spiteful-studios

[spiteful-studios]

Lol i love how ur partner absolutely has like either hatred or contempt with the sibling brothers- reminded me of stan having beef with a 10 year old-

Gideon: *about to breathe*

Stan: .. GIDEON...

if i could punch one fictional child... between those three, the choice wouldn't be easy. (jk i'd drop kick gideon and punch both sibling bros in a single fluent swing.)

[spiteful-studios]

Oooohhh would there be a chance to meet the Parents, per se???

what is this, some kind of parent trap?

[spiteful-studios]

Aside from Caryn, Cathy, The school guard dude, Mr. Noble, and the fortune teller lady, would there also be other characters in the game? Like Crampelter and the Sibling Brothers?

hey, so i showed this to my partner because i didnt know who the sibling brothers were. before she explained who they were to me she said, and i quote, "eugh, i am not adding the sibling brothers" so sorry to all the die hard sibling brothers stans. that said, we do have plans to implement more characters !! i am not allowed to say anything more because i will absolutely spoil everything if i do not reign myself in, but trust and believe that there is more on the way.

[spiteful-studios]

Is there no way of winning that cup and balls game??? Just curious lol

the way i sprinted to this message because i have been dying to talk about the ball and cup minigame. it was such a pain in the ass to code, but it was so worth it to implement it was my favorite part of the demo to see actualized.

so to answer your question there absolutely is a way to win that ball and cup minigame. i dont have the code for the game out in front of me right now but i believe that each cup has a one in five chance of actually having the ball underneath it; we wanted it to be genuinely as rigged as a real life carnival ( because its FUNNY ) but yeah, there is a chance you will get the ball and there is like one or two lines of dialogue you can get when you "win" the ball cup minigame.

for those interested in trying to get the minigame victory, you have to save before you start the minigame and, if you want to reset, you have to go alllll the way back to the main menu to load your save. that way, the code has a chance to regenerate the odds for you. its a pain in the ass and, again, its only like a handful of dialogue lines. but its a fun little easter egg !! have fun at the carnival yall

[spiteful-studios]

PLEASE- I just wanted to get some love from these two boiz- and all I got was a target on mah bootiful forehead-

HOW DARE YOU-

I'm just kidding, what is the lore of this? What made you target our foreheads? 😊

if it makes you feel any better, i happen to be the CEO of having a massive dome so you're in great company—

anyways explanation under the cut !!

the reason we decided to go with something as innocuous as your forehead to pick on you for is for a.) inclusivity and b.) time appropriate discrimination. its important to remember that the game takes place in the seventies in the united states. the social environment for the school would be a lot different than the social environment that we would see in a more modern high school; namely, one of the things we discussed pretty early on in our discussion of worldbuilding for our dating sim was how we were going to tackle the discrimination that one would probably experience in a high school at this time. i know we do have some players who may not be as familiar with united states politics around this time, but the civil rights act, which banned segregation in public spaces, was passed in the mid-sixties ( be nice to me its been like ten years since ive studied american history ) so depending on when we think glass hearts takes place in the seventies, we might be fresh off segregation. and there are other factors to consider, such as how racism looks in southern states versus northern states and how that would translate to an academic setting, nevermind the sexism you may face if you're afab or visibly queer. so that brought the question: do we ignore period appropriate discrimination?

if i can get personal for a second— im bipoc and i love the sixties and seventies for their aesthetic, the vernacular, it just so happens that i really like it. but im someone who grew up with a lot of discrimination around videogames. its frustrating, for example, to play a game with an all-white cast where the self-insert main character is a little petite white girl when i am, in fact, a plus-sized black woman. Or playing games in which the only people of color i see are complete stereotypes rather than actual characters. i was pretty upfront with my partner that i didnt want to us to create a game that isolated people of color the way that i felt isolated growing up. so, blatantly putting anything discriminatory against anyone was not on the table for either of us. it would have been period appropriate, sure, but it wouldnt have been a fun experience no matter what avenue we went down with it. but i also felt like it was . . . weird not to have any reference to the discriminatory nature of a school environment at that time ?? i kind of struggle to put it into words necessarily, but it feels reductive to just not include anything about the discriminatory nature of schools at that time for people in vulnerable populations ?? like, for example, homophobia is not so insignificant that i can just write it out of a time period and we are none the wiser. while i would love to live in a world where homophobia doesnt exist it is just unrealistic, and writing around it diminishes opportunities to show characters growing from prejudice views, or explain struggles that some audiences ( like myself and my partner, for example ) can really resonate with. so that brings us back to the main question: how do we write discrimination without actively discriminating against anyone ??

the forehead bit.

it was kind of a joke that meg and i spitballed when we were in the early phases of writing the script ( specifically lou tenant making that forehead joke early in the game. the way meg read that out had me dying laughing when we were in the early stages ) that just stuck, but it really worked out to accomplish what we were trying to accomplish !! because the forehead bit is annoying. we can write it in ways that make it easy to play it off for laughs and make it something that we can all giggle about, but the constant repetition gives this impression that certain characters are judging you off a character that the main character cannot control or change, or that they're poking fun of a feature that is unique to you. if you want to read into it in a more serious light like meg and i are more prone to do with the media that we consume, then the forehead joke can be seen as a microaggression and expanded upon. but for people who are not interested in that, they can just laugh, groan, or roll their eyes and move on with the story. its also such a specific insult that there's minimal risk of retraumatizing anyone with that comment, and it still harkens back to the microaggressions you may face based on your sexuality, ethnicity, race, etc. we didnt want to isolate any particular audience by making anything more specific than that— anyone can have a big forehead regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.

so, in short because i rambled a lot in this response, it basically serves as environmental storytelling to write discrimination without writing discrimination. whether we were successful is entirely at the digression of the audience; i just know that meg and i have been trying to make a game that we would enjoy playing, and that was what we decided would be the most effective avenue to tackle that issue.

[spiteful-studios]

Out of curiosity-

Do I really have a big forehead?

🥹👉👈

oh sweetie i hate to be the one to tell you this but . . .

[spiteful-studios]

so, i have to talk about one of my favorite comments on the glass hearts itch.io page

[spiteful-studios]

It's alright if Day 3 takes a while to be released! Just take your time! So excited to hear it's almost done! :)

Also, stay safe y'all!!

🫡 we'll do our best to take our time !! i would just hate for anyone to get the impression that we're not buzzing at any opportunity to sit down and work on it— im literally terrible at keeping secrets or omitting information ( which makes me running the tumblr all the funnier. do you know how badly i want to talk about the entire story from start to finish ?? do you know how it pains me not to babble ?? i was practically born to yap !! ) so my excitement always manifests as if you crammed mentos into a cola bottle and shook it.

💛 but i sincerely hope that you and everyone who is reading take care of yourselves !!

[spiteful-studios]

Omg, finished the demo and it was so cute!!!!! I absolutely love the artwork and the dialogue. The dialogue seems so natural for the characters to say which elevated the game for me. And the length of the demo??!? That was my favorite part lolll

Excited for the rest of the game to release in the future :D

Take your time w/ the game, hope you win the lottery, and have an amazing day <3

i am white-knuckling the keyboard at the opportunity to talk about the work that goes on behind the curtain when it comes to the demo. the dialogue is simultaneously the most time-consuming and time-saving aspect of working on glass hearts because it requires my partner and i to literally sit together in a living room for hours either spitting lines back and forth to see what works and what doesnt, and just generally sitting on a shared document tweaking things. we tend to write out dialogue and narration like a genuine stageplay ( for my roleplayer crowd, its more like a very detailed script roleplay lmao ) but generally meg is in charge of stanley's route and i am in charge of stanford's route, with tweaks and editing coming from the other person !! as for the length it just felt right tbh !! i know it was a pretty decent length as far as demos go, but the story kind of made it feel natural to stop there, if that makes sense? plus we love to get super detailed, its hard not to kind of let the story get away from us lmao. day three is shaping up to be our biggest day yet so hopefully that'll be received positively

thank you so much for the well-wishes and for following the development of our little passion project !! trust me, just having people who care enough about a silly little dating sim that we thought up at like, two in the morning ?? it feels like we won the lottery for sure. have a wonderful day !!!

[spiteful-studios]

I loved playing the demo so much! The storyline is awesome and the art is just ✨CHEF'S KISS✨! I especially enjoyed the scene with Carla and Cathy- It's almost like an old disney high school show and I thoroughly loved it- I loved Ford's route a lot and although I like Ford, I kinda wish we could interact with Stanley also, as a friend, and not just flat our ignoring him like that lunch ending scene

All in all, this was a really great demo! Would love to hear and see more about this!!

i am literally so sorry it took so long for you to get a response !! the price of living in the united states right now is that we have to live with The Horrors so its been really hard to carve out time to respond to people . . . hopefully things will start slowing down soon because we love receiving feedback and talking to people who've played our little passion project and like !! ahhh !!!

it was so much fun to script for cathy and carla— we really wanted the scene to be reminiscent of mean girls or heathers without going too far with everything !! and i completely understand where you're coming from with wanting to interact with stanley more in a platonic aspect . . . don't worry, we've been cooking up something for later days 😉 but that's a secret so dont tell anyone. thank you so, so, so much for your feedback and following the development of our little game !! we really hope that you'll stick with us, i know that we both would love your feedback going forward !!

[spiteful-studios]

hahaha it took literal weeks coding and tweaking and going on reddit to plead for advice but finally i got the minigames for day three to work properly !! now its all downhill with coding in the sprites, scenes, etc !!

[spiteful-studios]

I played the demo! I hope you enjoy my let's play! https://youtu.be/u3sPsJT7AGE

There will be a part 2!

oh my gosh we had so much fun watching you play ??? i highly recommend anyone and everyone go check out chibitabatha's playthough of glass hearts because i know my partner and i literally had a blast watching !! thank you for sending it to us, we can't wait to see part two !! and we hope when we have the fun game up, you'll enjoy the entire ride !!

[spiteful-studios]

for anyone curious as to what the hold up is on development !! we're working on two minigames and this is a preview of the second ( and more problematic ) one !!!

[spiteful-studios]

How do we feel about people playing your demo and putting it up on youtube? 👉👈

heyyy !!

we literally love watching people play our demo and react to it; put it on tiktok, put it on youtube, whatever you want to do. all we ask is that you link back to the demo ( preferrably linking to the itch.io page or reference where to find the project !! ) in case other people want to play !! but if you play our game we want to see 👀 nothing makes us happier than watching people enjoy our game- plus any feedback is good feedback !! so please, you have our full permission to upload your playthroughs !! 💛💛💛

[spiteful-studios]

i emerge with small news !! we have an accessible text function in the menu that swaps the in-game dialogue with more accessible and easier to read font !!

alright with that announcement, back to the writing den !!

[spiteful-studios]

the boardwalk that y'all got

the boardwalk my wife and playtesters saw when i showed them progress on the game

[spiteful-studios]

the people wanted to see concept art and behind the scenes images while we continue to develop the game but let me tell you this is going to be such a read.