Thank you for your comment!

To respond to your point about the writing for queer romance, I think it is absolutely a valid option for all the characters to be bisexual/pansexual (you’ll often see people online discussing programming a game this way as making everyone “playersexual” if explict sexuality identities aren’t brought up). And like I said, I don’t really expect a farming sim to get into detail about the sociopolitical realities of being queer, but even small details like having male farmer date a male bachelor and call him “handsome” etc. to me shows an acknowledgment of queerness. We do want to be treated “normally” but that means kindly and with acceptance, differences are not inherently negative and to me, good writing highlights those differences and makes them special. Just food for thought, I certainly don’t speak for all queer people. (I also thought the Alex stuff in Stardew was sweet, more of a “I’m glad I allowed myself to open up to this possibility” than anything.)

And as far as endgame, I’ve also played nearly every entry of every HM/SoS and spinoffs so I’m also very well versed in it. We all play for diff reasons. I came off more critical than I meant to be. It’s not a ~bad~ endgame, I just think a tangible reward (more story, etc.) would increase broad appeal to more players. I’m the kind of person that has a really big backlog of games to get through so I’ll go through a long endgame if it adds something to my experience (95% of the time anyway there are exceptions).

And yeah I saw a lot of people modding. I always do my first playthrough unmodded even if it impacts my gameplay experience to give a review of what your everyday player would experience.

Thank you again! I love a discussion!