Moon Garden Optimizer is now listed on Steam. You can still play the game in browser for free on Itch.io, but the Steam version will be paid and have expanded content.
Moon Garden Optimizer is a puzzle strategy game about growing a garden while conserving water. It’s the only strategy game I’ve seen that lets you undo as much as you like. Wishlist on Steam!
Ahem.
So I’d like to discuss the decision to put the game on Steam, and also sell it for money. Selling out, as it were.
Earlier I wrote about Itch.io delisting NSFW content. Here’s some followup discussion.
I’ve been impressed by how quickly gamers mobilized around this. There’s an ongoing campaign to flood the call centers of Visa/Mastercard/Paypal. Financial institutions are now ineffectually trying to deflect blame onto each other. I think there’s a chance to win this particular battle.
The issue seems to have united gamers of all types. Progressives can talk about how this hurts LGBTQ games. Other gamers might be confused by the LGBTQ association, but they’re still vehemently anti-censorship. And look, I’m not complaining.
In the long term, Collective Shout and Project 2025 are targeting all porn as well as LGBTQ content. However, Collective Shout will claim that in this case, they were only trying to take down the very worst stuff, i.e. games with sexual abuse, incest, or pedophilia. From what I’ve seen, opinion is divided on these “abusive” games. Opinion is divided… but there is not much disagreement. Gamers recognize that the “abusive” games themselves are not particularly relevant. Whether you’re in favor or against the presence of “abusive” games, it doesn’t actually matter, because the censorship goes way beyond that.
But my instinct is to defend the “abusive” games. I’d like to elaborate on that, and also explain the LGBTQ associations.
Recently, Steam purged a bunch of NSFW games from its storefront. This occurred as the result of efforts from Australia-based anti-porn group Collective Shout who applied pressure through payment processors. Collective Shout is a “””feminist””” group, although nobody with a passing glance would recognize them as legitimately feminist. Its founder is anti-abortion, what does that tell you? Collective Shout has previously fought to ban GTAV, Detroit: Become Human, as well as rappers Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Tyler, the Creator.
The games that were banned on Steam primarily contain non-consensual and incest erotic content. I was curious what specific games were banned, and found a website dedicated to tracking it (warning: link contains thumbnails for NSFW games).
I released my game, Moon Garden Optimizer. It’s a puzzle strategy game about growing a tiny garden on the moon while optimizing water usage. It’s inspired by deckbuilders like Dominion, but it supports unlimited undo.
You can play for free in browser on itch.
Most people are here because they like my writing, so I’ll mention that the game has writing! As a reward for beating challenges, there’s philosophical dialogue between the robot protagonist and her human manager. It’s fairly silly, but takes a bit of inspiration from modern AI. For example, the human has unwarranted confidence in the robot’s expertise.
A conlang game is a game that asks the player to learn a fictional constructed language. Recently there have been a few well-known examples, namely Heaven’s Vault (2019) and Chants of Sennaar (2023). And so we may speculate about the emergence of a new “genre” of conlang games. Of course, two games does not a genre make. So I am here to tell you that I have played no fewer than six conlang games, and I’m going to briefly review each one.
I made a video game. I have not published, but I’m currently looking for playtesters. In fact, I’m trying to get playtesters right here and now, please let me know if you’re interested!
It’s a small puzzle strategy game titled “Moon Garden Optimizer”. I’m sure say more about the specifics of the game design at a later time. Today I’m sharing my development process up to this point.
A screenshot of my game
Gather round, it’s anecdote time.
Unpacking is a critically acclaimed indie game from 2021 that asks the player to unpack items from boxes, as if they had just moved. From this basic idea, a low key narrative emerges, following an off-screen character as they move from place to place at different stages of their life. And you can track their interests and circmstances by the various tchotchkes they bring with them.
Perhaps it’s a bit hyperbolic to say Unpacking triggered me. However, I did find it so unpleasant that I DNF’d it, despite its short run time.