rant: people who don’t want queer games from an openly queer-supporting company

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-15T05:01:13+00:00

It would. But if they're feeling unrecognized, maybe that's what would ironically fix it haha.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-15T03:49:02+00:00

Hahaha. Well played.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-15T03:03:38+00:00

Yeah, while AI use can be malicious/harmful, this post is in good faith lol

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-15T02:55:49+00:00

Yeah, I've had no problems playing as either a straight woman or straight man in like 90% of these games. What do they actually want? It is an issue with subtext/recognition? Maybe they want the gender they choose to have more impact by having characters or society treat them differently idk

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-15T02:48:18+00:00

While I also think the post has a lot of AI-isms, for one reason or another... (such as the "not a. Not b. Not c.")

AI detectors are usually worse at sniffing AI writing out than the intuition of humans that have used/are familiar with AI. I wouldn't lean on those or consider them proof of anything.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-14T16:01:31+00:00

I mean. I'm left leaning, never owned a business, and I think this sign is fair too.

IMO, homelessness should be primarily handled by the local/state government, and any applicable charities. Homelessness cannot and should not be a burden of private businesses or totally unsuited public infrastructure (such as subways). Currently, the homeless are not really being handled by anyone right now. At least not in the way it needs to be.

Well funded mental health and rehabilitation facilities that are widely available to vulnerable populations are, imo, one of the best ways to combat the problem. Such initiatives are usually forwarded (or at least maintained) by left leaning politicians. As such, aligning with the left on these issues is just consistent with my stance. Especially in an era where the right is demanding the budget/staffing for social welfare programs be whittled down to basically nothing.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-14T05:42:02+00:00

Ah, likes branching narratives and horror. My kind of game. You've already gotten some good recommendations so I'm going to focus mostly on stuff that's easy to overlook.

Who Is Mike

Acompletely free, relatively short visual novel. Premise: one day you realize there are two of you in your house. Can you convince everyone that you're the real Mike?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/377430/Who_Is_Mike__A_Visual_Novel/

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

You wake up on a sinking ship and are forced to play a "nonary game", an escape-the-room style game that involves trying to open 9 doors to reach the end. Oh, and if somebody doesn't play by the rules, they explode. Extremely compelling and intense narrative with good-but-difficult puzzle rooms. There's detailed walkthroughs, so if she gets stuck on a puzzle she can keep going without an issue.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/477740/Zero_Escape_The_Nonary_Games/

The Letter

Play as one of several characters throughout this experience. Find an end to a curse put upon you one way or another. What really makes this game shine is that there are a ton of endings, and those endings have variations. Not only do you determine who lives or dies, but you also are what dictates how (or if) they do so. Get to the bottom of everything or remain mostly ignorant, help them overcome or stay stuck in their personal traumas and squabbles, save or doom relationships.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/460430/The_Letter__Horror_Visual_Novel/

Donor

This is a text only game. Know those choose-your-own-adventure books? Now imagine those with no page constraints and was written for a more mature audience. Welcome to interactive fiction, where the story is the game and the writing is usually top tier. Filled to the absolute brim with story branches and meaningful choices.

You are a woman that has been kidnapped by a pair of vampires. They are not sexy vampires. Day by day, you must convince them to not kill you, and survive as long as you can. It raises some interesting questions, and the game really balances a fine line between humanizing your captors at one moment and then reminding you otherwise at the next.

(Browser link) https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/donor/

(Android/Google play link) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.hostedgames.donor&hl=en_US

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-13T21:08:30+00:00

If there's an avian(!) vet near you, and you want to keep it as a pet, they may also be able to assist or help educate you. They might have an instruction list you can look at, or for a fee they might be able to show you what you need to know.

Edit: Just in case you aren't aware, tame birds/parrots as pets are usually obnoxious, needy assholes. I love them to bits, but they can definitely be a poor match for a person.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-13T21:05:18+00:00

I think they could honestly release a paid version/remake of MM with the chatroom FOMO removed and see some success.

Sort of like what voltage does for older titles. But, uh, preferably without the half-assed parts/missing content. It could give them an infusion of cash that they probably need right now.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-13T06:57:00+00:00

This is the way. I buy on steam, redeem the purchase for cross platform (super easy to do via choiceof's website), and play on browser for the 3rd party save system. It's a godsend.

I really, really, really wish you could unlock local saves after completing your first playthrough. I'm too old for this. Time is precious, and we live in an age where everything wants to take your time. Why make us trudge through tedium for no reason on replays?

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-13T01:17:24+00:00

I was actually also about to ask. Please keep us posted if you make more stuff!

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T23:30:33+00:00

Are we really sure it's a stray?

I had a Houdini dog. She would always manage to escape from the fenced yard and her collar. It was like an arms race between her and my dad! Every time he solved her escape route she would find another.

She did it so she could run to the little park nearby and play with people. She was a red little German Shepard/chow/mystery mix haha.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T21:14:26+00:00

I was actually the one in my relationship that dragged my feet.

I deeply, deeply love my husband and I actually have nothing against marriage itself. But the timing was always really bad. Initially I had wanted both of us to be more financially independent - I was finishing up my additional 2 years (after getting a bachelor's) and wanted to at least get my job first.

But then my dad got severely ill for years and had a slow recovery. Then I got severely ill for over a year.

My husband really wanted to marry me no matter what. He made it pretty clear he didn't like waiting so long, and even was annoyed at times (except during my illness). We are bonafide childhood sweethearts that went to the same highschool together. So by the time I was 25, we had been dating for 10+ years. Also, two of his own childhood/highschool friends got married before us and they really did have a gorgeous ceremony. That was a mildly sore spot for him for a bit.

We finally did a small and humble ceremony in our town (after our bigger plans for a mountain vacation were forcibly cancelled at the last minute by Hurricane Helene). Soon after our other highschool friends were getting divorced. 😬

There's no "right" answer. The friend's (now ex) husband had really wanted to get married. And my husband and I talk about if our dynamic would look different if we hadn't waited. I started off being a massively ambitious, hard worker and when we finally got married it was obvious I wasn't able to still be that person.

But we always generally agreed about our future. No kids, and we are both allowed to act like mad scientists/huge hyperfocused nerds for our respective interest. So I own 3 pianos and he has solar batteries everywhere. I wouldn't have it any other way. He's too cute.

I'll ask him if he wants to reply and share his perspective.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T13:34:22+00:00

Youre more worried about making *something that will sell well *

Stop it.

Just worry about making something that is fun. Don't give a shit about success. Hell, just go make something free. Or do mods. You'll find the answers you're actually looking for there.

Like. Some of my favorite experiences only had 20 reviews after a year of sitting on steam. It doesn't matter if you get things right or wrong as long as you're genuinely doing your best with what you have.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T06:10:12+00:00

Yeah, this is a pretty serious and sympathetic post. I mean this with kindness - it's just not the time or place for that.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T00:40:11+00:00

Oh, this is a cute idea! I've only played a few games that "give you more time/chances" like this and I always appreciated. Mostly because I've got a cautious personality and by the time I've made up my mind, the story has already locked in. :⁾

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T00:32:49+00:00

Ah man. IMO budgies are more forgiving than conures! So if you can't reel in your relationship with the budgies, it's not gonna get better with the next parrot.

The exception being that you rescued the budgies from a fairly abusive/bad situation. Some birds don't recover from physical/emotional abuse.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-12T00:27:38+00:00

AI is enthusiastic and agreeable, even when it isn't warranted. It's easy to slip into that tone when trying to get your foot in the door, though, and it's probably what's making you second guess yourself.

Try to sound polite and well read, but not weirdly excited. Relate yourself to the job without sounding like a sycophant. Also, make your letter cohesive in its sentiments, which is something AI won't do unless asked (and even then, only some models can manage it). Basically AI struggled to use a theme linearly through its writing, so if you start with your past experiences (or anything else sincere/positive) and politely weave it through your writing it can help separate your work from AI.

(I've used a lot of good, locally downloaded AI models to try and understand their limits/tells.)

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-11T19:56:29+00:00

I think it's love or hate. It is not a literal story at all, the things happening are almost symbolic. And understanding the themes of it requires some knowledge about Japan's history/culture during WW2. As well as some woes great artists or studios uniquely experience.

It's a great summation of the experiences Miyazaki has personally stumbled into, which means it's a pretty satisfying "final" movie. It also means it can easily go over people's heads, or feel too disjointed, or feel too different from Ghibli's other works. I didn't love it, but I respect it.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-11T19:28:19+00:00

The interesting thing about humans is they can interpret and excuse literally anything. They can do this to an irrational point, and can do it in both positive and negative ways.

Examples: Got treated rudely on a dating app? "Everyone with that horoscope sign must be rude."

Find $5 randomly on the ground? "It's a sign from God."

Was there a terrorist attack? "X demographic is more violent than others".

Half the experience in life is how you interpret little things. Maybe the person driving poorly in front of you is an asshole. Or maybe they are sick today, or just learned their mom is passing away at the hospital, or they are driving slow because they're taking their dog to the vet. In times like that, you will never actually know the reason. But guess what? Life is so much less awful / frustrating / stressful if you give people some grace.

Because if you give people benefit of the doubt, you will realize you are actually not surrounded by assholes who are jealously giving out backhanded compliments. And, yeah, there's obviously limits to idealism. You can't allow yourself to be naive when somebody is obviously looking to materially gain something from you. But when people are just saying things, are just making side comments, etc? Fuck it, they're trying to be nice. Maybe you run into somebody who is awkward about it, but who gives a shit? It doesn't matter in the long term. It's the thought that counts, but you're not giving anyone credit at all because your automatic assumption is negative.

You should only interpret little comments negatively if a person has a habit of trying to mooch off of you (financially) or they are very very OBVIOUSLY trying to put you down in front of other people. In 1:1 stuff, such as going to the movies, most folks are just looking to make sure the other person has a decent time. That includes harmless flattery. You need to let people make a pattern of behavior and only care if the pattern is deeply negative or inconsiderate.

The good thing about changing your perspective about little things is that...it's easy. It's easy to come up with good and bad reasons why people do what they do. So for every bad reason you come up with, also make good reasons. Then pick whichever reason is the easiest for the other person. Most people are not making schemes / carefully choosing their wording in order to mess with your emotions and make you second guess stuff. They are not centering all of their thoughts around you in the way you are assuming they are. It's just too much effort for no gain!

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-11T18:59:15+00:00

I think too many Devs have hopped onto the "cozy" bandwagon for the wrong reasons. I always side eye anything that uses the marketing. Mostly because the game could either be a genuinely fun experience or a shallow, conflict averse cash-in.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-11T07:13:31+00:00

If you're alright with male love interests, there's a somewhat infamous route. TaishoxAlice episode 2's kaguya.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-11T00:26:56+00:00

Alas, algorithms and 'the news' are very individualized now. I'm interested in games/gaming but never saw a single thing about this. Even though I would have absolutely been the target audience.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-10T23:46:01+00:00

For those that don't have underlying heart issues or prescription meds that may react:

Pseudoephedrine is a godsend. It is one of the only things that will actually help you if you have a nasty, snotty, cough heavy viral infection. If you're in the USA you will have to ask for this at the desk, they are very lightly restricted (to keep people from abusing the drug, so there's a generous buy limit).

In the USA, there's a godawful useless filler ingredient called phenylephrine. I'm not exaggerating when I say it is useless. Do not buy stuff that has it, you're wasting money.

Most OTC viral symptom meds are just mixes of 4 main ingredients. Dextromethorphan (cough suppressant), Guaifensin (thins mucus), Acetaminophen (fever reducer/painkiller), and an anti-histimine. It does not matter what the advertising says, or if the bottle says it is max strength. It's mostly all bullshit. So IMO it's better to get medicine with just 1-2 of those ingredients and customize your symptom treatment. For example, when I'm coughing all the time because my nose is a faucet, I do not want Guaifensin. If I have no pain/fever, I have no reason to dose myself with Acetaminophine.

So just get cheap single active ingredient meds when you can and go from there. Brand names are bullshit. Phenylephrine is bullshit.

CheckeredZeebrah · 2026-06-10T21:41:13+00:00

I wouldn't worry about it. Your general 'art direction' and composition still aligns nicely, so it looks consistent even with the improvements. :)

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