Ed. Note: I’ve finished Boyfriend Dungeon and I’m going to be talking about the controversy surrounding it, which means spoilers.
Boyfriend Dungeon by Kitfox Games came out with much fanfare and as soon as people finished it (the same day or the next; it wasn’t very long), a controversy exploded. In the beginning, there is a content warning about stalking and manipulative behavior, but it was pretty tame. I mentioned it in my last post, but to expand, I hated Eric from the moment I met him. I refused to have anything to do with him (and missed a weapon until after I beat the game. My second-fave, by the way, after the cat) and worried I had missed important information or anything that was game-critical.
I couldn’t do it, though. I could not interact with him because he repulsed me so much. I’m not someone who’s been stalked–well, not really. Not in the conventional way and he still creeped me out to the point where I refused to interact with him. I was also confused because the tone of the game is “Let’s go to the dunj! Smooch some swords! Have all the fun!” It’s very light and silly (though with some real emotions) and to have this stalker-character in it was jarring. Was he supposed to be a joke? Was he supposed to be menacing? I didn’t know. In addition, the other characters mostly treated him like a benevolent nuisance (which, to be fair, is how stalkers are treated in real life) so in the first half, I just ignored Eric when I could and gritted my teeth through the scenes he had to be in.
In the second half, however, and this is where I put out a really big spoiler, the game took a turn for the strange. So, ok, in the first half, you learn that someone is kidnapping weapons, damaging them, and leaving them in the dungeons. It did not surprise me one bit to find out it was Eric. In addition, he was using their bits to create an uber weapon of his own. He called it Matsume or something like that, but everyone else called it Katana. I was really confused because, again, I hadn’t done any of the Eric stuff. After I beat the game, I went back and did the Eric stuff. He says some really foul bullshit about how the ‘pure’ humans are superior to the ‘hybrids’ and that he was dreaming of making his own ultra weapon that would earn the name Matsume or whatever.
That made the denouement make more sense, but it wasn’t really necessary. Plus, I felt vile after reading Eric’s bullshit and wish I hadn’t. But, in the end, I was able to brush it aside. Here’s the issue. Many people were traumatized by the stalking part and I can understand why. It’s really well done (I mean, true to reality) and gives the player a sense of what it’s like to be stalked. He shows up everywhere and you can’t escape him. Plus, he ends up being the big baddie and you have to kill him (his sword, but really him). I can see why that would be horrible for people who had gone through it.
Even more to the point, there was nothing in the promo material that even hinted this was part of the game. Everything I read about it or received on it was about the hot weps that you can smooch and dunj with. Bright colors, snappy dialogue, and a giggly attitude permeate the whole game. The content warning was so downplayed, it did a disservice to the game. Since the content warning was so light, I was confused as to if the stalking was supposed to be a joke or serious.
I understand that the devs didn’t want to tip their hand. Or, conversely, they wanted to market the game in a way that made it the most attractive to potential buyers. From either viewpoint, not mentioning the stalking makes sense. However, with such a fraught issue, they should have realized that it needed to be handled with a deft touch. This game was Kickstarted and there are people who supported it on Kickstarter who feel deceived. I understand this. They thought they were supporting one kind of game and while, yes, the game is that, it’s very much this other thing, too.
For this issue, I’m on the side of that the devs needed to put something in the description because of how pervasive the stalking is. It’s the backbone of the story, even more than the dating and the dunjs. I don’t know how they could marry that with the fun bits, but it needed to be done.
However, this quickly spiraled into a bigger issue in that many people demanded an option to opt out of the stalker content. Uh….that’s not possible. And here I disagree with the people wanting to be able to opt out of that content. This is where art direction is important and the consumer not being able to dictate what developers can and can’t do. Make suggestions, yes, but ultimately, the devs should go with their vision. You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to play it, but not everything can be tailored to your comfort zone. Especially since that zone is different for everyone. Some people who had been stalked said they loved the game because it was cathartic to kill Eric in the end. I could see that, too. Experiencing the trauma is a supportive environment in which you know you can’t really be hurt. But again, that has to be predicated on you knowing it’s going to happen in the first place.
The devs are working on a better content warning. This is good. I think they should include that stalking is an important part of the storyline in the description of the game on Steam, Game Pass, etc. But adding an opt out option? No. Even a block his texts I would say no. You can do what I did and never go to his store. You can go further and never answer his texts. But, you’re going to have to deal with him in the second half of the game, anyway.
In the video I included above, Aoife says pretty much what I’m saying, adding that it’s really frustrating that it’s minority devs who take a disproportionate amount of strife in cases like this. They’re the ones trying to be more inclusive and accommodating, and they get berated for not going even further. It’s partly because there is so little in this vein out there that when a game like this appears, we want it to be everything to everyone–which it can’t be.
They do so much good in this game. Nonbinary/genderfluid characters. Diverse ethnicities. Dealing with mental health issues in a sensitive way. Even the stalking is portrayed realistically and has a satisfying power fantasy ending. I loved my little avi and dressing the avi to my heart’s content. The dating side is robust and realistic (at least within the constraints of a video game). The dunj side is…serviceable. It never got good, but that’s fine. Iliked all the characters except Eric to varying degrees and I bonked every character I could. Pocket the Brass Knuckles cat was THE BEST. I loved him so much. I gave him all the gifts.
I do not want Kitfox Games to feel crushed by this because in the end, this is a good game. It’s a fun game. The dating is robust. The dungeon fighting is fine. The characters except for Eric are diverse and great. But, they should have been more transparent about what the game actually is so that people could make the decision if they wanted to play it based on what it actually was or not. But it isn’t fair for them to be held to a higher standard than Triple As especially because they do more than the Triple As when it comes to diversity and inclusivity. I don’t want the lesson here to be don’t ever stick out your neck because it’ll get chopped off, but I’m afraid that’s where we’ll end up.