Japan's conservative CERO ratings board would not greenlight the game without some censorship, according to Thoa, even if the developer agreed to an 18+ rating, which makes it illegal for anyone to purchase the game under the age of 18.
The overtly sextual dialogue got the game into trouble with some ratings agencies, in fact. Yu: Obviously not! That'll teach you to pay attention next time. The 'sticky sheets' scene is also one of the first I wrote because I thought nothing could be more relatable than this, at least for hetero/gay couples." " The very first scene I wrote was what became the very first scene of the game and it already implied the characters’ active sex life.
"I had free rein for writing the Nest scenes and quickly steered in that sexy/flirty," said Corbinais. While creatively brainstorming the game, Thoa said that The Game Bakers co-founder Audrey Leprince pitched that the game should imply they've had sex "in every room of the Nest." (The Nest is the ship the two have crashed into the planet they're currently on.) Because the outside world is scary and unknown, they've spent a lot of time in this place.
"Sure, every generation has its own verbal tics, its own slang." "I don’t believe young couples talk much differently these days than they did decades ago," said Corbinais. Haven picks up with Yu and Kay contemplating an existential crisis: a future away from everything they've known.Ĭorbinais cited comics like Lupus and Saga as inspirations because they shared Haven's story of people on the run, but he didn't spend much time, say, watching videos of today's young couples talking, trying to pick apart how they speak to one another in 2021. You don't help them fall in love with the right dialogue choice, or participate in the daring escape from their home world.
When players join Yu and Kay, their love is already in full bloom. One difference with Haven is that it's a relationship in progress. “There is an epic adventure story in Haven, but the real content is the mundane daily life of that young couple in love. "It's cute that when they kiss they heal each other but it kinda hurts my lonely ass soul," wrote one commenter on YouTube. It's also a game that drops in the midst of COVID-19, depicting a relationship where people can intimately touch one another's body in a world where people are being told to stay away. But it's true bigger budget games shy from sex, or depict sex as a cutscene reward for the act of talking with a person enough times. You don't have to go far into the independent game space-heck, just browse the visual novel section of any storefront-to see creators have been engaging and normalizing sex in the medium for a long time. It's a reach to say Haven developer The Game Bakers is breaking ground in its depiction of sex, and even the developers of Haven pointed to the work of designers Nina Freeman and Robert Yang.