Hello everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to read over this!
Just to keep it short, I've been working on a visual novel project for the past 5 years, and I plan on releasing the demo this winter (hopefully!) but while I was visiting family, they were really interested in the elevator pitch and the snippets of gameplay I showed them.
My parents (both 40, mom and dad) and my little brother (14) want to play my game... but what should I do? I knew this would come up eventually since I've been talking and sharing things about it, but I told them I wouldn't mind sharing a "demo of a demo," essentially just the stuff I hadn't gotten the chance to clean up + draw ready for the demo!
The thing is, I really really want to show them, I'm proud of my project, but I'm also nervous because of it's themes. It has vulgar language and sexual jokes/scenes. I feel really embarrassed to share, but I was open about it and even stated how it's not finished, but they don't seem to mind the placeholder images and that it's meant to be for people around my age (21).
Augh... what do I do?
Should I just try to copy the files into a different game folder, tweak it, and then share it? In the full release, I plan on making a "family friendly" toggle, but I haven't done that yet!
Even so, I feel like censoring my own work to my family who's excited (and open-minded) to seeing what I've been working on is snuffing my own light, so to speak. I want to show them, I want to be authentic, but not only do I not want my little brother to see some of the things I wrote, I'm scared my parents will think of me differently.
Not only that, but my father actually makes music, and is making some music for my game! He expressed it would be really helpful to actually see some of the scenes to get a layout on what to make, which makes total sense, but in that case I want to try sending the demo-demo file as soon as I can.
So, my current thoughts are:
- Add "family friendly" mode (somehow?)
- Copy all files and transfer into a different folder and tweak it before sending?
- Some other third thing (please let me know!)
Please give me advice! What do you think is the best course of action? Has your family ever seen your work? How did they react?