interaction is just about the only thing I get in return for creating it ❤️
This is basically college, huh...?· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·At a barbecue to cap the end of their second Spring Semester, the player and th
Finals are hell but some chance encounters might help smooth the stress over. Enjoy the last bit of Spring as a College Sophomore in this amare, slice-of-life visual novel!
💐 Keyframes: Summer Kickstarter Page 💐
[ ◉ ¯]
Hoooo boy! The kickstarter is finally live! Woo!
I've been trying to think of something sentimental to say since this is a bit of a monumental milestone-- even if it is just the start of the campaign ^^,-- but the nerves, haha they're making it really hard to wax poetics right now.
So I'll just say this straight up! On behalf of the team, thank you for being here with us! The fanarts, the love notes in our inboxes, the theories (oh my god the theories ahsdlkasdh)-- everything that came out of your sincere support and passion for Keyframes thus far has uplifted us like no other! So even if the next 30 days is unbeknownst to us all, thank you for giving us the energy to start this campaign optimistically.
Your friendly student body president is here to remind you that our Kickstarter for Keyframes is set to launch in two weeks!
For the next fortnight (hah) we will be dropping teasers of the merch for the KS, and some really cool art collabs from artists that the team looks up to. Assss well as a little something something with a dope indie studio.
If you have any questions about the KS, don't hesitate to drop it in our inbox andddd we'll get to answering those as soon as we can!
Otherwise, look forward to the upcoming days with us!
I have to ask that you please start from a new save as new variables and choices have been added to the first update. Edits include:
Minor changes to the character creator (to the anon who asked for skin details to be added, I decided not to add those as I felt it can be left up to imagination and the variable wouldn't really end up being used often, and I can always include that in a cycle choice later if wanted)
Minor edits to Farah's scene, including new choices
The update adds approximately 60,000 words, upping the total to about 81,000 words. In this update, you can:
Listen to your attendants bicker (and silently applaud Samira for her reservation in not murdering your retainer)
Speak to your sibling, Nour
Get to know your retainer, Aurynn (and bully him)
Get to know your acolyte, Samira
Reconcile with your little sister, Farah
Again, this is my first IF, so I appreciate any constructive criticism, feedback, and suggestions to help improve my game. This is currently a work in progress, so some features are not yet implemented or are subject to change. Please let me know if you find any bugs, errors, or spelling/grammatical mistakes I missed by commenting on itch.io or messaging me on tumblr.
Before reporting a bug 🐛🐜🐞, please ensure you are on a new save.
Well, at least it's the night here. The update has come!
This one, coming in at ~67,000 words, continues Chapter 2, taking us very close to the end--but not quite. If you play, you'll see why, and perhaps curse me for my tendency for cliffhangers haha.
If I'm right, this is the biggest update so far, and it's taken a whiiiiile. It shouldn't have taken as long as it did, and I'm confident my next updates won't take nearly as long.
Even still, I'm sorry to say this isn't a wholly complete update. There will be sections missing, such as much of Sam's gift-showing path when you visit his home (sorry! I just got too focused on other things and didn't want to half-implement the scenes. Next update, for sure!) and many of the fair events. I hope this at least encourages some replaying when the time comes, as you'll need to do with this update.
Also included are some small tweaks to the prologue (again, I love tweaking. It's a curse) and various grammar/writing tweaks to the rest of the game. Of course, bugs and other errors are liable to appear in the new content, and I'd really appreciate if you could point those out to me, either in DMs or by other means, such as in the Bladeweaver Discord in our bug reporting threads! The discord link is in my intro post, for anybody curious.
I'd also like to give myself a little round of applause for Bladeweaver hitting 20,000 plays on itch! That's 20,000 more plays than I was really hoping for haha.
I normally put a little summary of what you can expect to find in my updates, but have opted to leave that out for this one.
✦ LOST IN LIMBO — A DARK FANTASY ROMANCE VISUAL NOVEL KICKSTARTER IS NOW LIVE!
Lost in Limbo, our +17 dark fantasy romance visual novel, is now live on Kickstarter!
When you finally quit your dead-end job and move back to your mother's house in the ever-peaceful town of Faybourne, you think things could only get better. However, the moment you set foot in your childhood home, a harrowing nightmare long forgotten appears to haunt you once more.
A tower that crumbles in the vastness of a bleeding sky. A voice that mourns and yearns for something.
Torn away from your peaceful life and thrown into a world of danger and deceit, you are at the mercy of the Seven Sovereigns of Limbo. Navigate the Realm Between as it faces an impending cataclysm that threatens to swallow you and those you love whole.
As the consequences of a plan set in motion long ago start to unveil, will love be the key to your freedom, or the first chapter of your downfall?
We have some amazing stretch goals, like a Switch Port, two unlockable new routes, and +18 NSFW chapters! Please consider supporting us if you enjoyed our demo!
Reposting the housekeeping bits and pieces from before:
I will try my best, but I cannot guarantee save file compatibility between demo versions.
There is currently no music or sound.
The demo does not represent the finished quality of the game/story.
More routes will become available in future updates, but some won't be available until the full release.
I'll be using Itch.io's '$0 or donate' setting for the demo. This means you can donate money if you want to, but you don't have to in order to access the demo.
Now I'm going to go and lie in a darkened room for the next few hours, and try not to constantly refresh my internet.
✨LOST IN LIMBO'S DEMO IS LIVE NOW! LINKS BELOW! ⬇️ [Shares are appreciated!]🔁
Face the nightmares of your childhood and unveil the truth behind your summoning to the realm of Limbo. Fight your way back home with the help of seven deities sworn to be your protectors. Will love be the key to your freedom, or the first chapter of your downfall?
✦ OUR DEMO FEATURES
Seven love interests ranging in age from 21 to 52 years old
The first version of Lost in Limbo's prologue
Customizable first name, last name and pronouns of the MC (she/her, he/him, they/them) or use a default name; River Winchester.
Over ~42k words (around three hours of gameplay)
Animated backgrounds!
Partial voice acting
Seven CGs (one per character) + mini-CGs to enhance the experience!
The time has come! Our Steam page is ready for the world to see, featuring a small teaser trailer as a treat! ✨💜 This is such a huge step for us, and we've worked super hard to make it possible! ; v ;
Wishlists help us make our game more visible, as well as aid us in our task of keeping track of interest, so please consider wishlisting Lost in Limbo if you want to support us!
And yes, you've read correctly;
🎉OUR DEMO IS COMING NEXT MONTH, AUGUST 2024!🎉
We can't announce a day yet, but you'll know very very soon. In the meantime, thank you so so much for your support from the very beginning—the first finish line is right there, and we are sprinting towards it! 💜
With the summer heat rolling in I really wanted to take a moment and highlight a program I am a big fan of, A.N.E.
"Adopt-A-Native-Elder (A.N.E.) serves to help reduce extreme poverty and hardship facing traditional Elders living on the Navajo Reservation. A.N.E. is a trusted humanitarian organization focused on delivering food, medical supplies, firewood and other forms of Elder support. Respecting the tradition and dignity of Navajo Elders, we create relationships and honor and serve the Elders.
The Program is organized in the Native American Spirit of the Giveaway Circle. The Giveaway Circle has a tradition of giving the best that we have. That may be a gift of time, talents or skills, or actual gifts of food and donations. When asked what the boxes of food meant to her, Ruth Benally explained that they were like "miracles from the sky." The miracle is the letters and gifts that arrive from people that they don't know and may never meet.
For over 30 years, Adopt-A-Native-Elder has used an integrated approach to go beyond charity to assist indigent Elders on the Navajo Reservation in Utah and Arizona."
A.N.E also puts on an annual rug show & sale, you can read about last years here. Apart from their annual events they also host an online shop where you can buy jewelry, woven baskets, and elder made rugs. All proceeds go towards providing support for our elders be it food, medical assistance, firewood, weaving supplies and so much more.
Not in the market for beautifully made Indigenous crafts? Well they also accept general donations, buy specific items for elders in need, food certificate sponsors, rug show sponsors, and of course adopting an elder.
Adopt a Native Elder Website, Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter
Chameleon Tea @chameleontea - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag