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trypophobia from algae and the breathing floor


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I had to look that word up, as I hadn't heard it before. The word was coined back in 2005? Neat!

"Trypophobia is a proposed phobia (intense, irrational fear or anxiety) of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia

I did find the slime/water on the floor thing to freak me out a little, especially the random, undulating movement.

 

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I'm not quite sure if this is a troll post or not, to be completely honest.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

If you have issues playing the game due to a personal phobia, then that is your issue and not an issue with the game.  This may sound harsh, however, one cannot expect a game developer to cater to everyone's phobias.  Given that there can almost quite literally be a phobia for everything that exists in reality (as well as things that don't), it is an unreasonable request.

Perhaps if the game offers modding in the future that supports replacing existing game art, you could reach out to the artists of the community (or do so yourself) to replace the art for said tiles with something better for yourself.

This is a personal issue and as such should be handled personally.

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6 minutes ago, Ecu said:

I'm not quite sure if this is a troll post or not, to be completely honest.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

If you have issues playing the game due to a personal phobia, then that is your issue and not an issue with the game.  This may sound harsh, however, one cannot expect a game developer to cater to everyone's phobias.  Given that there can almost quite literally be a phobia for everything that exists in reality (as well as things that don't), it is an unreasonable request.

Perhaps if the game offers modding in the future that supports replacing existing game art, you could reach out to the artists of the community (or do so yourself) to replace the art for said tiles with something better for yourself.

This is a personal issue and as such should be handled personally.

Some games have color blind mode so I think its fair to ask if it's not a troll. The devs have final say on it so I think it's important to at least inform them that there are people with certain needs. They can then decide if it's worth their time or if it's something they want to do. But not knowing means there is a 0% chance of it happening.

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Just now, AlexRou said:

Some games have color blind mode so I think its fair to ask if it's not a troll. The devs have final say on it so I think it's important to at least inform them that there are people with certain needs. They can then decide if it's worth their time or if it's something they want to do. But not knowing means there is a 0% chance of it happening.

There is a difference between being color blind though, and a phobia.  To implement a color blind mode, one needs only implement alternative palettes for the graphics.  While it can be time consuming, it isn't exactly restrictive to the art style of the game.

However, trying to cater to phobias would actually limit the artistic style and perhaps even content itself.  I don't feel it is reasonable to ask developers and/or artists to cater to one's phobia.  If you have an issue with playing a game due to a phobia, then perhaps you should not play said game.

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Just now, Ecu said:

There is a difference between being color blind though, and a phobia.  To implement a color blind mode, one needs only implement alternative palettes for the graphics.  While it can be time consuming, it isn't exactly restrictive to the art style of the game.

However, trying to cater to phobias would actually limit the artistic style and perhaps even content itself.  I don't feel it is reasonable to ask developers and/or artists to cater to one's phobia.  If you have an issue with playing a game due to a phobia, then perhaps you should not play said game.

True but I still think if the devs feel something for such persons and/or the group of people is large enough it still might be possible. Whether its reasonable or not should be left to the devs of said game to decide. The important thing is to make them aware and be polite and respectable. If they gave a definite no then yeah ... end of discussion, but until then I still think there is some sort of chance to make a game easier to play for such people. As the devs may not have been aware of such phobias and/or were not aware that it would trigger such. 

However for games where the design is straight out to trigger such phobias where the change would affect the core mechanics then I would agree that asking is too much and people should look elsewhere. But ONI is in the grey area so let's leave it to the devs.

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Just now, AlexRou said:

True but I still think if the devs feel something for such persons and/or the group of people is large enough it still might be possible. Whether its reasonable or not should be left to the devs of said game to decide. The important thing is to make them aware and be polite and respectable. If they gave a definite no then yeah ... end of discussion, but until then I still think there is some sort of chance to make a game easier to play for such people. As the devs may not have been aware of such phobias and/or were not aware that it would trigger such. 

However for games where the design is straight out to trigger such phobias where the change would affect the core mechanics then I would agree that asking is too much and people should look elsewhere. But ONI is in the grey area so let's leave it to the devs.

Nope, I still disagree with you.  Phobias like the Trypophobia would actually limit the artistic expression of the artists of a game.  Additionally, by catering to a specific phobia and altering the art style accordingly, it sets a precedent for others to claim issues due to their phobias.  This isn't a road I feel any developer should go down.

Sure, Klei makes the final call.  However, I'm giving my own viewpoint as a developer and artist myself and from my perspective, it is a completely unreasonable request.

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Well from a development point of view, it's not exactly a hard thing to just code a switch in the settings - plain algae / slime textures.  And it just swaps the textures to a new set - plain green and plain dark green for algae / slime respectively.  If it was a more complex phobia I could understand it being not something that could be solved but in this case... it's really not a big deal to put a solution in there, even if it's super botchy (aka go to paint -> paintbucket -> pure green boxes and load them in the spritesheet).

I'm sure Klei will have a positive stance on this, especially if it's not an isolated issue.  Personally it's a bit bothersome for me too the way Slime in particular looks, but I'm not phobic of it.  An actual phobia, which I have towards syringes makes a trigger dangerous for myself and those around me.  If the OP genuinely suffers from this, I can't help but empathize, especially since it doesn't really impact anyone else if the sprite-switch is made optional (which it should), just like the color blind option in some games.

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Well I'm a coder and for me I draw the line at if I had a spider mob and you have arachnophobia I'm not removing a mob.

But if it's something where it's just a minor tweak to the art I don't see why not, but the artist has the final say. But if it changes what the object is or removes it ... nope.

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18 minutes ago, Luponius said:

Well from a development point of view, it's not exactly a hard thing to just code a switch in the settings - plain algae / slime textures.  And it just swaps the textures to a new set - plain green and plain dark green for algae / slime respectively.  If it was a more complex phobia I could understand it being not something that could be solved but in this case... it's really not a big deal to put a solution in there, even if it's super botchy (aka go to paint -> paintbucket -> pure green boxes and load them in the spritesheet).

I'm sure Klei will have a positive stance on this, especially if it's not an isolated issue.  Personally it's a bit bothersome for me too the way Slime in particular looks, but I'm not phobic of it.  An actual phobia, which I have towards syringes makes a trigger dangerous for myself and those around me.  If the OP genuinely suffers from this, I can't help but empathize, especially since it doesn't really impact anyone else if the sprite-switch is made optional (which it should), just like the color blind option in some games.

It isn't a hard thing to develop, no.  However, how would this be implemented?  How much time would it take to implement a new art asset that the artists were happy with as the replacement?  Each new setting you add offers a new avenue for something to go wrong.  If they have a specific setting for this phobia, how do they justify not supporting other people's phobias?

It isn't really always as simple as people think to make a minor change to a piece of software.  Asking the developers to change the game due to your phobia is unreasonable and I'll stand by this.  That said, hopefully we will see official support of modding and that will better allow things like this to be quickly and easily handled by the community.

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Just now, Ecu said:

It isn't a hard thing to develop, no.  However, how would this be implemented?  How much time would it take to implement a new art asset that the artists were happy with as the replacement?  Each new setting you add offers a new avenue for something to go wrong.  If they have a specific setting for this phobia, how do they justify not supporting other people's phobias?

It isn't really always as simple as people think to make a minor change to a piece of software.  Asking the developers to change the game due to your phobia is unreasonable and I'll stand by this.  That said, hopefully we will see official support of modding and that will better allow things like this to be quickly and easily handled by the community.

Just like yourself I am also in software development, as a programmer.  I understand your points especially when you mentioned you're an artist, believe me it's not anyone's first choice to just walk over art and start screaming nope at everything, but a game is about the experience it delivers to the user.

Giving the option to some users to change a piece of the game's experience which is to their detriment without impacting anybody else is not something worth standing against just in case it "opens the floodgates".  Each case can be tackled individually.  It's worth re-mentioning color blind people, which might have issues fully identifying the different elements of the game, it's common sense to cater to as many people as possible.

This is also part of game development, and obviously decisions of what's worth it and what isn't is Klei's choice to make.  I am not saying Klei should take action "or else", but I really don't see why we need to draw protest signs and stand against such requests.  I personally will take an opposite stance to yours (which I respect) and say I'd be glad to see as many people's issues tackled as possible.  Making excuses is understandable, but excelling past them with solutions is the way champions do things.

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13 minutes ago, Luponius said:

Just like yourself I am also in software development, as a programmer.  I understand your points especially when you mentioned you're an artist, believe me it's not anyone's first choice to just walk over art and start screaming nope at everything, but a game is about the experience it delivers to the user.

Giving the option to some users to change a piece of the game's experience which is to their detriment without impacting anybody else is not something worth standing against just in case it "opens the floodgates".  Each case can be tackled individually.  It's worth re-mentioning color blind people, which might have issues fully identifying the different elements of the game, it's common sense to cater to as many people as possible.

This is also part of game development, and obviously decisions of what's worth it and what isn't is Klei's choice to make.  I am not saying Klei should take action "or else", but I really don't see why we need to draw protest signs and stand against such requests.  I personally will take an opposite stance to yours (which I respect) and say I'd be glad to see as many people's issues tackled as possible.  Making excuses is understandable, but excelling past them with solutions is the way champions do things.

See, I see no issue with it when it is a rather common issue that is reasonably solved in a standardized way (such as color blind options).  However, it is most definitely unreasonable to ask a developer and/or artist to sit down and alter their game because their art style triggers a phobia.  Additionally, it creates a bad precedent to do so as it gives the impression that you will cater to such things in general.  This is all in addition to the additional development and artist time spent to do so.

Instead, I feel such things are better handled as modding.  This allows an individual user to better cater their experience to themselves and doesn't use additional developer/artist resources to do so once set up.  I know that we have users on the discord channel looking into an unofficial modding platform for ONI already.

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1 hour ago, Ecu said:

Nope, I still disagree with you.  Phobias like the Trypophobia would actually limit the artistic expression of the artists of a game.  Additionally, by catering to a specific phobia and altering the art style accordingly, it sets a precedent for others to claim issues due to their phobias.  This isn't a road I feel any developer should go down.

Sure, Klei makes the final call.  However, I'm giving my own viewpoint as a developer and artist myself and from my perspective, it is a completely unreasonable request.

I'll agree that modding is an acceptable solution for games that want to allow such things. But I still feel like people with phobias should still ask, that way devs can add to the importance of modding if modding is not yet a feature of the game. Or if it is then modders can pick up the tab.

Ok now that everyone's happy let's stop debating :p 

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