I know a lot of POC have been silent in fear of backlash about it but many of my POC friends, including myself, see the game #validategame as highkey kinda offensive.

Lemme start off by saying I LOVE the idea of an all POC dating sim. I think that it's a great concept,

there are so many white people in dating sims so it's nice that someone wants to make a dating sim that's all POC.

Out of all of the 12 characters, most of which I actually personally like, 4 stands out as what I feel are caricatures of queer POC.

The first problem I have is with Catherine Pinla. Not only is her character design frankly atrocious, and while I'm not black, I am a queer POC and this deadass looks like something some loser on 4chan would make to make fun of POC queer people.

The second character is Anoki. I don't have a problem with the design more the way it's drawn. The large, wide nose and basically fully square body compared to other characters who have realistic proportions does make them feel like a caricature, especially with the tooth gap.

It took me a bit to figure out what felt yucky about Inaya, whether it was internalized hate because she looks pretty similar to me, or another reason. Then I realized it's because of the same reason I don't like Anoki: exaggerated proportions w/nonexaggerated cast.

And then there is Mailk. Not only is he the "black men can't be trusted and will cheat" stereotype. He looks out of place. He looks like he belongs in one of those shit cartoons and should be voiced by a white man. He looks like the white MC's best friend. 0/10.

TLDR: I think the idea is cool but some of the characters make me, a queer POC, pretty fuckin' uncomfortable for various reasons.

I also think the staff team comes off unprofessional and bitchy but that's just me. Overall the whole game leaves me with a... yucky feeling.

Take my critique or not @ValiDateGame staff team I don't really care, but I just wanted to express why a game that honestly in concept sounds like something I would love and think was peak character creation/writing/design actually makes me highkey feel gross.