Virality Conversion

I think that this perspective easily occurs: Growing up, we are often used to being asked to enter a name for our character - often before even being told what gender we are playing as. Male was the standard, women protagonists were the exception. As a woman who likes games, this is something I had to accept - and I embraced this. Gender did not factor into my usual immersion. Coming from this type of perspective... ... and learning how certain men handled learning at the end of a Metroid game, that Samus was a woman all along - whining about how it broke their immersion and that their experience was harmed for it (??) ... THAT is madness. That makes people annoyed. But... The spirit of this project, has nothing to do with that at all. The man who requested an alternative was simply used to less barriers in his immersion - and possibly experienced dysphoria due to his unique deep levels of immersion. There is no sense of irrational discrimination, just one person's habits of escapism - which merely happened to benefit from the commonplace trend towards male protagonists. The tofu is a lovely solution, and a humorous one to boot. I think it shows good spirit on your end! It's unfortunate that the man who asked for a male character choice was harassed to such extents, but I personally thanked him as it led me to discover an interesting indie game that I'd love to play. :)

I love the idea of the game and I'm looking forward to it. I found the tofu post amusing and it seems to have been taken in good spirits. I can sympathize with the idea of simply adding a playable cube if you aren't happy with the main character. I can see going in either direction. Is it important that the MC is a particular gender? It may very well be if there's story. If it's meant to be self insert, then a choice seems reasonable, through I would never say it's a necessity. What I think the key idea is personally is that someone wants to pick this up as a scrappy, independent, logistics, repair, salvage, frugal, and entrepreneurial person and take on the main challenge of this game loop and see the sights and struggles the game offers. I don't think that category of person is going to lose sleep over the technical gender of the MC.

I'd like to personally add my thoughts, from an outsider looking in on this event without hearing about it until the post. I agree that Cairn is a great game, having completed it once and if I can find a way to tone down the story for a second run so I could explore more of the map I'll definitely do it again, even if Aava's voice gets very grating due to how often she speaks outside of the cutscenes whilst climbing, which is why I enjoy Keiko's silence. I doubt if people saw who Keiko was, they'd self insert themselves regardless of what we can see in stuble storytelling, even if their player model is pretty much a Mr Tofu they cannot see.

Hi Greg, this was a great read. Your note about creating "without the approval of established institutions" really ties a bow on Honcho as a project - while I'd love nothing more than to hear that a publisher has enthusiastically swooped in and picked up this title, we all believe you have something special here. I only hope this news cycle converts to tangible sales/wishlists. Your discussion of Keiko's character and her place in the world is consistent with what keeps me so enthusiastic about MinskWorks' titles. Both Jalopy and Landlord's Super are so intentionally designed around their respective settings. I've played several games that could be loosely categorized as "road trip w/ vehicle simulation" or "construction sim w/ landlord or business management" and generally enjoyed my time with those titles. But you guys really stand alone in how you capitalize on a setting and infuse it into every nook and cranny down to the UI. Keep on trucking. I think Honcho is something really special and I hope this is the one that really takes off. :-)

Hey Greg! - I've literally never joined a Patreon before. When I saw there was one for Honcho as a result of TofuGate, I immediately signed up. Jalopy is one of my favorite games, and Landlord's Super is incredible as well. I feel like no one has interesting settings for games anymore, and yours always kick ass. Keep up the great work, and I can't wait to try the latest build!

If a developer has us play as a character they have intended the game for, I will happily play it. I do not care what gender I play as in a game - I'm pretty sure Tomb Raider sold rather well and there we played as a female with unlockable outfits. Add in the fact you made it very clear that you are restricted by your budget and any true gamer would be "erm why is this even an issue? I just want a fun game to play." I wonder why there was no outcry when Jalopy made us play as a male with no female options?

Glad to see some more widespread recognition of your work. That being said, I also look forward to returning to the discussion of carburetor valves.

I saw this post in the wild and got a little excited 😄At the risk of sounding like a marketing ghoul this was a great opportunity to tell people about the game and im glad it will help.