No, I'm pointing out that even trying to suggest that this is in any way close to actual "child porn" is an incredibly stupid, ignorant and borderline libellous position to take. It's as ludicrous and offensive with regard to the reality of the situation as claiming that you now know how plantation slaves felt because your boss made you stay five minutes longer than you should have at work. I'm am calling you ignorant in the very literal sense of the word, however, with regard to the fact that you seem to be completely unaware of the elements of Japanese culture from which this game springs, and the decidedly Western values and mindset you're hamfistedly trying to apply as a result of that unfortunate ignorance. In the US you have an entire toddler pageant culture and related reality TV series openly and actively celebrating and promoting very real imagery and behaviour much, much more inappropriate and harmful than the pictures in this game; perhaps you should focus your energy there. Read your own post: you've just gone out of your way to convince me that the only reason this might technically not be considered disgusting child porn is that the girls aren't real, but that if they were, it would be. Choose a position, but either way I'd suggest thinking your accusations (even veiled) through very, very carefully.
So, onto the actual gameplay, Am I right in assuming only the most recent Private Maid is active? Can I revert back to an earlier Private Maid? If the top most Private Maid is ill, does a previously played one take over?
Whichever Private Maid is currently in your Private Quarters is active, and you can only have one active at a time. Employing a new PM permanently overrides the old one, although you keep the old card for its VP and/or any end-game bonuses. If you have to discard (fire) a PM for some reason, the card goes face down at the bottom of the PM draw pile. 111 MB.
I'm not the first and won't be the last. Pocket tactics review was 3/4 about the disgusting theme. Almost every comment I've seen mentions the theme. You the only person I've seen who has looked at these cards and not though there was something weird going on here. I'm done arguing with you as your points are nonsensical.
No, it wasn't, so that's a lie right off the bat. David Neumann gave Tanto Cuore a score of 4/5, and not once did he ever describe the theme as "disgusting" or anything like it. In fact, David explicitly noted that he'd even researched Japanese maid culture for his review (if a little fruitlessly), and quite conspicuously did not ignorantly demonise the game as you've been doing.
Sorry he didn't say disguising he said WTF. The maids that are available for you to hire are in a section of the board called the Town. As I said in the intro, you don’t use cash to hire the maids, you use Love. Yep, Love. Oh, did I mention the Love cards depict a decidedly young girl wearing garter belts who is in bed on her hands and knees? Believe it or not, “Love” was not the first word that came to mind when I spotted these cards. “Lolita” maybe. Lolita is a novel, about a man who abuses a 12 year old girl. "The maid theme is taken in some bizarre directions, however. First of all, every location a card exists has its own name. You discard pile isn’t a discard pile, it’s the Kitchen Entrance. Your hand is called your Staff at Your Side. Draw deck? It’s the Waiting Room, of course. Most creepily of all, however, is the location where you can play cards for points. That’s your Private Chambers." You win people think its creepy not disguising. As for the game I'm not saying its bad, but if it was the best game ever made I still wouldn't play it.
Oh, wait, so when I put a in a new PM the old one just goes into my discard pile and I can activate her again later once she shows up in my hand?
No, once you hire a new PM the old one becomes a Chambermaid (the scoring area). The medium AI is expectedly weak, just beat it 80-18.
For somebody who allegedly has no interest in the game, you certainly are spending a lot of time hanging around here obsessing about it. Let us know if there's something you want to share. Nope, they just remain in the Private Quarters and keep any VP and end-game bonuses they might have. In testing this out, I actually got an unexpected achievement for having "employed 5 or more Private Maids".
Corey, There's no point arguing with a lolicon apologist, they get whipped into a frenzy when you find the art style unsettling and are blinkered to any suggestion that there might be an inherent flaw in the culture that produces and consumes it. Perhaps appletini could meet us half way. Surely you do understand why people could find this kind of thing disturbing? I understand these cards are tame by loli standards but I don't think further exposure to anime culture is really going to remove the bad taste from my mouth and that's going to make it difficult to keep coming back to this game
Thus far your contribution to this thread has been that this is a "pedophile art style" (whatever that means) created by an "inherently flawed culture" (which appears to be the Japanese as a whole, apparently – a hugely offensive and ignorant generalisation). Based on that, you can see why I could fairly assume I wouldn't get much of a reasoned, unbiased discussion from you. Nobody has ever said that you have to like the artwork, only that it'd be appreciated if the monumentally stupid ways of expressing that could be kept to a minimum. "I don't like the artwork," is fine, as is, "The subject matter in this game doesn't gel with my personal values." Conversely, claims of "pedophile art style" and "child porn" do both fall under the heading of "crass and monumentally stupid". It's not such a fine line, to be honest. Speaking as a professional woman, who by all rights should be the most offended party here when speaking about a game that deals with the chambering of anime maids employed via "love", I find the images exceedingly tame and inoffensive, and not remotely sexual or exploitative with the exception of two borderline images. In my time, I've had the misfortune to have to deal with actual exploitative images and the people damaged for and by them, and the pictures in this game aren't even in the same universe, let alone ballpark.
This. The game is creepy in some ways, yes, but it's a japanese based game designed for a very specific group of people. You can extrapolate this stuff into a large majority of Japanese mediums. Games, manga, anime often deal with this subject matter in this sort of way. The game itself has been around for about 4 years, and even considering the slightly oversexualized cards it has garnered a very respectible 7.1 on BGG (which is a pretty darn good score) You clearly never read Lolita. Had you done that, you'd have relized that the antagonist actually IS Dolores (Lolita). Sure, Humbert is the one who starts the infatuation and sets the stage for him to molest her, but she turns the tables and ends up being the antagonist for the remainder of the story. She manipulates Humbert and everyone else she comes into contact with, so here the Lolita comparison couldn't be more wrong. David uses the term to describe an oversexualized younger person that would garner the affections of an older man, which is appropriate here. Beyond that, yes of course the usage of "love" and other mechanics are very odd for us in the western world, but there is a huge difference in how the world is interpreted across the ocean, and the cultural barrier is no more clear than when it comes to games like this, Catherine, the show/manga Sailor Moon and so on. As for David's review, he called it bonkers and said he had a "WTF" feeling for the theme, which is right. I feel the same way. Doesn't mean the game isn't brilliantly implemented or isn't an incredibly solid game. You don't have to want to play it, but as you've made your opinion abundantly clear, there's no benefit in belaboring the point, so from this point on it would be helpful if we could focus on the topic at hand, a Japanese dominion-esque style game steeped in Japanese culture.
Good job misquoting an 'inherent flaw in the culture' in a discussion about anime, into 'Japan is an inherently flawed culture'. The only proponents of sexualised anime I have had the misfortune to meet have been entirely of a western persuasion. If you insist on bringing race into the discussion you need to carefully examine that it is not in fact you that is the racist, for seeing race when all I see is a cartoon. I also find your attitude that only women can be offended by pedophilia to be sexist and insulting. Any right minded person should speak out against a culture that promotes the sexualisation of children, even if it is primarily in cartoon form. Are you really going to defend lolicon? It's perverse, and it's the art style that this game deliberately flirts with
Heh. I had actually starting typing up something that was rather similar to your response, but soon realised that was a rabbit hole that probably wasn't going to lead anywhere productive. ^_- Interesting claim, considering that you've been tarnishing this game with that brush – a game that was originally created by a Japanese company, incidentally, not a western one. No, we have you on record stating that this Japanese-created game is the perverted product of an inherently flawed culture sexualising children via a "pedophile art style". Pretty sure you're not going to be able to pin that nonsense on anybody but yourself. I never said nor implied any such thing. As you have yet to illustrate that this game has any link to pedophilia, you should perhaps be warned just as Corey was that intimations that the folks at Playdek are facilitating or encouraging pedophilia or child pornography would constitute incredibly serious accusations, and that libel is a very real thing. And probably more importantly around here, that TA moderation is often a harsh mistress, sparing none. Tanto Cuore doesn't "promote the sexualisation of children", and if you honestly see the cartoon images in this game as sexual objects, that's a discussion you need to have with a qualified professional, not a bunch of people on a gaming website who would sincerely appreciate it if you'd just let them discuss this deckbuilding card game. Your increasingly rabid insistence that images like the ones below are in some way "sexual" is becoming uncomfortable, and certainly creepier than anything in the game itself, ironically enough. You've had your chance to vent; now, if you have something relevant to contribute about the game so that this thread can return to its proper focus, that'd be great. If you don't have anything further to add, that's okay too, but if you're not interested in the actual game itself, there's really no wholesome reason for you to continue to linger around a product you've chosen to believe has a connection to pedophilia and the sexualisation of children.
What are you even talking about? The japanese culture has huge roots in manga dominated by VERY young looking girls. A large number of men read X-rated mangas on their transit system, something that simply doesn't exist here, but I have no idea what point you're trying to make. And of course lolicon is disgusting. I think most people would agree with that concept. Much of it is also focused deeply on VERY young girls. While I see that the girls in this game could be portrayed as young, none of them come close to matching the depravity of lolicon. That said, the fact that this game has a 9+ rating is a bit of an issue with me, personally. My daughters will be 9 in January, and while nothing in the cards comes out and says "I'm a young girl, please have sexual relations with me", they're a big enough issue that I wouldn't care for them to play the game, especially when one of the cards has a last name of "Virginie" But at the end of the day, "flirting" with something and actually BEING something are very different things. There's an entire group of adult movies dedicated to teens, which I don't think anyone over the age of 13 doesn't know about. There's no nudity or outright sex going on here. You don't have to like it, you don't have to feel comfortable with it, but it's now sounding like a broken record. And while no, it's not ONLY in a woman's right to be disgusted by sexualized young women, I do believe that they have a bit more of a stake in the game than men, same goes in reverse.
You have a clear misunderstanding that anything can be a culture, a work place, in science, or in this case in an art form. I've had this discussion with otaku before and it's very clear to me that they cannot separate anime from Japan. To them anime IS Japan, so I understand you think I'm indicting the people, rather than the followers of the art. Don't get me wrong, I loved K-On! I found it uplifting and I'm happy to bear the embarrassment of trying to explain to people that good things can come out of anime. But then the pantsu and tittys McGee style anime comes out and it's childish at best, and perverse at worst. I thought this game was going to be the former, but it's not. All I really want when I get pointlessly involved in conversation with otaku is for them to recognise that lolicon is a warped part of their culture and shouldn't be encouraged by standing idly by while it pervades your community. I also want non otaku to understand that if you scratch the surface you will see more than just an innocent flash of panties, in fact just below that surface is a culture that revels in a fantasy that should be universally condemned. The TA rules explicitly state 'Keep threads on topic - obviously things can stray onto related topics', but that's fine, I will leave you be.
Actually there aren't mixed responses about the game itself but debates about the theme. However from those that have actually played the game, they've enjoyed it. And this discussion is going way too long. If you actually LIKE little underaged girls that's one thing. If you like anime girls that's a totally different thing. Half the time you can't even tell how old anime girls are! So I don't think it's fair to say playing this game makes you like little girls. You could or you could not. I'll play nearly anything with good art. This falls into that category and no I don't like little girls.
First off, thank you Appletini for speaking the truth. Second of all, I'm a huge fan or everything Japan. Wouldn't say an Otaku, but I rock an FLCL wall scroll in my man cave and have a decent amount of anime DVD's and merch. I understand the whole maid culture of Japan. And to me, it is a reasonable "fetish" for lack of a better word. While it's not my thing at all, I can see the desire in humans just as I can see the desire for things like BDSM or furries. It's your thing, embrace it. This game would have to go pretty hard south in the sexual aspect in order for me to not even give it a chance. Ok, so now we move to the child porn aspect. There is nothing nastier than pedophilia. Thing is with this though, this is pretty far from anything sick. I have seen way worse things from daytime television with girls specifically stated to be under aged. Yes, the appeal is mostly a cultural thing, but so what? I think the issue people have here in the US is sex. Japan isn't up tight about the human body like most red blooded 'muricans. The human body should be celebrated, where as sexual acts need to be kept censored and only to adults (even though making love can be a beautiful thing too), much like Japan does. How does that play into pedophile you ask? Well, I feel it has mostly to do with the onee chan brother protecting the sister deal and the fact that alot of Japanese women tend to look younger than their age. Most art like this goes to extremes to appeal to an audience. You either have the small petite woman that you think are children or these curvy, busty woman. The fact that you see these pictures of cartoons in maid uniforms who look small and cute and automatically go "ew, child porn" is kind of ignorant. That's like me seeing a guy wearing a leather jacket and saying" oh my god, he must be in the Hells Angels and wants to stab me and run me over with his motorcycle!" Did that make any sense? I was all over the place! I think I did a lot of rambling, and I'm sure you wanna point out how you think I'm a weeaboo and weird. And that's cool, I just don't understand people's ignorance to stuff like this. ANYWAYS, say I never got big into card games like this. I played some TCG's back in the day and have been loving Yu Gi Oh BAM until the last update made it slow. Would I like a card game like this or should I look elsewhere? The deck building I really love, but I also enjoy collecting new cards to try strategy wise. I know there is no collecting in this, but could that be over looked because of the deck building? Thanks, guys! And yeah.... The mods can be harsh....
