Love's Heart on Steam! Or so I hope.

Hello everyone!

As I’ve mentioned many times already, for more than two months now, the itch.io platform has kept my account penalized, and the administration is still not helping me.

What does this penalty involve?

Every time I update a game or modify the game's page, it is immediately placed under quarantine, which makes it disappear from the search listings (the main source of traffic on itch.io). Additionally, if someone tries to download it, a warning message appears stating that the game is under quarantine and that downloading it could be dangerous. You can see this in the screenshot below:

This, naturally, greatly reduces my visibility on the platform, as well as interactions with my games. Right now, for example, Yuri Demon is under quarantine. That game usually gets around 10 views on average, and the number of daily downloads is between 0 and 1.

I’ve submitted a large number of support tickets to the itch.io team, posted several public threads asking for help, and even sent a private message to the creator of itch.io via Discord and Twitter. I’ve never received a reply, except from a moderator, No Time to Play — you all probably know him — who kindly told me that he informed the admins about my situation, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

With this, I don’t mean to suggest that the admins are incompetent or that they don’t care about their developers — I’m sure they do. After all, there’s a reason so many of us are on the platform. And I know I’m not the only one facing these issues, so I don’t believe it’s anything personal against me. I don’t recall ever being disrespectful to the admins or breaking any rules. I also don’t think the issue is simply that my games are NSFW, because there are plenty of much bigger NSFW game developers on the platform who haven’t experienced this problem. It just seems to be a matter of bad luck, and that the admins are probably overwhelmed helping many other developers and haven’t had time to review my case yet. Or at least, that’s what I’d like to believe.

Given the issues I’m currently facing, I’ve been forced to limit my activity on itch.io and stop publishing new updates for my games on this platform (I recently updated Yuri Demon and, as I mentioned earlier, was punished for it). Until itch.io’s administration lifts the quarantine on my games — and more importantly, stops putting them into quarantine every time I update or modify them — I will not publish any more updates here. However, I’ll continue using the post system, like this one, to stay in touch with all of you. This way, I can keep you informed of my progress and still maintain some visibility, as my games will remain on the search listings, even if they aren’t being updated.

So, where will I publish the new updates then? I’ll do it on my Patreon. Updates that were meant to be free will be posted publicly and free of charge. Paid updates will only be available to those subscribed to tier 2 or higher on my Patreon ($4.99/month).

What if I already paid for your game on itch.io and can’t or don’t want to pay again on Patreon? Don’t worry — just DM me on Discord or email me at capkygames@gmail.com with a screenshot showing proof of your purchase, and I’ll send you the latest build privately. Let me know which platform you want it for: Windows or Android.

Are you leaving itch.io? No. As I said, I won’t be posting new updates for now, but I’ll still be posting regular updates to keep you all informed. And as soon as the itch.io admins stop unfairly quarantining my games, I’ll resume publishing updates on the platform like before.

What about Love's Heart? After such a long message, let’s talk about Love’s Heart. As you may have read, yes — I do have plans to publish it on Steam.

First of all, I need to say that it’s not guaranteed.

A few years ago, a friend and I tried publishing Magical Harem Academy — a game currently published under my other account, “Capky Games 3D” — on Steam. That game used VRoid Studio art and followed the story of a protagonist in a magical school. Unfortunately, it was rejected by Steam. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe they thought one of the characters looked underage? Theoretically, that shouldn’t be the case, but we never got a clear answer. Steam specifies that you can’t have demons in school settings that appear underage, even if they’re canonically thousands of years old. And yes, our game had one — but we didn’t think she looked underage. At least not by our standards.

In any case, the game was rejected.

Love’s Heart doesn’t have demons, but it does feature a lot of VRoid Studio characters, and we’re worried Steam might consider one of them to appear underage. Another issue is that, although the game clearly states that all characters are 18+ and the story takes place at a university, let’s be honest — it looks more like a high school. Not because I wanted it that way, or because I’m trying to sneak in underage-looking characters — it’s simply that when I started developing the game, I only had assets that resembled a high school more than a university.

When I fill out the game page and submit the build to the Steam review team, I’ll clarify that all characters are of legal age, that none of them — to our judgment — appear underage, and that the school is a university. Will Steam accept that and approve the game? I’m not 100% sure, but I have faith.

How will the game be released on Steam? Assuming it passes review and gets approved, I’ll release the most recent version in Early Access at a price of $4.99. I’ll also publish a free demo, which will be a slightly older version of the game — the one currently available to everyone, in fact.

If I already bought the game on itch.io, are you expecting me to pay again on Steam? Yes — please buy it again and leave a positive review, I need that visibility on the platform. Just kidding haha. (But not really.) If you do buy and review it, thank you so much — it really helps. That said, if you already purchased the game on itch.io and my situation with itch.io still isn’t resolved by the time I release the game on Steam, just send me a screenshot proving your purchase and I’ll send you a free Steam key.

Why will it be paid, if you always said it would be free? The game will always be free — both during development and once it’s finished. When it’s complete and leaves Early Access on Steam, the price will be removed. The $4.99 price tag is just for players who want to support me financially and play the latest version — just like on itch.io or Patreon. This setup is for those who want to help me keep working on my games. Of course, like any other dev, I want to earn money — that’s why I have several paid games. But Love’s Heart will always be free, because I promised that from day one. (Granted, back then it was a much smaller project — now it’s taken hundreds of hours of work haha — but still, the VRoid art and my custom animations don’t really give it the production value to justify charging more.)

That brings me to one final point: the art in Love’s Heart.

As you know, the game’s cover art was recently replaced. Before, it was something I made myself using VRoid models. Now, it’s a commissioned anime-style illustration — and honestly, I think it looks way better.

My dream is to replace all of the game’s visuals with 2D illustrations (also commissioned — I wouldn’t use AI for this). I’ve run polls on this on my Patreon, and most of my supporters disagree — they say it would feel too strange. But I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. Sure, it might be jarring at first, but in the long run, it would significantly improve the game’s quality. Unfortunately, that kind of overhaul would cost thousands of dollars, so it’ll probably never happen haha. So for those of you who don’t like the idea, don’t worry — I doubt I’ll ever be able to do it.

Tonight I’m going to fill out the Steam page and upload a build for Steam’s review team. Please wish me luck so the game gets the green light. I’ll let you all know how it goes in a few days, whether it’s accepted or not. Most likely, I’ll mess something up when submitting the data or the build, so even if Steam doesn’t reject the game outright, I’ll probably get a list of issues to fix and have to resubmit it. So don’t expect a final answer for about two weeks.

As always, here are links to my Patreon and Discord in case you want to support me financially, download the latest versions of my games, or just talk to me.

Have a great day!

P.S.: Yuri no Sutoka, the parody game of Saiko no Sutoka, will also be released on Steam as a $4.99 paid DLC for Love's Heart, assuming I can publish it on Steam.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/CapkyGames

Discord: https://discord.gg/rnBMqZbCdQ