To be honest, if that's the impression you got, I apologise for wording it really poorly. It's not a matter of not being confident - we're not totally clueless and asking here for somebody to hold our hand throughout the entire process. This is just the ideal of having at least one person on the team like that, to ensure that there are no mistakes. My thought process in saying this wasn't that we weren't confident. It was similar to what I told Rinima earlier: it'd be better to have a good gender balance on a team working on a game with so many female characters.wererat42 wrote:Here's the thing; when you made a comment like this, it really got me wondering why you would want to pick the setting if you weren't confident enough to write about it that you would ask other people.
I'm sorry that I worded it so poorly that you got the impression that we're not confident, or completely clueless. We're asking for help to make 100% sure the final product is good - and I don't think that's a sign of weakness now... is it?
An element that would at least stick out more if the game was set in Sweden, for example. I've been advised not to give it away this early as a spoiler, but I can tell you it's an element borrowed/inspired from an old 1986 OVA I saw on YouTube, and it feels rather "out of place" when I try to imagine it transposed to another setting.You say that your most compelling reason was "why not" but then say that there is an element that wouldn't make sense if it wasn't Japan?
Are you referring to the shrine maiden character?
Nope.
How much do you know about Shinto?
I've read about it quite a bit, so I consider this an opportunity to learn more about it and go into further detail.
Is this aspect of the character completely necessary or something that cannot be changed to fit a different setting?
I don't think Abrahamic religions, for instance, would have the right "feel" for the story.
And part of what gave me the idea to try that was a sort of frustration about how many anime/manga/VNs I've encountered that rely on Abrahamic symbolism and so on that I simply don't care about, so I thought if Japanese entertainment can use Abrahamic religions as elements, I could try doing the opposite.
No, we strive to make our characters rounded and believable, not just cheap stereotypes.Will the character just be a stereotypical imitation of what you assume a shrine maiden is as represented in anime/manga?
(Whether we succeed is of course up to the reader.)
No, don't worry, it's not harsh, it's actually a valid point, and I regret that I couldn't come up with a good enough answer to address it. All I can tell you is that it absolutely not in our plan. This is a project we're doing for fun, we don't want to insult or harm anyone.I'm sorry if my response comes off as harsh, but looking at this from a Postcolonial point of view, are you planning to create a story set in Japan that we as English-speaking westerners perceive based on preconceived notions derived from media?
As for the preconceived notions, well, we're not actually gonna bring them up that much - I mean, yes, I did joke about the whole "do not attempt drinking game of taking a shot every time you see an anime cliché", but we'll try our best to actually comment on or poke fun at those clichés. We're familliar with those preconceived notions because we all like Japanese pop culture/media, so there's no harmful intentions here. But I realise that you probably won't just accept that claim at face value, until we actually have something concrete to show for our efforts.
