Statement regarding abusive messages to and allegations against developer
Hello everybody, thank you for supporting the game so far and despite some teething problems, we are working hard with doekuramori to improve performance and solve the issue of crashes. This is Top Hat Studios, Inc., here. Initially we were only involved in the console versions of the game, but doekuramori granted us the right to have co-publishing rights on Steam/PC in light of the bugfixing and engineering work who are providing.
We wanted to address an issue that has appeared within the past several days that doekuramori has had trouble addressing himself as a non-native English speaker. It is the right of any individual to dislike the game, and to hold critical opinions about the game; that is natural. However, there has been an influx of abusive messages directed to the developer after the posting of a critical video review on YouTube. The reviewer stated an opinion on the game (which does not reflect doekuramori's intention) which has been taken as fact by certain users, and are using this to justify messaging the developer abuse and characterising him as a dangerous individual.
A statement from doekuramori has been made:
Hi, this is doekuramori. I'm the creator of The Citadel. Thank you for playing and your feedback on the game. I will try in the future to make games with more variety and the feedback in mind. However there is one thing that is absolutely wrong. I am not guro artist. This is not a guro fetish game. Lately there have been many comments accusing me of being a nasty person and attacking me. This isn't true. I am not guro artist, I don't make guro works or doujin. My interests are Touhou, Lost in Abyss and biomechanism. I also very like dark themes and games that have dark themes and oppressive feeling. I hope you can see it now. Not guro. I am interested in biomechanism, like how people will merge with machines in the future. And what kind of conception that will make, like Ghost In The Shell meets H.R. Giger. It's strange aesthetic and I think creates interesting image. But it's not guro. The Citadel features gibbing and violence because I identified that as a big part of the aesthetic of classic retro shooter. Ultra violence. Because I draw anime style, I interpret that through the way I draw. It is not "fetish". It is inspired by those old games, and also newer games which are influence by that old style, like Shadow Warrior 2. I was quite interested by the gibbing and gore system in Shadow Warrior because it's like how old brutality meets new technology that allows use of physics with gib system. Again, not because it is sexual. I am proud of what I achieve with The Citadel game, even if it is not perfect, but now I receive many comments and mean messages after watching video from people accusing me of being a dangerous freak who only wants to hurt girls. It's not my intention. Please understand.
The Citadel is not a fetishistic game, it is a homage to retro ultra-violent classic shooters made by a Japanese individual interpreting it through Japanese-style art that he draws as a Japanese artist. The game is not a porn or erotic game, and these accusations have been seriously upsetting to him. He is a japanese person who has an anime art-style; it's not because it's a fetish, it's "anime" because it is literally his artstyle. The game is not meant to be "guro" nor is the artist actually a "guro" artist.
Games of this style embrace exaggerated "ultra-violence"; examples include Shadow Warrior 2 and DOOM. The mere usage of an artstyle does not make something a fetish if that artstyle is native to the people making the actual game. The idea that doekuramori, making a homage to these games as a Japanese artist, should go out of his way to make the artstyle "western" rather than his actual artstyle so people would not think it's "fetish porn", is highly insulting. We understand the content of the game is not for everyone, but even back when DOOM came out people thought it was "too violent", or arbitrarily blamed people interested in it as "freaks" or "sadists", or "disturbed".
Doekuramori has been taking a step back from the community due to messages vilifying him as such, and is only responding to the English speaking community regarding critical bug fixes due to this. Doekuramori is now also investigating with us the implementation of censorship into the game to remove all gibbing and violence effects, in order to end and prevent further attacks on him. We do not support censorship, but we are compelled to protect the safety of the developer, and will assist him in censoring the game if he feels this will help to end abuse.
Again, we thank those of you who have supported the game and appreciate the patience regarding performance and bugs.