I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this game for multiple reasons, but I greatly appreciate the intentions of it.
It's difficult to find peace and forgive and think positive when you find yourself in situations.
People will often tell you that the only real option is to be at peace with the fact that the only real thing you can control is your own mindset.
It's so, so difficult...
A part of me wishes that there were more ways to encourage people to be kinder and more honest instead of joking about things all the time, but it often resembles a terrifying, unrewarding endeavor where people say and do bad things all of the time and get away with it and you have no choice but to accept their right to choose to do bad because 'they're stubborn and you should stop thinking/complaining about it.'
Anyone can use wit as their excuse, so I gravitate towards people who understand the real value of honesty.
There are parts of this story that don't inspire me, but there are also parts that do.
that third chapter hit me really hard because i too had my first kiss stolen from me. it happened in high school with a guy i had been dating at the time. funnily enough, i was going to break up with him before he shut me up with that kiss. thank you for adding that particular bit in the game, since not a lot of people consider "just kissing" as assault. i know that i completely disregarded it and downplayed that trauma because i wasn't "really" an assault survivor.
We're sorry to hear that happened to you but really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us. We agree that this is behavior that is not acceptable -- and is too often treated in our culture as "okay" or worse.
Like you, were this to happen to us in high school we would likely have dismissed it as not being an "assault." We would think that because that is how we've been raised to think of these issues: our movies, books, and songs have given us those messages for years - and we were never taught otherwise ... so how would we know differently?
Our hope is that young people who play this game will see issues like this in a new light and, as a result, be less likely to be engage in this behavior. We want very much to change the "norms" around what is considered acceptable behavior when it comes to non-consensual activities.
We know that Stuck in a Dark Place has some very dark moments but believe it is an opportunity to shine light on issues that aren't discussed as often as they should be. We have tried very hard to find the right tone here in order to inform players without traumatizing them; we hope that you found the game's use of these trauma-based scenes to be appropriate. This is an ongoing issue for us and we are constantly considering how we might need to make some changes to this game.
We hope that Stuck in a Dark Place is effective at finding the right balance between informing players while not traumatizing them -- and that at least in some small way is helping to change some of the unhealthy social norms we've grown up with in our culture.
Thank you again for sharing your experience and thoughts.
wow. just... wow. i played through it all without skipping through scenes and it was a bit harder than i thought. i'm surprised there isn't more comments on this.
We'd love to see more conversations about this game also!
We know that the game covers many difficult topics and that might discourage much conversation. We are happy to hear any thoughts you, or anybody else, has about the game.
Thank you for taking the time to write something and to share your thoughts. We appreciate that.
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I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this game for multiple reasons, but I greatly appreciate the intentions of it.
It's difficult to find peace and forgive and think positive when you find yourself in situations.
People will often tell you that the only real option is to be at peace with the fact that the only real thing you can control is your own mindset.
It's so, so difficult...
A part of me wishes that there were more ways to encourage people to be kinder and more honest instead of joking about things all the time, but it often resembles a terrifying, unrewarding endeavor where people say and do bad things all of the time and get away with it and you have no choice but to accept their right to choose to do bad because 'they're stubborn and you should stop thinking/complaining about it.'
Anyone can use wit as their excuse, so I gravitate towards people who understand the real value of honesty.
There are parts of this story that don't inspire me, but there are also parts that do.
that third chapter hit me really hard because i too had my first kiss stolen from me. it happened in high school with a guy i had been dating at the time. funnily enough, i was going to break up with him before he shut me up with that kiss. thank you for adding that particular bit in the game, since not a lot of people consider "just kissing" as assault. i know that i completely disregarded it and downplayed that trauma because i wasn't "really" an assault survivor.
We're sorry to hear that happened to you but really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us. We agree that this is behavior that is not acceptable -- and is too often treated in our culture as "okay" or worse.
Like you, were this to happen to us in high school we would likely have dismissed it as not being an "assault." We would think that because that is how we've been raised to think of these issues: our movies, books, and songs have given us those messages for years - and we were never taught otherwise ... so how would we know differently?
Our hope is that young people who play this game will see issues like this in a new light and, as a result, be less likely to be engage in this behavior. We want very much to change the "norms" around what is considered acceptable behavior when it comes to non-consensual activities.
We know that Stuck in a Dark Place has some very dark moments but believe it is an opportunity to shine light on issues that aren't discussed as often as they should be. We have tried very hard to find the right tone here in order to inform players without traumatizing them; we hope that you found the game's use of these trauma-based scenes to be appropriate. This is an ongoing issue for us and we are constantly considering how we might need to make some changes to this game.We hope that Stuck in a Dark Place is effective at finding the right balance between informing players while not traumatizing them -- and that at least in some small way is helping to change some of the unhealthy social norms we've grown up with in our culture.
Thank you again for sharing your experience and thoughts.
wow. just... wow. i played through it all without skipping through scenes and it was a bit harder than i thought. i'm surprised there isn't more comments on this.
We'd love to see more conversations about this game also!
We know that the game covers many difficult topics and that might discourage much conversation. We are happy to hear any thoughts you, or anybody else, has about the game.
Thank you for taking the time to write something and to share your thoughts. We appreciate that.