itch.io

Hello! Thank you again for the response.

I always find game design discussion interesting and energizing, never frustrating. The presence of a game does not equal the absence of another; I want more games about all sorts of things!

Thank you so much for sharing! I love the idea of an alien family tree, as I do like SF a lot, and I would love to see more 'Roottree'-likes that map relationships beyond genetics. I also love the SF you mention; I adore truly non-human aliens and non-human fantasy cultures too. I think, too, (nor do I think you were implying this) that we do not need to reach for nonhuman people to have different takes on family. The stories of Le Guin always stood out to me, such as in her 'A Fisherman of the Inland Sea', in terms of thinking about different possibilities for human relationships. 

I certainly understand the need to scope with familiarity for any context including a jam. My own prototypes for my conlang game-in-development have had issues of onboarding, where I want to avoid infodumping, but also have to convey context. One needs to convey less context if one assumes shared familiarity with the player, but I want to write stories with less familiarity... I think that I will take a leaf from your book and scope smaller at first just so I can publish something (I have mainly shared amongst friends so far), then build up from there.

I loved the bloodline aspect for gameplay! I especially loved that we had the rules for succession at the very start and then had to implement them at the end. I did enjoy that the rules for succession didn't follow typical Western European ones, and I appreciated the cultural aspects such as epithets. If it means anything, I did understand that you (as the creator) presumably did not think well of monarchy as governance or of only genetic relationships having value. I read it as "unfortunate implications".

(I would also love to see the everyday lives of people in this world. The "twist" of their nature in relation to "us" delighted me!)

It makes me utterly heartened to hear that we will be meeting more groups with different perspectives. The player's role in this story certainly forms a tricky part to consider. For example, if I were developing this game, I might consider adding a means by which to reduce the influence of bloodline or even of monarchy... *but* such a thing would also carry the unfortunate implication of the "foreigner from a dominant position" dictating the future of a sovereign people. If we were playing a Trevosan, this would have a different implication, although then the whole story with its twist and language would not work. Meditating on this makes me more affirmed about my desire to establish premises not about gods, kings, or empires in the first place. (I don't mean to imply anything about Archives with that statement, just that I don't envy the position of having to consider it more carefully). Thank you for looking more closely at your work and pondering how to address it, whatever comes next.

I hope that my comment hasn't made you concerned that others think less positively of your games than they seem to do. Many players do not mind as much in fiction. Furthermore, my love for your games and their mechanics remains just as strong and true as my critique. My critiques do not take away from my love or enjoyment, nor vice versa. Both remain true at once.

Thank you so much for inspiring me and making me see the possibilities. I hope to someday demonstrate it, and hopefully get hit with critique and feedback, too, so that I can improve. I know my writing and mechanics will overflow with unfortunate implications that I haven't even realised yet. But, it heartens me that, collectively, enough people care about one another and about doing right that we can teach and learn from each other about how to create more thoughtful works.

Hello! Thank you so much for all of your amazing games! Your deduction games (specifically the Archives game I mentioned, the dungeon descent 'Her Story'-like, and the My Friends, the Monster Tamers) have inspired me greatly, and I have adored playing through them. I actually check on JamWitch regularly to see whether you have uploaded because I love the experiences that you create. It means so much to me that you read this.

I loved the inventive use of mechanics in Archives and the decision not to permit a dictionary but rather to allow the player to intuit and really grok the Trevosan tongue. I hope that my sincere appreciation of the values for diversity which I clearly saw in your game came across. I also stand by the implications of the mechanics. I appreciated how the patterns used in the words (such as gender) permitted comprehension when new words arose, although I wish that the patterns didn't so clearly and obviously evoke Romance languages.

When the initial opening explained that it would not translate unique cultural concepts, I became unreasonably excited and then somewhat sad to recognise that, aside from the "defender/guardian/protector" concept (akin to the "bodyguard raised as a playmate" mixed with a "godparent"), the concepts did not actually seem untranslatable at all. But, I didn't mind that, as it still required English only speakers to expand their concepts of what single words could encompass. Nonetheless, it surprised and saddened me to see even a game inclusive of nonbinary people, from a developer who struck me as supportive of same-gender relationships, emphasize bloodlines, include a subplot about a child-by-adoption leading to an illegitimate lineage, and focus on "restoring" a rightful heir. I understand, of course, that all of the bloodline emphasis and such stems from the culture depicted in the game. Nonetheless, given that the narrative depicts the "rightful heir" as having an unfortunate and unfair life, it certainly feels as though the narrative "intends" to agree about the restoration.

As much as I loved My Friends, the Monster Tamers for its perspective of the monster raising genre from the unique viewpoint of someone who cannot become a trainer, I found dungeon descent (about kings and gods) and Archives (about kings and bloodlines) much less compelling narratively. 

From a gameplay perspective, I found the mixture of mechanics used in Archives very impressive. It gave me many ideas for my own game, in terms of considering how people can comprehend words from context. I have also learned so much from mechanics of dungeon descent (such as showing a small amount of information even if one doesn't have enough to unlock the full image/event). Thank you for pushing the boundaries of narrative deduction. I hope to someday show my work in this space too.

But yes, players like myself and others with whom I speak very much care about the mechanics, the implications, and the junction of culture and language.

Thank you again for commenting!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply to this manifesto! I appreciate that you read it despite not having personal interest. I, too, love reading about topics outside of my interests. It expands my brain.

I love seeing how languages, dialects, and even niche groups within that associate different things. Humans and sentient beings draw endlessly inventive comparisons and contrasts, and then their language or slang reflect these. I love communication.

>"The fantasy of the game is that a community of people all are aligned in kindness, but disagree or need growth and learning about how to build a better community. The core of the narrative art is about trying to fix a community that relied on one benevolent person holding it, and when that person burned out, they're left floundering. So instead of the protag coming in and taking over that role, they have to help everyone through their own arcs of discovering working as a community. The conversations I feel comfortable in are the ones I have in real life, about how like for example, me and my friends are all levels of disabled and mentally ill, neurodivergent, so we can't all be exchanging equal labor, sometimes we have to unconditionally lift people up (sometimes forever, and not just a limited time), and that also someone helping doesn't have to be physical labor, it can even be just being kind, and this is built on trust that everyone is trying their best."

You know, I really love the ethos of this game. I love that you are subverting Great Man Theory and that you are focusing on building sustainable links in the community rather than a community relying on a single rock. I have seen that dynamic play out so many times myself. I think that such a theme could really resonate and help the players.

I also love the theme that we can't all be exchanging equal labour. I love that community includes unconditionally lifting people up, sometimes forever, and this being okay, rather than community relying on everyone pitching in equally. I love that help doesn't have to be physical. I love that the help is built on trust that everyone is trying their best. I love these themes, and it makes me so happy that you are making this game. Thank you for doing so.

>"So yeah I think regardless of specifics, the ethos is always to ask myself why I'm putting a feature in, can it be done another way?"

Yes! I am going to talk about some ways that I have thought about how I could implement expansion of items without invoking wealth accumulation. I would love feedback on these mechanics, because I am still working through them and have scrapped many iterations of these mechanics.

0. Even if the protagonist lives in a society where wealth exists, one does not actually have to implement a wealth counter with an amount of money which the player can then spend. We could block rewarding wealth accumulation in a game set within capitalism just by Not Including A Number That Goes Up, and instead finding alternative mechanics to gradually increase the decorating pool.

1. One system can involve the gradual expansion of available items through connections to characters. For example, as the protagonist grows closer to or helps out character A, character A provides the protagonist with decoration items (or ingredients, or whatever). This rewards the player for caring about the NPCs and ties directly into the gameplay loop. However, this also creates a transactional system, where the player could see the NPC emotional beats as fancy gates for more decorations/ingredients/etc. This threatens to commodify friendship, or to claim that friendship only matters if the friend can provide material benefit. One could combat this by including NPCs whose relationships do not provide any kind of material benefit and set them equally to NPC relationships which do provide material benefit, which could go hand-in-hand with the idea that not everyone can provide equal labour, but everyone can still have close and important relationships regardless of labour provided. Additionally, one can frame the decorations/ingredients/etc. as that the NPC would have provided these all along, but was unable to do so earlier due to depression/time constraints/etc. which the protagonist helps with, either physically or emotionally.

2. One system can involve replacing wealth accumulation with a Number Goes Up of some sort of more palatable value, such as an abstracted social capital or "favour" system, which one then "cashes in" to obtain goods. While this theoretically promotes a positive value (you are engaging in a mutual aid network by aiding others and then requesting aid in turn), it commodifies aid and relationships more directly. Crucially, it undercuts the concept of not having to provide equal labour, as one can only request aid by aiding others in the first place. The player could at least select a reward and gradually work towards it.

3. One system could involve a global "trust score". As the player progresses in the game, and characters/the community learn to trust in one another and in the protagonist more, the player could gain access to more ingredients/decorations/whatever without having to pursue or commodify specific relationships. The player could still have a say in which items to unlock next, perhaps by requesting specific items. For example, a merchant or trader character could occasionally go to stock on goods and ask the player which goods they would like, whereupon the player can make a limited number of requests based on their overall trust score. The selection of items can also expand over time. This way, just as in 2, the player can select a reward and gradually work towards it.

4. Suppose for a system that the system did not involve money whatsoever, and people can simply request things from other people. This scenario could play out similarly to 1, 2, or 3 above. Alternatively, the player character could just be able to request aid, but in a time-limited fashion. For example, perhaps a society without money would allow people to just ask for things, but to have a wait list so that the requested individual can complete tasks on their schedule. The player might request one item or set of items, then have to wait some in-game time to receive the item, whereupon they could request another item or set of items, perhaps with a time gap to showcase the labourer working on other projects. For example, in a café game, perhaps they can put in one request to a certain character each week, and then receive the item by the end of the week, then have to work the interim days. They might do this simultaneously with multiple labourers. This would most closely match the idea of not everyone having to contribute equally, because the player would simply have to request and then wait. However, this might make the gameplay less satisfying, because this occurs automatically without "rewarding" the player's efforts, and because the player cannot "save up" for their chosen purchase. On the other hand, this might actually positively rewire the player's brain, because the player could then focus on more holistic "rewards" of making NPCs happy without their happiness giving the player material gifts, and because the player could recognise that they are allowed to want things even if they do not "contribute". For example, the developer could add an arc where the protagonist stops running the café for several weeks, but the labourer still takes the protagonist's requests. The protagonist might even feel bad and ask the labourer why the labourer would perform labour for the protagonist even though the protagonist was not running the café, and the labourer might reply with the theme about unequal labour and about uplifting one another, temporarily or indefinitely, and that they would continue to fulfill requests (within their capacity to do so sustainably) even if the protagonist never worked again. Indeed, disconnecting the decoration rewards from the protagonist's efforts could actually directly support the game's themes in this way.

Although I gave the example of a weekly gift, the game could instead have different gifts/decorative items require different numbers of days to complete. A small gift could take a single day, while a large gift could take a week. Thus, players could still meaningfully choose between different types of items. However, this would necessarily include a delay between "selecting the item" and "receiving the item". Maybe that has merit, though?

→ I played Kemono Tea Time, which included both a money mechanic (purchasing ingredients from a pastry supplier) and a time-based gift mechanic (receiving 1 chosen ingredient each day from a tea supplier). I disliked the time-based gift mechanic, but, on reflection, I disliked the RNG mechanic of savescumming the gift rather than the (in-game) daily gift itself. If I could freely choose the gift from a list, or if the game did not punish me for picking the "wrong" gift, I would enjoy the opportunity to expand my tea selection by one each day, without any money involved.

In my game, I currently have some ingredients unlock or lock automatically as the story progresses and events outside of the player's control occur. I also have some ingredients or cooking methods unlock due to the player fulfilling subquests. Not all characters unlock anything. Some characters, when their requests or subquests fulfill, then supply the player with thematically appropriate ingredient(s) or cooking methods. Other times, the player gets to choose between a selection. Some of these subquests lead to one another. For instance, a subquest about cooking a food from another land leads the player down a series of subquests gradually learning about ingredients and cooking methods used in the other land. A subquest involving a vegan character leads the player down a series of subquests about ingredient substitutions and recreating flavours or textures, as well as simply valuing other flavours and textures instead of the ones valued by dominant society.

With respect to the decorations question, I like 4 most of all due to how it changes the player's thematic approach to the game. Players tend to walk into video games expecting to put in effort to receive rewards. Having the game outright decouple effort and rewards, but still incentivize effort through alternative reward such as "human interaction", may help players break the fascist ideals that they must work in order to be "deserving" of support.

Many other ideas surely exist, too. I would love to hear your thoughts.

>"Differentiate the things that I have in there to comment on, and the things in there as idealist examples. There's a lot of discussion I love about allegorical consistency in art. Like a big example being those clunky racial allegories with animals, like okay we're talking about race when the carnivores are discriminated against, but are we also talking about race when the… carnivores factually eat other people???"

Oh, I agree with this greatly. I think about this a lot. Alternatively: fantasy discrimination against magic, but then they show the magic as objectively unstable/violent in ways that real-life marginalised people are not!

>"So yeah, in my game, if I have idealized systems elsewhere, how do I communicate what isn't meant to be shown as ideal. Even if we don't have money, there will be some method of exchange, items from the real world, developed towns, so it'll all need that lens at some level."

I agree with this.

>"I'm certainly more comfortable figuring that out with things I have lived experience in, like how even in my pro ND spaces, we can accidentally oppress each other."

Yes. I think that, even in the most luxury automated space communism, people will accidentally hurt, exclude, and oppress one another. Even if everyone could have everything without any money, these themes would and will exist. 

>"Another part is that I think it's okay for there to be things safe to do in games that aren't good to do irl. Like I think if all of society agreed we don't get to cut down all the trees, but there was like, a tree cutting simulator, that would actually be a really good way to get to experience that without the harm."

Yes, I agree. For example, a game where the player jumps into lava and dies does not actually endorse the person jumping into lava in real-life. Games can provide simulations of harmful experiences in safe ways, where the player can turn it off at any time. In a society where people agree that we don't cut down all the trees, I think that people would benefit from having video games in which one can cut down all the trees and see the impact. We can let people experience inflicting violence and having violence inflicted on them safely in fiction. I would just want that experience to make clear, in some way, the badness of the violence in question.

Satire should take care not to make the satired people believe that they are in good company. A game which provides a satire on or commentary against csa, for example, but which gains an audience amongst people who unironically want to commit csa, has failed.

On a more fundamental level, whimsy can exist. Growing a flower by pouring root beer into the pot would harm it, but growing a cartoon flower with glasses by pouring root beer into the pot wouldn't be propagating a harmful value.

>"It's more about how the narrative frames it, and I agree that a huge issue is that cozy sim games have a narrative issue differentiating what is a thing we want to reflect about an ideal world, and what is something we are creating a space to do without harm, even though we all know it's harmful."

I agree with that.

>"And the diff is probs relating to us knowing it's harmful."

Interesting. I can see that. In my earlier example about root beer, I did make the assumption that the player will know that we ought not to actually water a plant with root beer, but perhaps I am assuming there as well.

>"No one cares much that in my first game you can take a bear cub and keep it in your cat cafe, because we all feel safe knowing most cozy games know that stealing exotic animal babies is bad. But I can really understand the feeling seeing a game feature encouraging a practice that we don't actually feel safe assuming everyone knows is bad."

Right, I agree with that. So much anti-capitalist fiction just involves being the billionaire that I do not feel safe assuming that everyone knows being the billionaire is bad.

>"I do think there's different parts of this that differ between are usual ethical quandies for any game, and what is required consideration for a cozy game. I do think there's added baggage that whatever you show will be assumed to be part of the cozy factor, I haven't entirely solved this for the marketing side yet."

Interesting. Yes, I can see what you mean. I think that players can generally comprehend this, especially when the marketing makes clear that things will change. For instance, a lot of fiction has the protagonist start in the role of the evil empire, then understand the "truth" about what they have been taught, then defect. People do not generally accuse such narratives of fascism, in my experience, unless the narratives have other issues.

But, in a world of bad faith takes, I can understand the anxiety and how people might play the first hour of your game and then trash it forever.

>"Especially given we have an arc where the player discovers the initial concept of taking over the other person's role taking care of everyone on their own is hugely flawed. So I think one of the biggest things is communicating that difference to the player."

That makes a lot of sense. I think that even just showing any kind of initial hesitation or doubt can go a long way. For instance, in my game, the protagonist initially has ignorance of dietary restrictions and such and acts dismissively towards them, but I work to provide enough doubt in the dialogue to make sure to the player immediately that the protagonist will undergo development on the matter. As for marketing, even something like, [Revolutionary Girl Utena shadow puppet voice] "But is that really such a good idea?" in the trailer can communicate the difference without giving it all away.

>"I don't have a good solution yet for that, but is important for me to think over."

I am also always trying to think of solutions.

>"Okay gunna try to find an endpoint bc I could discuss forever. Ultimately, I'd love the dev community to get further in the weeds like this."

Me too! And I have loved the chance to really think about mechanics.

>"To me personally, I feel most of the cozy dev community are already aligned on wanting to do better about these things, but ultimately failing for one reason or another. Generally for all games, we run into issues getting stuck with the established grammar of games, and the immense challenge of matching narrative with gameplay."

I agree. Challenging conventions requires much more effort on the part of both the developer and the player. Shared, established grammar exists for a reason. But, those reasons don't always align with our values.

>"I haven't played any cozy games in a long time that wasn't trying to send a good message, though I've played plenty that tried and contradicted themselves further down the line of development."

I have played cozy games that tried to send some good messages but also some bad messages. I can give many examples where I genuinely think that the developers' intentions, although good from the developers' perspective, would not align with my/your values as espoused.

But I have also played many, many, many cozy games that clearly tried to send good messages and then contradicted themselves!

>"So yeah, I hugely agree there's good crit, and I did see a lot of good crit in your writing!!"

I see a lot of good crit in your writing too, and very good points!

>"I should probably start just ignoring what I deem more shallow dives into the topic, and focus my time on having these more nuanced discussions."

Honestly? A great idea. I just ignore people who think that humans are the masters of nature, because I am not going to readily convince them. But I can engage with the person who thinks that humanity should just die because all of humanity destroys nature, because I can find common ground and work to gently help that person free of their settler-colonialist mindset.

>"Next manifesto jam I think I'll try to make my own actual genre critique, instead of defense. I want to carve out time to actually do what I suggested in gathering some good specific examples and details."

Wow, I absolutely love that. I would love to read that! I really would. I think that it would enhance my experience and game development thinking so much. I would also love to see a defense of the genre which provides a variety of positive examples of mechanics which go against genre conventions to cease propagating these values, as a toolbox and springboard for future developers.

>"I genuinely love this convo, and it very literally spurned good conversation with my own team on the current decisions we have to make soon. I'm definitely going to have to get some books and really get a stronger foundation for the economic part. Sorry for talking in circles, and thank you soooo much for the discussion"

Thank you so much for the discussion too. It makes me so fucking happy, genuinely happy, to hear that it spurred good discussion! I am actually going to be following the development of your game because I love the themes that you have espoused and cannot wait to see how you choose to move forward with these mechanics. Even if/when you "fail" in some ways (just as I will fail in some ways with my own games!), the effort of trying to do better will yield wonder and love.

Nothing to apologise for! Thank you!

>"I completely agree with your thoughts on why you want to make a game wholly removed from the issues we live with right now. I think you're accurate in how you would create a game that idealizes what could be! My disagreement is that all cozy games should go that direction."

Yes, to clarify what I mean: as I said above, I do not think that a game has to exist completely outside of reality.

A game which includes racism does not necessarily portray racism as a desirable end goal. A game which includes money does not necessarily portray wealth accumulation as a desirable end goal. However, many games which include money do portray wealth accumulation as a desirable end goal. I view this as bad, in the same way that I would view a game that portrayed racism as a desirable end goal as bad.

>"I think it's important for hopeful content to have a diversity of range in what parts they imagine better. Like, sometimes I need art that shows me what a perfect system/dynamic/relationship is. Sometimes I need art that shows me how to survive in the life I'm living or this exact day and these exact decisions. There's also absolutely times in my life when either of those would hit better or worse."

I agree with this. I think that, to use the queerphobia example, I benefit from having games which do not include queerphobia whatsoever and instead show me a future where I can escape queerphobia. I also benefit from having games which confront the realities of queerphobia, while showing it as undesirable. I would not benefit from games which show queerphobia as desirable.

I want to both imagine futures and worlds where racism no longer haunts me, and also to imagine futures and worlds where racism exists (as it does now) but where the characters do not want it and fight against it. Both have meaning and value, and both hit at different times.

>"To be fair, I don't include diversity in this, and that may be contradictory. Maybe because even in the least realistically diverse places, there's still waaaaay more diversity than the average game has, but also because in all the games I can think of with it, it is NOT being used to actually talk about that topic."

I agree. I also just would not want to tell stories about non-diverse groups. I do not care. Enough other people are telling those stories that I do not need to be.

>"Like, a painful subject of reality should have a purpose."

I wholly agree.

>"Now implementation of that is definitely way trickier. For example, Pokopia's ethos is that unfortunately, humans ruined the planet and left, it's super clear that that part is objectively terrible and the narrative admonishes it. Your role (in the intended narrative), is to be someone who can fix the environment, work as a community, for all the "animals" left behind. The catharsis is in this world without humans, and being able to heal the earth. That being said, Pokopia has a LOT of issues with implementation, specifically in the housing feature, and the ability to whole ass terraform places back to cities. But I think the initial concept is a valid method of hope. But again, we're not determining what the best most ideal single game vision would be, we're considering the range of what is needed to have a real message of hope without contradicting itself. I think the worst part for me is where a character says in earnest "the humans will be so proud of us for building it back up". Like bro NOOO I did not do anything for those guys, I wanted squirtle to have wetlands again! One point in it's favor is that it has various pokemon saying they DON'T want the humans back, but I wish that was more common."

I agree with this. I would have loved to see more discourse on humans coming back vs. not. I also generally think that Pokopia had a problem with painting humans as a monolith. Much as in Shin Megami Tensei games, these games propagate the fascist belief that all of humanity collectively destroys the environment. This permits the relatively smaller group of people who actively choose to destroy the environment to not to feel the consequences of their decisions, because they can portray "all of humanity" as "guilty sinners".

In reality, most humans do not benefit from environmental destruction and/or actively try to fight against it, but cannot because a small group of humans sets the rules for how people can realistically interact with the world.

Humans are part of nature. A world without humans is no better than a world without bees or a world without shiitake or a world without antelopes or a world without ferns. Yes, the world can heal from the loss of any species or any ecosystem, but I do not think that humans have some uniquely evil nature. As a side note, if you like to read books, I highly recommend Pollution is Colonialism by Liboiron, a book which greatly impacted my philosophy for the better.

>"Actually I think we align via "Showing a game where capitalism exists but does not cause trauma propagates fascist values. It propagates the fascist lie that capitalism can exist without violence and suffering. "

Yes, I think that we align on this.

>"I think if we include these realities, that we should comment or subvert them. I agree that if I am playing a game, and these concepts come up unquestioned, it impacts my enjoyment of that game heavily."

Yes! We hugely align on this.

A cozy game can absolutely include capitalism, fascism, etc. and remain cozy and even comforting, as long as it does not reward the player for playing to those values.

>"I hugely agree with games being majorily white, skinny and able bodied. It's a huge huge peeve of mine given I made a diverse game and it was NOT hard. Like, making fat bodies and even a whole character creator with fat bodies was really easy, and I am faaaar from well learned in game making. I do find a lot of character creators and npc casts are becoming more diverse, though somehow STILL leave out body size diversity. It's honestly bizarre to me."

I agree with this. Thank you so much for taking the time to make a character creator which includes fat people. I, too, strive to include fat people in my games and to radically demonstrate love for the fat body. As I mentioned, in my cooking game, I plan to have a character whose happiness goes hand-inhand with their fatness. I have been prototyping how to do this without unintentionally coming across as "feeder" fetishism (fetishism/objectification dehumanises rather than humanises), but I am committed to portraying fatness not only as tolerable but even desirable and something to celebrate depending on the circumstance and the person.

"I've thought a lot about this one! I realized in a chat today with a friend, that I may be projecting my idea of cottage core on others. In my head, and in the niche of content I see, the idea is rewilding. Like, you're absolutely right that the other side of it is going to a place they deem "new" and then building a life there are using the resources. I honestly forgot that dynamic, as in my real life I normally only encounter nature lovers seeking to rewild a parking lot or wherever."

Rewilding as a concept has a lot of baggage to me, as the historical discourse surrounding rewilding has (again, historically) fetishized the concept of "making spaces uninhabited again", which also propagates the concept that some original "uninhabited space" even existed. I am going to quote from a review that I think summarises this tension quite well:

"In the 1990s, pioneers of rewilding described a bold vision of wilderness connected at the continental scale, with thriving populations of large, wild animals. Much of the resulting discourse has emphasized uninhabited places or has promoted a "hands-off" approach to environmental management. This clashes with many Indigenous (e.g., First Nations) perspectives and has made rewilding largely irrelevant to Indigenous communities, especially in colonized countries. Yet rewilding can support Indigenous community aspirations for sovereignty, health, and justice. Moreover, Indigenous communities and their traditional ecological knowledge are vital to conservation. We suggest two principles by which rewilding can align with, and support, Indigenous communities: shifting focus from wilderness to the creative agency of wild beings, and framing restoration as a collaborative endeavor between humans and wildlife. As an approach to conservation policy and practice, rewilding should seek opportunities to place Indigenous communities in leadership positions, in terms of both practical restoration and the conceptual reshaping of rewilding itself."  (https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.13090 ← I recommend reading this whole review if you have interest in this subject, as I think that any robust praxis for environmentalism must consider, acknowledge, and centre the need for anticolonialist Indigenous-supportive beliefs and actions.)

As the abstract explains, rewilding discourse now is starting to backtrack on some of its anti-Indigenous historic beliefs. A lot of rewilding discourse, especially online, still trafficks in anti-Indigenous ideas, but I have seen the discourse starting to shift.

I view anti-Indigenous rewilding as still anti-Indigenous and pro-fascist. But, I have seen Indigenous-supportive anticolonialist rewilding efforts more recently, and I support those.

I think that the vast majority of "cottagecore" content on the internet, at least what I have experienced or seen, goes to the anti-Indigenous side. I do not think that I would use the word "cottagecore" because, while we can certainly "reclaim" words, I would not want to "reclaim" a word historically used for colonialist narratives, because I would not want third-party observing Indigenous people to misunderstand me in passing.

>"The fantasy for me is meant to be subsisting on just what you and your community (community being unconditional to the rights of all humans, not chosen community) need, and leaving the rest to the beauty of nature."

I think where you and I differ stems from our concept of "the beauty of nature". I view humans as inherently part of the beauty of nature. I, of course, think that we have to practice conservation and living within nature as good neighbours, which includes limiting harvest, taking only what we need, giving back, and so on.

But I do think that, theoretically, a game could focus on rewilding using the Indigenous-supportive frameworks outlined above (or other Indigenous-supportive frameworks). I just don't think that such a game could start with a "pristine wilderness" into which the protagonist shows up, as many of these do. It would, in my mind, probably have to start with a parking lot (or whatever) that the protagonist then rewilds, including with humans.

>"Having said that I TOTALLY agree that the actual implementation contradicts that massively a lot of the time. With the pokopia example, and with a LOT of sims that let you go out and chop down as many trees and pick as many flowers as you want. Like 100% agree that's an issue. I also could be wrong assuming most people have the same "cottagecore" fantasy I have. I got very into native plant gardening recently, and the ethos of rewilding areas, which is pretty niche. I do think our art done correctly could direct someone's love of nature in that direction as opposed to "take control of nature and do whatever you want with it" thing."

I agree that art done correctly could do a lot. Honestly, this discussion fired me up. I would love to think about and work on a game that focuses on helping nature and being part of nature, rather than "taming" and "controlling" nature, a game that focuses on living rather than "number going up".

 -"Totally agree with this, I think too much anti capitalist fantasy is about being able to BE the billionaire, even if that involves being pushed to choose to do good things with that wealth. I want to see it as either "this is an example of the system we should have" or yeah like unionizing etc."

Yes! I do not want to be the billionaire, even if I get to do "good things" with that wealth. The only "good thing" a billionaire can do with wealth involves no longer being a billionaire, period.

As I said, I definitely think that anti capitalist fantasy can still include aspects of capitalism...as long as the fantasy is not asking me to directly propagate those themes. Do not ask me to commit wage-theft on employees! Do not ask me to rip off my patrons! Do not ask me to accumulate wealth!

>"I think your critique is more grounded in what the game is and fails at. The critique I usually see forgets entirely that there was a community center mechanic at all. Which tbf is also a valid critique, because when playing I also find myself forgetting that I'm getting items for the community center, because my brain sees it as a general gamified checklist. But yeah either way I agree that the intended ethos is contradicted by this one single person with this huge land making a zillion bucks and saving the town. In that way they're just benevolent big corp."

Right, I agree. The community centre mechanic intends to show the restoration of the small town, but really just plays to the fascist values of Great Man Theory. A town dependent on the benevolence of Wealth Accumulator 9000 has not freed itself from capitalism at all.

>"I completely agree that I don't want to make a game that encourages exponential wealth/economic value growth. I also don't want it to be extractive. I do believe these themes can be present in good games if really commented on well and not used unquestionably, but that requires more focus than our game would have on economic structure."

Yes, I believe that any theme can exist, if commented on well.

>"So my game is a cat/animal cafe sim. The fantasy is unfortunately really based in current reality set-up. There's a lot of parts I'm unpacking. To me, the fantasy is that I live a life where I create a space that people and animals enjoy and coexist and eat cute food. But irl, there's issues with the exploitation of animals (irl some few places work hard on this, acting more as an interactable cat shelter so I have some examples of that), and all the economic baggage of cafes and consumerism."

Interesting. I have not thought about the ethics of exploitation of animals. I appreciate you bringing this up, because I have actually used animal cafés in my own works before positively, such as snake cafés. I never stopped to think about animal exploitation. Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention. I love that you are working on this and on how to bring about the coziness of a "space where people and animals can exist and eat cute food", while thoughtfully considering the animals' welfare.

>"I could definitely remove currency, but my main issue is on how to create gameplay that rewards engaging with the game mechanics with more game or creative options. The main issue is that for a decoration game, you need items, and generally you need a gradual increase of those item options. That means somehow acquiring those items, generally from shops. A barter system is possible, but unsure if that solves the issue."

I have actually come across a similar issue in my game. As I mentioned, my game involves running a soup stall in a non-capitalist society where everyone works for a few hours a day. How do I go about increasing the options for ingredients? Or, if I want to include decorating the shop itself (which I have had requests for), how will I do so in a method that does not require wealth accumulation?

In this case, I have thought about a couple of different ways that I could include this, even without a barter system, which does not actually resolve the issue of wealth accumulation. A barter system can still endorse wealth accumulation. Fascist societies can exist without money. Communist societies could have money. The issue stems from wealth accumulation.

I will discuss my thoughts on resolving this momentarily.

>"So my challenge I think is at what stage of that concept I need in order to send the messages while fulfilling a healthy fantasy. Commerce and exchange do exist in non capitalist and pre colonial forms of economy,"

I agree. Commerce and exchange can form parts of healthy societies. At a very basic level, Community A trading goods with Community B means that both communities get to enjoy a wider variety of experiences. Indeed, this can occur without any need for wealth accumulation.

>"but very honestly, I NEED to and plan to do some more specific reading on what structures exist or have been theorized. I am a college dropout and woefully unread on the material details beyond the ethical and philosophical concepts."

Me too. I have done so much reading for my current project, and I am still iterating. Honestly, it makes me happy that my silly little game development (complimentary) has improved my understanding of capitalist theory and motivated me to learn about how we could realistically change systems, where before I could not get myself to read a page. That doesn't make research easy!

>"It definitely is possible to do what I intend without any form of currency, but a pro of making it more grounded in current reality, is that people have a more direct example of how to apply the concept in their own life."

You bring up a really good point, actually, that people can have more direct examples of how to apply concepts. I do not think that setting a game in the current capitalist world inherently undercuts its themes. I think that we undercut the themes when we reward the player for propagating those values.

>"I think having many games about all stages of that are incredibly useful. A good activist needs to know what the ideal is we are striving for, and also what decision to make today in their material life. Your example/ idea is great, and I'd love to see an array of games exploring better ideal systems."

I agree with that.

>"I'm not committed to a specific economy structure, so I'll have to read up on a way that makes sense for having a decorating game. I do wanna throw in sustainability and reusing/recycling etc. So yeah I need to really watch how we implement both acquiring and holding items. My main goal I think is to at least create a narrative that makes it super clear that the universe of my game is not intended as a utopia."

I agree. I do not think that the game acknowledging that money or wealth accumulation exist inherently undercuts the themes. Still, I want to figure out how to implement mechanics without rewarding the player for wealth accumulation. I don't mean to sound repetitive. Rather, I just agree with all of the individual points you have brought up.

Thank you so much for responding so thoroughly yourself! It gives me so much hope and pleasure to talk seriously with someone about this topic so near and dear to my heart.

I want to begin by acknowledging that I mistook your post, and I apologise for that. I interpreted your post as a response to the I Hate Your Cozy Game and similar jam manifestos, instead of a post in its own right. Much of my framework stemmed from that incorrect interpretation, and I take back those parts of my post. I appreciate the clarification of how I had misinterpreted your post and taken it (unintentionally) in bad faith.

With the additional context, I say that I agree with a significant portion of your post. I, too, have seen the bad faith takes against the "cozy games" genre as a whole, and I disagree with those takes.

I do not think that the "cozy games" genre inherently has less substance or value, or inherently propagates more fascist themes, or inherently offers more escapism than any other genre. I find it mind-boggling that someone can even believe that "cozy games" offer more escapism than a milsim that permits the player to escape into a power fantasy of Shooting All The Evil Guys.

So, thank you so much for setting the record straight. And, thank you so much for responding to me in good faith despite my initial misinterpretation.

Yay for respectful communication! \o/

Also, I want to say that I really appreciate how you chose to format your post. Thank you for starting by establishing explicitly what we agree on and then going through the disagreements. I found your post very straightforward to read and understand, and very pleasing to navigate.

Regarding what we agree on:

1. Yes, we agree that games of all emotional expressions should exist, including positive and hopeful ones. Indeed, I am working on a positive and hopeful game myself, to a point where I explicitly do not want to have any permanent "failure states".

I also agree with you that we are simultaneously responding to a lot of different discussions at once, which can cause some unintentional misfiring on either side. One cannot really focus on thriving if one is focused on surviving. If one has to defend one's existence in the first place, one cannot really improve. To the rightwinger fascist on the internet who believes that marginalized people should not make wholesome games, I will defend to the death the right of every "cozy game" to exist, whether or not I personally like that game. But, when I am amongst like-minded developers trying to make better games, I will critique the genre conventions. I think we align on this!

>"The concept that we shouldn't blindly adapt past games/ tropes/ modern societal structures without examining the purpose or messaging it inflicts. We may disagree on specifics of implementation, or what concepts should always be subverted and how. 100% agree that a game that you feel is endorsing capitalism or fascism is not comforting or cozy"

Very well said. I agree with everything here, other than the use of the word blindly. (I am not trying to be pedantic! I just didn't want a third-party observer to misread my intentions here. I would not use the word blindly in a negative fashion here, as blindness is not inherently synonymous with ignorance. I would say that we should not ignorantly or without thinking adapt past games/tropes/modern societal structures.)

Where we disagree about specifics of implementation, or what concepts should always be subverted and how, fuels the very discussion that excites me most. I love to discuss specific mechanics and open my mind up to different possibilities, interpretations, and implementations than I had ever considered!

I definitely have seen games make serious efforts, to varying degrees of success, to subvert propagation of such values and implement better ones. I would also love to see more discussion of games that do try to change things and how. I love reading the comments on The Game Where You Let People Starve, because commentators have provided different recommendations for games which try to propagate different values to varying degrees of success.

As in my manifesto, ALIENS DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH, I tried to talk about where different games tried different specific mechanical implementations and briefly analyzed what worked and what didn't. If I have time, I would love to do the same for "cozy games" of a specific subsubgenre (such as the subsubgenre of "decorating game" or subsubgenre of "shop simulation"), to go over games and really dig into specific mechanics.

Now that you mention it, I do wish that I had brought up positive examples in KILL COZY GAMES, because I do have some positive examples. At the time, I was just trying to word-vomit my thoughts before the jam ended, and I didn't anticipate that I would have time to write another manifesto, much less refine the first.

But I would love to talk about specific positive examples and how they failed or succeeded in different ways!

Now onto the further discussions!

>"I don't want to harp too much on my perception of cozy games discourse, because I think I get easily distracted from actually furthering the discussion."

Very fair!

>"I'll say that I do not perceive many anti cozy games posts as wanting to improve the genre, but being against it entirely."

Yes, I think that I have seen the anti cozy games posts that you are referring to, now that I understand the scope. I have definitely seen takes which amount to saying that cozy games should not exist at all, with which I disagree.

>"My perception reading yours was not like that, though I still perceived it as generally being against the group as a whole, or being associated with it (which you explained valid personal reasons for!)."

I acknowledge that I went with a very clickbait title of KILL COZY GAMES. I did not intend to make a clickbait title. When I was writing that manifesto, I simply genuinely had that thought in my head and so wrote it that. I guess that I should work on my own tendency to summarise my thoughts in an exaggerated title, when that does not necessarily align with what I am trying to say.

The cozy game subsubgenre that I care most about comes in the form of the cooking game or food/beverage service sim. I had just recently played the demo for Burger Bois, an excellent game that I look forward to playing, which has some innovative mechanics about which I would love to gush. However, Burger Bois still contains wealth accumulation as a desirable metric, which made me seethe and inspired me to write that post.

I have to admit that my own experience with game development includes a lot of rejecting labels. I have found that, in general, I struggle to mesh with community who self-identify with specific labels, because I often end up chafing against the members of those groups. I recognise this as a "me-issue". But, for example, I used to belong to a lot of so-called "feminist" circles and then ended up stepping away from those due to the rampant transmisogyny/antiblackness/settler-colonialism. When I would bring up critiques, people would shut me down as failing to act as a feminist ally, and that I should shut up and stay in my lane.

I still very much fight for gender equity and the end of the violence of gender, but I do not self-identify as "feminist", because I do not want to signal that I endorse those ideas, which I have found even amongst people who call themselves "intersectional feminists".

Now, instead of seeking labels, I aim to think about specific frameworks, specific issues, specific praxes, rather than theoreticals. I still work alongside many people who self-identify as "feminist" or who work for/in "feminist organisations", especially in labour organisation or trying to enact local change.

But I digress. It makes me genuinely happy that you have had positive experiences with the community of cozy devs. I am not against "the community" or any community as a whole, insomuch that I have seen enough harrassment/bullying/protection of bullies that I do not personally really want to participate in "the community" at large.

I also find that, when I do raise critiques, I tend to have people tell me that I am being racist/misogynistic/transphobic/etc., like the other commentator on my post.

>"I think the reason I want to step away from that, is that in my experience with the community of cozy devs, every one of them that I've met agrees with all the critique and wants to improve it. We just may be better or worse at that implementation, or even more or less well read about the subjects."

I love that. It heartens me to hear that. I love that! And I hope to continue to discourse about implementations.

>"But I do subjectively perceive the discussion to usually sound like "These people aren't trying to subvert this, and they don't align with my ethics", instead of "This game attempted, but did not successfully subvert this". The purpose of that difference is that if we understand most cozy devs already have these ideas and are trying them, then we can argue about how to do that."

I agree with you, and I appreciate the specific example of wording. I will try to make sure that my wording aligns better with my internal beliefs, because I do think that many of these games at least attempt to subvert such beliefs.

>"I think this is where the difference between something like cozy games, and something like FPSes are different. FPS games as a genre are the establishment. Cozy games are almost entirely indie right now, at most, third party, and then some smaller AAA. For perspective, actually top end AAA games tend to have teams of 500+ to 1000+ people. A bunch of them were legit funded by the US military. There are great examples too! But people generally separate it into AAA status quo, and indie subversions. The major examples of cozy games are almost all attempting to subvert something, probably due to the genre coming up itself as a response to the industry."

True. You bring up very good points.

>"So I think a harsh general statement instead should be "Cozy games want to be anti-capitalist (or other themes), but fail at it in execution"."

I don't think that I agree with this point because I feel like it paints cozy games as a monolith. Games like Animal Crossing are not trying to be anti-capitalist. You yourself pointed out that we should not paint cozy games, an entire genre, as fascist. I also do not think that we should paint cozy games, an entire genre, as trying to be anti-capitalist, or anything.

Cozy games, like any other genre, arise from pluralities of peoples with pluralities of truths and pluralities of beliefs. There are cozy games made by people who are trying and variously failing/succeeding at anti-capitalism/anti-fascism/anti-colonialism, and there are cozy games made by unironic fascists, and everything in-between.

The same holds true for FPSes. There are explicitly anti-capitalist/anti-fascist/anti-colonialist FPSes, too.

I do not think that all "cozy games" try to subvert the mainstream, even. Again, we do have big popular titles such as The Sims or Animal Crossing in the mix, too. But I do think that we ought to acknowledge that very little of the AAA space devotes any time or energy to "cozy games".

>"I'm definitely aware that this specific argument is splitting hairs and getting way too specific in directing critique, just that I do think it's a more productive place to start from if we acknowledge that most cozy devs I've met are already aligned in trying to subvert, but as a collective haven't had enough actionable critique and discourse about specifics."

I at least agree that most cozy devs are trying to do better. It makes me happy to see that we can complain about not enough diversity or poorly implemented diversity, as opposed to trying to convince people that diversity matters at all.

However, I have also seen cozy game devs unironically making comments such as (paraphrased to avoid people copying into google and finding the dev in question), "I chose not to include any disabled people in my game because disability is not cozy to me," "I chose to have all of humanity deceased in my game because I think that human nature is inherently evil and that nature would be better off with humans gone," "A cozy game should be full of beautiful, attractive, fluffy images, so I did not want to include fat people," and so on. Obviously, I do not agree with these takes! But, I do think that many of the people working in the cozy game space carry harmful beliefs.

(I think that every single person on this planet, including myself, carries harmful beliefs, that we have rejected to various degrees and in various ways. I still carry misogynistic, racist, colonialist, etc. beliefs myself, but of course I am doing my utmost to acknowledge and reject those beliefs. Rejection takes endless work and will never end. But, I believe that, if we all work to reject such beliefs over our lifetimes, that future generations will have fewer such beliefs indoctrinated into them less strongly, which will make the work of rejection easier and easier over time.)

I think, partly, you and I are seeing and responding to what sounds like different parts of this very large and diverse group of developers.

>"Trying to convince devs to worry about this content isn't I think a helpful topic, since pretty much all of them already thing this, but it's more that our collective imagination or even just game design skills are lacking in execution. So instead we argue "The way you are trying to do this isn't working""

As you said earlier, I think that we are having many different discussions. One discussion is, "I want to convince cozy game developers that diversity is important and fascism is bad." I think that it would waste my time and yours to have that discussion, because you and I already agree on this. The other discussion, the one that you articulated so well there, is "The cozy game developers I am speaking to and about already think that fascism is bad, so let's think about how to improve our collective imagination and game design skills to align our mechanics with our values."

I am now going to stop talking about the "part of the cozy game development space that espouses fascist values", and focus on the discussion of the "part of the cozy game development space that wants to stop propagating fascist values in its work".  I also think that both you and I (and everyone else talking about this) would benefit from not treating "cozy games" or "cozy game developers" as monoliths.

>""Show me the person who said that comforting games should not exist. " It's definitely possible that I misinterpreted various critiques, hard to say for sure. Also hard given the usual brevity of takes on shortform spaces like Bluesky."

No, I take this back. I definitely think that some people believe that comforting games should not exist. As I said, I had misinterpreted the framework/context of your original statement.

>"As for manifestos, it's hard for me to be able to tell if a declarative statement is meant to be more extreme than their actual belief. With yours, the title was "kill cozy games", but I was easily able to tell from the contents that you meant "Kill the type of cozy game I describe here"."

Thank you for taking my statement in good faith. It means a lot to me. 

>"Throughout my long time as a dev I've seen a lot of really directed anger at the concept of a cozy game altogether. I ignore the ones from people I'm not aligned with at all, but I've also seen a lot from people who are my peers in indie games, specifically calling them twee and devoid of substance as a genre. Sorry, I notice I'm talking in circles around this point, because I agree with you that you can make a general statement like "cozy games need to stop making me cut down forests". I guess I'll just say that has been my perception in game dev circles. It's possible we're also seeing different stuff! I've legit read basically every Cozy games take imaginable at this point, and the ones I'm picturing could have different context from the ones you are picturing."

I agree with everything that you said here. It makes me glad that you and I, who have had such different experiences in the cozy game space, can have a discussion like this. Sincerely, thank you.

I will also say that I spend a lot of time in non-English cozy game spaces, and those tend to have very different vibes (in many different ways) than English ones. I stay away from social media such as bsky or discord entirely, so I am mostly seeing discussions stemming from textboards, forums, and developer interviews/curation groups/etc., which have different vibes as well.

>"I haven't either! I realize that my manifesto came across as reactionary to the jam, genuinely I was just writing about my longstanding thoughts and reactions from years in the space. There's currently a lot of discourse over content warnings and triggers, not even just in games. One of my fav creators Princess Weekes had a vid about it just recently."

Yeah, I agree completely! I appreciate the examples, and I have absolutely seen plenty of hatred for safety railings and content warnings over the years. I can see what you were responding to now, and I 100% concur with your defense of these practices! Thank you for articulating that defense.

>"Mainly in my own spaces, the discourse revolves around the need for sustainable emotional energy and safety, vs. trying to push against the type of people who ignore the news so that they don't have to actually do anything, and people who are doing both for different topics."

Agree.

Onto the details, which most excites me to discuss. I am rubbing my little hands together, especially when we get into the weeds of specific implementation. I hope that, now that we have cleared up from where we each are coming, we can focus more on those implementation discussions. ^^

>"At the point where we start talking about fascism, I think we start branching into different ethos's and ideas of implementation! -Imagine a game about running a shop in a post-racial cleansing world where everyone is white and able-bodied. The creator could say, "I just wanted to make a make similar to my life, but with a lot of the traumas of racial cleansing removed." / I agree with this, I think it's going to be specific to implementation and intent. Fantasy generally has an issue of what it chooses to ground and what it doesn't, and how. I think, if certain bad things are kept, that they be used for commentary and subversion."

I agree. I appreciate the articulation. I completely agree that bad things can exist in games for commentary and subversion.

For example, a game (even a cozy game) can include racism or queeprhobia, if it uses those for commentary and subversion. I would not want a cozy game to include queerphobia or racism unchallenged or viewed as a good thing. But, I have played many powerful games that include racism or queerphobia to demonstrate something about it, including the need to fight against internalised forms of it.

I do not think that cozy games need to close their eyes against the realities of capitalism, just that I do not want cozy games to glorify those realities or view those values as desirable.

The cozy game which rewards the player for chopping down infinite trees propagates those fascist values as desirable, just like a game that rewards the player for queerphobia, for example. That differs from the game which includes queerphobia in order to portray it as negative. I think we align on this.

Thank you for reading my manifesto! And I'm glad to hear it resonated with you! That means a lot to me to hear. And I completely agree with that feeling: any time I've tried to make something "important" I struggle the entire time. I just don't have enough to say on "important" stuff. But when I write something meaningful to me, or, in most cases, I simply create and let the pieces fall where they may (I tend to write a lot so when I write following the personalities of the characters I've made) then I come across things that mean a lot to me.

Honesty and sincerity will always trump "importance" or "saying something that matters." Much like how genuine earnestness is very notable. Being truly sincere is how one avoids pretentiousness, I think. And I do agree, there are a number of manifestos that didn't quite hit the way I think the creators intended, some of which feeling pretentious to me. I still appreciate hearing those thoughts, but I also like to think that even if something doesn't personally connect with me, it might connect with someone else.

Very happy to hear this could remind you of what you personally connect with. That is a great compliment to this manifesto and myself.

*

Moonplum here. o/

I just wanted to wholeheartedly agree with you and with Darkblaw, who wrote the manifesto. I care more about sincerity than so-called "importance". The important things, to me, tend to arise from collective sincerity.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts

Waugh! How could I have forgotten about Captain Blood? The game has some specific issues, including using a single script for each of the alien species, thus turning each into a monolith, and I agree that one does not really learn a language in it. But, as far as the idea of using language to communicate, Captain Blood has some helpful mechanics.

Each alien has its own values and its own preferred methods of communication. Each alien will interpret the same statements differently. Some will accept jokes about killing them as funny, while others will interpret your earnest statements of peace-seeking as sarcastic threats.

I love the ambiguity of how different symbols become interpreted. And I love the implied culture of how different symbols have come to mean the same thing across species.

In its presentation of how language differs from person to person, I would take pointers from Captain's Blood.

I also love that it forces the player to communicate! I want to have more communication and feedback.

I don't love how certain dialogue topics only "unlock" after certain plot events, instead of having a cohesive response. Yes, responses to questions can change as a result of other events occurring, but I would still want to see some degree of cohesion, rather than mostly random responses prior to Plot Event followed by cohesive responses.

Thank you for the touchpoint!

(I completely agree with you! I do not need to break up my language learning gameplay with poorly implemented minigames done better elsewhere. Minigames in language learning games, ideally, ought to support learning about the culture and/or the language. I like the little card game, for example. I also did not like the long river travel parts in Heaven's Vault, especially if one is attempting to grind translations. Just give me an option to endlessly grind translations at that point, or to put in my own translations.)

Hello! Moonplum here.

Thank you for writing this. I appreciate the simplicity and yet the profundity of these statements. I agree with these. When I read your comment on Darkblaw's manifesto, I wondered what yours would have. But I see nothing "dramatic" or "not humble" about this sincere, earnest, genuine poem.

I make art because I want to make art. I love making art. I love creating. I also love my community, and I want to partake in mutual creation. I want to speak my truth, hear their truths, and experience a plurality of truths. I want to work with my community, broaden the scope of my community, and lift up the voices of others, to help everyone into the room instead of ignoring those outside of it. I want to love, and I want to change, and I want to change my world (our world) for the better. I love this world that is ours and I want to change this world that is ours so that we can have more joy, peace, and refuge.

You have written elsewhere about communication issues. I, too, have communication issues. Many do not understand me when I speak. Many internet communities have removed me. I am trying to learn to make my external communication match my internal thoughts to avoid this, but it has proven very challenging. I do not know what communication issues you have, and I do not pretend to understand. But it means so much to me to see a fellow communication-struggler espousing such earnest love, joy, liberty, and belonging. Thank you.

Thank you for writing this. Thank you for participating. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I, too, would like to talk more to and with other devs, players, and others alike. This is our community. We belong.

*

Hello! Darkblaw here. o/

Thank you for writing this! I agree with these statements and enjoy the way you've formatted this poem. Seeing how poets convey meaning through not only words but form is very interesting to me! I should practice my own poetry more often.

I write and make art primarily for myself, since the act of creation is something I enjoy. But while I don't mind my work being seen, when it is seen and enjoyed and discussed, it makes me quite glad. If I had no one, I would still be an artist. But being able to be an artist within a community of artists makes being an artist even better for me. I get to share and be shared with! It makes existing in a challenging world worth it when I get to forge connections and view works from all sorts of people.

I appreciate you having written this, it has given me a moment to pause and think about the world I live in, my personal world, in a new light.

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my response, to read the original manifesto written by OP, and to share your thoughts on the manifesto and on my response. I want to start by saying that I fully agree with the post that you had to the actual manifesto ("the experience of comfort instead of suffering is not a moral failing! things don't have to suck for life to be worthwhile! pain can be sold to us by capitalists just as easily as pleasure can!/no more running from joy! more cozy games!").

I agree with every word that you said. Experiencing comfort does not constitute a moral failing. Choosing to exist, at all, in a world that asks for your extinction is in of itself resistance. Capitalism sells us pain all the time, encourages us to feel it, and then sells us the salves. Capitalism sells us the idea of revolution and then subsumes it. I do not want to run from joy. I want to share true joy with my brothers, sisters, siblings, cousins, and friends. I want to make more cozy games, including cozy games in which I find joy.

I am going to reflect on your response and your question with compassion for myself, and I hope that you can, too! I would love for this to be a dialogue.

To begin, the cupcake analogy does not have to relate to high sugar content. I would say the same thing about anything, anywhere. I used the cupcake because OP used the cupcake. In general, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and shopping is not politics, but organised effort such as genuine boycotts in conjunction with other organised actions can lead to genuine change in the world around us. You can replace the cupcake with beef tallow (to use an example associated with white masculinity), and I would say the same. In the situation where I can choose between two things, and one thing is better than the other thing without costing myself life and limb, I will generally choose the thing that more closely espouses my values.

(Further reading: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/)

I want to address the main bulk of your critique, however.

>"You keep bringing up how many fascist themes there are in so many other video games, with a focus on shooters and rpgs. you could have easily titled your manifesto 'kill fascism in games' or something like that. but you, and so many others here in this jam and elsewhere, explicitly chose to target cozy games. why? why the 'it's okay to relax' genre and not the 'kill all the definitely bad people and prove your inherent supremacy' genres? there's no particular reason that the cupcake analogy only needs to apply to goods with a high sugar content."

I actually do talk about how many other video game genres have fascist themes, at length, in other places. I talk about how tabletop games have a focus on fascist themes. I talk about I pirate almost all games that I play and only spend my money supporting specific titles, primarily by indie developers, to the utmost degree that I can, because I want to do what I can as an individual and collectively to 

When I am with players who play RPGs, or developers who develop RPGs, I am constantly talking about how we can make RPGs that do not include fascist themes, instead of continuing these genre conventions.

When I am with players who play FPS, or developers who develop FPS, I am constantly talking about how we can make FPS that do not include fascist themes.

When I am talking about action games, or milsims, or tactical games, or visual novels, or racing games, or sports games, or fighting games, or whatever other, I also talk about how many of these propagate fascist themes.

When I am with fellow board game players or developers, I am talking about how both American-style board games and tabletop games, and European-style board games and tabletop games, and even Japanese-style board games and tabletop games either propagate fascist values or propagate other values.

I spend many hours speaking to novelists, short story writers, and poets about how works can unintentionally recreate the very traumas that they are seeking to heal from. I have written letters to editors. I have commented on works. I have spoken directly to authors.

I wrote two manifestos during this manifesto jam about specific topics, because the ways in which RPGs/FPSs/[insert genre here] propagate fascist themes and the ways in which language learning games propagate fascist themes often differ. I chose to write about two genres that I greatly care about and that I have played many games in, and that I am currently developing games in. I wanted to discuss how fascist themes propagate in these genres because I want to do something different in my games, and I used this as an opportunity to reflect and put down my thoughts. I would, in fact, love to hear your thoughts about ALIENS DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH, my other manifesto also talking about fascist values in a specific genre!

I wanted to give specific examples of mechanics, and how I might change those mechanics. Picking a very broad topic, such as all fascist themes in all games that ever existed, would not have given me the space to give granular, specific examples of genre conventions.

Yes, I can write an essay about how "killing all the bad guys" is fascist. In fact, I explicitly gave such examples in other comments and in my manifesto, KILL COZY GAMES. It propagates fascist values to make a game where the good white guys kill all the bad brown guys. It propagates fascist values to make a game where the good [guys of any ethnicity] kill all the bad [guys of any ethnicity]. It propagates fascist values to make a game where the cool person with a sword slaughters monsters who are conveniently Designated Evil Forever.

I am in a union. When I go to my union meetings, I can say, "Wow, the government propagates fascist values," and pretty much everyone in my union would agree. But, instead, when I go to my union meetings, we are usually discussing how we (as the union) can change things for the better, what values we will fight for, and how we will execute the fight for those values. Yes, it can affirm us to simply state who Bad Guys are, or that Bad Guys Are Doing Bad Things. But, I find it enriching to brainstorm with my fellow union members how we can make the world actually better through our actions and the execution of those actions.

My fellow union members, as well as others, have called out concerns in my plans before. When I was given a task to reach out to "shareholders" (here meaning members of the community that would be affected by our decisions, not the corporate meaning of shareholders), I initially suggested a more conventional outreach plan, based on successful outreach plans I had seen previously.

My plan initially excluded even more marginalized shareholders than I had initially perceived.

My fellow union members pointed out the flaws in my plan and gave me ideas on how to shed conventions and use more unconventional tactics so that I could reach out to ever more marginalized members of the community. My fellow union members pointed out that I had to think about the people who were not in the room, and even the people who were so not in the room that i hadn't even thought of them.

Because of my fellow union members respectfully and compassionately pushing back on my assumptions, I was able to craft a much more robust outreach plan that unwound in multiple stages and, in doing so, affect my community and neighbours much more positively.

Several of the marginalized community members whom I was able to interview gave vital insight that changed the nature of the project we were working on and made it better benefit the community.

(I am intentionally omitting details to avoid identification.)

None of this could have happened if my fellow union members did not explicitly call me out.

I am not saying this to pat myself on the back. I am saying this because I greatly value compassionate and respectful communication, even when that communication might made me feel guilty or embarrassed or ashamed. I want to have my conventions challenged. I want to continue the lifelong task of rejecting fascism and refining myself with better frameworks in which to think about the world.

Some years ago, I released a visual novel and received much praise from many people, but I also had some criticisms. Some criticisms were bad faith takes seething mad that I had made my visual novel about wlw. But, other criticisms pointed out issues in my characterisations and commented on how I had (unintentionally) promoted non-consensual practices (in this case, a kiss) as romantic.  Reading those comments really made me think. I did much more reading about consent and rape culture as a result, and it taught me a lot about my own indoctrinated beliefs regarding romance, and also how I can make things better, without making things "boring" or "rote".

I spoke about cozy games and language-learning games because I love these genres and I want to make works in these genres. I have also worked on RPGs before, and I thought at length about how those conventions propagate fascist values. At the time, I chose not to release the RPG that I had been working on, because I had learned over its development how many conventions i had thoughtlessly included. I decided that I would work on other things, and then come back and figure out how to rework the RPG, or not, or perhaps make a different RPGs.

I intentionally am not linking the games that I am working on to this essay to avoid harassment, so please do not ask. If you want "proof" that I actually do develop games, let me know what kind of "proof" you want, and I can provide it with identifying features removed. I take anonymity on the internet seriously after prior experiences.

>"you've acknowledged cozy games as games often played and created by and for the marginalized... and you've chosen to focus on *them* as not being good enough and not the genres created primarily by cishet white men that far more consistently (and often intentionally) propagate those fascist values?"

If I walked up to my government building today and expressed my concern that i want my government leaders to stop being so fucking fascist, do you think that that would change anything?

If I walked up to my fellow union members and expressed my  concern that a local project is unintentionally replicating trauma, do you think that that would change anything?

Earlier this year,  a local site was putting together a celebration for women's rights. I took the time to speak to one of the workers on-site because I felt like the language used in their celebration unintentionally excluded trans and nonbinary people.  The on-site worker thanked me graciously for my contribution and took the time to correct the language. I do not know what happened with that specific celebration, but I know that I have heard trans and nonbinary people speaking about the importance of inclusive language to make them feel safe in other circumstances.

Someone could have said, "you've acknowledged the local site is run entirely by and for the marginalized... and you've chosen to focus on 'their signage' as not being good enough and not the signage created primarily by cishet [local dominant ethnicity] men that far more consistently (and often intentionally) propagate those fascist values?"

Yes, because I was able to enact positive change at the local level by pointing out issues within the local site's signage, while I do not think that I can individually do anything to enact positive change about the extremely violently transmisogynistic billboard that was put up by (presumably) some cishet [local dominant ethnicity] man who exists in my area.

(Yes, I know that I can deface it, etc., but I cannot actually 'critique' that signage out of existence. I can only remove it by violence.)

>"i will ask you to take some time and sit with this question: is what you're doing workable? does focusing your critique on asking the marginalized to do better actually move things in the direction of your values? or are you simply demanding a heavier burden and more intense scrutiny on an already burdened and scrutinized population, making it even harder for them to create and explore things?"

I completely agree that marginalized people are held to unfairly high standards. It kills me when I see a reviewer refuse to purchase an indie game made by marginalized people because of perceived "bad" content and then turnaround and spend significant money on a gacha or Nintendo game made by people who are actively donating money to destroy marginalized people and whose games are brimming with fascist values.

But, I cannot actually change the content of gacha or Nintendo games by 'critiquing' them.

I could, however, change the content of an indie genre, and in turn receive excellent ideas about how to improve my own games, by critiquing conventions of the genre.

(I am being reductive intentionally in this paragraph.) I do not feel like I needed to write about how Call of Duty propagates fascist values for this jam, because I think that the average jam participant almost certainly perceives Call of Duty as fascist. I did, however, feel like I needed to write about how Stardew Valley propagates fascist values, because I do not think that the average jam participant perceives it as such.

I have, in fact, written about how Call of Duty propagates fascist values, elsewhere, to other audiences. And, in those cases, I do not even use the words "propagates fascist values", because those audiences will not care whether or not Call of Duty propagates fascist values. Instead, I think about the language that will speak to those audiences' values and tailor my message accordingly.

When I play cozy games, I want to escape from the world. I want to experience joy.

A cozy game which propagates the same fascist values as before holds no joy for me. I cannot experience joy when I am tasked with accumulating wealth or destroying nature into productivity.

I want to see cozy games that give me joy. So, I wrote a manifesto about how cozy games currently fail to provide joy for marginalized people who think like me, and how we might make them better.

>"obviously i think the answer is closer to the latter right now, but that's why i'm asking you to sit with the question. you don't have to take my answer just because i said it, but you do need to reflect on it with compassion for yourself. "

I hope that my extended explanation of from where I am coming will help you perceive my thoughts differently. If not, I genuinely would like to hear from you, so that we can continue to enrich one another. Thank you for having this dialogue with me!

Moonplum.

Hello! Please, take your time to respond. I did not think that your response was a direct response to my manifesto. I just wanted to comment on yours because I greatly appreciate the chance to speak with people who think differently from myself, so that I can learn and grow too. I I completely agree that the cozy games genre has suffered many terrible, bad faith takes in the past, including that it has no substance whatsoever, and of course I disagree with those! I also want to see one of my near-and-dearest genres improve, so I want to address good faith takes and critiques wholeheartedly, in the hopes of making games into which I can escape, as well.

No rush whatsoever! Please take all the time you need. It is also totally okay if you never respond! Just, thank you for taking the time to put this manifesto out there. It gave me a lot to think about it, and I greatly enjoyed reading it and responding to it!

Solidarity from a fellow alien who didn't speak English!! I sincerely hope that, one day, we can all share and communicate with one another in our languages, instead of having to communicate in a language that has bound us.

I would love to hear about any language games that I did mention on my list. I am always looking for more, to enjoy the positives and think about the negatives.

Thank you so much for your comment. I had not thought about how this related to the Great Man Theory approach to game design until you said something about it, and now I am turning that idea over in my head! I appreciate you taking the time to read my manifesto and to remark on it. Thank you so much!

Hello! Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to share your honest thoughts! That means a lot to me, especially since this manifesto is rather general instead of being specifically focused on gaming (though it certainly includes it). This was also a pretty vulnerable topic for me, though, it's not exactly one of personal struggle but just a struggle of being a Person Who Creates (which is everyone, I suppose). I don't think you are being dramatic at all when you describe the way you view life as a result of your experiences. If it's how you really feel, then that's a valid feeling you feel. It makes me happy that you see so much value in each interaction, and that you care about everything. I honestly wish more people could appreciate things this much, though I wish it had come about through better circumstances for you.

I agree with you about our work being a snapshot of us in this moment. Things I've created in the past were created by someone else, a previous iteration of myself, that I look back on and appreciate now as an outsider. I look back at my previous 'snapshots' with fondness and embarrassment at how hard I tried to change the world with my words and how I've learned to speak to myself foremost. When I read the manifestos that were much more 'radical' (for lack of a better term) about changing things for the better, I appreciate the idea, and I think someone needs to say it, but I also don't think it can be done by an individual. A game about XYZ that is nonstandard isn't going to change the world on its own, but a trend of it perhaps could shift it in a positive direction. In that sense, I appreciate those dramatic manifestos (even if, to some degree, I also struggle to take them a bit seriously haha). What an individual game can do is reach out to someone who might need to hear it and affect them in a positive way. As I create more and write more, it hits me how much more this matters to me than trying to make a grandiose statement about the fabric of society.

It means a lot to me that my manifesto was able to affect you! That is essentially the ultimate compliment to my work here. My manifesto here is 'unimportant.' I doubt it has been read by many people and I didn't expect to receive any comments. I wrote this manifesto for myself. To settle the turmoil I've felt in my heart about my own creations and to look upon them more fondly than with disdain that they won't change the world. I won't change the world. I can only live. So I'll spend that time making things that speak to me, and hopefully speak to others like me and unlike me. And I'm extremely happy that this unimportant manifesto was able to touch you, too. I wanted this manifesto to be an example of what it is talking about, and I feel that I've somewhat succeeded in that, hearing your own thoughts after you've read it. I'm happy your unimportant comment is nearly as long as my unimportant manifesto. It means a lot to me.

*

Hello, Moonplum here. Darkblaw, who wrote this lovely manifesto and the above comment, is my best friend.

I wanted to chime in. Thank you for taking the time to respond. As Darkblaw and I have been slowly working our way through the manifestos, we noticed that you had taken the time to share your honest thoughts on every one we saw. It really astounded us, and it astounded me. Your comments, specifically, inspired me and Darkblaw to comment on other manifestos. We would not have had the courage to speak so freely on many different manifestos had it not been for you. So, thank you.

I have loved reading your comments and thinking more about the manifestos I have read because of your comments.

I do not think that Darkblaw and I have made it to yours yet, but we will! I am very much looking forward to reading what you have to say.

I have loved reading the broad and blunt manifestos, and I have loved reading the silly, tragic, and hyper-specific manifestos, as well. I have had this account for years, and yet I have never used it to communicate with other devs. Where I have made games, I have released them in secluded ways, without putting myself or any of my personal thoughts alongside them, because I wanted the games to stand on their own. Now I am rethinking my approach.

I do not know what struggles you have been through, but I am glad that you are alive in this moment for us to have this interaction. I view every day as a gift, since I did not die many years ago. I do not think that you are being too dramatic. I think that the developers who do not feel gratitude or do not want to be grateful are valid for feeling that way, and I also think that you are valid for feeling gratitude. 

Even if you were being "dramatic", I do not view that as a bad thing.

I agree wholeheartedly with Darkblaw's manifesto. He told me that he felt like he had nothing important to say. I told him that I would only post my second manifesto if he posted one, about any topic whatsoever, because I believe that this world is better with him and his thoughts in it. And, incredibly, he did so. I love his manifesto. I love the thoughts in it. I agree that something does not have to be "important" to matter.

Game development is communication. It is not magic, or a mystery. It is like saying hello to a stranger at the grocer. It is a way to connect. Of course our desires, pains, joys , confused fafs, ignorance, frustration, desires to see the world change for the better will come into our craft. The humanity and personhood of game development is what draws me towards it.

Your projects and your words have value to me too. Thank you for taking the time to write so much and for sharing this with us. It is not silly to be moved by someone's words and then to respond with words that move that person in turn. If it is silly, then it is a good silly. That is very human. 

Thank you for reading, for considering the ideas, and for sharing your thoughts! One must think about the culture we choose to weave into language when we make it. Creating conlangs requires creating conculs (constructed cultures) just as much.

Thank you for reading and for giving your thoughts as well! The more languages I learn or learn about, the more it expands my mental possibility space for how communication can occur. This improves my communication in English, too. I find questions of interpretation and translation endlessly fascinating, the tensions in how to translate content, meaning, cultural significance.

Thank you kindly for reading and for taking the time to respond! I appreciated the chance to think about the specific issues I have with many of these games and think about how I would improve them. I love these games, and I want to see them care more about people!

I have not played it, but this makes so much sense. I hate it. I want games where characters happen to be nonbinary and otherwise just go on adventures. I do not want The Corpos to explain what being nb is. Just have a character use they/them or ze/zir or whatever (not that all nb people use alt pronouns) and go off. Deltarune is better nb #rep than Dragon Age can ever be just by virtue of letting the nb character be A Person.

Thank you for this comment too.

Thank you for writing this.

This is so very real. The art about which I care exists in the moment that a person brings it to life through their interpretation. That person could be me or someone else. The art exists as a transient change in that very moment. The thing I create, whether a book or a video or a game, exists to inspire the creation of art through that person's interpretation, but it is not the art itself.

A post-capitalist world is inherently interdependent.

Very fun! Thank you for sharing! I love pixel art and stylised graphics over graphic fidelity. Hyper-realism actively turns me away from games, though I would never refuse to play a game over it. Give me more fleas and sesame seeds! Lovely dithering.

I love you too. Thank you. I truly love my players too, and I love the developers whose games I get to play. I can think of nothing else I would rather spend my time on than this, the most wonderful medium I have yet encountered.

I could not agree more. Fuck substitution ciphers. Give me an entire constructed language to learn, cowards.

Our understanding: "that we will not become great at our creative pursuits, that is the siren's call, that we continue attempting in spite of the knowledge we will never achieve the highest of our skill, but we continue to eat because we want to do so". Thank you so much for writing and sharing. I am so hungry.

Wow, I love this so much. I love making games anonymously with my friend. I love my friend. I love sharing. I love making things together. I love to be enriched by my friend and to enrich my friend. You are so right. Thank you for existing and for writing this.

That sucks. I want more games with nonbinary people that just let them be nonbinary without drawing a bunch of cringy attention to it. Is this about Dragon Age? Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Thank you so, so very much for reading!

25. "- I have this in my head for my next game, though we are not a farming game. We still have the basic game loop of accumulating currency to exchange for goods, which has the possible issue of leading players to try to accumulate faster with no thought to the community. I want to keep the game grounded within something recognisable to current life, so that the feeling of subverting it hits better. We need the exchange of goods and labor for the fantasy of being able to have autonomous control over your own labor, the ability to value other’s efforts, and the choice to spend some of your labor towards your community. We have a bit of an easier puzzle to solve, because our game is not strategy based. But I still don’t want to mess up the core incentives in the game. Pokopia does an interesting thing where you can barter and trade for items. It’s a cool subversion, though there is still money in the game so it gets undercut a bit. And you again are incentivised to hold onto whatever resources you do have. If we do have foraging, I want to include the ethics of foraging, which include only taking a small amount, leaving enough for other people, animals, and the plant itself. Maybe an incentive to donate what you don’t need? Stardew has that system with the community center, where you are incentivized to give back to the community. Unfortunately with the growth system, it can end up paralleling a “relying on generous billionaire” type thing, so a system that takes it automatically may work better? Though there are pros and cons to both. In concept, you WANT to give your players the agency to make pro social choices on their own. Forcing their hand undercuts that lesson. Anyway, just initial thoughts!"

If I were making a game like this, I would think really hard. It is not easy. But I outright disagree with the idea that we need money and wealth accumulation in  a game in order to "have autonomous control over your own labor, the ability to value other’s efforts, and the choice to spend some of your labor towards your community". These things can and will exist even when money no longer exists, and it existed before money existed. They exist now even in situations where money is irrelevant. We can think. We can rise above conventions. We can create new and interesting core incentives that do not rely on propagation of fascist values.

For example, I am making a cooking game about "running a soup stall". Most games about "running cooking stalls" (or bars, or what have you) either feature wealth accumulation or explicitly have protagonists who are "above" wealth accumulation in some fashion due to having extreme power or magic. I am talking about games like VA-11 Hall-A, Magical Delicacy, Burger Bois, Galaxy Burger, Coffee Talk, Tavern Talk, Kemono Tea Time, Sips and Sonnets, and more. These games either explicitly include money as a central mechanic, or they explicitly explain why their protagonist alone does not have to worry about money even though everyone else does.

I want to think about a game set in a better future.

So, in my game, the protagonist lives in a commune where money does not exist. Instead, everyone works for a couple hours a day, and they can choose not to work, but people do because, as you said!, most people find work over which they have autonomy fulfilling and meaningful, and most people love to craft for others, care for others, and/or help others. The protagonist gets ingredients and supplies delivered from others in the town. People come to the protagonist to request soups, and the protagonist makes them soup.

This game's complexity comes from having to make soups which nourish the people who come to the stall, in a combination of puzzle-like activity and self-expression. For example, a vegan character may request a meal with balanced micronutrients and so much protein, and you have to figure out how to make that happen. A character may be looking for yummy soup and have requests for specific outlandish flavour combinations that you have to wrangle, and this character's arc involves them explicitly healing and becoming happier as they get fatter by eating delicious food. Another character may be trying to lose weight for health reasons while still finding yummy and nutritious food to eat, and they may require special consideration to ensure that they have enough nutrition and flavour in their dishes while limiting calories. Another character is trying to recreate the flavours of their hometown. Other characters may have religious dietary restrictions, or severe allergies to many common ingredients, or very strict flavour/texture control due to autism, or folate and iron deficiency due to pregnancy, or other health issues leading to particular food considerations, or personal preferences requiring careful thought in how to maintain.

The character will have to juggle flavours of a dish, such as salty or spicy, with more esoteric characteristics, such as texture qualities or mouthfeel or uniqueness, with macronutrients and micronutrients, with cultural considerations. The ingredients available will change over time due to seasonal agroforesty practices which include conservation, shortages, windfalls, traders from distant markets, and so on.

The player will unlock new ways of cooking ingredients and new ingredients through maintaining mutual aid networks throughout the commune. The player is not a saviour and so cannot control everything, but the player can make individual lives better and so nourishing one's community which in turn improves the player's life.

The player will be able to influence NPCs through how the player chooses to nourish them.

I plan to use this game to interrogate relationships with food at the site of cooking and eating, to show the difficulties and tensions of such a world, to showcase a better future, and to ponder the ethics of how we raise people dependent on us, such as children, to interact with food. For example, the player is also raising A Creature and must feed it, and I have been thinking about mechanics which will give the player autonomy over raising their Creature, while also demonstrating that the Creature has agency in its own right, while also reflecting on what I want to say about nature vs. nurture. I want to instill good habits about respecting autonomy, not forcing food consumption, and voluntary exposure to new food, without forcing the player because, as you said, forcing the player undercuts the learning. I am still working this out. I am also still working how exactly I want to handle player agency in terms of influencing NPCs by nourishing. I have prototyped a few substories to test various methods, wherein I want to respect both NPC autonomy and player agency in the story of influencing those around them. I have a lot of work to do, and fortunately I am working with my best friend! But, I am always trying to root through my work for fascist values and explicitly expel them or revise them.

Note that I am not calling my mechanics The Right Way To Go, just A Way To Go Whereby I Resist Fascist At Every Possible Turn.

I am certain that my game will still let some fascist values slip through because I am indocrinated in fascism. But I will listen to critiques. I am making this game for myself. If I do get a seething review about how my game is fascist slop, I will read it earnestly and genuinely, delighting that someone cares about my game and this genre and this future enough to have seriously thought about the mechanics. Obviously, if I get a review from some white supremacist who hates that I value fatness, I will just laugh. But if I get a review from someone who wants to make the world better, I will take that seriously.

I am not saying that you have to do that. I am just sharing my thoughts! Genuinely!

Back to your game!

You accurately identify the tensions in your game design which will undercut the themes you are trying to achieve. You accurately identify where the fascist values slip through due to genre conventions and poison the beautiful game you are trying to create. Do not let the poison in. Resist. Fight. Show a better world and a future worth fighting for. Let me escape from the grimness of the world for two minutes by showing me a world that isn't grim, not because I am closing my eyes and ignoring its poison, but because we have actually healed. I believe in you!

Or don't! But then, do not be surprised when people regard your game has espousing fascist values, in addition to non-fascist values, because...it does!

Here is a content warning I would appreciate: content warning that a "cozy game" still wants me to reduce my bodily autonomy to how much profit I can make with it, that a "cozy game" still wants me to demonstrate that I value others' efforts by expecting them to reduce their bodily autonomy to much little wealth I am willing to give them for their body. In wealth accumulation, we are all selling our bodies for profit. Show me a better way. I cannot escape to a world that is only light and fluffy by virtue of ignoring the fascism that undercuts all the beauty and goodness.

(I do not use beauty in the fascist sense here. I think that sewers, sludge, piss, shit, vomit, etc. can be beautiful because it is part of our world that is ours. Ugliness, too, is good.)

26. "More reactionary Post script: I made Calico bc it felt radical amongst all the (warning, reductive) War With Guns and Girls with Boobs games, and even the beautifully depicted games that were either gender neutral in expression or viscerally masculine (gender expression is a lofty concept so caveat again that gender is a concept and I happen to be both a woman and feminine, and I don’t assume that’s always the case) to make a game with exactly what I personally wanted in one. The community of devs I know making these games are all people wanting to express unique perspectives. Literally everyone in our game’s discord is autistic and queer. To call that ENTIRE genre fascist is genuinely mind boggling and we gotta stop. You gotta abolish the cop in your head telling people (especially marginalized people) to stop making certain kinds of art, and you gotta just make more art."

I agree completely that it is radical to make games that include women, autistic people, or queer people at all. I, too, do not want to make more War With Guns and Girls with Boobs games. But you also have to abolish the cop in your head telling people (especially marginalized people) that they have to incentivize people with money and wealth accumulation, or no one will feel cozy in their game. You have to abolish the cop telling people that they cannot dream of worlds where wealth accumulation doesn't exist, or where we honour sustainable and Indigenous farming practices, or where we have to keep propagating these fascist values jsut because the games we played in our childhoods or the other games made by other marginalised people did those mechanics too. You have to abolish the reactionary kneejerk reaction (redundant statement is redudant) that anything made by a marginalised person is automatically above critique. You and I are just as capable of being fascist as the whitest, straightest, able-bodiedest, cissest, most masculine man alive. We cannot ever forget that. We can hurt with these hands and we can also heal.

I have not seen a single take in this jam that the entire genre of cozy games sucks. I have seen takes that specific common mechanics within that genre suck, and I stand by those, just as I stand by the fact that the mechanics which teach players to gun down brown people in first person shooters suck. Would you say, "You gotta abolish the cop in your head telling people to stop making certain kinds of art" when those "certain kinds of art" are War With Guns and Girls with Boobs? I would definitely tell people to stop making War With Guns where white people kill all the brown people and are heroes for killing all the brown people. And I would tell people to stop making Shops With Labor Exploitation where profit and wealth accumulation are king and we have to deprive our patrons, whom we supposedly love, of wealth in order to progress in our game.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I have tried to read good intentions and discuss in good faith. Please let me know if I appear to have misunderstood anything. I greatly care about your work and want to see you succeed and be happy.

Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts with us!

16. "This is a sub genre that usually revolves around either the novelty of experiencing the details of a different life, or escapism in being able to either live a different life, or life similar to your life, but with a lot of the traumas of capitalism or their individual ability constraints removed."

I do not want to live a life similar to my life, because my life exists in a fascist hellhole. A game which propagates fascist themes can be critiqued on those terms. We can acknowledge racism, for instance, without replicating it in our works.

Imagine a game about running a shop in a post-racial cleansing world where everyone is white and able-bodied. The creator could say, "I just wanted to make a make similar to my life, but with a lot of the traumas of racial cleansing removed." The game can have the most wholesome themes imaginable of helping out one's grandmother and forming a loving, high trust community of able-bodied white people, and still be espousing the most heinous fascism imaginable. I use this exaggerated example to express the concept that a game can have cozy vibes and even positive themes and still propagate terrible, horrible fascist values that put people like me and other marginalized people in direct need of cleansing and violence.

Showing a game where capitalism exists but does not cause trauma propagates fascist values. It propagates the fascist lie that capitalism can exist without violence and suffering.

Showing a game where the player must accumulate profit and power propagates the fascist values that one must amass power to stay comfortable, and that one can escape capitalism by becoming sufficiently rich and powerful to no longer feel its ill effects.

We are not free until we are all free. I do not want to become the boss. I want to have no bosses whatsoever.

17. "The genre is very literally usually made by marginalized people, so I think we should consider that when discussing it."

As I mentioned earlier, we all live in a society. Just as we have to contend with the fact that white feminism  often inflicts horrible violence onto brown people, or the fact that environmentalists (which are also literally usually marginalized people) often inflict horrible violence onto Indigenous people, or the fact that gay/bi/lesbian people can inflict horrible violence onto trans people, we have to contend with the fact that marginalized people can propagate fascist values.

Many of the rightwingers who actively harass marginalized people online are themselves marginalized people. Many women, brown people, queer people, and Indigenous people actively agree with and vote for policies that target, maim, and kill marginalized people, including themselves.

Just because a genre has a lot of marginalized people does not make it above critique or scrutiny.

18. "I have seen takes stating that farming sim fans are the same people watching trad wife content. This is extremely removed from the reality of those groups. Taking on caretaking/”domestic” roles is not the same as tradwife ideology. The ideology of trad wives is that they are subservient and that performing their gender role is a moral value. Caretaking or nurturing games revolve around an entirely different fantasy as mentioned above. Trad wife conservative gardening/ caretaking/ baking/ child rearing is based within the context of specifically serving their husband. A game that does shelf its narrative in motherhood is also not inherently problematic, as that expected role is a material reality of many people, and that reality being reflected can either be glorified or critiqued, or just accurate story telling in various executions."

I have not seen these takes so I cannot really comment. I can say that the manifestos in this jam, which I have read, have not had takes like this. I do not see anything wrong inherently with a game about motherhood or farming.

I do actually think that a subset of people exist with an overlap of farming sim fans and trad wife content, notably in the "cottagecore" type of space.

I have seen marginalized people espouse desires to escape into an unspoiled wilderness and live there. Such desires drip in settler-colonialism and fascism. Thoreau and his ilk, who waxed poetic about living by themselves in the woods, actually relied on the labour of "servant"-class people and "servile female" (mother, wife, sister)-class people. They simply did not see those people as human, so they perceived themselves as alone in their huts where they had all their meals fixed and clothes cleaned by "non-human" servants. Cottagecore and the desire to escape into an imaginary "unspoiled wilderness", only to tame it, relies on presupposing both Indigenous genocide and invisible labour.

I do not think that the average marginalized person playing a farming sim is actively seeking out tradwife content.

Yet, they are choosing to play out a similar fantasy, which presupposes that "unspoiled wilderness" exists (Indigenous genocide) and that we can "tame it" through chopping trees, fishing endlessly, building increasingly elaborate dwellings, etc.

19. "“I don’t dream of labor” is a phrase that is extremely useful in its context, but sometimes gets misunderstood as people not ever dreaming of any work. What most people mean is that they don’t dream of creating value for shareholders or a boss. Most people DO really love the craft of those jobs, or even the service of those jobs. The issue is in allll the other stuff. Customers allowed to treat you poorly, the value of your labor siphoned away without even leaving you with a livable wage, required hours being higher than the amount of time it would take to literally hunt and forage, defeating the purpose of community entirely. I even loved the labor of my call center job! I really enjoyed doing my best to solve their problems. What I couldn’t handle was only having 3 minutes to go to the bathroom, with a system where you were literally not allowed to unplug from the system at any other time. 4 uninterrupted hours of emotionally regulating myself and others with an unpaid lunch in between."

I completely agree. I do not see any of the jam manifestos saying a single negative thing about the mere concept of a game in which one performs a service or a craft. Even first person shooters or violent turn based RPGs show the player performing crafts and services, as soldiers or mercenaries.

Yet, we must also stop dreaming of generating profit or of wealth accumulation as a desirable state. As long as we desire wealth accumulation, we are propagating fascist values. Wealth accumulation inherently cannot exist without wealth deprivation.

I could see the value in a cozy game where, for example, the player unionises  or begins in a union and thus contends with capitalism, but from the perspective of fantasizing about how one can improve or have a cozy scenario. But I want the wealth accumulation itself to not exist as a desirable mechanic in a game like that.

Removing the traumas of capitalism by ignoring them or pretending that they do not exist only propagates fascist fantasies. Removing the traumas of capitalism by imagining an actually better world to escape to, one that we could fight for in our current world, has value and gives us hope for the future. And such better worlds should not teach us to value the things that fascists value.

20. "So, the critique may then be that the games “glorify” these jobs. Except that also isn’t true. I’ve played the popular sim games, and basically all the barista ones include a LOT of commentary on how disrespectful customers are (one game is literally about how impossible it is to figure out what someone is trying to order), how hard it is economically etc etc."

No, I actually think that this misudnerstands the critique, at least the critique that I have personally read. The critique that I have personally read is, "These games glorify wealth accumulation."

I would love to see a game about being a barista in a post-capitalism world. Disrespectful and annoying "customers" (or, perhaps, patrons, or people who ask you for help, or neighbours, or family members, or friends, or whoever) will still exist in the world's most luxury automated space communism, or in the world's most Indigenous-run communes.

But do not make it about wealth accumulation. Enough!

21. "Stardew Valley, the biggest cozy game out there, is literally overtly and constantly telling you about how the big corp is bad and how this small town is impoverished. (It is valid to critique the details of how this plays out with people turning their farms into productivity factories in play, without throwing out the concept altogether) So this again seems like an issue of assuming what a game was without playing it."

I agree with those critiques of Stardew Valley. I also think that the entire concept of Stardew Valley is also a fascist propaganda, in the sense that it espouses the dream of a single individual saving an impoverished town through bootstrap labour and hard work, which explicitly includes combat and violence, and which demonstrates that NPCs will inevitably fall for you through sufficient wealth accumulation in the form of gifts.

I do not think that the critiques stem from assuming what a game was without playing it. I think that the issue stems from not understanding the critiques, perhaps.

22. "Cozy games actually give people who are in an unsafe mental state a way to engage with deeper themes safely. Instead of staring at the wall, they can play a game which reminds them to engage with their community, or engage with nature. A reminder that they can feel joy and comfort reminds them to fight for those things. I love media about nature or any kind. A serene image of a forest with the birds chirping makes me want to leave my house, go to my local eco activism group and fight to keep that image possible. I’m hoping to instill that feeling (and some actionable tips) into my next game!"

Hooray! I agree with you entirely about this. I hope that we can fight to keep that forest with those birds, as well as to return human presence to that forest as good neighbours and part of nature ourselves.

23. "How we move forward and improve the genre:"

Yay!

24. "-Critique specifics! If you wanna call a game fascist, talk about a SPECIFIC game (that you have played a majority of) and critique their execution! Specify sub genre! Bring up examples where you saw it done well, or theorize how you would fix that issue! Fun thought activity for the comments! Farming games generally have a goal of connecting to a player who is interested in nature, power fantasy of being physically able to do it, and power fantasy of autonomy over your own labor etc. Stardew has a ludo narrative issue where the puzzle like gameplay leads to an unintentional subtle theme of exponential growth and resource hoarding. What would you implement to try to fix that?"

I agree! I also think that it can be worthwhile to critique genre conventions and genre trends. This does not indict an entire genre. It only talks about notable trends within a genre. For example, I can say, "It really sucks that fandom at large does not care about wlw or yuri," without me saying, "I think that every single person in 'fandom' hates wlw and yuri and hates gay women, bi women, pan women, wlw, and lesbians." I can say, "It really sucks that so many cozy games are about wealth accumulation or taming an unspoiled wilderness," without me saying, "I think every single cozy game on the entire planet should blow up."

The manifesto, "The Game Where You Let People Starve," has some really good specific examples of how we could tackle better farming games. I highly recommend playing it if you have not already, because it goes over specifics! I would only be regurgitating its themes.

But I can give examples of two of my own cozy games which I am actively working on right now, which I will do so at the end of this post.

Hello! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for making games. Lovely. I want to respond. Please note that I will be agreeing with some sentiments and disagreeing with others in my response. If you do not want to read that, please click away now, or at any point.

I (Moonplum) wrote one of the manifestos against a specific type of cozy games, [KILL COZY GAMES]. I do not speak for the others who wrote manifestos against some kinds of cozy games. I also make cozy games. I am working on a "cozy game" right now, an optimistic title about making soup for others in a commune.

I am going to copy your entire transcript and discuss it point-by-point, because I think that I will find it easier to point to specifics rather than to summarize.

1. "I will say in summary, that our discussions would be a lot more productive by mentioning specific games. Multiple times I've seen statements where I'm unsure what game they are referring to. Sometimes I notice they mention a game later as an example, but say the game is missing a feature it definitely has. I wonder if we're basing a lot of these discussions on our assumptions of the contents of these games, rather than the actual contents and details."

I agree entirely. I will try to give specifics. I think that some of these aspects may relate to people having different interpretations of what specific features mean, which leads to discrepancies. For example, one person may say that Game X lacks meaningful relationships, while another person may argue that Game X contains NPCs with whom one can fill up a heart metre by gifting flowers. The second person may view that as a meaningful relationship, while the first person may not, leading to different sentences using the same wording.

2. "I wrote this in between busy weekend parenting pls forgive my mistakes. Also please note I’m not responding as a call out for one person, I’ve seen a lot of these takes, so it’s a general response thing!"

I am responding to you in particular, but I am not attempting to call out anyone. I simply liked your manifesto and wanted to respond to it earnestly and sincerely to open a dialogue.

3. "First, let’s define some concepts."

Yay! I love definitions. Thank you for sharing with me what you mean. I will try to do the same in my response.

4. "Comfort games/ media: Any game/media that you personally find comforting. Entirely unrelated to content. Some people watch American Psycho over and over for comfort and familiarity, some people listen to metal music to calm down or remember a good memory of a concert."

I agree.

5. "Cozy games: Marketing term to cover a certain style of game that has a market of players looking for that style. (marketing is not just about money, it is also the act of connecting art with a person who will see and experience your art) Definitions of this vary in details, but it usually means something “soft” aesthetically and game wise. Game wise, they can either be easy and simple to play, or they can be challenging in a way that creates positive sentiment, like solvable puzzles or rhythmically flowing action. Challenges can be calming, in the way a sudoku can be. They may have any range of themes, from completely safe, to emotionally challenging, but usually have some method of safety in the way they approach it. The themes usually involve healing, growth or hope. There’s also usually a concept of nurturing/caretaking, either healing a place or community. There is an interesting relationship to gender, in that these concepts are traditionally “feminine”. Caveat that gender is a construct, so I’ll say it approaches femininity as a style or genre. The genre emerged as a reactionary descriptor basically defining games that did not fit into traditional showcases, usually action/adventure games with adult themes and emphasis on violence. (this is not a commentary on the value of those things, just that they were the majority)"

I agree also with this. I even mentioned the distinct between so-called masculine-associated genres and feminine-associated genres in my discussion of KILL COZY GAMES. I also agree that "cozy game" is a marketing term for both game and audience. I agree with the general vibe of having a method of safety, healing, growth, hope, nurturing/caretaking.

6. "I made Calico starting in 2017 ish, back then finding a publisher or showcase was very tough. Except for nintendo showcases, we were told we didn’t thematically fit with most publishers or showcases. The Wholesome Games showcases were the only showcase that catered to my style of game. I don’t have time to find the correct stats, so you’ll have to trust me that the overall demographic of any cozy games showcase is going to have more marginalized devs than average, and more marginalized gamers than average."

I watch the Wholesome Games direct every single year. I agree and commented on the fact that "cozy games" have more marginalized devs and gamers (players) than most other showcases. I completely concur. I did not write a manifesto called KILL FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS even though I also think that the FPS genre propagates fascist values, as I explained in my manifesto. I wrote a manifesto called KILL COZY GAMES because I think that marginalized developers and players, more than anyone, should have access to comfort games and cozy games that do not propagate fascist values. Yes, I think that there should exist first person shooters which do not propagate fascist values, too. However, I do not think (and I am not saying that you said this) that genres by and for marginalized people are above criticism. Marginalized people exist in fascist societies and learn these values. We must actively reject and resist the propagation of these values in our art and in our leisure.

7. "So, why do players play cozy games?"

8. "First we should all understand that people do not only do or play one thing. If someone primarily plays Cozy games, it’s likely they find catharsis elsewhere. I consider myself a “cozy gamer”, I primarily play cozy games in my spare time. This year I also played Disco Elysium and Blue Prince and adored them. I also played adjacent games, like replaying Okami, or Legend of Zelda. People engage with artistic media to guide an emotional response. They may want different feelings at different times. During a panic attack I may want something calm and distracting, when I’m mad I want something cathartic. At different times a hopeful story may fill me with hope, or existential dread. All genre of games and other media work together for a spectrum of different thoughts and emotional states. We also use different forms of media for different purposes. I play mostly cozy games, but I watch mostly horror and drama media (though I can’t watch gore bc I get a physical response that makes me faint). I can’t read suspense because my ADHD brain tries to skip ahead in the page, so I mostly read nonfiction."

I agree with this. I play all sorts of different games, from Armored Core to Kemono Tea Time to A Song of Sunlight to Sticky Business.

9. "So let’s explore some Cozy game critique-"

Yes.

10. "“Cozy games are devoid of substance and used to escape and have fascist themes” Devoid of substance:  - Cozy games are not more devoid of substance as a genre. All game genres have writing heavy or writing light games in them. All games genres have ludo narrative dissonance causing the written themes to conflict with the gameplay. Bad or light writing is a valid critique of an individual game, not the whole genre."

Yes, I agree. I do not think that any of these critiques is dismissing the entire genre of cozy games, however. In every single one of the critiques I have read, I have seen the writers explain exactly what kind of cozy game they do not like. For example, in "I HATE YOUR COZY GAME", the author, for whom I do not speak, explains that they specifically dislike games which espouse the concept of "unspoiled wilderness" or "the pursuit of profit is desirable". In "The Game Where You Let People Starve", the author, whom I do not speak, explains that they specifically dislike games which teach players harmful farming practices, such as monoculture.

I have certainly seen right-wingers and so forth dismiss cozy games as a genre, yes, just as they dismiss anything remotely related to women, or brown people, or disabled people, or whatever. They would dismiss anything I made. However, I do not think that the manifestos to which you are responding dismiss every game in this genre as devoid of substance.

Yes, it is easy to defend any genre by saying, "You can't call an entire genre devoid of substance, because the genre will vary." I cannot say that the entire roguelite deckbuilder genre is devoid of sustance, even if I do not care for it whatsoever, because at least some of its games certainly have good writing or "heavy" writing in them. I agree that all game genres have ludonarrative dissonance and bad or light writing is a valid critique of an individual game.

However, I think that one can still discuss trends in a genre.

For example, I think that one can discuss how, among first person shooter games, many but not all of them propagate the fascist values of defending one's "good and wholesome" nation against "evil" foreigners. Not all first person shooter games do this. Enough first person shooter games do this that it can warrant a discussion.

In a similar fashion, for example, not all white people make fun of the food that brown people eat (to use a relatively innocuous example), but enough of them have done it that it warrants discussion. If one interrupted every discussion of this with, "But not every single white person who ever existed has made fun of a brown person's food, so you can only critique Uncle Bob as an individual, and not white people as a group," you would be technically correct, but also missing the purpose of the discussion.

To use another example very near and dear to my heart, many turn-based RPGs propagate fascist values. I love turn-based RPGs and got into gamemaking for them. I play them all the time. I also interrogate the fascist values common in the genre. No, not every turn-based RPG ever made has fascist values. However, enough of the genre conventions propagate fascist values that I want to dissect them. Traditions do not get to propagate just because they have propagated up to this point. We get to decide which traditions we carry and which we discard or change.

I do not think that any compassionate person who is seriously thinking about and critiquing the fascist themes common in cozy games is saying, "Every single cozy game has these values or is devoid of substance." They are using "cozy games" as shorthand to refer to recurrent patterns, themes, and conventions used widely in the genre, which warrant scrutiny.

11. " - I honestly believe the biggest reason for this misunderstanding is people assume from the cover art that a game doesn’t have deeper themes. If you watch any of the cozy showcases, you’d see pretty quickly that every game description is like “Work with your commune to help your grandmother with her taxes”, “Run a cafe where you ask people their trauma”, “take over a farm and learn that walmart is trying to take over the town and poison the water system”. Sometimes these games have deeper themes as you delve deeper. This could be a critique of the marketing, but it could also be people’s assumptions that something cute must be shallow. The same people who look at American Girl dolls and think it’s vapid when the accompanying books talk about war crimes (literally)."

I do think that this happens, yes. I think that some of the people who dismiss cozy games do so because they want mature games for mature players such as themselves, and they do not think that light and fluffy games can have social commentary or value.

I do not think that the people writing these manifestos think that way, necessarily.

The writer of "The Game Where You Let People Starve" even explicitly talks about ways in which one can keep a "cozy game"  about farming for a commune, while changing the mechanics to no longer propagate fascist themes.

Wanting to improve a genre does not equal dismissing a genre.

Furthermore, the presence of themes such as trauma or queerness does not negate the presence of fascist themes. A game where you have to turn a profit can propagate fascist themes even while it simultaneously propagates radical queer acceptance and celebration. These can coexist, and one neither absolves nor damns the other. Most games, in fact, espouse both good and bad values, and everything in-between.

To use the RPG example, many RPGs espouse values of self-expression and bravery in the face of hardship, while simultaneously espousing the idea that power accumulation is inherently desirable and that certain classes of people or beings can be genocided without second thought.

"Stardew Valley is meant to show that Walmart is evil" and "Stardew Valley propagates fascist themes of profit/wealth accumulation, obedient NPCs who do your bidding in exchange for gifts, endless renewal of resources without having to practice any kind of conservation or kinship, etc." both coexist.

12. "Escapism - Any media can be used to escape. Catharsis itself can be a method of ignoring actual growth and progress. Video games as a media have been criticized as escapism since they started. Considering that, the only difference with Cozy games is that they generally tend to be escapism aimed at marginalized people. Almost all of them involve escaping to a place where you benefit from your own labor, have autonomy, are in a community that is walkable and high trust where people form bonds with their neighbors. Saying there should not be comforting games is like saying no one is allowed to take time to experience any joyful art, or like, a cupcake idk"

I agree. However, we can choose what we escape with. Show me the person who said that comforting games should not exist. If a person told me that they find comfort in shouting into a pillow, I would nod. If they told me that they find comfort in shouting racist and queerphobic slurs into a pillow, I would probably pause and suggest that they find a different way to comfort themself.

Similarly, to use an absurd example exaggerated on purpose to make a point, if someone is enjoying a cupcake, I would say, "Yay!" If someone is enjoying a cupcake that can only be made from the severed limbs of marginalized people, I would say, "No!!!"

Is it not worth for me to at least interrogate how my cupcake was made? For me to, if I have the capability to do so in this world where there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, try to choose the cupcake made by compensated labour in an environmentally conscious fashion over the cupcake made by child slave labour? Suppose I have two identical cupcakes in a store next to one another, but one is made by a company that poisons the water and the other is made by a company that (supposedly) does that less. Shopping is not politics, but I would probably pick the latter, all else being equal.

Is it not worth it for me to interrogate the assumptions in my cozy games?

If a game asks me to escape to an ideal world, and that world still punishes characters for being fat or gay or brown, then that is not really escapism. If that world still wants me to hire employees and then profit off of them through wage-theft, then that is not really escapism, even if I personlly can live in a walkable society.

A walkable society means nothing to me if I am still ripping employees off of their productivity, or if that "walkable society" is not accessible to disabled people, who do not exist in this ideal world.

We are not free until we are all free. I will scrutinize the dreams that escapist fantasies sell to me, too, because I do not want to fantasize about "ideals" that I would not actually want to fight for.

This holds true for all escapism, not only "cozy games".

Someone pointing out that one's escapism still espouses fascist themes does not have anything to do with saying that they cannot escape. For myself, as I wrote in KILL COZY GAMES, I want escapism to allow me to actually escape the grimness of the world for two seconds by imagining worlds that we could actually strive for, such as worlds where fascist values of profit accumulation do not exist.

13. "There is a difference between escaping, and calming your nervous system."

Yes, I agree.

14. "Let’s talk about triggers, content warnings, and PTSD. I have PTSD, a stalker broke into my apartment 10+ years ago. This intensified a previously undiagnosed anxiety disorder where I vomit when anxious. As you can imagine, I can not be a very good activist while vomiting. For the first couple years, I did have to be in a little cocoon of padded edges. It didn’t even take a trigger to have a panic attack, an added trigger would take out my week. This did not mean “I buried my head in the sand” for the rest of my life. I went to therapy, I got on meds. Gradually I took off a lot of the safety railing in my life. I was thankful for content warnings about stalking and knives. I watched Colossal without knowing it has an abusive left turn halfway through and had an immense panic attack. I knew Ex Machina was a horror movie, so I prepared a day where I was emotionally strong to watch it, and prepared myself for it. Contrary to popular belief, These safety railings of cozy content and content warnings are generally not used to placate a person indefinitely. They’re used intermittently and gradually. Exposure therapy is a real thing, you need to safely expose yourself to fears, or else they continue to get worse. But that is a VERY SPECIFIC method that does NOT involve being jump scared by your trauma at any moment."

Firstly, thank you for sharing. I concur with your thoughts about safety railings and content warnings. I love content warnings. Even if a person used them indefinitely, I would support them.

That said, I have not personally seen a single jam manifesto which has railed against safety railings and content warnings. Could you point me to them, if you have seen them? Certainly rightwingers and such complain about them, but I do not think that this manifesto is talking about those critiques. Those critiques come from an entirely different place than the critiques in the manifestos published in this jam.

15. "Fascist themes: I assume this primarily comes from the simulator genre of cozy."

Firstly, oops, I already talked about fascist themes earlier unintentionally. My bad. My thoughts from there still stand here.

I agree wholly with this sentiment. I will not see all the endings. I appreciate when games which value agency allow me to play one ending and leave without having to get all the endings for the One True Ending or whatever, unless those games have a linear structure of endings (thus, a linear story with multiple 'fake' endings) or the games make it seamless/painless to experience all endings once I have done so the first time.

Thank you for writing and for sharing with us!

Thank you. I did not mean to intend for you to answer me. I merely wanted to present some additional disjointed thoughts that arose within me as I read this excellent work. Still, thank you for your expanded thoughts.

I agree that the end result of always having ten potions does not make much of a difference at all, nor can one only change one aspect. I will continue to think about how to implement such in my own projects, and I look forward to yours.

I could not agree more. Thank you. I will make more ugly women in my games and stories.

I agree so much. Exquisitely written and so true. I want more games about the mundane.

Thank you for reading!

I will continue to make art that celebrates the platonic. I will continue to make art that shows both people who do not experience romantic (and/or sexual) love and also value platonic love, as well as people who do experience romantic (and/or sexual) love and also value platonic love. I want to show that platonic love is not merely a substitute for those who cannot access romantic love, but something so good and wonderful that even those who can experience powerful romantic love may choose to value platonic value equally or above it. I hope to see your art too.

Thank you for writing this. I am turning it over. I wonder how we can teach this to players, aside from devising systems which incentivize using items, such as by the use of temporary use-it-or-lose-it items , or by the capacity to transform items into other  benefits in a timely fashion. Some games, such as the oft-lauded "inventory Tetris", do teach players to think of inventory as a skill. Aside from including puzzle mechanics such as that which can make the player feel challenged rather than restricted, I think that, inevitably, asking players to fight against arbitrary limits will produce negative frustration.

Envision an inventory system where one can collect infinite amounts of items in safe chests but only carry a limited quantity or weight with them. Players tend to like these better. Restricting inventory often simply leads to players ignoring vast aspects of gameplay entirely because they do not want to carry items with limited uses. Even in a game such as Sekiro (in which one can grind infinite spirit emblems and can only carry a small amount), many players opt to not use their spirit emblems at all due to a concern of eventually running out, while a renewable resource such as Estus flasks in Dark Souls (in which the flasks refill endlessly at any safe zone, with no grinding required) does not lend itself to low usage.

I see players hoarding items they will never use or touch. I would like to think of ways to incentivize players using items and actually engaging with all game systems.

Thank you for articulating these things. I believe that not only do I want "serious/hard/complex" farming games to exist, but I also want so-called "cozy" games about actual farming or about gardening to exist. I do want games where people starve, and I also want games where people do not starve but where Number Go Up is not the point and where players learn about sustainable (largely Indigenous) farming practices and/or forest farming.

I appreciate the many specific points you bring up. I hadn't even known those points about Harvest Moon.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin includes some of the complexity you mentioned, but also propagates other fascist ideas. It taught me a lot about rice farming.

I dislike the apparent dichotomy that many (not you) propagate between Cozy Fascist Game and Bleak Leftist Game. Bleak games can espouse fascist values, and cozy games can espouse leftist values. Many games espouse various combinations of both!

I adore the concept of needing to think about community nutrition for macro- and micronutrients. The thought that someone could play a game and gain inspiration for even greens to grow on a windowsill, or for future community garden planning, or future agroforestry, sounds incredible. Thank you so much for putting brainworms in my head and ideas for my own future game.

One stick is easily broken. One bundle of sticks is less easily so. The more one expands one's scope, the stronger one can be both individually and collectively. So-called "independent" people simply rely on others' labor either through coercion or through mutual aid networks which, when sufficiently expansive and enmeshed, allow one person to meet their needs through many small favours instead of a few big ones. Yet these many small favours give more help overall.

Even the mythical American hermits who retired to "unspoiled nature" (genocided of humans) to write poetry and philosophy relied on the labour of "servant"-class people or "wife"-class people, rendered invisible. They were not truly alone or independent. They only viewed themselves as such because they did not perceive these others as human people worthy of such regard.

Unionise. Unionise. Unionise, now! Right now! Even if you are the first to make it! Unionise!

I cannot cosign this enough. Thank you for articulating this in such an insightful way. Even though I believe that I experience romantic (and sexual) love, I personally value my platonic love and most important platonic relationship far above any romantic or sexual ones. Even some people who experience romantic love still prefer or choose to value platonic love. I want more platonic options which are not lesser or inferior to their romantic equivalents, or perhaps even better.

Thank you for reading and for your kindness. I loved reading the article and agree with its analysis, especially its suggestions for improvement. Marvelous!