DD# 162 Once upon an Uncensored Time news - [Neolithic]To the End

This week's diary may be hard to understand.

So here is a short version:

1, My condolence to Toriyama Akira
2, New console command to unlock all faith beliefs and tenets.
3, New belief to worship Aliens and can summon orbital bombardment if highly devoted.
4, New procedurally generated quest: Blood is Red, Bones are white.
5, New playable female character appearance.
6, New faith tenet: The Grand Masquerade
7, You can now use a new newspaper agency to manipulate the public views.
8, You can now check the exact value of the public supernatural awareness.
9, Improved the message display of passive resources generated by your pets.

The full version:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.

Before we start, let's take a moment to mourn the passing of the world-famous Akira Toriyama, the author of Dragon Ball. On March 1, 2024, Toriyama died from acute subdural hematoma, at the age of 68. His funeral was held privately with only his family as attendees. His death was announced by his production company Bird Studio one week later on March 8. Thus, we only know that recently. It's the end of another era. We once lived in an era with him. Now this era is no more.

However, have you really seen the full Dragon Ball animation for once? There are many different versions outside, in the US, Germany, France, and many different parts of the world. All of them are more or less censored from the original versions in the name of protecting the audience from bad influence while actually denying the whole and complete experience of such a masterpiece. We live on the same planet. We watch animations, play video games, and see movies of the same name. Yet, what we get is different. Because someone out there does not want us to see the same thing, they make our prospect be manipulated to their liking. They try to play God, denying us from sharing the same memory, making us unable to understand each other, as if an uncensored original piece of artwork is a Tower of Babel that will challenge them.

Yet, do you believe there was once upon a time, there was no censorship?
If you do, type in "I want to believe." in the game's console command and you can unlock all the faith beliefs and tenets of the game. It's a phrase from X-File. So, we also get a new faith to worship aliens because of that.

It's an Atheism faith as it believes all gods are just their advanced alien overlords.
Yet, the followers of this faith can pray. Although there may be no divines listening, their alien overlord out there may somehow listen in mysterious ways. Thus, they also get a quite different prayer. They may pray for an orbital bombardment upon their enemies. If they are very devoted, maybe their alien overlords will even answer that. It's an instant act which means they can try to pray multiple times in one turn during a battle, burning both their devotion and the HP of their enemies very quickly.

Now, let's get back to the X-File. do you know, such a television series with all the conspiracy theories, sometimes blood and gores, sometimes exposed and naked bodies, and sometimes quite politically incorrect, can once actually be on TV in mainland China? Don't be surprised, in that era, there were also very violent (towards today's standards) Japanese animes such as Dragon Ball and Fist of the North Star, and sexy (towards today's standards) Japanese animes such as Sailor Moon on the TV of China. They were all uncensored and available to audiences of all ages. Of course, there was no "Twin Peaks" because I think the government really really really does not like Agent Cooper's political views. But, you get the point. There was once upon a time no censorship even in China. That was the beautiful golden age of the 1990s when I grew up. Unfortunately, many of our younger players may never experienced such an era of freedom that rarely appeared in the history of this nation. But, such an era was there. So, I intended to carry on the freedom I embraced in my childhood to this game so that maybe there is a chance that people can know games, animes, TV shows, and the culture they carry were different back then.

In that era, Blood is Red and Bones were White.

We are human. Our blood is red, our bones are white, and we die if we are killed. Yet, what do some modern censored games tell people? You can find in some countries, blood is censored to green or black. If you play League of Legends and pick Valdmir, you do not get a vampire, you get an oil baron. You can also find in some countries, white bones are also subject to be censored. Now imagine the Lich King in World of Warcraft has his head entirely concealed in a big box and his skeleton minions do the same. Funny, right? Unfortunately, it's not so funny to players who live in those countries. One more, you can also find people do not die if they are killed in some games. They somehow start to wave their hands to surrender or kneel on the floor allowing your bullets to shoot right through them in Counter-Strike. If you don't know any of those, then congratulations, you are lucky enough to live in a country where you can fully enjoy your games, a privilege that about 20% of the population on earth does not have.
I don't know when such censorships start. I don't know who would do such inhumane things.
But, I want you to remember that Blood is Red and Bones were White in a new procedurally generated quest added this week even one day "they" come to censor it and take away such memory from you.

In that era, girls could show their beautiful bodies as they liked and wore whatever clothes they wanted.
When did even Mortal Kombat stop having sexy girls?
When did all female characters start to look ugly in games?
When did companies like Sweet Baby Inc. appear in this industry?
Those so-called "awakens" and so-called political correctness are just another form of censorship to me. They shall have no place and will not exist in my world. Sure, we have diversity and towards a level of freedom that many do not have. Yet, our difference is, that I let you, players make your own decisions instead of forcing those decisions upon you. You can certainly play heroes or heroines. But,
If you want to burn down the entire city, killing everyone, you can do that. If you want to make love with girls, you can do that, we even have animations. If you want to just let the world burn when you play some mini-games, you can do that, we have plenty, including a built-in HealthStone skeuomorph. If you want to try out all those different character appearances, customizing your gender, changing them whenever you want, go ahead. That's the diversity I am talking about.
So, as we just finished the story of the Dark Elf King last week. Someone proposed to have a beautiful dark elf girl in our game. I think that's a great idea. After all, we are going to eventually have all 4 knights of the Dark Elf King return to this game. Here we are:

Judging by her hair color, you may already figure out which one she is.
She looks darker and more elf than his king because of some backstory reasons.
Most importantly, she does not hide her beautiful and formidable body. After all, why wear armor if you do not plan to get hit? And who says a spellcaster cannot have an athletic body? Just like the element she represents, she may look slender and fragile from afar, but she may also be the strongest among the four. We will have more information about her when her story comes. But, for now, you can already use her appearance for your main character or any customized teammates.

But, what about the other side of the coin?
After all, you are playing a secret organization agent. It's a grand masquerade that many organizations like yours want to hide the supernatural world from ordinary people. There may be no worse censorship than that.

A new faith tenet you can unlock if you ask a certain Illuminati doctor in the Queensmouth airport about the masks or ask Kalina about the veil. Maybe, once you have the power and knowledge, you may not want to share with others. Maybe, you finally learned it's too dangerous to have others know the unspeakable horror behind the truth, you want to "protect" them. (However, in real life, I have no idea how censoring and slut-shaming adult content even for adult-only games can help protect anything other than sinking the birth rate of a nation even further. It's not like you are fighting Slaanesh in Warhammer 40k or something like that.)
Anyway, you do not need to be someone who breaks the wall. You can also choose the path to reinforce it. Maybe that way is most beneficial to you as you already have the power, why have more competitors? So, you need tools to manipulate the public.
You now have it:

In Liu, you can now find a newspaper named "The Universal Times." It's a media with quite low moral standards. As long as you pay them enough money, they can post everything you want in the newspaper to change the view of the majority of people who live in their blessed ignorance like sheep.
You can improve your reputation. You can decrease the public's supernatural awareness. Or, for some reasons that only you may know, to increase the public's supernatural awareness. It's another tool at your disposal that allows you one step closer to a puppetmaster.

Of course, you are not alone in this game of social re-engineering. Remember that one-eyed officer in Liu's Public Security Bureau? He now receives constant reports regarding anything supernatural on his desk. The good news is, that you may also sneak into his office and take a look.

Oh, well, most of the data is still redacted. At least, you can now know the value of the local public's
supernatural awareness.

That's for this week. You can have your own choice to pick your side in this war to either break the wall or reinforce it. But, remember the history, once upon a time there was no censorship, then "they" came. In the name of protection, they made blood green and black, they covered bones with boxes and clothes in the name of your protection.

However...
"感動的な映画はたくさんあるが、それで世界が平和になったかい？" --- 北野武
"There are many beautiful movies, but have they brought peace to the world?" --- Takeshi Kitano
The answer is no.
100 years ago, there were no video games, yet the World War 1 and the World War 2 still broke out.
100 years later, there are so many beautiful things in the world other than video games, yet Putin still started a war on Feb. 24th, 2022 and Hamas terrorists still went on to murder and rape on Oct.7th, 2023. Does anyone's censorship on anything stop that from happening?

Once upon a time, there was no censorship.
Will that time come again?
I don't know. But, this game comes from that golden era and it is still alive.

The full update log of this week:
20240303
English
############Content###############
[Console Command]New Console Command: "I want to believe." (It unlocks all faith cores and tenets.)
[Wiki]Added a page about console commands: Neolithia.fandom.com [Phantom Tide Lodge]Added a microwave.
[Cooking]New Food Recipe: Vegetable Baozi (You can use any vegetables to make it.)
[Cooking]New Food Recipe: Fruit Baozi (You can use any fruit to make it.)
############System###############
[Faith]When checking against faith that is currently available the system now checks $game_party.faith_availableFaith functions instead of $game_party.faith_unlockedFaith functions.
############Debug################
[Traditional Chinese]Word changed 【尸】->【屍】(Thanks to 渺兔's feedback)
[Traditional Chinese]Word changed 【斗】->【鬥】(Thanks to 渺兔's feedback)
[Traditional Chinese]Word changed 【松】->【鬆】(Thanks to 渺兔's feedback)


20240304
English
############Content###############
[Faith]New Beleif: Alien Worship (Can summon Orbital Bombardment if devotion is high.)
[Faith]New Prayer: Pray for Orbital Bombardment.
[Character Customization]Added a new female character variation. (A certain dark elf.)


20240305
English
############Content###############
[Tool] Updated the LPR interest calculation with the latest data of the interest rate of China.
[Misleading]This procedurally generated quest now rewards more relationships with the Dark Cloud Cyber Cafe.
[Dark Cloud Cyber Cafe]New procedurally generated quest: Blood Is Red, Bones Are White.


20240306
English
############Content###############
[Faith]New Tenet: The Grand Masquerade (You can unlock this tenet by talking to the Illuminati Doctor in Queensmouth Airport about the masks or asking Kalina about the veil after she appears in the safe house.)
[Cooking]New Recipe: Tarte Tatin
[Wiki]Everything mentioned above has been updated to the game's wiki.


20240307
English
############Content###############
[UI]Added an invisible global message window that can pop up messages at any moment at the corner of the screen without interrupting the gameplay.
[UI]Added animation support to global messages.
[UI]Global messages shall automatically fade away after a while.
[UI]If another global message appears, all old messages will move up a bit.
[Passive Resource Generation]When your pets poop or lay eggs, the information will now use the new global message window on the bottom left. It will no longer interrupt your gameplay.
[Safehouse]You can now directly get through the door in the "Outside the Safehouse" area to get back to the safehouse. Clicking on a confirm button is no longer needed.
[Procedurally Generated Quests]Made the descriptions of procedurally generated quests in Liu sound more natural in English localization.
[Liu]New Location: Universal Times Office. (It's on the 3rd floor of the Commodity Market. The location is still working in progress.)
[Commodity Market]Added an elevator to the 2nd and the 3rd floor. (The button for the 2nd floor does not work.)
[Commodity Market]Added a billboard of the Universal Times outside the building.
############DEBUG################
[River Road No.181]Fixed a bug that allows you to bring Harold or Trump to the 2nd floor.


20240308
English
############Content###############
[Universal Times Office]The main office area is now accessible.
[Universal Times Office]Added a secret room.
[Universal Times Office]Added an NPC that will allow you to post something on the newspaper to achieve your propaganda goals in future updates. (For now, just some story content.)
[Butterfly]You can now use Butterfly Wings to teleport out of the building that contains the Commodity Market and the Universal Times Office.


20240309
English
############Content###############
[Universal Times Office]You can now spend money to post "Heroic Stories" to improve your reputation. (You will need to spend more money to increase your reputation further if you already have a very high reputation.)
[Universal Times Office]You can now spend money to post "Scientific Explanations" to reduce local supernatural awareness. (You cannot reduce it below 0.)
[Universal Times Office]You can now spend money to post "leaked information from your secret organization" to increase local supernatural awareness. (You will need to spend more money if local supernatural awareness is already high. Most of the secret organizations will not like it. Certain teammates will not like it.)
[Universal Times Office]All those actions will display the amount of change if successful.
[Wiki]Added a page about the Universal Times Office: Neolithia.fandom.com [Teammate]Alicia will be unhappy with your action if you spend money to increase local supernatural awareness by using the Universal Times. (Only if she is in your group at that moment.)
[Teammate]Harold will be unhappy with your action if you spend money to increase local supernatural awareness by using the Universal Times. (Only if he is in your group at that moment.)
[Teammate]Mark will be unhappy with your action if you spend money to increase local supernatural awareness by using the Universal Times. (Only if he is in your group at that moment.)
[Public Security Bureau of Liu]There is now a supernatural report on the table of the One-Eyed Officer. You can now check the current local supernatural awareness there.
[Butterfly]Once you have visited the Universal Times Office, you can now teleport there from any outdoor location of Liu.