I have by now played... more adult games than it's probably healthy for an adult male to play.
Now, I'm not going to tout my own horn, but I studied game development for a couple of years and there is one thing most games in this site are clearly lacking; GDDs, short of Game Design Document.
It is basically a fucking long text file where you write down how the game is going to be, before you start doing the game.
And I don't mean vague ideas like "it's a game about corruption". How many levels of corruption? What are the mechanics for corrupting? What happens when a new level of corruption is achieved?
The reason this document is needed is to avoid two of the biggest downfalls most games have here; a lack of focus, and a lack of perspective.
By a lack of focus I mean games that start and build a base for gameplay, but then with each new update start slowly drifting apart from said gameplay, until it ends like two games competing each other.
Examples of such games are Something Unlimited, Ciri Trainer, and Divine Adventure. Now don't get me wrong, both games have great art, and I manage to like them for what they are, but the lack of focus is clear and easy to see.
Here are some gameplay elements estabilished early on Something Unlimited;
- You capture heroines by finding relevant information about them, then sending villains after them
- Heroines can be corrupted and put to work to unlock new scenes
- Heroines increase in difficulty to capture as game progresses
- You must avoid being discovered by the JLA detective heroes such as The Question and, I presume, Batman
All of these three elements were lost in the updates. Some of the new heroines , such as Raven, are acquired by means other than the standard. Some heroines, such as Miss Martian, break the game flow and are easier to capture than the 'tier' she belongs. Some heroines cannot be put to work and new scenes are unlocked in a different way. And, after years of update, the base defense aspect of the game is still only cosmetic, if that.
This is bad game design because it confuses and frustrates the player. Without a walkthrough, it's hard to know how to even meet Blackfire, for example. And the player has to navigate twice the number of menus to check on Raven and on Starfire, which is doubly frustrating because there is a chance that after going through the menus, they will only see a message saying the heroine is unavaiable for the day.
That is not to say the hints of gameplay elements that were never made. There is a menu for superpowers, and a menu for robots, and neither menu is used for anything.
It is clear the developer had plenty of ideas, but they are spread out and implemented in many different ways, and the end result feels like the game is trying to be various different, if similar, games at once. As I understand the dev has recently started back the game from scratch to fix this, and I wish him luck.
Ciri Trainer loses focus on a different way. Each new chapter seems to change the direction the plot is going. The first chapter is your standard trainer game, but as soon as the training aspects start to take, the secon chapter rolls in and it becomes more story-focused, and the training aspect takes a backseat. It returns with a vengeance on the third chapter, which is WILDLY different from all others. Then fourth and fifth chapters are back to the old system, but still are much more focused on the plot than the training. Certain menu elements like the player morality level or Ciri's obedience level seem to have no purpose other than to exist in the menu, and you are even locked out of progressing through the standard training gameplay unless you follow the story beats rigidly.
The game also introduces the clothing system in chapter two and explicitly says it will become important in later chapters. That is a lie.
And Divine Adventure is... well, there is no way to put this nicely, that game is a mess. It has a main hub with options that are locked, get unlocked, then are forgotten the next update. There is a system for rooms, but the rooms are never used. One update had a corruption system for 18, but the next update resets all player progress because the author wanted to take the plot in a new direction. The game starts with minigames that are never used again, to get EXP points that aren't ever needed again... and even after not being needed you still can get more EXP. For no reason. The dialogue choices are purely cosmetic, characters appear and disappear with no regard for consistency, and what started as a trainer game has become a pseudo visual novel with no choices.
I mean there is lack of focus and then there is ADD.
All three games feel improvised, so to say. They are build as the devs go, and it shows. With a proper GDD, they could have narrowed down how the game was meant to be played, and then made the new content fit the gameplay, instead of making the gameplay fit the new content.
Anyway, those were the lack of focus examples. As by a lack of perspective, I mean games that not only don't seem to end, they don't seem to be heading towards any ending.
Those are, unfortunately, most games in the site. But for an example, there's Rogue-Like.
I like Rogue-Like. It tickles my corruption fetish in just the right way.
But it lacks an objective for the player to achieve. After you corrupt all the heroines enough to see all the avaiale scenes the game just... goes on. Shambling along not quite dead, but also not alive, like a particularly lusty zombie.
And while I enjoy that this leaves the game open to new updates, it also means the game will likely never be properly completed.
Anyways I have been writing this for like 2 hours and I'm sort of wondering why I even started. I guess my message is like "guys you'll have a better time making games if you plan your games before making them", but in the end I don't think anyone really cares because in the end it's porn, so... yeah.
Now, I'm not going to tout my own horn, but I studied game development for a couple of years and there is one thing most games in this site are clearly lacking; GDDs, short of Game Design Document.
It is basically a fucking long text file where you write down how the game is going to be, before you start doing the game.
And I don't mean vague ideas like "it's a game about corruption". How many levels of corruption? What are the mechanics for corrupting? What happens when a new level of corruption is achieved?
The reason this document is needed is to avoid two of the biggest downfalls most games have here; a lack of focus, and a lack of perspective.
By a lack of focus I mean games that start and build a base for gameplay, but then with each new update start slowly drifting apart from said gameplay, until it ends like two games competing each other.
Examples of such games are Something Unlimited, Ciri Trainer, and Divine Adventure. Now don't get me wrong, both games have great art, and I manage to like them for what they are, but the lack of focus is clear and easy to see.
Here are some gameplay elements estabilished early on Something Unlimited;
- You capture heroines by finding relevant information about them, then sending villains after them
- Heroines can be corrupted and put to work to unlock new scenes
- Heroines increase in difficulty to capture as game progresses
- You must avoid being discovered by the JLA detective heroes such as The Question and, I presume, Batman
All of these three elements were lost in the updates. Some of the new heroines , such as Raven, are acquired by means other than the standard. Some heroines, such as Miss Martian, break the game flow and are easier to capture than the 'tier' she belongs. Some heroines cannot be put to work and new scenes are unlocked in a different way. And, after years of update, the base defense aspect of the game is still only cosmetic, if that.
This is bad game design because it confuses and frustrates the player. Without a walkthrough, it's hard to know how to even meet Blackfire, for example. And the player has to navigate twice the number of menus to check on Raven and on Starfire, which is doubly frustrating because there is a chance that after going through the menus, they will only see a message saying the heroine is unavaiable for the day.
That is not to say the hints of gameplay elements that were never made. There is a menu for superpowers, and a menu for robots, and neither menu is used for anything.
It is clear the developer had plenty of ideas, but they are spread out and implemented in many different ways, and the end result feels like the game is trying to be various different, if similar, games at once. As I understand the dev has recently started back the game from scratch to fix this, and I wish him luck.
Ciri Trainer loses focus on a different way. Each new chapter seems to change the direction the plot is going. The first chapter is your standard trainer game, but as soon as the training aspects start to take, the secon chapter rolls in and it becomes more story-focused, and the training aspect takes a backseat. It returns with a vengeance on the third chapter, which is WILDLY different from all others. Then fourth and fifth chapters are back to the old system, but still are much more focused on the plot than the training. Certain menu elements like the player morality level or Ciri's obedience level seem to have no purpose other than to exist in the menu, and you are even locked out of progressing through the standard training gameplay unless you follow the story beats rigidly.
The game also introduces the clothing system in chapter two and explicitly says it will become important in later chapters. That is a lie.
And Divine Adventure is... well, there is no way to put this nicely, that game is a mess. It has a main hub with options that are locked, get unlocked, then are forgotten the next update. There is a system for rooms, but the rooms are never used. One update had a corruption system for 18, but the next update resets all player progress because the author wanted to take the plot in a new direction. The game starts with minigames that are never used again, to get EXP points that aren't ever needed again... and even after not being needed you still can get more EXP. For no reason. The dialogue choices are purely cosmetic, characters appear and disappear with no regard for consistency, and what started as a trainer game has become a pseudo visual novel with no choices.
I mean there is lack of focus and then there is ADD.
All three games feel improvised, so to say. They are build as the devs go, and it shows. With a proper GDD, they could have narrowed down how the game was meant to be played, and then made the new content fit the gameplay, instead of making the gameplay fit the new content.
Anyway, those were the lack of focus examples. As by a lack of perspective, I mean games that not only don't seem to end, they don't seem to be heading towards any ending.
Those are, unfortunately, most games in the site. But for an example, there's Rogue-Like.
I like Rogue-Like. It tickles my corruption fetish in just the right way.
But it lacks an objective for the player to achieve. After you corrupt all the heroines enough to see all the avaiale scenes the game just... goes on. Shambling along not quite dead, but also not alive, like a particularly lusty zombie.
And while I enjoy that this leaves the game open to new updates, it also means the game will likely never be properly completed.
Anyways I have been writing this for like 2 hours and I'm sort of wondering why I even started. I guess my message is like "guys you'll have a better time making games if you plan your games before making them", but in the end I don't think anyone really cares because in the end it's porn, so... yeah.
