Lead writer's post #4

Hey everyone,

Let’s start with some good news!

Every day brings us closer to the finish line. We’re working tirelessly, and while we don’t want to jinx it, we’re aiming to have the game fully completed in just a few more weeks. Momentum is strong, the team is focused, and things are moving along at a good pace.

…and now for the less good news.

As many of you already suspected, the Visa/Mastercard situation has had a significant impact on this project, despite it already being fully compliant with Steam's existing content guidelines.

If you’re not familiar with these developments, the TL:DR is that Steam has changed their content guidelines as a result of pressure from payment providers, and now adult content games are far more restricted in what stories they can tell, with certain types of content being outright banned. These new, restrictive policies absolutely affect the Book of Outcasts. Although Steam is the biggest platform, Itch.io, GoG, possibly even Patreon itself may be making similar changes.

In the last few days I’ve gone through all five stages of grief over this (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression) but I’m now at Acceptance and it's simply time to get on with the job.

The reality is that if we want you to be able to play this game, then we need to play theirs.

It’s frustrating, but unavoidable.

We’re still absolutely committed to telling this story the way it was meant to be told (raw, uncompromising, and true to its dark tone), but in order to get it into your hands without it being banned or delisted, we now have to comb through the entire script (all 250,000+ words of it) to ensure that nothing triggers an instant rejection. It's a massive and unexpected workload, but no-one on the team wants to see our work sidelined over something we could’ve caught or tweaked.

That brings us to the real challenge. Some scenes will likely need to be removed from the commercial release in order to comply with these new platform policies. But don’t worry, they’re not gone! We’ll almost certainly be releasing an optional, off-site patch that restores the game back to its full uncut, uncensored, and intended version.

And here’s where things turn back to good news.

The upside to this workaround is that we’re no longer creatively handcuffed by corporate sensibilities. With the off-site patch solution in place, the writing team has far more freedom to explore darker, more intense themes without fear of censorship. While some boundaries will always remain (you’ll never see any content involving children in our games), everything else is now on the table.

For this particular game, the change will be relatively minor since most of the story is locked in already, but going forward, the next game will absolutely benefit from this new creative freedom.

Yes, installing an additional patch is an annoying extra step, but it means Volk and Tatyana’s world is about to get a LOT darker, and Kamti Games can stay true to the dark fantasy vision we started with, without the need for further compromise.

Thanks for sticking with us through every twist and turn. Your support makes this all possible.

-Kabarettsta