Originally posted by Liandri:

It's now a strong reminder of how creative people can just go and satisfy the requests from the some minority about their artistic decisions.

It would be a valid opinion, IF Amanita didn't accepted and acknowledged their viewpoint.
So it's more of a "Gosh, you're right! We totally agree with you" than a "Ok... We'll do something... Please don't bite us".

Originally posted by Liandri:

From what I know, usually when a group of people have a condition or issues playing the game (e.g. color blindness), developers go and add some option to help these people play the game with less issues. They don't change anything major in original game design.

I totally agree that most of the time it should be done like that.
And with Chuchel it should have.
That way, no controversy would have arisen from this fictitious update.

Originally posted by Trypetide:

It would be a valid opinion, IF Amanita didn't accepted and acknowledged their viewpoint.
So it's more of a "Gosh, you're right! We totally agree with you" than a "Ok... We'll do something... Please don't bite us".

What makes you think this is how things really are? This is clearly an imposed opinion if you ask me. Also why wouldn't they change the game name too? I think Chuchel means ball of dust, and making dust orange while still calling it dust is nonsense.

I don't think, just stating to you their behaviour =]
Looking at how the devs are going about the subject on Twitter & such, it's pretty implicit.

An imposed opinion would have been "forcing them to do so".
And they're clearly not showing it that way whatsoever.

As for changing the game's name, it doesn't have much to do with the "color problem", as you can choose any name "because we're inspired by this or that" without staying true to its origin, and the game/IP is already established (with everything entailed with this) so... Even if now Chuchel doesn't look like what a dust bunny "should" look, it still relevant to the spirit of the game... more or less. It just lost a bit of this original spirit of his along the way, that's for sure.

Anyway, you don't really have to justify a fantasy game like Chuchel with reality facts, it just needs to be credible to work.

(And yes, that's partly contradictory to what they've done with the color, somehow.)

Originally posted by Trypetide:

the game/IP is already established

I think the character was pretty established too.

Originally posted by Trypetide:

you don't really have to justify a fantasy game like Chuchel with reality facts

You don't need to associate anything in a fantasy game with things like people, politics and culture. Like someone's skin color.

Originally posted by Etchasketch:

OP, you are a child.

Well that solves everything, right?

Anybody can potentially be offended by anything - it's just that the "blackface" is the most marketed case (so far... who knows where we'd end up with such mind state 10 years down the line).
Here's the closest offensive stereotypical image the new design could potentially represent and offend: the orange bearded chuchel with black hat and worrisomely yellow lips bears striking resemblance to an old "below-the-poverty-line" central asian figure with golden skin, poor dental hygiene, unshaven beard that wears a traditional hat (tajik people have several variations of black ones, usually with some white patterns knitted into it) that has been plagued with liver cirrhosis (notorious disease in that part of the world), hinted by lips discoloration (it's actually the eyeballs that get discolored, but comparison still sounds no more far-fetched than any other variants mentioned in various discussion threads already)

Nobody will complain about it, though, because the stereotype doesn't have enough of recognition, thus can't be validated by any significant portion of people (...yet)

Originally posted by Liandri:

Originally posted by Trypetide:

the game/IP is already established

I think the character was pretty established too.

Sure, I'm talking about the whole package, you're talking about a part of it.
Totally the same proportion =] (as we're not talking about a big IP, because here it would be as relevant as the IP by itself).

Originally posted by Liandri:

Originally posted by Trypetide:

you don't really have to justify a fantasy game like Chuchel with reality facts

You don't need to associate anything in a fantasy game with things like people, politics and culture. Like someone's skin color.

Hey, maybe read more carefully what I wrote.
No need to explain to me what's happening ⇩⇩⇩

Originally posted by Trypetide:

(And yes, that's partly contradictory to what they've done with the color, somehow.)

Originally posted by Trypetide:

Sure, I'm talking about the whole package, you're talking about a part of it.

That's not much different. Also the main characters is present at the logo. It would be strange to watch Nintendo suddenly changing the skin color of Mario.

Originally posted by Trypetide:

Hey, maybe read more carefully what I wrote.
No need to explain to me what's happening ⇩⇩⇩

Originally posted by Trypetide:

(And yes, that's partly contradictory to what they've done with the color, somehow.)

I read that. Didn't stop me from expressing the confusion about the obvious logical conflict. That's not partly contradictory, that's illogical.

Again, That works well for well established IPs.
Even if it's technically correct in both cases, it's largely easier to change something with Chuchel than to do anything with Mario. You can't compare them that easily.

And that can't be illogical, nothing is that black or white.
A fantasy setting doesn't "need" any of our reality to works. Only credibility is a requirement.
But that doesn't mean you can't place some of it inside. It just needs to be credible to work.

The "partly" was only because they reversed something in the end, to answer a request that this time placed the game in a situation of conflict with our reality. And only because they decided it was the case.

But be it something thought wrongly or not, it shouldn't have been dealt that way.
That doesn't mean it was "impossible" or "Illogical" to do it either =]

Originally posted by matrixdll:

(...) the orange bearded chuchel with black hat and worrisomely yellow lips bears striking resemblance to an old "below-the-poverty-line" central asian figure with golden skin, poor dental hygiene, unshaven beard that wears a traditional hat (...) that has been plagued with liver cirrhosis (...), hinted by lips discoloration (...).

You mean kinda like this[i.pinimg.com]?

Originally posted by Trypetide:

That works well for well established IPs.

Tell me where exactly is the line between well established and not well established ones, or this argument won't matter for me.

Originally posted by Trypetide:

it's largely easier to change something with Chuchel than to do anything with Mario.

Maybe I wouldn't have bad feelings about the whole thing if the change happened during beta or early access period. Doing that 1 year after game release is not how creators should treat their creations.

Just scroll through this section and see how many articles, artworks and other merchandise were effectively deemed wrong or non-compliant by the updated "original" artistic decision. Also search "chuchel merchandise" in google images.

This is how you ruin a successful game along with its successful original character.

tbh, I'm more concerned about the polarising reaction it brings. We created a division that didn't exist, supposedly in the name of bringing us together by "correcting" history.

PC? What about simple reason?

> I'm offended by Object A
> So stop using Object A
> No, I don't want YOU using Object A
> But I'm not offended by it
> I am
> So stop using Object A

It didn't need to be problem. It is now. Why did an optional "Object A" aversion have to be changed in the first place. In every sense it is censorship by people who have no right to do so.

When we succumb to it, we normalise it. Where does it stop?

I am offended by [insert object] because it's [insert offense here]. You WILL agree because that's what *I* want.

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

Where does it stop?

That's also my point. It didn't need to start.

Originally posted by Liandri:

Tell me where exactly is the line between well established and not well established ones, or this argument won't matter for me.

Well, in our present case it's crystal clear:
- Mario is a decades old franchise / Chuchel isn't even one year
- Mario is completely mainstream / Chuchel is really niche
- Mario look, colors, voice and lines are known by millions / Chuchel's... Just known by few

I can cite others points, but overall you can't compare them just like that.
Technically, even as a young IP, Chuchel was here nearly a year now, with marketing, goodies and such. That costs a lot before, during and after release. Even more to a tiny indie studio.

So this "color change" move was clearly not premeditated, hence why it's a bit hard for them to do it, even with just a palette swap. But taking all facts into account, that's clearly an easy road compared to changing Mario to, say, black dungarees... Canonically speaking (like with Chuchel, not just during a game or whatever).

Originally posted by Liandri:

Maybe I wouldn't have bad feelings about the whole thing if the change happened during beta or early access period. Doing that 1 year after game release is not how creators should treat their creations.

They clearly have the right to do so. And in the grandstream of things, that's really a minor issue, compared to many other things that could have been done. But I agree with you that doing 9 months after release seems kinda late to the party, even considering the situation. And more than that, as tiny a change this update was, it would have been oh so simple to put an option in the menu, for past customers. Just to respect the fact many purchased the game because they loved Chuchel in its original form.

Sure, some will retort to you "but the game is overall the same!".
That's just stating a technicality though.
It's still not the same, whatever they could say.

I could easily compare that to playing a game with a soundtrack you don't like at all.
For some games, if you like the overall package minus one particularity (like said above with the soundtrack) then you can most of the time deal with it by muting it/toggling it off, and consequently still be able to play "the same game, the same way", just without the original tone and ambiance intended.

In the case of Chuchel, it's impossible.

As simple as a change could be done, you can't tweak it, and are forced to play with him in its orange glory till the end. I prefer the original black color myself, and am not necessarily hating this new orange. But I definitely can understand that someone could not be able to play this game only because they hate the orange color, the same way I would hate to play a lovely game but being forced to listen to its horrible soundtrack.

But over all these things, the real problem is just that many preferred the black version by taste, and got that snitched by this new update, without even being able to say anything about it, nor be heard.

So changing whatever you want as a dev = ok
Not considering past customers by blocking access to what they originally bought = not ok
Not even considering talking it over, or mitigating the change by letting past customers having a "sort of access" of their previous purchase with a simple option = definitely not ok.

But nobody at Amanita cares about that so, whatever I guess.

Originally posted by Liandri:

Just scroll through this section and see how many articles, artworks and other merchandise were effectively deemed wrong or non-compliant by the updated "original" artistic decision. (...)
This is how you ruin a successful game along with its successful original character.

Well... What can I say.
You can't erase the past, so you should most likely embrace it an make it your own.
But people still tend to "forget", or at least it will happen over time to a certain degree.

Originally posted by Silky Rough:

It didn't need to be problem. It is now. Why did an optional "Object A" aversion have to be changed in the first place. In every sense it is censorship by people who have no right to do so.

Because "that's not censorship when it's for helping going against great causes that merely just a few individuals decided it was clear as a blue sky in summer a big cause it was" I guess?

That said, in this case, it's not censorship: that would have been something imposed by a third party to the devs. And it's surely not the case, as they welcomed this change with open arms.

Originally posted by Trypetide:

That said, in this case, it's not censorship: that would have been something imposed by a third party to the devs. And it's surely not the case, as they welcomed this change with open arms.

That's obfuscation. They did so because they thought it was offensive. The censoring was instigated by a 3rd party and it demanded a response in the absence of any reason NOT to.

The reason NOT to came post change and is easily remedied.

Frankly, it would have a been the CEO of Amanita walking down a street, hearing a little girl shouting "hey, mama, this man looks funny, he's like an black man because his face is all black!", pointing at a white folk doing his business working the road or something, and BAM!

The CEO thinks to himself "Wait a minute... Is that how Chuchel could look like to some people?! Damn, gotta change that quick. That's totally racist after all!!"...

It wouldn't change the fact that the last decisive action was done by Amanita in all consciousness. Now, judging them on the "why" exactly, and other political stuff...
People can think what they want of that. That's not my thing, as I'm not really fond of this.

But my biggest problem overall is more about the whole attitude toward their past customers, technically speaking. The rest, I won't bother going down that road...