5 annoying design and technical decisions in adult games

[moskyx]

I'm about to make my own game minus having zero art skills (I can learn this) but I've always wanted a detective game, female lead, investigating some sort of sex traffick group in a stripclub where she has to take part of it to fit in - best corruption game scenario ever also she'd go in with a team and there would have to be different types of ways you can actually get in the club to even start in the depth of darkness

So you want Female Agent but with actual Bangkok content

 

[pharal]

The two things that piss me off:

Mistaking "grind" for "gameplay content".

Having to do the same thing over and over again without variance to get anywhere in a game isn't "content". It's wasting my time, preventing me from enjoying it until I've done enough work to be allowed to have some fun, not letting me have dessert until I've eaten my vegetables, the plate they came on, and a sack of concrete. SuperPowered is an example of a game that's really, REALLY bad at this, with all the costs for upgrades necessary to access new content costing 5-10 times as much as they need to and slowing advancement to a crawl (not helped by the fact that a lot of the gamplay systems are completely imbalanced, so attempting to interact with the girls for relationship points is inestimably less-efficient than just repeatedly using your phone to text them over and over again). SuperPowered is also terrible at my other pet peeve:

Mistaking "RNG" for "gameplay challenge".

I try to do something. I fail and waste my time and effort. Why did I fail? Because the game decided "fuck you". This is not gameplay. As mentioned, SuperPowered is atrocious at this, particularly as the game penalises you for failing at something that wasn't your fault and, despite being a Ren'Py game, has disabled text rollback, forcing you to manually save scum everything to get anywhere, but possibly an even worse example is Inheritance. EVERYTHING in this game is triggered randomly. You have to be in the right place at the right time, often in the right circumstances, for an event to trigger, but whether it actually DOES or not is completely up to the game's whims, and most events (apart from the common ones that you see over and over and over again- it's also a very grindy game) have a really, REALLY low chance of triggering. I got really pissed off when I tried to meet the requirements to encounter a new character (drive to town on a rainy evening between the hours of 8 and 11 PM) but she simply refused to appear no matter how many times I did it. This. Is not. Gameplay. An amount of randomness adds variance to a game, but making it impossible to accomplish anything you want to unless the game is in the mood and doesn't have a headache tonight? That's just flipping the player off for no reason.

And especially when you combine the two. What I mean by this is is that there is an unlimited grind for stats or money, but to trigger something specific you have to spend 2/3 of a day in specific places in order to try and trigger this or move forward. That is time that will be put in the other end of the grind.
Another addition is that if you want a hunger mechanic in the game then at least make it so it doesn't take 3 hours to eat a meal...

 

[Adabelitoo]

I respect the OP but I disagree with most of the points

 

[Joshua Tree]

This said, I agree on the fact that neither a dead end or a game over should come for free. The player should be warned first and have been offered the keys to make the right decision. If he missed the hints, the death would be on him and he would be the only one to blame.

If the game give you a option to be a "good guy" and a option to be a utter garbage waste of human being. If you pick the later, I wouldn't be that surprised if the game started to throw "game over" scenes in your face. I don't think any hints of a possible game over is needed in that regard.

 

[anne O'nymous]

If the game give you a option to be a "good guy" and a option to be a utter garbage waste of human being. If you pick the later, I wouldn't be that surprised if the game started to throw "game over" scenes in your face. I don't think any hints of a possible game over is needed in that regard.

Seen the number of games where you can be utter garbage without consequence, I would prefer the girl (or anyone that would have to reac) to react really negatively the first time. This said, I agree that I wouldn't be this surprised ; but isn't it because the choice itself is a warning ?

 

[Joshua Tree]

Seen the number of games where you can be utter garbage without consequence, I would prefer the girl (or anyone that would have to reac) to react really negatively the first time. This said, I agree that I wouldn't be this surprised ; but isn't it because the choice itself is a warning ?

I'm a strong believer in consequence of action. Got little of that in these games sadly But where it does apply people shouldn't be surprised or amazed over game over actions based on stupid decisions. End of the day it means very little when you can just load a save, it's not real life...

 

[anne O'nymous]

I'm a strong believer in consequence of action. Got little of that in these games sadly

The later is the reason why I became a less strong believer of the former ; well, this and few games that let you only choose between reading the author mind or dying in shame.

As a player I agree with you. I remember the first time I played Fallout 3, making an enemy of a faction because of a reflex shoot, less than 10 minutes after having left the vault. Had to deal with the consequences during the whole game. But as unintentional as it was, it was now part of my story, so I didn't cared this much.
But as an author it should be looked differently. As you said, nowadays there's too few games (sadly even outside of the adult scene) where you effectively have to deal with the consequences of your choice/act. Therefore finding a way to warn the players that there's consequences in your game, and doing it otherwise than with a big flashing, "Hey, there's consequences in this game", is never a bad idea.

End of the day it means very little when you can just load a save, it's not real life...

Once again, it depend of where you place yourself.
For the author it mean having to deal with a bunch of idiots that will rot your game thread, saying trash about you, simply because they are pure idiots. Obviously, you can ignore them, but it will cost you some players that will not even try the game because of those negatives comments ; and alas there's no "load a save" for that.

 

[Joshua Tree]

The later is the reason why I became a less strong believer of the former ; well, this and few games that let you only choose between reading the author mind or dying in shame.

As a player I agree with you. I remember the first time I played Fallout 3, making an enemy of a faction because of a reflex shoot, less than 10 minutes after having left the vault. Had to deal with the consequences during the whole game. But as unintentional as it was, it was now part of my story, so I didn't cared this much.
But as an author it should be looked differently. As you said, nowadays there's too few games (sadly even outside of the adult scene) where you effectively have to deal with the consequences of your choice/act. Therefore finding a way to warn the players that there's consequences in your game, and doing it otherwise than with a big flashing, "Hey, there's consequences in this game", is never a bad idea.




Once again, it depend of where you place yourself.
For the author it mean having to deal with a bunch of idiots that will rot your game thread, saying trash about you, simply because they are pure idiots. Obviously, you can ignore them, but it will cost you some players that will not even try the game because of those negatives comments ; and alas there's no "load a save" for that.

Most fun you can have is play live table top rpg, d&d or whatever with other people and then throw a wrench is the cogs, and consequence of your actions can have dire consequence for the entire game. More "old school" to put it that, RPG games had a lot more punishing consequences of your actions. Even some of the dragon age games had that. I guess gamers now and then two different things. As soon as things start get hard it's all about start crying. Was no online walkthroughs and such back then.

As for idiots start flood your thread, I guess believe in mods to throw out the trash and for other more "sane" people to see through the bullshit.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Most fun you can have is play live table top rpg, d&d or whatever with other people and then throw a wrench is the cogs, and consequence of your actions can have dire consequence for the entire game.

Oh, I know that. Had a game master that we pissed off a little too much during a party, going deliberately at the obvious opposite of all possible action. Must say that none of us saw it coming when we ended in a dragon nest with mother and her children. It was a sadistic move, making us face just a baby that we achieved to kill, before we turned back to choose another direction. But he wasn't coming from the nest, he was going back to it, and the mother wasn't there at first, letting us stupidly think that perhaps we could survive...
But, well, none of us complained either. It's not totally impossible that it was perhaps partly our fault

I guess gamers now and then two different things. As soon as things start get hard it's all about start crying. Was no online walkthroughs and such back then.

It's clearly two different kind of gamers, I have no doubt about this, but it's not just a question of online walkthroughs ; we had the magazines and fanzines for the help, and in the USA they even sometimes had dedicated phone hotlines.
No, I think that before everything else the difference come from the fact that at this time we didn't expected to beat the game, and we were fine with this. The first game I beat was probably Doom, what mean that I past a little more than 10 years playing video games without winning. And I'm pretty sure that 99% of my generation have the same kind of past with video games. Beating the game was for the hardcore gamers, people who were far more efficient than the actual hardcore gamers. And, as I said, we were fine with this, just playing was entertaining and enjoyable enough.
But nowadays a game that you can't finish is a piece of shit. What matter isn't to finish it, everyone can do it, there's an "easy mode" for that. No, what matter is to have a 100% achievements. And this change a lot of things, because you don't expect the same thing from the game. We expected the game to be an enjoyable challenge, while younger players except the game to be beatable and take their enjoyment from... well, I'm not even sure that they all enjoy this much reaching the 100% achievements. Sometimes it seem that they just expect the game to occupy them more than anything else.
What don't mean that nowadays games are all bad, but when an old folk like me can reach 99% success with a game like Wolfenstein: the new order (fucking final boss that I can't beat in hardcore because too short in ammo), is there really a challenge in the games ?

But well, all this to say that games have changed and with them the expectations of the players ; or perhaps it's the expectations that changed first, but who really care... And giving you a game over isn't something that players expect nowadays. Half of the games don't even kill you anyway, at worse you're sent back to your quarter and have to redo the mission.

As for idiots start flood your thread, I guess believe in mods to throw out the trash and for other more "sane" people to see through the bullshit.

Yeah, but as clean as the thread can be made by the mods, the author know the shit that happened, and it's not necessarily something good for the nerves. I mean, they past all their free time to works on it, spend tons of money for this, and a bunch of idiots complain because they acted like the idiots they are, choosing the "put the gun against your head and pull the trigger [warning, this will kill you and lead to a game over]" option, and are unhappy because it ended the game.

Edit: Oops, forgot few words, time to go to sleep I guess.

 

[cqxk]

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