The fundamental cancer at the heart of the project is the glorification of war and conquest itself.
I think this is really good criticism, it's possible I need to double-check my pre-made single-player campaigns (which will all be cartoony goofyness) or even consider pivoting my project's aesthetics away from war gaming. There's going to be a lot to think about there and it's technically not too late for a lot of pivoting.
My intent with the campaigns though is to let historically literate individuals make campaigns that players will learn by playing. Make the USSR look good in some conflict, tell the story of a specific revolution, make up a new story without any historicalbaggage, etc., they'd be able to setup the maps/dialog to tell that story via my user friendly UI. There's an uphill battle in preventing reactionaries from doing the same though. Glorifying is not the intent, but I feel that I cannot refute your allegations, which is troubling.
If you're trying to make a game that Nazis aren't going to piss all over, you're going to end up with Undertale. Which is, of course, fine. Everyone loves Undertale. But its a game in which the conflict isn't always resolved by the guy who can push out bomber jets the fastest.
I'm very unfamiliar with Undertale and don't know how to interpret this.
The main perks of undertale is that you can win « fights » without hurting your opponent by interacting with them and understanding them.
If you get through the entire game without ever hurting anyone you get the very emotional good ending of the game.
Honestly, I would say that re-examining the things that make Advance Wars fun and seeing if you could make a turn based, strategic sort of game with similar sort of feel, only without the "war" part. Wargroove already exists as an "advance wars clone" so trying to recreate the core fun of the game without the emphasis on war could be a pretty interesting and unique experience. It is hard to do, as so many games are just focused on violence that it can be hard to create a game with conflict without it, but I think there is an ever increasing group of people who would like to play games that have fun strategy gameplay, but in a non-violent context.
I think this is really good criticism, it's possible I need to double-check my pre-made single-player campaigns (which will all be cartoony goofyness) or even consider pivoting my project's aesthetics away from war gaming. There's going to be a lot to think about there and it's technically not too late for a lot of pivoting.
My intent with the campaigns though is to let historically literate individuals make campaigns that players will learn by playing. Make the USSR look good in some conflict, tell the story of a specific revolution, make up a new story without any historicalbaggage, etc., they'd be able to setup the maps/dialog to tell that story via my user friendly UI. There's an uphill battle in preventing reactionaries from doing the same though. Glorifying is not the intent, but I feel that I cannot refute your allegations, which is troubling.
I'm very unfamiliar with Undertale and don't know how to interpret this.
The main perks of undertale is that you can win « fights » without hurting your opponent by interacting with them and understanding them. If you get through the entire game without ever hurting anyone you get the very emotional good ending of the game.
Honestly, I would say that re-examining the things that make Advance Wars fun and seeing if you could make a turn based, strategic sort of game with similar sort of feel, only without the "war" part. Wargroove already exists as an "advance wars clone" so trying to recreate the core fun of the game without the emphasis on war could be a pretty interesting and unique experience. It is hard to do, as so many games are just focused on violence that it can be hard to create a game with conflict without it, but I think there is an ever increasing group of people who would like to play games that have fun strategy gameplay, but in a non-violent context.