To be honest I'm not completely sure - the option for mature content states "not suitble for minors" and the full game will deal with some quite dark content. Perhaps my understanding of the rating and how this game compares is actually not quite accurate. I'll look into it!
having watched a playthrough of the demo, this game absolutely should be marked as adult, i would not let a child anywhere near this game despite how amazing it looks (and it definitely looks so amazing!)
Itch has no actual age rating. Their effective rating is 13+ and 18+. You need to be 13 to use itch according to their tos, and they have a section that you can activate, that is in all intents and purposes for adults. But is vaguely named non safe for work. Or not suitable for minors.
Age ratings for games and movies are different around the world, and how they are enforced. Itch is US based, and the US ratings for video games are E (0), E10, T (13), M (17), A (18), with several additions. Also different around the world is, what would require a higher rating. Violence in general will give higher ratings in Europe and Sexual content will give higher ratings in US and vice versa.
But your game is not officially rated anyways. Maybe it will be for your Steam presence.
In practial terms, unless it is porn or graphic ultra violence, it will be a rating of less than 18, and itch does not care if it is 13 or 17.
From your comments I gather, you would rate it 17.
Steam might give you this warning message, if they also deem it 17.
THIS GAME MAY CONTAIN CONTENT NOT APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES,
Nudity is not considered adult only. It might be on itch, since they do not have any 17 rating or other mature content labels.
They vaguely tell you this: "If you have a project page that has strong adult themes, then it must be marked."
Whatever that means. What is an adult theme? What is an adult theme but not a strong adult theme? Is the graphic depictions of those themes relevant? And so on. And what is considered adult or strong adult would also vary with your location, but the developers come from all around the world with different cultural standards. You can show nudity in day time tv in Europe.
In practical terms, sexual stuff has to be marked. Nudity might need to be marked because of their equally vague not safe for work wording. Gore and violence might have to be marked, but looking at all those horror games, it might not be enforced for all but the most extreme games.
A notable non sexual example would be Fear & Hunger. It was released on itch and steam. But it never got an official esrb rating. Yet it is restricted on Steam and on Itch, maybe by the creator's own rating, maybe by people categorizing it.
Pragmatically, if youtube restricts streaming of the game, it probably has to be marked. And if not, then probably not.
The and in English is not a logical AND operator that has imaginary brackets around the operands. The concepts exist separatly and if you cite them together with an "and", you do connect them, but not to make them a new term, but to apply the thing said before to both.
A new term would have been sexualized nudity or nudity with sex. As the esrb sees it, they have their own category and you can get an esrb rating separatly for sex, and for nudity, and in varying degrees. https://www.esrb.org/ratings-guide/ They do include partial nudity in "sexual content" though, so you will get that one for free ;-)
Thank you! This demo was around 6 months of work as it started with me learning a few things about the engine, which took some time. The other segments of the game will probably be faster to develop though.
Just watched the manlybadasshero playthrough and it's incredible, I'm so hyped and the ost is very good. Hope to see the game and ost pop on steam!!!!
Also if you have as a project to release it on multiple devices, will you work with dreadxp ? It's totally feel like the type of bangers they support and publish. just asking for curiosity :))
People really seem to love the OST. Which is great because there's around 4x the amount of music still to come in the full release!
Funnily enough DreadXP is on my personal list of top publishers for this kind of game, but the bigger and better the response from everyone, the more likely we are to catch their attention so let's see how it goes!
Very interesting game and concept. Everything was so well put together. Even the non-horror elements were done great. Looking forward to the next step of this project <3
This game is great I love the fish minigame, had to stop playing and watch a playthrough for the last bit cause I got scared but this was great! cant wait to see more
Sorry about the spookiness haha. Each game has an 'uncursed' version without the scary parts and a proper ending, so I'm considering a way to let people play those separately as their own short games if they don't want to see the horror story! I'll have to think about how to do that a bit further into development.
lol dont apolgise it is a horror game after all and the uneasiness was done very well. Yall should be proud can't wait to see whats next and good luck!
Thank you so much, I hope you're right. I'm really proud of what we've delivered with the demo but I'm even more excited about people experiencing the rest of the game!
Holy, underrated game! The story is very intresting, and the ending is perfect. Can't wait to play the other games! I love the idea of playing other old games to find out what happened in the fish game. Maybe it's based off real events? Keep up the good work yall!
Thanks for the kind words! When the full game is ready, you'll get all the answers - the story goes far deeper than it seems and I'm really excited for what's coming!
Hey there's a link to a Discord server on the "The Bworg" website but as you've mentioned it, I'm going to add a link to this page too so people can find it. It's still early days and doesn't have many people in yet, but this link should work! https://discord.gg/5vDyeMHANx
What's up you guys? I watched someone play the game (good old Manly!) and decided to support you, rather than get the game for free. Keep up the good work! We need more gems like these and I can't wait to see it completed.
PS: Any official way I can download the OST of Normal Fishing? These chiptunes are absolute bangers.
Hey GalloViking! When I saw ManlyBadassHero had played the game it was the most amazing feeling, I can't believe it! Thanks so much for the support, that honestly means the world to us, especially as we don't have much of a following yet!
The OST is going to be pretty hefty as it'll include the tracks from all the other parts of the game too, so we're not ready to release them just yet. What you can do for now is follow @dBXYLevi and @dBXYDavid on Twitter/X, or follow dBXY on Bandcamp for updates, as I'm working directly with them for the sound and music (and they're incredibly talented!)
Specifically GameMaker Studio 2 - quite easy to get to grips with and perfect for the kind of retro-styled gameplay that we're working on for Normal Fishing!
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Why is this marked as Adult?
Depictions of death and gore (though obscured by low resolution). Increasingly so in the full release, as this is currently a demo.
I thought the adult rating was only for nudity and sex?
In my personal opinion, the gore isn't THAT bad...
Besides, doesn't marking a game as Adult hide said game from general audiences?
To be honest I'm not completely sure - the option for mature content states "not suitble for minors" and the full game will deal with some quite dark content. Perhaps my understanding of the rating and how this game compares is actually not quite accurate. I'll look into it!
having watched a playthrough of the demo, this game absolutely should be marked as adult, i would not let a child anywhere near this game despite how amazing it looks (and it definitely looks so amazing!)
Itch has no actual age rating. Their effective rating is 13+ and 18+. You need to be 13 to use itch according to their tos, and they have a section that you can activate, that is in all intents and purposes for adults. But is vaguely named non safe for work. Or not suitable for minors.
Age ratings for games and movies are different around the world, and how they are enforced. Itch is US based, and the US ratings for video games are E (0), E10, T (13), M (17), A (18), with several additions. Also different around the world is, what would require a higher rating. Violence in general will give higher ratings in Europe and Sexual content will give higher ratings in US and vice versa.
But your game is not officially rated anyways. Maybe it will be for your Steam presence.
In practial terms, unless it is porn or graphic ultra violence, it will be a rating of less than 18, and itch does not care if it is 13 or 17.
From your comments I gather, you would rate it 17.
Steam might give you this warning message, if they also deem it 17.
THIS GAME MAY CONTAIN CONTENT NOT APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES,
OR MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR VIEWING AT WORK.
Nudity is not considered adult only. It might be on itch, since they do not have any 17 rating or other mature content labels.
They vaguely tell you this: "If you have a project page that has strong adult themes, then it must be marked."
Whatever that means. What is an adult theme? What is an adult theme but not a strong adult theme? Is the graphic depictions of those themes relevant? And so on. And what is considered adult or strong adult would also vary with your location, but the developers come from all around the world with different cultural standards. You can show nudity in day time tv in Europe.
In practical terms, sexual stuff has to be marked. Nudity might need to be marked because of their equally vague not safe for work wording. Gore and violence might have to be marked, but looking at all those horror games, it might not be enforced for all but the most extreme games.
A notable non sexual example would be Fear & Hunger. It was released on itch and steam. But it never got an official esrb rating. Yet it is restricted on Steam and on Itch, maybe by the creator's own rating, maybe by people categorizing it.
Pragmatically, if youtube restricts streaming of the game, it probably has to be marked. And if not, then probably not.
I said nudity and SEX there.
The and in English is not a logical AND operator that has imaginary brackets around the operands. The concepts exist separatly and if you cite them together with an "and", you do connect them, but not to make them a new term, but to apply the thing said before to both.
A new term would have been sexualized nudity or nudity with sex. As the esrb sees it, they have their own category and you can get an esrb rating separatly for sex, and for nudity, and in varying degrees. https://www.esrb.org/ratings-guide/ They do include partial nudity in "sexual content" though, so you will get that one for free ;-)
Your game is amazing! How long did it take for you to developed it? I really love the boss battles and plot.
Thank you! This demo was around 6 months of work as it started with me learning a few things about the engine, which took some time. The other segments of the game will probably be faster to develop though.
Impressive! Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to play the full release :D
TAKE MY FRICKIN MONEY !!
Just watched the manlybadasshero playthrough and it's incredible, I'm so hyped and the ost is very good. Hope to see the game and ost pop on steam!!!!
Also if you have as a project to release it on multiple devices, will you work with dreadxp ? It's totally feel like the type of bangers they support and publish. just asking for curiosity :))
People really seem to love the OST. Which is great because there's around 4x the amount of music still to come in the full release!
Funnily enough DreadXP is on my personal list of top publishers for this kind of game, but the bigger and better the response from everyone, the more likely we are to catch their attention so let's see how it goes!
Make sure to tell DreadXP about the game ;)
This is just a demo I can't believe it, I'm looking forward to this project so much!
This is just the demo? Oh wow... Amazing job
Very interesting game and concept. Everything was so well put together. Even the non-horror elements were done great. Looking forward to the next step of this project <3
This game is great I love the fish minigame, had to stop playing and watch a playthrough for the last bit cause I got scared but this was great! cant wait to see more
Sorry about the spookiness haha. Each game has an 'uncursed' version without the scary parts and a proper ending, so I'm considering a way to let people play those separately as their own short games if they don't want to see the horror story! I'll have to think about how to do that a bit further into development.
lol dont apolgise it is a horror game after all and the uneasiness was done very well. Yall should be proud can't wait to see whats next and good luck!
You guys are going to hit it big, I can tell by just the demo, it's an amazing game!
You can be sure as hell I'm gonna get it as soon as it launches!
Thank you so much, I hope you're right. I'm really proud of what we've delivered with the demo but I'm even more excited about people experiencing the rest of the game!
I can't wait to play the full game! I watched Manly's video on it and it seemed really interesting. I hope to see more of you in the future!
There's plenty more to come!
Holy, underrated game! The story is very intresting, and the ending is perfect. Can't wait to play the other games! I love the idea of playing other old games to find out what happened in the fish game. Maybe it's based off real events? Keep up the good work yall!
Thanks for the kind words! When the full game is ready, you'll get all the answers - the story goes far deeper than it seems and I'm really excited for what's coming!
Very intrested in the story! Does this game have a discord server? I really wanna interact with the community!
Hey there's a link to a Discord server on the "The Bworg" website but as you've mentioned it, I'm going to add a link to this page too so people can find it.
It's still early days and doesn't have many people in yet, but this link should work!
https://discord.gg/5vDyeMHANx
What's up you guys? I watched someone play the game (good old Manly!) and decided to support you, rather than get the game for free. Keep up the good work! We need more gems like these and I can't wait to see it completed.
PS: Any official way I can download the OST of Normal Fishing? These chiptunes are absolute bangers.
Hey GalloViking! When I saw ManlyBadassHero had played the game it was the most amazing feeling, I can't believe it! Thanks so much for the support, that honestly means the world to us, especially as we don't have much of a following yet!
The OST is going to be pretty hefty as it'll include the tracks from all the other parts of the game too, so we're not ready to release them just yet. What you can do for now is follow @dBXYLevi and @dBXYDavid on Twitter/X, or follow dBXY on Bandcamp for updates, as I'm working directly with them for the sound and music (and they're incredibly talented!)
Will do, thanks!
Such a really nice game i was wondering what game engine was used for it
This game was made with Game Maker Studio.
Specifically GameMaker Studio 2 - quite easy to get to grips with and perfect for the kind of retro-styled gameplay that we're working on for Normal Fishing!