Happy April!

As per usual, please check out our Winner’s Showcase to see last month’s winners.

EVENT: Enlightened Event

The Enlightened Event will continue through the month for any users who wish to participate!

Note: As this is the final monthly rollover, we have opted to keep activities going (for any users who wish to participate) with the caveat that for Lottery and MotM no winners will be rolled next month.

All activities have been rolled over and are ready for the new month!
Featured Midveilers to be added once we hear back from this month’s winners.

Dear Strudel Cafe Community,

There is no easy way to deliver this news. After much careful deliberation, and with a heavy heart, we must announce that Strudel Cafe will officially be closing its doors on May 5th, 2024.

We truly love this community, and it’s thanks to the boundless love and support of our players that we have even made it this far. Truly, without all of you, this project would not be where it is today. The Strudel Cafe community has produced so many incredible pieces of art and literature over the years. We feel nothing but pride and love for what we have created, and it’s been an honor getting to know all of you throughout the years.

The outpouring of support we have received from this community has been nothing short of inspiring. It’s because of this immense love for our community that we have tried to keep this project alive. However, due to a variety of factors, we can no longer provide the experience and care that our players deserve. After a lot of careful deliberation and discussion, we believe that this is the best course of action moving forward.

What will this mean for the community?

While this chapter of Strudel Cafe will be closing, this project will always hold a special place in our hearts. We want to preserve our game’s legacy, as well as our member’s contributions over the years, to the best of our ability. We will be creating an archival copy of our masterlist to post in the days following our official closure.

If members would like to continue their Midveil adventures, they are free to build off of established lore, prompts, and ideas. However, we do not intend to sell the rights to any of our species, activities, etc.

The Timeline of Closure

04/03/24: Official announcement of Strudel Cafe’s closure. Patreon subscriptions have been discontinued. The page will remain up throughout April for posterity and reference. Members can continue to play and enjoy Strudel Cafe during the duration of April. Approvals and operations will continue as per usual.

05/01/24: Submission deadline for final copy of masterlist archive.

05/04/24: Strudel Cafe will officially cease operations. The affiliated Discord servers will close.

Mid-t​​o-late May Following shutdown, a final archive of the masterlist will be compiled and a link published at Strudel-Cafe.com.

06/04/24: Strudel-Cafe.com’s servers will be shut down.

Community Support:

Our team will be available for the duration of April to provide support during this transition. Please submit any questions before 11:59pm EST on May 3rd.

Lastly, a thank you:

To our community, we cannot express enough gratitude for your part in Strudel Cafe’s growth. Word of mouth has allowed us to steadily gain a reliable player base over the past few years. The support of our community through Patreon, MYO slots, and adoptables, have allowed us to grow up to this point by covering server costs as well as paying our staff members, contractors, and developers. Being able to watch our members enjoy the community aspects of our game has been an endless source of motivation. 

Though the game is coming to an end, we hope that you all have forged friendships and memories that will continue on outside of the community we have built here. We would never have made it this far without you.

To our staff, both former and current, thank you for the long hours that you’ve devoted to this game. Your dedication to our community has provided so much joy to so many people. We’re so honored to have you part of our lives. While the game must come to an end, we look forward to our friendships lasting for many more years to come.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

The Strudel Cafe Team

Loppy, Jen, & Ren

Seasonal rollover is complete and it is officially SPRING in Midveil!

Trees have been cut down for the season and orchards cleared for lumber.
Seasonal seeds/saplings/starters are now appropriately purchasable from the Farmer's Market!

In an attempt to clarify things and make our stance and approach to moderation known, and in not wanting to delay a response further, we neglected to address the more personal reasons as to why things have been so slow, or how decisions were made, or why there was a delay not only in this, but in other site functions.

We're sorry for that! The most recent announcement may seem confusing to many users not involved in the conflict or aware of the issues discussed therein. It's easy to forget certain context isn't universal.

For context to those unaware;

Our previous announcement was made to address concerns about an unspecified user, and our collective response (or lack thereof) to the issue as it evolved. These concerns focused on content hosted off-site, and the worry about how the interests shown there may, or had already, overlapped with SC both on the site and in the community discord.

When reports about concerns of this nature are made, we treat it very seriously. In this instance, we initially investigated and found that the concerns were indeed valid, but not immediately a threat - the user that had been reported was contacted, and changes were made to make their profile safer and attempts to keep an eye on the situation were made. The user in question actively worked with our team to make changes as we deemed necessary, to create additional layers of separation between their personal interests and SC.

Harassment of any kind is not permitted in this community. It never has been, and never will be. This goes both ways - we encourage users to block those who make them uncomfortable, or to report any actual offenses to our team to review, not to confront directly. This is relevant here, as the reports started to go both ways.

In all of the reports we received, the issues presented were either ones we had already addressed with the user, were outdated, or on separate sites beyond our jurisdiction. What started as interpersonal communications breakdown and a lapse of judgement became something much larger through our involvement. Accusations became a game of telephone, and our team found it difficult to track down what was current, relevant, and reliable. To us, it seemed there were appropriate levels of separation being made. It sounded more like interpersonal frustration, rather than something necessitating further team involvement - a block would do, or so it felt.

Our stance on this matter has not, ultimately, changed.

It is ultimately up to the users - or their guardians - to monitor what sites they access beyond our borders. We have dealt with similar reports before - in other cases where the threats were genuine and immediately clear, our action has been swift and decisive. Therein lies the crux of the issue.

Our communication and efficiency about these choices has been severely lacking. To be completely transparent with you all, our team is very worn out. It has been difficult for us to keep up with these reports as they have evolved over time.

Most of the team are actively going through many different forms of major life changes - some brief, some ongoing - and it has left our ability to communicate effectively as both a team and to you, the community, in disarray. We have always done our best to keep up, but things have fallen behind due to our personal life circumstances. We can't pretend they haven't!

We want to extend an apology, for the delay in communicating these issues to you all, and in the general silence while we have taken the time to tackle them. We are still human.

Please be patient with our volunteers and mods as we work to try and tackle the backlog of approvals and enlightened prompts!

In light of recent events, the team would like to clarify some lines of our Terms of Service, as well as our stance towards dealing with community concerns.

“NSFW (not safe for work) artwork, writing, and discussion is not tolerated in the Strudel Cafe servers or any public area accessible to minors outside of the website. This project is PG-13 and meant to be a safe space for members of all ages and backgrounds.”

“Public area accessible to minors outside of the website” in this instance refers to our various Discord servers, which are areas under our direct control. The Discord is made available via our website, allowing us to reserve the right to revoke access if the terms are violated. Websites like Toyhou.se, DeviantArt, etc, are outside of our jurisdiction.  Terms and Conditions vary by website. We cannot control the content that our members post off of our direct website and community. If a member posts inappropriate content to another website in violation of their TOS, please reach out to the appropriate website’s staff with your concerns.

When members agree to our Terms and Conditions, they are agreeing to conduct themselves in a proper manner within the spaces we dictate. If they do not abide by our terms, their agreement to the conditions allows us to remove them from that space.

“This NSFW clause also extends to “SFW” fetish depictions.”

As stated above, we do not tolerate any manner of fetish art posted to our website or servers. Context is important in these situations, so this clause is a bit open-ended for a case-by-case basis. The design in this instance was based upon a stomach medicine. The design was evaluated, and it was decided that without context, it was not offensive nor dangerous on its own.

Our Terms of Service are a tool to protect our community. We operate within the guidelines that we have set forth. Members agree to these terms when they use our website. No member is above the rules, and each incident is assessed from an unbiased point of view. We have received every report brought forward regarding the recent events, and each time we evaluated them, we found that they were not in violation with our TOS. In order to prevent dangerous misinformation or slander, we evaluate all screenshots in their original contexts.

After reviewing all evidence in its original context, then speaking with the member in question, we determined that this person was not a threat to our community. The accusations were formed from a misunderstanding involving screenshots taken out of context. The evidence should have been clarified before being used to spread serious accusations and slander.

Our team takes an unbiased approach to conflict resolution . The member in question had been previously warned about violations in the Terms of Service, and afterwards, acted in accordance with our site’s guidelines. This member was never a threat to anyone in the community. However, repeated attempts and requests to reevaluate the evidence against the member were brought forward, beginning to border on harassment. These members were warned and advised to block the member in question.

This situation should have been discussed and resolved privately between the members involved. All members were advised to block each other and discontinue communication. This is our team’s recommended advice for any conflicts between members. In order to treat all of our members fairly, we will not get involved in interpersonal conflicts unless they are in violation of our TOS, or an immediate threat to the safety of one of our members (such as threats of doxxing, physical harm, etc.)

If at any point, you would like the Terms of Service to be clarified by the staff, you are welcome to reach out. That being said, we are always willing to address and evaluate concerns that involve the safety of our members. We have dealt with known predators by issuing IP bans should they ever enter this site and removing them from the servers.

Lastly, we also ask that the boundaries of our staff are respected. We have multiple community members and workers available to answer questions, but mental health and personal triggers may affect one staff member’s abilities to deal with certain situations. In these instances, you will be directed to another moderator who is in a better position to help you. Our team is not required to disclose personal information or reasoning as to why they are uncomfortable with certain topics.