How we move forward
Friends, I want to share something important. The Steam release of Bright Past won’t happen: after a series of fixes and attempts to meet the requirements, the platform has permanently blocked the project. That’s a hit to both a dream and the financial plan. But the game and our community remain.
What this means:
I’ll keep supporting Bright Past with small, self‑contained updates. That includes not only new bits, but also fixes, polish, and finishing work on existing content.
In parallel, I’m moving forward with a new project — Esterium Project. It gives me energy and a sense of forward motion.
I’m also calmly working on a remaster of my older parody game, Lust Affect — a “slow” series and a space to experiment with AI tools.
How you can help right now:
I'll be conducting several surveys soon to understand your expectations and preferences. Please participate and leave comments about what you’d like to see next.
Share your thoughts on the Esterium Project demo and your interest in the remaster.
If it feels appropriate, share this post where it might help the project.
Thank you for being with me. The path is changing, but the goal is the same — to make games I can be proud of and support a community we can be proud of. If you have questions, leave them in the comments — I’ll read and reply.
Comments (20)
Im stuck writing the 6th song
I'll just leave it here, sure nobody would do this. But I heard renaming the game and giving it to a H-Game publisher to release on Steam might work ;)
They told me in plain text that the game wouldn't be released, even if I changed the title and the developer's name.
quick question. have the quest to write 4 songs and have gathered 14 inspiration points. Where is the option to write the songs, I think it was 10 points per song?
They need to be written in notes on your phone. A new small icon should also appear next to the phone icon. Sorry for the long wait.
So bizarre, played a lot of games from STEAM, here, itch ...well everywhere and Bright Past is definitely superior to 87.8 percent of the drivel that makes it's way on there no problems. Storytelling and creativity alone should have flung the doors open, The world is backwards.
That's life
As another person said you do not quote why steam rejected the game. For some time now visa and mastercard have decided that they are going to control the content of games. This is not about adult content, this is about censorship and they fired the first shot with adult games. They even post relevant job ads on linkedin. Having said that, as I said on the discord some time ago, things have not settled yet. Itch was on the same boat and they have backtracked somewhat. Keep checking. You may check bellular news on YT. This is not a plug. He is a game journalist and developer and he has a lot of coverage as to how this visa/ms censorship is playing out. Again this censorship is not about adult games. This is about saying to devs and companies what social issues they may and may not present/'discuss' in their games, so you are not alone as a developer or as a game genre. I hope it works out, if not we can always look for alternatives. Do alipay and mirpay have wallets ? I just want to say I really liked bright past. I liked the gameplay, having tasks , limitations, the story was excellent and original, and the graphics were of high quality. Also the music was really good. And if you ever have the time can you please add a ruby ending.
In my case, I'm not sure the issue is related to payment systems. Support repeatedly found allegedly sexualized images of real people in my game, but no one gave me any specifics. I deleted everything that could resemble real people, including realistic AI images, but it didn't help. Ultimately, after about five months, my game was permanently banned without any specifics.
Did you get any feedback as to why it is blocked? Was it one particular tester who blocked it? Some other game that was very promising also got blocked recently. I wonder if this is an overall change of course by Steam.
I wrote about the reasons in the comment above. Support simply refused to give me any specifics. I suspect that Steam's content review is handled by an automated system, and no one can say what it's reacting to. Or, if I were a conspiracy theorist, it was deliberate sabotage of my game.
This is disappointing and short-sighted on Steam's part. To be honest, this is the first title I've played from the perspective of a female protagonist in an AVN and thought it was done extremely well. The conditions and choices bring focus to some very real concerns I've heard my wife and daughter talk about as far as birth control, the morning after pill, the real threat of sexual assault or other forms of physical threat. It's still a fantasy, but it does invoke consideration of some very real issues.
I didn't think my game would lead anyone to such thoughts. I thought all those dramatic moments wouldn't register with players. Even though I added a whole ending where Alex goes downhill and showed where it could lead. But I really wasn't sure it would work :)
Bro, your project "Bright past" is great. That means you make good stuff. So with all experience your next project will be Awesome! Don't let some fail stop you. You're doing great!
Thank you, your support keeps me going :)
Real bummer that one. However, Other than steam you can try to put out on GOG, oppaiman and (doubtful since they bowed to the big 2) Itch. Iv seen a good wave of devs move to GOG in light of all this controversy.
My game is on the oppaiman. Itch disabled the ability to properly monetize adult games. I'll think about GOG. My colleagues said it's very difficult to get in. Maybe something has changed.
It is a real bummer there will be no Steam release, but it was sadly expected due to the ongoing "controversy" due to the over-reaching credit associations causing a ruckus. I am looking forwards to both your new project and the remaster!
Thank you. I'll keep working!
Thank you !