hpowellsmith
patreon
Small Honor Bound Demo Update
🕑 Added 2023-06-16 10:04:16 +0000 UTCI don't always post when I do early access edits but this one adds various variables and therefore may not play ball with your save slots so I wanted to give you a heads up!
Thank you for the feedback you've given so far, it's so so helpful! And hearing that you're enjoying it is so lovely!
Here's the link to the current early access demo.
Most of the edits I've made are corrections, under-the-hood stuff, or changes to variables that will come up in later chapters. The June 7th update corrected some typos, and the June 14th update fixed male Fiore's verb agreements and some more typos. This update fixes some typos and also the bug where the pre-game quiz would sometimes skip answering about Royal Affairs.
-
The main thing I've added is a small but important bit where you can specify whether you're taking hormones as a trans person, at the same point where you choose to say that you're trans. That gets tracked, and also records some things behind the scenes about the PC's anatomy. In the next chapter, you'll be able to specify surgeries you've had if any, which further tracks what the PC's body is like.
My aim with including some optional details about medical transition is so players who want to, can explicitly play as a character who has done this; what I very much don't want to do is suggest that this is the only way of being trans, that anyone is more trans than anyone else, etc. So there are other options to pick which are non-medical too and if you pick that you're a trans person, you're treated as such no matter what (eg Matia treats you in the same way, etc, no matter your experience).
I don't intend to go into a ton of detail about dysphoria in the game, but I wanted to include some physical specificity so that if and when MCs' anatomy becomes relevant, it can be reflected in the narrative.
(edited to add for code-divers: in my commented-out notes, there are some anatomical terms used for my reference, but those words won't be used in the narrative; I'm using different terms when descriptions come up in-game)
I'd be very happy to listen to feedback on this topic especially as those descriptive moments start to happen in-game.
-
Phew! Thanks for reading all that. As I say, I don't tend to do big posts about updates that aren't content-heavy - but this felt like one where I wanted to tell you a bit more about what I was doing and what my goals are.
Comments
Hannah Powell-Smith
Ah you're so welcome! I really want to do right by trans players (and myself) by not making assumptions about what characters' bodies are like if I'm going into detail describing those bodies - transition is such a personal thing, with so many different ways of thinking about and doing it. Writing the game with all this in mind and doing a lot of thinking about being trans in a non-transphobic world is quite lovely also <3
Ahnzo Vincente
Thank you so much for the consideration of different ways to transition. As someone who has not fully medically transitioned (just a hysterectomy and top surgery and hormones and not any grs/bottom stuff) I'm still trans and so are people who transition all the way and so are people who don't want to! I love this consideration so much.
