My biggest problem with this isn’t so much that he’s returning for more money or that it’s just one more in an endless string of projects while several others are still in development. While those are some pretty major issues that I have with My Highschool Crossdressing Romance they’re not the worst part. In fact, if it were pretty much anybody else I wouldn’t even consider those much of an issue at all.
For starters, both in the updates and the “Risks and Challenges” section of the Kickstarter itself he’s claimed to have several published visual novels. But, where are they? The only ones that I know of that have been released to some degree or another are Sword of Asumi and part of Beach Bounce. The latter being a complete joke and insult to the VN community. And MHCR wasn’t even the “winner” of the poll of three potential stories. In fact, I believe that it came in dead last.
Even if you don’t take into account AJ Tilley’s track record to date the subject matter is most certainly a sensitive one. The title pretty much states it all. A guy goes to an all-girl school for whatever reason and in order to “fit in” he has to pretend to be a girl. It’s not a new concept, and I enjoyed watching an anime with the same premise called Otoboku, but at least that one (and most other “gender bender” anime and games) treat being transgender with at least a small modicum of respect.
The pitch makes it sound like they’re going with a full on farce with My Highschool Crossdressing Romance. I mean, with something like “silliness and compromising situations that can arise from such a situation” it doesn’t exactly scream tolerance or at least a tasteful look at the culture. I could be wrong, but with nothing to show for it beyond a few embarrassing concept sketches of a couple of the girls and some background mock-ups there’s almost nothing there. We don’t even have a preliminary look at the male protagonist yet.
Here’s the thing. My Highschool Crossdressing Romance has already surpassed its £500 funding goal, and that happened in less than a day. The sad thing is that under different circumstances I might have been tempted to back this one. Because I do like a good tale that delves into the trans culture. Even if it’s a comedy. Unfortunately, between what we know about AJ Tilley and the subject matter this is one that I’m going to have to pass on. For all the reasons above.
Doesn’t sound very interesting or original, I think I’d rather go with Mangagamers Otoboku game instead.
Did he say why he made a fourth account now?
I emailed him earlier and asked him and he said that he had “no
reason” and that he just decided to “consolidate all my accounts into one place,” When I mentioned that it could cause confusion on the part of backers trying to do due diligence he basically said that it’s not that hard for people to find his website and see the past projects, and “for
a game idea like this one it is probably better for people to not base their
decision on my games, since this is a different style of story, artwork and
well everything is just very different.”
It all sounds like doublespeak to me. He’s not taking the backer experience into account at all.
Indeed. This all sounds way too shady to me. There’s too many red flags for me to continue supporting him in any capacity. Even my articles are getting more critical the more I see from him. The multiple accounts thing has several people concerned, ourselves included, that AJ Tilley doesn’t even address the issue. I’m surprised people are still backing his projects to be honest.
At this point, i don’t even know what to say anymore.
I’ve read the article and i was half angry half desperate and let out a huge sigh in the end.
Best you guys can do at this point is just not write about him at all.
you’re making him free publicity. As for those that still gives him money after all the warning you guys have done.
Let them drown themselves in their own ignorance.
They do raise awareness of his questionable antics though and maybe some newer folks will be warned when they do searches for his games. Quantity helps after all, but it is a fine line.
Make AJ stop!!!!! *
*Yeah, it’s their right to do what they want with Kickstarter accounts but this is ridiculous.
And now he’s testing his fans? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ajtilleydev/mhcr/posts/1342792
“To make it more difficult to make the decision for backers I
purposefully created a brand new account for this game so that new
backers would not find it easy to see the games that came before, so
that they backed the game purely on the concept that is here.”
I’m…at a loss for words.