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I'll go ahead an @zep this, since it's something that isn't even addressed in the forum rules as far as I can tell.

1.Is it okay to post a cartridge that has full screen realistic-ish graphic violence of a disturbing nature?

2.Also, is it okay for a posted cartridge to have implied nudity in the form of a stick figure outline with hair and 2 dots for eyes, with no sexual overtones?

3.If not, what would be the best way give access to such a cartridge without posting it?

My general opinion on content restrictions is that any type of game that isn't intentionally spreading harmful misinformation or inciting real life violence should be okay to make, but that they should only be distributed through channels that reasonably ensure the recipients actually want and are allowed to have the kind of content being portrayed. This is relevant, because posting here in the forums also means giving access to any younger game dev students that might be learning through pico-8. Further, I haven't seen any way to block the posting of games to Splore nor any way to even make it clear how mature of content a game has.

Reason for asking:
I just finished making a pico-8 port of a game I had lying around from a game jam. It's not at all the usual type of thing that gets made in pico-8 from what I've seen, so I feel like it'd be good to show it here in the forums. It's basically an RPG maker horror game, just in 2 colors with 64x64 resolution for everything but text. The problem is that it's got slightly higher than average gore and dark themes compared to most games from that genre. That was sort of what I was going for at the time, as I wanted to contrast the light-hearted arcade fare that most of the entries were going to be.

Besides showing off that pico-8 can be used for that genre (as well as more normal vns), this cartridge shows some technical things that might be of interest: a huge map accomplished with 32-bit indexing of a bitmap, collision detection via image sampling, an enemy with a node-graph ai so it can semi-believably stalk the halls of a building and open doors as it goes, procedurally populating a building using seeded random, use of off-screen rendering to achieve transitions, and generally the use of creative text drawing to help tell a more interesting story.

P#124124 2023-01-12 07:22

1

there is a mature tag that can be applied to carts, and a config file change is needed to see them in splore

P#124149 2023-01-12 15:46

Be fair to yourself, @kimiyoribaka.

As I've written two horror games myself in the past, I believe the main thing you want to concern yourself with is what "sticks" to the player.

  • Are they going to have nightmares over it ?
  • Would parents say no if they knew what it was and a kid wanted to play it ?
  • Is it really depressing ?
  • Does it involve suicide ?

Those top 4 can definitely define what a rated G game is over one that is MA. Today we have such movies as Hellraiser, such games as Resident Evil, and years before that Mortal Kombat, and even years before that Death Racer was considered quite controversial.

Horror is and always has been an important part of games. Some people LIKE to be frightened, especially if the story is well-crafted, the plot well-managed, and the game well-written.

Certainly put a caveat in the beginning. I don't think you're going to have any problems - and I certainly do look forward to what you'll release. :)

P#124161 2023-01-12 19:42

Ah, I didn't know about the mature content flag. I've never felt the need to click on that arrow even for replies much less original posts. I'll go ahead and just use that then. I feel like it really should be accessible when posting a cartridge initially though.

P#124181 2023-01-12 22:23

The stick figure is definitely fine. Things "worse" than that already exist. If it's just a stick man (or even a stick man with implied nudity) I believe it's allowed.

P#124197 2023-01-13 03:34

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