cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114
Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.
But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.
People deserve slop. They don’t want a nice game with some AI art, they prefer shitty corporate slop with manually drawn textures. Such stupidity is punishable by even more corporate slop! Congratulations!
You put this incredibly abrasively, but there is a grain of truth there. Gamers, in aggregate, repeatedly preorder or buy hyped garbage, so perhaps we dont have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to boycotts.
I did. What else can I do except for spitting “in the general direction” of gamers who are enemies to themselves? They are the majority and most of them are dumb as a brick and think in slogans. “Abrasiveness” is all I still have…
I dont think any spitting is necessary, nor is it productive.
It is. Not in the way you might think or wish, though. It just calms down my nerves. That’s nice and useful. For me.
Companies face backlash for slop, and you’re here all “it’s what the people want!” Get real.
There is a third way, and that’s where my money’s going. Solidarity with all game devs, including artists