I'm a reasonable guy. I try to take feedback given to me with as much of a rational open minded viewpoint as possible. I try to be aware of the impact my decisions and actions make on the world, even the small stupid ones, and I try to make up for them with hopefully less stupid decisions and actions.
Yesterday was a big deal for me. While I'm not a die hard fan of pewdiepie, I've heard of his legacy. Like a gold armoured knight riding through the kingdoms, he looks down from his mighty steed and smiles at a small orphan girl, and as he rides away, the townspeople all flock to the orphan girl and ask her what her name is and if they can be her friend. Only its nothing like that at all, but in the heat of the moment, with emotions and excitement on such a large exposure to my work taking place right before my eyes, I got caught up in it all.
Yesterday I made a silly update to Cosmochoria which put a cartoon rendition of a naked, grinning pewdiepie in the game. Many people reached out to me to say this was funny / enjoyed / smart, etc but some reached out to calmly, or otherwise, tell me that they were dissatisfied with my decision and that it ruined the game for them.
It would be short sighted and selfish to think that they have no right to feel this way and that this, being my work of expression (or ridiculous nonsense), that I can do whatever I want with it. But the truth is, Cosmochoria is the end result of not only my own ideas but countless countless others. From the moment I shared it with close family and friends, to the kickstarter campaign, then all throughout early access with live streams and regular content updates, I've held the opinions and feedback of so many amazing people as words of gold, and have done my very very best to incorporate those ideas and make those changes where I thought the game would most benefit. It would be foolish of me to turn my back on that philosophy now.
I have made some tweaks to Cosmochoria. I'm not going to program in a feature like enabling / disabling the halloween content because in 2 weeks the halloween content will be gone and no one will even think about it anymore. As a compromise, I've restored the sprite of the default Cosmo costume so that if you use it, you are getting the original artwork for cosmo. Now the only things that are halloween-related are the additional costumes, which will unlock as you play and become more familiar with the game, the UFO's which lets face it are just as fun to blow up as pumpkins, and the various planets and planetary objects found scattered throughout the galaxy, which really dont do anything to take away from what the game offers, and I was even considering leaving that stuff in after halloween since it's pretty cool regardless.
As for Pewdiepie. I'm not taking him out because I think he fits perfectly with what the game is supposed to be: a reflection of me and my thoughts. The story of cosmochoria will make that more clear as you get into the game and realize it's not 'just' an arcade game... Just as much as I added nipples to cosmo on a whim, and designed a giant mothership as a boss because my then 4 year old wanted me to, i put a sprite of a pewdiepie clone in the mix because thats what this game is: absurd, nonsensical, but all in all me & my creation. I made pewdiepie clones appear much more rarely now so you should see him much much much less frequently, but if you truly feel the pdp clone breaks the immersion by being in the game, then a) you have one more reason to destroy it, and b) you need to read some more hologram pods.
Im sorry if I turned you off the game with these recent graphical decisions, and I'm honoured that you felt so strongly about it that you needed to express yourself. I just wanted to say that I was and always will be listening and will always try to find compromises between what your vision is for this game and my own.
Peace,
Nate
PS Changes are now live.
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