i havent played Boyfriend Dungeon nor do i play dating sims but
that doesn’t stop me from having a fully formed opinion on the matter!
the trigger warning stalking incident sounds like a classic case of betraying expectations.
reminds me of stuff Chris Zukowski has said at GDC talks
video games “Promise” to “Deliver” a certain experience.
Genre, Name, Key Art, Screenshots, and even UI all telegraph that experience.
if a game breaks it’s “Promise” or fails to “Deliver” players will generally feel betrayed.
Boyfriend Dungeon is an aesthetically pleasing, cute, queer coded, narrative driven game.
real life danger of stalking and emotional manipulation breaks it’s “Promise” of being cute and safe.
unfortunately, not sure any amount of editing of the Content Warning will remedy this,
as everything about the game is telegraphing the opposite of the real life danger.
best solution may be celeste style fine-tuned menu checkbox.
as developers we want to subvert expectations and hate being boxed into a genre.
as humans we love to categorize and classify things.
as consumers we need genres to browse a curated experience.
