I'm playing Ikenfell right now!

I love that it has accessibility features where you can turn off screen shakes, set the timing mode to auto (to not use it), photosensitivity mode, etc etc. You don't see many games where the developers clearly want everyone who starts the game to be able to finish it. I'm willing to bet that there's no sneaky abelist features color-based or audio puzzles. I find this sort of stuff quite heartwarming such that the presence of cats ends up being a nice bonus.

This one does look nice, I am wishlisting it for now due to my backlog and the price tag. I wish there was a video showing the gameplay. One screenshot makes me think you can jump in some way (or maybe autojump like in CrossCode). It is hard to tell what the battles are like. I like story focused games but I think the whole violent monarchy setting is quite limiting (although the Imperial Grace demo seemed decent; some who are interested in this one might want to keep an eye on that one also).

Also, while not to say there aren't vocally anti-LGBT folks around here since there obviously are, the low rating of new games happens to a lot of games of different types just because GOG lacks an ignore button and giving a quick one star rating is a way to remember that you have looked at a particular game and aren't interested.

They have a video on Steam. It looks really cool, especially if you were around at the time of the SNES or otherwise like that vibe.

Not sure why it happens that certain games have a video on Steam, but not here. Unless it stinks and you don't to show it (not the case here I think), including a video if there is one is a simple thing you can do to help promote a game and get people interested.

I like that inclusion as well, though there's still some criticism to be had:
* You can't separately set attack and defense timing modes. I like to always succeed in attack timing modes, but always succeeding in defense timing modes makes it feel like enemies aren't enough of a threat.
* The content warnings are nice, but there's no way to back out of a cutscene once you've seen the warning, in case you'd rather stop playing and come back later when you're in a better state of mind.

Celeste (not on GOG, but DRM-free elsewhere) also has some nice accessibility modes, including slowing down the game, infinite dashes, invincibility, and even one that pauses the game when you dash until you choose a direction. Also, can turn off screen shake. (I saw a comment on the game's itch page where someone asked for the option to turn off screen shake, and she said "sure" and added it.)

By the way, there's a conference (hybrid, so you can attend online) on game accessibility later this month. It's primarily aimed at game developers, but you also get disabled gamers attending as well (and there's some overlap between the two groups).

Game looks ok, so onto the (ever growing) wishlist it goes.

- Simply put, it's a tag to indicate games with LGBTZZTOPBBQ+++ characters or themes.

https://www.youtube.com/@BelovedRapture/videos

Most sane and rational people have no problem with such content in their games, its a phenomenon that exists in real life after all. The worrying thing for a prospective customer like myself, is when the game self-describes itself in the following way:

"Beloved Rapture is a mid-length adventure, focusing heavily on the storytelling - exploring trauma, friendship, existentialism & LGBTQ+ themes."

Using only the information provided on the storefront as a guaranetee, knowing nothing more about the game and having only the opinions of total strangers to rely on, this tells me that the writing and story in the game is likely to be weakened, sufficiently so that I would consider not purchasing the game: when one of the primary things the protaganist is concerned about is who he finds attractive, rather than the greater concerns of the well-being of his family, nation, etc, for instance.
Also, when a game is advertised as such, rather than simply including it in a nuanced manner, it tells me that the game may potentially be advertising to a particular audience intentionally, and that the narrative and worldbuilding is intentionally altered and weakned in order to include these things - injecting a modern political opinion into it - rather than being intelligent about it.

When the game developers are more concerned about appearing morally and politically good to a selection of the population rather than crafting a compelling game... it can only through doubts over the products integrity and quality.

This is a case of a game where LGBT themes and politics are part of its gameplay, there is also some self-insertion of its developer, so you would engage in a dialogue with this entity on top of the game's own story and messages. The difference with a title like Beloved Rapture and others lies in the fact that it is meant to be consumed by a specific audience, LGBT, but it hasn't been adapated to *include* characters without any intention to makle them fit-in in any way, but to attract or appease individual activists self-representing a far wider group, LGBT people.

The main difference is, and I do believe what I've read on St. Elsewhere, that it is also his way of exploring LGBT topics/themes, whether to study it in a different- gamified way, or just doing thinking on what he's read in the literature I can't say, and that this isn't a case of symbolic virtual characters being gay, lesbian maybe transgender, and included- without further thinking of more than gender options, customization and further symbols and messages, which makes those empty puppets stick out all the more, when the original reason for their inclusion was either successful attempts to queer yet another popular game, then using it as battleground in their activism against perceived enemies existing largely in their own minds,
Think of Beamdog's Enhanced Edition DLC, Veilguard, and a neverending number of other titles where left and right are fighting it out, on the backs of average customers, who- understandably so, are fed up and are getting triggered, when there is yet another title, tagged LGBT.

If this developer has done his work right, this is one of the rare few titles I'm welcoming, and I would even go so far as to say advocating for, because there are people who are transgender, gay, lesbian etc., so why not create games speciifically for this group when there is a market for such content? This would promise to put activists in their place, and anyone who is interested to consume such games but is straight, can. Since this developer also wishes to enter into a dialogue with consumers this is one of the places to share your thoughts and opinions.

That being said I would say, that this is an honest to goodness attempt to create something genuine, and people attacking it while being aware who this is for, tagged- without signalling faux inclusion, they can safely be ignored as they are absolutely not the target audience for it. Open-minded people, by developer's own confession, are.

There is nothing wrong with the exploration of this topic, nor any topic. It just so happens that this topic is typically handled very poorly and inellegantly. As for making games for that audience, rather than just being about it, that may be unwise from a financial perspective, if it is produced in such a way as to completely alienate everyone else.*If it can only be appreciated by people who are LGBTetc, then it is a bad story.
And those are my primary concerns. That without considerable research on the behalf of a potential customer, it is difficult to realise if this is a quality game or not.

I don't see what games made for this specific audience- which does exist, would make it any different to other games and genres, without such themes and characters. There is a large number of titles available on GOG, featuring lesbian and gay- as well as a couple of transgender and queer characters/stories. This is where this stupid catch-all, LGBT (mainly used to signal inclusiveness and support, than what a game actually features in terms of preference or gender, like lesbian, gay, transgender is getting in the way, for lack of one or a set of exact tags only stating, what the game actually has to offer. Straight people are consuming any type of content, as well as- and mainly of course, those the content is catering to. I hope that I'm making sense in what I've just stated to you.

So, a game, specifically made *for* LGBT, which would mean that people identifying to one- or all characters on the alphabet, are getting something out of it, by way of story or characters. The options, usually found in games, to adapt a model of a PC or pronouns doesn't warrant this tag, again- signalling, and certainly not much thought put into story, characters and such. As I've already stated in my first reply, this game has a specific audience in mind, but welcomes anyone. to give it a try.

On handling such themes and creation and writing for characters poorly, this is the case mainly only in games where inclusion happens either due to attemps to queer any game to- and I cite, decolonize gaming from white, male, patriarchic, misogynistic, capitalist plus some swear words to top it off, and dedicated developers creating a game, very likely themselves being gay and/or lesbian and/or transgender- and a personal story to tell. So I would expect, that in this case, where personal history is also part of it, that it was handled sensibly. Whether it works and the story is good or for lack of talent for scripting and storytelling fails hard is difficult to say. You will either have to wait for more reviews, ask for opinions of players who already got it, give it the benefit of the doubt and go buy and play it to become able to judge for yourself how well or badly it was done, or you can wishlist and revisit it at a later date, just like you would with any other game.

I get that, however; the extend of the tag eludes me which is my issue in general. If you take a game like SWKOTOR, it does have the LGBTQ+ tag here on GoG. It is for one recruitable character which sexual orientation you could easily miss as was the case for many players (myself included, though it could be due to localization or lack of awareness) since the initial release.

The tag doesn't seem justified as it is such a minor part of the product. It'd be like putting "racing" as a tag because KOTOR has one minigame. That is my sole confusion, which often makes me question how much theming, flavor or actual relevance the tag has on a game. I have no issue with such elements; I just like to be informed correctly beforehand. I, afterall, could not be the intended target demographic for a story. If that's clearer.

It's like booru tagging...even if the thing being tagged is a small part of the whole work it'll still be marked. Also either gog or the devs likely feel it'll earn them some sales/pr points to mark more games with this or that particular tag.

From what I've read on Steam from the developer, the game has these themes but they don't go very political with them. The main character in the game is gay and it has a BL vibe which will undoubtedly attract Fujoshi who would have shipped those two characters together, like they'll do in Trails games. Not my thing as I can't really get through Taigano No Chi and similar. I guess if it was a gay female protagonist, I probably would have picked it up because I do like yuri type games.

By the way, someone mentioned that the visual novels don't need LGBT tags and I disagree, because several of those marked as such do indeed feature sexual scenes on that caliber. If a visual novel game is marked as yaoi/BL there will be gay sex. If a visual novel game is marked as yuri, there will be gay sex as well. Or at the very least, strong relationships towards male and male characters or female and other female characters. And AVN especially. If you choose to make a character gay, then sexual relations with that gay character will happen. That's how the NSFW gaming market works.

This game however is SFW, so there aren't any relationship options or adult scenes.

That must have been me, but I did not state .....don't need LGBT tags. My aim was to highlight the ambiguity of the LGBT-tag and I provided some arguments for it. :)

My position is that tags such as in this case gay, gay romance, or gay sexual encounters are precisely telling anyone that this is part of a game. The indiscriminately used ambiguous LGBT-tag getting applied to games when there are options to change the appearance of a character, selection of pronouns like he/she/them/they/xir..., not only doesn't warrant applying it but it's also just signaling inclusiveness by including tokens and themes, which are - as SultanOfSSuave stated - and I concur, oftentimes handled very poorly.

Beloved Rapture features topics and characters with specific preferences, in terms of love and relationship, so LGBT doesn't make sense. Using it here is drawing unwanted attention, which is unfortunate, and for the fact that its developer stated that: On a personal note, this shows that this developer understands what it means to be- or create something inclusive, whether that is art, writing a novel, or creating a game. Why limit the potential by using LGBT, which also symbolizes exclusion and hate towards otherwise open-minded and straight [traits, gender, skincolor] people of either sexes?

If it absolutely has to be used, 'LGBTABCDEX+-%' can be included on the store page as part of the marketing text. There is also plenty of space to let the world know that the developer and publisher are sympathetic to one or all characters and signs on the alphabet, followed by a description of how they translated this into the story and gameplay.

Tbh with you, I really am considering buying this game.