A quick survey. A small team making a large project.

[Hadley]

Always keep it simple. Gameplay is wasted time. For Adult Games the same rules apply as for any Indie-Game. People want what they can't get from generic Games, a good interactive Romance/Love Story with Sex-Scenes. If I want a Game with good Gameplay I play a high-budget Game.

Good Story and Good Writing is the most important thing. Rest is optional.

 

[DevTeamNews]

It's definitely a new approach, most devs come with a planned story and which fetishes we can expect. Making a porn game with 'all sorts' of fetishes isn't always a good thing.

This is true, but as others have mentioned, this is an elimination process. We aren't planning to include everything. The more votes the feature receives, the more likey it is to be added to the game.

 

[Agent HK47]

You know, I am getting flashbacks to a few years ago, when someone opened up a thread on this site and started boasting about this "AMAZING, AWARD-WINNING, REVOLUTIONIZING, BEST IDEA" game they were working on, how excited they were to make it and show it to us, and how much it was going to change EVERYTHING going forward. Anything sound familiar?

Let's take a look at how this amazing game looks after more than 2 years of development. I can't wait! https://f95zone.to/threads/new-games-mystery-of-family-in-developing.15280/
WHAT?! The original post is deleted, the game itself is completely abandoned and the patreon removed? How could this be? It was going to change EVERYTHING!

Okay, I will try to turn down the douchebag mode a bit here.

You are not doing yourself any favours by coming in here, and boasting about your amazing ideas/abilites, while having NOTHING to back up those claims. Right now, you are a 1:1 replica of these people and this thread I posted above, and if you don't get off of those clouds you seem to be floating on right now, you will end up exactly like them.
Nobody likes people who are full of themselves, while not having earned it in any way. Most people don't like people boasting, even if they HAVE earned it. Be humble, be cautious. Take it one step at a time and for the love of god, do NOT talk about how much your game will change the world as we know it. We have heard the song a thousand times before, and we absolutely HATE every single lyric by now.

 

[konabwo]

oh i see some clarifications on genres...looks like this site content (VN & sandboxes) should fit into adventures i picked
...
Q about pictures/renders question - i have only 3D pics (2 top pics) being shown. (none of 2D examples were visible)
*dont know about graphics much ...but what about (i assume) real pics into 2D art? (like in GGGB) ...or smth like https://attachments.f95zone.to/2020/03/611899_bQ8Kyv.gif (to me looks like 2D-into-3D. probably just well animated-drawn 2D... )
...
Q How powerful is your device? * all those games ...have no idea what are their specs|reqs.

There is a question about the importance of sandbox features

yeah and that means that i probably answered some prev question wrong
i had below options to choose
visual novel - clear (i guess) novel with graphics, text and choices. ok not a fan.
interactive movie - not so clear, i think i heard only of 1 project with porn clips sequence selections (it is just not this site content afaik) no idea if something else was implied
text based - had to choose that after my elimination process as i avoid VNs. plus most not-VNs here are text-based to some degree. even if u click on environment and items. on the other hand...some people may argue that most sandboxes are VNs just with certain interface...

....
as i care about SBs - it feels like you may want more detalisation ...
SB with morning-day-evening time management OR with hourly one.
"generic" sandbox OR some sort of "girls selector" - like a date-sim or trainers.
"generic" SB or VN-into-SB (borderline cases like DoD, Badik, thegift)

 

[159betta951]

it's gonna be difficult to sway the community's viewpoint, as many devs tried, promised, and for the most part, most of the games have been abandoned, here's my skepticism and please don't take offense to it:

first of all, while you do claim that you've worked on multiple popular video games, for the sake of anonymity, I'll take your word for it in that you have the skill to make a video game. but for adult video games, most of the rules don't apply, what matters the most is satisfaction, not gameplay, not even graphics for the matter, satisfaction is an emotion that is very difficult to explain in words (take Trials in Tainted Space, which is text based, for example). and considering that you didn't give any examples of adult video games that you've made, I'd assume that you have minimal experience in adult games.

second, even in ordinary, family friendly games, it's quite the issue when the dev doesn't have an idea about the game they want to make, and considering how adult games are all about emotions, I'm pretty sure you'll get burnt out before you finish the game.

third: a large project + a small team = aiming at the moon. don't get me wrong, there are teams who succeeded, but for every one of those, 10 have failed.

and finally, the current market. there is an upcoming large project made by a prominent studio, it's called Subverse. if your game/adverts are going to come out during subverse's peak, expect your game to tank, and it's going to hurt a lot if it's a big game.

my advice to you would be to start small, show the community what your team is capable of, make the game that you guys want to make, in what you guys want to see, experiment and see if you actually like making these kinds of games, find out what works and what doesn't, and then you can make a big game. that's what studio FOW did after all, they started with few videos and some flash games, and here we are, the Subverse train it pretty massive.

as I said, please don't take offense into this, we love video games, and it's rare to have a large adult games, and we are welcoming to anyone who tries to make one, but we grew skeptical due to the many devs who said the same before. I wish you guys all the best, but that's just my opinion.

p.s: I did take the survey.

 

[woody554]

this seems like a perfect match for the "I'm an ideas guy" post we get here every couple of weeks.

 

[chainedpanda]

I'll be blunt, the idea that gameplay is unimportant to adult games is absurd. Those that claim otherwise... Well, I'll leave this Chinese idiom here:
"You're like a frog at the bottom of a well".

I fully believe the adult game culture is forced due to necessity, rather than desire. The general gameplay elements we get are through annoying room clicker sandbox games, generic RPG maker games, or slave management. I'm not trying to trash any developers, there are some games in all three categories that I adore, but let's face it, we are kind of sick of the same gameplay elements over and over again.

The devs who make adult games are amateurs. Because of this, they tend to lean towards the writing and art aspect of the games and ignore the coding aspects. Meaning most focus on visual novels. Furthermore, the developers who have tried end up coding themselves into a corner, unorganized and not very happy with their work. Deciding instead of fixing it, it would be best to simply abandon the game, or start a new. Hell, even the developer of Mist, a very popular game right now, basically abandoned his old game in favor of a restart.

I have played far more adult games than I care to admit. For many of the visual novels, I walk away from feeling enjoyment or satisfaction from playing. I think "Huh, that was fun. Can't wait for the next release". Only to find myself completely forgetting the entire story by the time the next game is released, hell it's possible I even forget what the damn game is called. I have a word document filled with games I had to rate and give a summary for just so I can remember all of them. Chances are, similar things happen to everyone who replied to this thread.

Yet, the games I remember most fondly, some of which I haven't touched in years, I remember vividly. Corruption of Champions, Strive for Power, Free Cities, Lab Rats 2, etc. These games need no introduction to me, nor do they require me to spend x amount of time after playing them to type up a summary for myself. Some of these games do very well out in the wild, earning their developers a decent living.

F95 is the defecate location for adult games. It isn't Reddit, nor any message board, nor is it steam. The culture and opinions of this site are what sets the tone for the budding adult game industry, rather we admit it out loud or not. While this may be true, it only affects those of us who use this site and the developers who may want to research for their potential game. It does not speak for the rest of the world.

Furthermore, if you look at mods, how many people do you think purchased Sims 4 just to play Wicked Whims? That single mod makes more money than the vast majority of adult games, and it has been doing so for years now. You could argue that it is that popular because it is a mod for such an old and popular franchise, but at the same time, I argue that Sims 4 still makes money because of Wicked Whims and a handful of other mods. All the mod does is add new gameplay elements, no story and it barely enhances the art.

I will admit, there is a difference between a mod and a game. Yet, I feel my point remains valid. The popularity of Wicked Whims, which several major video game news sites have reported on, outshines that of any popular game here on f95. I think this alone shows that the potential market for adult games is much larger than we see stuck in our well, and that market wants gameplay elements.

Even if we look outside of the adult industry, to the larger non-adult games. Visual Novels are a joke to most gamers. Many of which would likely enjoy games that revolve around adult situations. That is a large untapped cash cow which games we find here on f95 are impeding the ability to tap into that market.

I would like to say that I'm not trying to bad mouth devs who make visual novels. Several of my favorite games are VNs. This issue isn't exactly their fault either. Nor am I blaming f95, as I mentioned earlier the culture is forced, not natural.

I fully believe that the only thing holding both VNs and games with gameplay back is balance. Most VNs have no gameplay at all, maybe a couple of mini-games or neat UI. While many games with gameplay have a very little story, and either poor art or in some cases none at all. If a game came around which could find a balance between the three things, that game has the potential to outshine any adult game or mod created up until now.

If the op is determined and has any skill at all, we should be supporting them rather than trying to convince them that they will fail. If they can at least create a bit of that balance I mentioned, they will most likely find great success.

 

[Adabelitoo]

I thought the same before completing the survey, after completing it and after reading the comments. Not too much to say that it hasn't been said before. I just want to add that every time I see one of this threads, I literally write the dev's name to remember it when the game is out (assuming the game gets released) to not play it or play it just to see how bad and unnoriginal it is.

I really don't mind playing the same cliche stories with the same characters in different games but this kind of things really ruins it for me.

 

[159betta951]

I'll be blunt, the idea that gameplay is unimportant to adult games is absurd. Those that claim otherwise.

I read your whole comment, you are partially true. yes, gameplay matters as well, there's no denying it. however, in many game that I've seen that try to add gameplay, said gameplay ruins the adult gaming experience. for example, one of the games that I played was a boxing game where you play girl vs girl, you break them physically, then you break them mentally till they reach orgasm and you win. the idea is pretty simple, however, there's no time for the player to do anything, the adrenal flow was more intense than desire.
there's also the old click very fast, move the mouse up and down, lottery, puzzles, the addition of a battle/quest system...etc.

there are of course many other examples where gameplay looks or sounds interesting that overpowers the adult theme to the point where it feels like a trashy, non-adult game, except you play it behind closed doors. these games typically have a playing phase where all you do is gameplay, and the cutscenes being the reward for the gameplay, and the cycle continues.

for the most part, adult game devs are just hobbyists with poor game development experience, it takes a dev from a non-adult gaming development to make a good gameplay, but most of these devs have no clue about what actually works in an adult game, which makes thier adult games rely too much on gameplay, or they tone it down to the hobbyist level. devs with good gameplay in an adult game are often devs who were developing adult games for so long that they gained enough expertise to do so, such as LikelyFenoxo, the developer of behind corruption of champions and trials in tainted space who was making games since 2015, and probably prior.

for most adult games, gameplay is done wrong, either there's too little and the experience relies solely on desire (visual novels mostly), or there's too much gameplay that it doesn't feel like an adult game anymore (pretty much most of the unreal section)

also, it's not just the sims 4, the same goes for skyrim, fallout, and many other popular games. if it accepts mods, there will be +18

 

[anne O'nymous]

I fully believe the adult game culture is forced due to necessity, rather than desire. The general gameplay elements we get are through annoying room clicker sandbox games, generic RPG maker games, or slave management. I'm not trying to trash any developers, there are some games in all three categories that I adore, but let's face it, we are kind of sick of the same gameplay elements over and over again.

A necessity that come from the game genre itself.
Game mechanisms depend of the game you make. Splashtoon with Fallout gameplay would make no sense, as well as the opposite. If few adult games succeeded when having innovative or not fitting game mechanisms, it's not because people don't want such gameplay, but because such gameplay don't fit the genre, or don't achieve to unit the half who want to fap and the half who want to be entertained.
It doesn't mean that adult games are limited to their actual gameplay, but that the said gameplay have to be adapted to the genre.

I will admit, there is a difference between a mod and a game. Yet, I feel my point remains valid. The popularity of Wicked Whims, which several major video game news sites have reported on, outshines that of any popular game here on f95.

Like the popularity of Morrowind's adult mods opened the gate to all actual adult mods. But you forgot something important, that remove a lot of validity to your point. The vast majority of peoples play either the mod(s) or the game, but rarely both at the same time. Even for games like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, where some adult mods are fully integrated to the game, they tend to ignore the lewd part when they are playing the game, and totally forget the game when they are playing the mods.
But this separation between the game and the lewd is just impossible with adult games. The lewd is the game, and the game is the lewd, what lead to the mandatory adaptation of the gameplay I talked about above. And what also imply that adult mods and adult games aren't the same market.

I think this alone shows that the potential market for adult games is much larger than we see stuck in our well, and that market wants gameplay elements.

Saying that the market wouldn't like more gameplay elements would be a lie, but it doesn't mean that it want them.
Look at Winged Cloud's creations by example. In 2016 they made an amazing game, Sakura Dungeon. It's a game in the strict meaning of the word. Old school 3D first person dungeons, an ergonomic and easy to understand combat system, a RPG leveling mechanism, and an effective story. This being served by the usual good visual quality and the same amount of lewd content that in all their games.
Yet if it was really what the market want, they would have sold so many of it, that most of their games would have followed this lead ; which isn't at all the case. The game is liked here, mostly because of the implied nostalgia since it send back to the 90's adult games like Mad Paradox, the Viper series and all, but it's not a game effectively liked by the market.

I also think that you totally misunderstood the reality of the market. Yes, F95Zone is the biggest adult gaming community, but it's not the market ; it can't even be seen as representative of the Western part of the market. We are just a piracy community that, sometimes, invest in legal purchase, not the opposite.
The market is made of people who don't care this much and occasionally buy/fund/support an adult game for fun.

 

[freedom.call]

I could be wrong but it 'feels' like this game is geared towards gamers and gameplay. That's obviously fair enough but not what I'm looking for in adult/porn games.

I've never played and at some point thought to myself 'now would be a good time for a quiz or puzzle or combat or hammering the space bar'.

I still wish the devs all the best.

 

[HandofVecna]

Write a compelling story and don't expect to make money. Boom survey answered.

Very few Devs here make life supporting money. So unless you are doing this because it's something you are passionate about just don't do it. By passion I mean the story you have to tell you are passionate and compelled to tell because it screams in our head to be put down on paper and the fetishes you will represent get you hard when you render them because it his likely you won't get paid much if anything for all your efforts.

In fact you will get torn apart on here over and over about how shitty your game is. Are you ready for that? Are yo ready for the greatest game of all time to get shit on here? Are you going to be able to brush it off, stay motivated and power through?

Last bit of advice to all Devs. Be aware of the Choice Paradox. Everyone will bitch about wanting impactful choice in their game but only 50% really want it. Don't f'n do it. You will lose 50% of the fans if you have no impactful choices and 50% if you do because this half doesn't want to miss content on the first play through. If you are going to lose 50% of your fan base either way, lose the 50% that want impactful choice, it is less work.

Good luck and by all means have at it.

 

[bboybarry]

"We're aiming to start a new age of NSFW gaming by creating high quality games since the current market is saturated with cash grabs."
That's a bold claim for an account named "DevTeamNews"

 

[Joshua Tree]

DevTeamNews tbh, I give a fudge about surveys. If you need a survey to tell you what to make. You already failed. If you a small team with talented members you should have enough combined creativity to just start work on a game "you" want to make. Not what game whatever people take your survey want. You won't make anything new or unique by listen to people that just want more of the same already around.

Don't boast about will make something amazing. If you want to impress someone around here, SHOW US your talents.. Sketches, concept arts, whatever...

Oh, and if you need inspiration... pink unicorn midget amazon warriors...

 

[Nottravis]

... pink unicorn midget amazon warriors...

*steals the idea and runs off with it*

 

[Joshua Tree]

*steals the idea and runs off with it*

Well, it should be unique then because I haven't seen any such around...

 

[Nottravis]

Well, it should be unique then because I haven't seen any such around...

Probably because of being midget amazon warriors *sage nods*

 

[Cokane0]

You've already been shit on sufficiently to activate my giggles so I will only again add the point:
You could have just browsed the forum here and answered all these questions with a little research on what the community thinks about things.

I did before I started posting and It took me only a couple hours to read the mood.

 

[SAMASH112]

The majority of successful games are just straight-up visual novels.

Exactly!

 

[Gary_Indiana]

My admittedly little experience with game production is that committees and market research don't produce great games. They can at best make acceptable to good games but not great. A great game requires someone or a small group with an idea/vision in his/their heads that they just need to realize. The idea doesn't need to be a full game, maybe just a game mechanic, a scene, or even a turn of phrase but there needs to be a nucleus of something there from the beginning. Having said that, good luck with your game.