Ewww. Tentacles.

I haven’t written one of my big huge rants in awhile. I almost did with the whole Brony thing but I argued myself to oblivion with that on Twitter. But now there’s a new thing that’s grinding my gears.

I learned late last night that Kickstarter stopped funding to Tentacle Bento due to pressure caused by this ill-informed and reactionary piece on Kotaku and this bit more informed piece on Insert Credit. 

The game in itself, from what I gathered from the information posted on the Kickstarter and the website itself, is a tongue-in-cheek card game about tentacle monsters and girls. You play as a monster with tentacles disguised as a girl whose goal is to capture girls in a high school. The object is to capture girls before your opponent (also a monster disguised as a girl) does. 

That’s it.

So where’s the controversy? The controversy comes from our own minds. Our own already twisted minds projecting our thoughts on to the game. And in a way I feel like this game is suppose to get us to have that reaction. It’s a sort of commentary on how we see certain things. A commentary on how this genre has been so pervasive that we automatically associate “tentacle” with something more sinister.

Is this game promoting rape? I don’t think so. Not anymore than Tentacle Grape does. Do we as a society still think that anyone sane really promotes violent rape and sexual assault? 

I think this game is more about “Hey you, look at what your dirty mind can do. Maybe you should look within yourself first and see the demons there before projecting it on other things.”

I understand that rape is a very sensitive issue. People get very reactionary when it comes to these issues. I don’t blame them. Rape and sexual assault still is a very big problem. It is something I’ve written about countless times before. 

But this isn’t a game that shows anything raping anyone. None of the cards depict that (as far as I can tell from the information given). 

Censoring something like this based on a perceived notion of what it is is something I can not stand behind. This game didn’t receive my funding at first (because I’m not really a fan of card-based games in general) but I do believe I will be picking up a set once it actually gets released. 

Update: I want to say that I don’t think what Kickstarter did is censoring. I was pointing to comments I’ve read from many who believe this game should be censored based on what they believe the game is.