Anyone else notice that the quailty of games decreasing?

[Deleted member 167032]

kytee Well said... Damn I should ask you for advice sometimes lol.

I will be attempting this(below) in AE... If anyone watched "Old Boy" movie ... that is a brilliant example of what if this happened or didn't happen regarding family relationships for instance.

If you have a non-incest story, you get none of these things handed to you on a platter. You have to be a competent enough writer that you set up your own conflicts, stakes, and ironic situations all the while placing all of it under a lens that is relatable to your audience. Still, you can have all of that and still execute it poorly, but no one said writing a good story was ever easy.

DOMIEK sent me some "how to write a story" tutuorials and what you described are almost in line wit many things they advice one to do.

 

[DuniX]

Like previously mentioned, every release gets a couple hours on the front page and then drops off the radar.

It's not getting lost if you have the right tags for the right people.
It's their fault for make the same thing, over and over again as everybody else is doing.

There is some many things Developers can do to differentiate themselves like for example adding Actual Fucking Gameplay which I am very big proponent of.
Sandbox or VNs, Story Heavy or Porn Dispensers aren't the only options developers have, get creative, do some more niche kinks and fetishes you personally enjoy.
Porn Games do not have to be so conventional and standard, Hentai Manga has plenty of interesting settings you can use.

 

[Lemonkeygames]

It's not getting lost if you have the right tags for the right people.
It's their fault for make the same thing, over and over again as everybody else is doing.

There is some many things Developers can do to differentiate themselves like for example adding Actual Fucking Gameplay which I am very big proponent of.
Sandbox or VNs, Story Heavy or Porn Dispensers aren't the only options developers have, get creative, do some more niche kinks and fetishes you personally enjoy.
Porn Games do not have to be so conventional and standard, Hentai Manga has plenty of interesting settings you can use.

Oh there's ancillary discovery for sure, especially if the game is unique. But the stats are pretty clear, there's an evident drop off of visitors when a game drops off the front page. Not complaining, just an observation. It's just the state of things, we gotta work harder for the same results. It's just like Steam in the early days compared to now.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

Yours is a difficult task/game i feel. The incest part you have to convinced us that the feelings between son and mother is natural. Romantic beyond taboo and kudos to you for taking it on.

Yours just solidifies my point. Take the porn away and will it stand on its own. I believe so.

Love your game btw...

Oh there's ancillary discovery for sure, especially if the game is unique. But the stats are pretty clear, there's an evident drop off of visitors when a game drops off the front page. Not complaining, just an observation. It's just the state of things, we gotta work harder for the same results. It's just like Steam in the early days compared to now.

 

[Staimh]

...
If anyone watched "Old Boy" movie ...
...

Park Chan-wook's version I assume, many times, probably will again now in the next couple of days (maybe "Lady Vengeance" and "The Chaser" as well)

 

[yihman1]

Honestly, it sounds a lot to me like you concern yourself too much with how you compare to other people, especially people who do jack shit and profit. I know because I'm that way too. I used to have the biggest ego out of everyone I know. I was the smartest, the most hardworking, the most badass, and people would look up to me like I was the shit. Everyone thought that out of all my buddies, I was definitely going to be the most successful one. Then a couple of my buddies got lucky on the crypto hype train and all of a sudden, those motherfuckers were millionaires and living the lifestyle I was supposed to live. Afterwards, no one gave a shit about me and I'm stuck here wondering how the fuck that's fair when I work my ass off for a CompSci degree and make $60k a year at my 9-5, while those motherfuckers worked at McDonald's and poured their cash into crypto and got more out of it than me. I was bitter for a long time, hated myself but I hated them more because I felt they didn't deserve it or maybe because I would have made more than them had I done the same. That jealousy didn't help me at all though. It drove me to break those friendships and what time I could have used to make myself better, I used to find more ways to hate them. It didn't matter to them, they were laughing all the way to the bank, the few who weren't didn't even realize I was bitter about it. Anyways, long story short, focus on yourself. Nothing good ever comes out of being jealous of someone else's success, not even if you think you can use it as motivation to succeed yourself.

More on topic (still offtopic), a lot of "story-driven" VN's fail in one or both, of the following compartments: Make it relatable and make it exciting.

Relatability to your characters is more important the more complex your story is. Take for example The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the films). There's no doubt in my mind that that trilogy is what paved the way for the popularity of fantasy movies and video games in the 21st century. None of it would have ever happened if the story didn't take casuals, who knew nothing about the fantasy genre, and got them to immerse in a world completely different than their own. And the way you do that is to bridge the gap by creating relatability. The Lord of the Rings starts us off with the Hobbits to establish that these people are much like us, innocent, fun loving, unaware of the bigger problems in the world, and have doubts that they'd ever have any impact on that world. It's why we have such a long, peaceful opening in the movie, to establish the connection of what home means to the Hobbits with what home means to us. This allows casual audiences to immerse themselves in a fantasy world because they follow someone who they understand, it's putting a twist on something familiar.

I've played games like Heavy Five and Deluca Family, both touted as prime examples of good storytelling in adult games, and the one thing both those games failed to establish for me was relatability. As opposed to those examples, what the majority incest games have going for them is that their settings are relatively grounded in reality, plot notwithstanding, and as such, not much effort is needed in creating that relatability. To me, Heavy Five, a scifi game, and Deluca Family, a mafia game, both fail to establish a human connection from their audience to their main characters and this must be done almost immediately off the bat. The longer you go without that connection, the less the audience gives a shit about your characters and the more the drive to continue diminishes. Heavy Five starts you off meeting with your crewmates and Deluca Family starts you off with a talk with your cab driver before you meet the two love interests of the story. Both games kinda just thrusts you into their respective stories without establishing why you should give a shit about any of their main characters other than because you'll be making decisions as them. There's nothing to link you, an average dude from average town, to ship captain from Heavy Five or mafia member from Deluca Family. If you don't already like the scifi genre, you'll be hard pressed to continue Heavy Five, same as if you don't already like the mafia genre, you won't like Deluca Family either. Maybe the human element comes in later, but first impressions are extremely important and I think they both fail on that front. I think right now those two are doing okay for the same reason as incest games were doing good a couple of years ago: People are hard pressed for a decent variety of story-based adult games and these are your only two halfway decent choices.

Making something exciting should be self-explanatory but for some reason, it's more difficult than it seems. You generate excitement from conflict, stakes, and irony. Incest games have it easy because incest in itself has all three of those built in from the get go. Conflict: You want your sister's pussy. Stake: If you fail, you get disowned from the family, from society, and you get kicked out. Irony: There's millions of girls in the world yet you want the only one you can't have. If you don't have a story that routinely has more and more conflict, stakes, and irony being cycled in and out, you have a boring story. Hell, a lot of incest games have this problem where after family members fuck, the story dies because the writer has no clue how to create new conflict, stakes, and ironic situations and shit gets boring. The hard part is interrelating all these things with your main character that your audience self-inserts to because you will still have a boring story if your conflict and stakes are meaningless to your characters.

If you have a non-incest story, you get none of these things handed to you on a platter. You have to be a competent enough writer that you set up your own conflicts, stakes, and ironic situations all the while placing all of it under a lens that is relatable to your audience. Still, you can have all of that and still execute it poorly, but no one said writing a good story was ever easy.

I feel you and I read "The Art of Happiness" by the by the Dalai Lama himself on more than one occasion, and at one point in that book explains that more or less you should not look at what someone else on their plate unless to make sure they also have enough. Your neighbor having a 10 foot pool with a diving board does not make your 3 foot above ground pool any less fun on a hot summer day.

That being said what is best for happiness is not always what is best for business.

On the other hand it is important in any business to be as aware of the competition as possible. So it's important to research the competition as much you research yourself. For instance when McDonalds started popularizing a drive thru window... Burger King, and Wendy's and Taco Bell owners better see that this sort of thing is good for business and they better emulate that with their own version of the drive thru or consumers will be more quick to go to the places that have done this. Fast food chains have drive thru windows, where adult games have animations. Then on to the auto industry something as simple as a seat belt that 100% of cars now have were not industry standard until the 1970s or so and in spite of being around in 1956 and offered by ford only 2% of buyers opted in for that. They didn't want to pay extra for seat belts.

It's one thing if there a dev such as L&P's AWAM who has stayed in as a bit of an anachronism without adding animations keeping it in 720 not 1080 with the old style of development remaining a success. I look at it much like a car buff would look at a classic car. It's from another era, but it's still going in spite of others innovating around and there is a lot of respect to be had there for something like that. A guy like that doesn't bother me in fact I have talked to guy a couple of times and he is a good guy that puts a lot of heart into his game, and I can really applaud that.

It's when you get guy like gumdrop though that instead of keeping his older vehicle maintained instead he rips the tires off of it and drop a piano on top of it, after missing a bunch of oil changes and keeps saying it's gonna be road ready soon when a lot of people know that it's not being maintained at all, and it's not gonna be road ready... I think it is because they don't look into these matters. All the while he is bragging and boasting how great his next update is gonna be how soon it's coming for the past 3 years.

Although I hate losing It's okay losing in a fair competition. I'll work my ass off and try to win next time. Micheal Jordan has lost basket ball games, and has missed shots and made mistakes that doesn't make him any less of a star. It just made him work harder and practice more. When others cheat and lie to win that's when I start to complain because it makes everyone look bad collectively when someone like gumdrop is in the industry which is harmful to a lot of developers, and if it's harmful to developers it's harmful to the fans.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

Nono i mean Spike Lee one with Josh Brolin, but ill give the Korean version a look too.

Park Chan-wook's version I assume, many times, probably will again now in the next couple of days (maybe "Lady Vengeance" and "The Chaser" as well)

 

[Staimh]

Nono i mean Spike Lee one with Josh Brolin, but ill give the Korean version a look too.

Also very good but I think Park Chan-wook's is just more visceral, and I saw it first of the two, and I've never looked at a club hammer the same since.

 

[HopesGaming]

I've played games like Heavy Five and Deluca Family, both touted as prime examples of good storytelling in adult games, and the one thing both those games failed to establish for me was relatability. As opposed to those examples, what the majority incest games have going for them is that their settings are relatively grounded in reality, plot notwithstanding, and as such, not much effort is needed in creating that relatability. To me, Heavy Five, a scifi game, and Deluca Family, a mafia game, both fail to establish a human connection from their audience to their main characters and this must be done almost immediately off the bat. The longer you go without that connection, the less the audience gives a shit about your characters and the more the drive to continue diminishes. Heavy Five starts you off meeting with your crewmates and Deluca Family starts you off with a talk with your cab driver before you meet the two love interests of the story. Both games kinda just thrusts you into their respective stories without establishing why you should give a shit about any of their main characters other than because you'll be making decisions as them. There's nothing to link you, an average dude from average town, to ship captain from Heavy Five or mafia member from Deluca Family. If you don't already like the scifi genre, you'll be hard pressed to continue Heavy Five, same as if you don't already like the mafia genre, you won't like Deluca Family either. Maybe the human element comes in later, but first impressions are extremely important and I think they both fail on that front. I think right now those two are doing okay for the same reason as incest games were doing good a couple of years ago: People are hard pressed for a decent variety of story-based adult games and these are your only two halfway decent choices.

As the forerunners of storytelling, Nottoravis and I get a lot of flak. Both from players but very much also from other devs (those are more secretly tho). All of that is understandable as we are the most obvious targets.
Your view is, however, a good example of how to criticize something without any malice but rather a genuine opinion so a big kudos from here.
With that said, I disagree. I don't believe the only reason we are doing okay is that people are like 'meh, this is the only thing that is half decent right now'.


Relatability
This is your main point that you are trying to sell to verify your views.
Relatability is of course not just great for writing but also important. However, the way you utilize it is very faulty.

1. I don't believe that forced relatability is obligatory for a good story. It is a good tool to use and have. But the idea that a story can't work without using that tool immediately at the beginning, is wrong.
How, many stories exist out there with aliens, supernatural stuff, or comedy stuff with over-the-top shenanigans. Not all of those start with establishing calm and human nature. They start off with an action scene to lure the players in. Human relatability, if any, usually happens later once the story takes a break from the 'attention-grabbing parts'.
The goal of the introductory stages of a story is the 'hook'.
More on that later.

2. You use lord of the rings as an example of how it is something that creates a human connection while The DeLuca fails to create one.
And this is a bit confusing to be honest. You basically say a fantasy story like LoTR starts off showing us half-sized humans and with a magic man (doing a few tricks) is relatable due to the emotions displayed (the relaxing home feeling).
Yet, DeLuca's start is not relatable because the start is not made in a relaxed fashion. The fact that we got a protagonist being forced into a situation and him lamenting over it is not relatable because the feelings perceived are not positive but rather of a negative state?

"just thrusts you into their respective stories without establishing why you should give a shit about any of their main characters other than because you'll be making decisions like them. There's nothing to link you, an average dude from average town"

This is very wrong from a story writing standpoint and is almost a sin but also a very normal mistake for non-writers (or beginners). And as a beginner writer myself, I did the mistake at the start as I actually had another start. My story started with the mc waking up from the bed. Doing the average human stuff before the knock at the door telling him the 'bad' news.
Yet, it felt so boring and I start reading a bit about it.
What I learned is writing 101 and one of the core ones - avoid mundane starts.
Watching everyday stuff is boring. It can be used to create relatable connections between the reader/viewer and the people in the scene. But should be used with care as the average viewer does not tune in to watch mundane stuff from their entertainment media. Our lives are already as mundane as it can become.

That brings us back to the 'hook' which is a way to grab the viewer's interest. As you correctly said, the first impression is important. You can have the best story in the middle and end but if the start does not grab them then it is useless. That is why your take on having a relatable start is simply not viable.
Lord of the rings worked with the mundane stuff at the start mainly due to the fantasy. It was the fantasy stuff that gave it some purpose to the mundane. However, even with that LoTR actually had a start that was hard to keep the readers engaged at the start. Many people recommended sticking with it till the 'fun parts'. That is mainly due to the 'hook' is the ring but it takes a while before it really gets utilized and before we have that we just have mundane hobbits talking. The fantasy is what keeps it together.
(LoTR is one of my top favorite of all time btw)

You must be registered to see the links

So, I changed away from the mundane and followed the more acknowledge storytelling techniques which are starting from a more interesting point. We start with an unusual situation where the goal is to make the reader question and interested in what is going on. Why is the guy forced to work for this unknown entirety that is known to be 'bad' and dangerous? Who is he? What will happen next? The goal is never to try to make the reader relate to his situation. Only to his emotion of confusion.

Now, I do believe that the hook failed to grab you. As an author that, of course, sucks but as an author I also know that it is impossible to grab everyone as people are simply too different. What I do not understand is how you base that on the feeling everyone else has. (To be fair you did say it was your own opinion)

"if you don't already like the mafia genre, you won't like Deluca Family either."
Actually, besides the lack of sex hate, the second most criticized part of my game is that it isn't a realistic mafia setting. The mafia part is just a storytelling tool and is far from what the game is known for. The setting is mafia stuff but the game focus lies somewhere else. I dare say that if the game used another setting but the same characters and story the current playerbase would still be the same.

Looking at the feedback and how the game has been received will give a better understanding of how it is. (Me writing this next part sounds so pretentious and arrogant, which I apologize for heh)
But; one of the higher-rated games, healthy player base, healthy Patreon amount and heavy among of story discussion in both the forum and on discord.
As an author, you know you have done something right when you have a theory section where there are people writing long pages of all parts of the story.

Sadly Goohshi site is down or I could link some of their playthroughs of them play through the game and getting so emotional that they start feeling emotional from events such as My Name Is Luna or simply asking questions and being interested.
I believe all of those could be way higher if it wasn't for my own situation that has made it high updates in between. The last 3-4 updates had several months between them and this one with the longest - 8 months. This has 100% hurt the growth of the game. But the fact that it still stands strong is a good indication imo. Especially considering that the game has no sex and a limited amount of lewd.

Of course, this could 100% be wrong as I am the dev and I 100% got my bias goggles on, Hell there are many parts looking back I know could be changed for the better now I've learned more. You can be right in saying people are simply settling due to the lack of good story games out there. But I simply have a hard time seeing that people who get so invested are simply settling.

 

[Callowayaway]

If you're just going by what's on this site, then what you need to keep in mind is that porn games have been being made since long before F95 (or Patreon) existed.

 

[Vidal the king of Pervert]

As the forerunners of storytelling, Nottoravis and I get a lot of flak. Both from players but very much also from other devs (those are more secretly tho). All of that is understandable as we are the most obvious targets.
Your view is, however, a good example of how to criticize something without any malice but rather a genuine opinion so a big kudos from here.
With that said, I disagree. I don't believe the only reason we are doing okay is that people are like 'meh, this is the only thing that is half decent right now'.


Relatability
This is your main point that you are trying to sell to verify your views.
Relatability is of course not just great for writing but also important. However, the way you utilize it is very faulty.

1. I don't believe that forced relatability is obligatory for a good story. It is a good tool to use and have. But the idea that a story can't work without using that tool immediately at the beginning, is wrong.
How, many stories exist out there with aliens, supernatural stuff, or comedy stuff with over-the-top shenanigans. Not all of those start with establishing calm and human nature. They start off with an action scene to lure the players in. Human relatability, if any, usually happens later once the story takes a break from the 'attention-grabbing parts'.
The goal of the introductory stages of a story is the 'hook'.
More on that later.

2. You use lord of the rings as an example of how it is something that creates a human connection while The DeLuca fails to create one.
And this is a bit confusing to be honest. You basically say a fantasy story like LoTR starts off showing us half-sized humans and with a magic man (doing a few tricks) is relatable due to the emotions displayed (the relaxing home feeling).
Yet, DeLuca's start is not relatable because the start is not made in a relaxed fashion. The fact that we got a protagonist being forced into a situation and him lamenting over it is not relatable because the feelings perceived are not positive but rather of a negative state?

"just thrusts you into their respective stories without establishing why you should give a shit about any of their main characters other than because you'll be making decisions like them. There's nothing to link you, an average dude from average town"

This is very wrong from a story writing standpoint and is almost a sin but also a very normal mistake for non-writers (or beginners). And as a beginner writer myself, I did the mistake at the start as I actually had another start. My story started with the mc waking up from the bed. Doing the average human stuff before the knock at the door telling him the 'bad' news.
Yet, it felt so boring and I start reading a bit about it.
What I learned is writing 101 and one of the core ones - avoid mundane starts.
Watching everyday stuff is boring. It can be used to create relatable connections between the reader/viewer and the people in the scene. But should be used with care as the average viewer does not tune in to watch mundane stuff from their entertainment media. Our lives are already as mundane as it can become.

That brings us back to the 'hook' which is a way to grab the viewer's interest. As you correctly said, the first impression is important. You can have the best story in the middle and end but if the start does not grab them then it is useless. That is why your take on having a relatable start is simply not viable.
Lord of the rings worked with the mundane stuff at the start mainly due to the fantasy. It was the fantasy stuff that gave it some purpose to the mundane. However, even with that LoTR actually had a start that was hard to keep the readers engaged at the start. Many people recommended sticking with it till the 'fun parts'. That is mainly due to the 'hook' is the ring but it takes a while before it really gets utilized and before we have that we just have mundane hobbits talking. The fantasy is what keeps it together.
(LoTR is one of my top favorite of all time btw)

You must be registered to see the links

So, I changed away from the mundane and followed the more acknowledge storytelling techniques which are starting from a more interesting point. We start with an unusual situation where the goal is to make the reader question and interested in what is going on. Why is the guy forced to work for this unknown entirety that is known to be 'bad' and dangerous? Who is he? What will happen next? The goal is never to try to make the reader relate to his situation. Only to his emotion of confusion.

Now, I do believe that the hook failed to grab you. As an author that, of course, sucks but as an author I also know that it is impossible to grab everyone as people are simply too different. What I do not understand is how you base that on the feeling everyone else has. (To be fair you did say it was your own opinion)

"if you don't already like the mafia genre, you won't like Deluca Family either."
Actually, besides the lack of sex hate, the second most criticized part of my game is that it isn't a realistic mafia setting. The mafia part is just a storytelling tool and is far from what the game is known for. The setting is mafia stuff but the game focus lies somewhere else. I dare say that if the game used another setting but the same characters and story the current playerbase would still be the same.

Looking at the feedback and how the game has been received will give a better understanding of how it is. (Me writing this next part sounds so pretentious and arrogant, which I apologize for heh)
But; one of the higher-rated games, healthy player base, healthy Patreon amount and heavy among of story discussion in both the forum and on discord.
As an author, you know you have done something right when you have a theory section where there are people writing long pages of all parts of the story.

Sadly Goohshi site is down or I could link some of their playthroughs of them play through the game and getting so emotional that they start feeling emotional from events such as My Name Is Luna or simply asking questions and being interested.
I believe all of those could be way higher if it wasn't for my own situation that has made it high updates in between. The last 3-4 updates had several months between them and this one with the longest - 8 months. This has 100% hurt the growth of the game. But the fact that it still stands strong is a good indication imo. Especially considering that the game has no sex and a limited amount of lewd.

Of course, this could 100% be wrong as I am the dev and I 100% got my bias goggles on, Hell there are many parts looking back I know could be changed for the better now I've learned more. You can be right in saying people are simply settling due to the lack of good story games out there. But I simply have a hard time seeing that people who get so invested are simply settling.

that was so beautiful boss just beautiful but just one thing when that guy was saying that the game fail to establish a human connection or whatever

you should have been like oh yeah but if my game fail to establish a human connection how do you explain the Luna fans

and then you should have just dropped the mic and walk away

 

[MysticDalek]

Everyone has ideas but not everyone has the skill, time and/or effort required to put out a AAA quality game. That is bound to lead to games you consider inferior to others. They will learn and grow, especially if people are nice with suggestions rather than just being rude and insulting. Maybe one day you will look through someone's archive and see their many failed attempts before they nailed the perfect game and had the skills and time required to put the needed effort into making something great.

 

[kytee]

As the forerunners of storytelling, Nottoravis and I get a lot of flak. Both from players but very much also from other devs (those are more secretly tho). All of that is understandable as we are the most obvious targets.
Your view is, however, a good example of how to criticize something without any malice but rather a genuine opinion so a big kudos from here.
With that said, I disagree. I don't believe the only reason we are doing okay is that people are like 'meh, this is the only thing that is half decent right now'.


Relatability
This is your main point that you are trying to sell to verify your views.
Relatability is of course not just great for writing but also important. However, the way you utilize it is very faulty.

1. I don't believe that forced relatability is obligatory for a good story. It is a good tool to use and have. But the idea that a story can't work without using that tool immediately at the beginning, is wrong.
How, many stories exist out there with aliens, supernatural stuff, or comedy stuff with over-the-top shenanigans. Not all of those start with establishing calm and human nature. They start off with an action scene to lure the players in. Human relatability, if any, usually happens later once the story takes a break from the 'attention-grabbing parts'.
The goal of the introductory stages of a story is the 'hook'.
More on that later.

2. You use lord of the rings as an example of how it is something that creates a human connection while The DeLuca fails to create one.
And this is a bit confusing to be honest. You basically say a fantasy story like LoTR starts off showing us half-sized humans and with a magic man (doing a few tricks) is relatable due to the emotions displayed (the relaxing home feeling).
Yet, DeLuca's start is not relatable because the start is not made in a relaxed fashion. The fact that we got a protagonist being forced into a situation and him lamenting over it is not relatable because the feelings perceived are not positive but rather of a negative state?

"just thrusts you into their respective stories without establishing why you should give a shit about any of their main characters other than because you'll be making decisions like them. There's nothing to link you, an average dude from average town"

This is very wrong from a story writing standpoint and is almost a sin but also a very normal mistake for non-writers (or beginners). And as a beginner writer myself, I did the mistake at the start as I actually had another start. My story started with the mc waking up from the bed. Doing the average human stuff before the knock at the door telling him the 'bad' news.
Yet, it felt so boring and I start reading a bit about it.
What I learned is writing 101 and one of the core ones - avoid mundane starts.
Watching everyday stuff is boring. It can be used to create relatable connections between the reader/viewer and the people in the scene. But should be used with care as the average viewer does not tune in to watch mundane stuff from their entertainment media. Our lives are already as mundane as it can become.

That brings us back to the 'hook' which is a way to grab the viewer's interest. As you correctly said, the first impression is important. You can have the best story in the middle and end but if the start does not grab them then it is useless. That is why your take on having a relatable start is simply not viable.
Lord of the rings worked with the mundane stuff at the start mainly due to the fantasy. It was the fantasy stuff that gave it some purpose to the mundane. However, even with that LoTR actually had a start that was hard to keep the readers engaged at the start. Many people recommended sticking with it till the 'fun parts'. That is mainly due to the 'hook' is the ring but it takes a while before it really gets utilized and before we have that we just have mundane hobbits talking. The fantasy is what keeps it together.
(LoTR is one of my top favorite of all time btw)

You must be registered to see the links

So, I changed away from the mundane and followed the more acknowledge storytelling techniques which are starting from a more interesting point. We start with an unusual situation where the goal is to make the reader question and interested in what is going on. Why is the guy forced to work for this unknown entirety that is known to be 'bad' and dangerous? Who is he? What will happen next? The goal is never to try to make the reader relate to his situation. Only to his emotion of confusion.

Now, I do believe that the hook failed to grab you. As an author that, of course, sucks but as an author I also know that it is impossible to grab everyone as people are simply too different. What I do not understand is how you base that on the feeling everyone else has. (To be fair you did say it was your own opinion)

"if you don't already like the mafia genre, you won't like Deluca Family either."
Actually, besides the lack of sex hate, the second most criticized part of my game is that it isn't a realistic mafia setting. The mafia part is just a storytelling tool and is far from what the game is known for. The setting is mafia stuff but the game focus lies somewhere else. I dare say that if the game used another setting but the same characters and story the current playerbase would still be the same.

Looking at the feedback and how the game has been received will give a better understanding of how it is. (Me writing this next part sounds so pretentious and arrogant, which I apologize for heh)
But; one of the higher-rated games, healthy player base, healthy Patreon amount and heavy among of story discussion in both the forum and on discord.
As an author, you know you have done something right when you have a theory section where there are people writing long pages of all parts of the story.

Sadly Goohshi site is down or I could link some of their playthroughs of them play through the game and getting so emotional that they start feeling emotional from events such as My Name Is Luna or simply asking questions and being interested.
I believe all of those could be way higher if it wasn't for my own situation that has made it high updates in between. The last 3-4 updates had several months between them and this one with the longest - 8 months. This has 100% hurt the growth of the game. But the fact that it still stands strong is a good indication imo. Especially considering that the game has no sex and a limited amount of lewd.

Of course, this could 100% be wrong as I am the dev and I 100% got my bias goggles on, Hell there are many parts looking back I know could be changed for the better now I've learned more. You can be right in saying people are simply settling due to the lack of good story games out there. But I simply have a hard time seeing that people who get so invested are simply settling.

Actually, I don't disagree with most of your points, the misunderstanding we have is mostly due to my poor words of choice and maybe your misinterpretation. I agree that a hook is extremely important, it's what sets up the focus/conflict of the story. However, I conveniently left out the hook because:

More on topic (still offtopic), a lot of "story-driven" VN's fail in one or both, of the following compartments: Make it relatable and make it exciting.

It wasn't the topic of my discussion. Maybe it's relevant for the "make it exciting" part, but I don't think hooks are what many story-driven games fail at so I didn't address it.

It's why we have such a long, peaceful opening in the movie, to establish the connection of what home means to the Hobbits with what home means to us.

I should have expanded upon this part. You don't need to have a long, peaceful moment in your story to create relatability, my point was that the reason why the opening was so long in the Lord of the Rings in particular, was to hammer home the idea that this peaceful innocence was what the fellowship was fighting for, fighting to preserve. You can create that human connection in a much more compact, concise way by a simple hesitation, a selfless gift, and any other variety of things that take a minimum amount of time to show. For example, a young man who sucks at his fast food restaurant job curses his boss and coworkers, smashes the trash can, throws soda at an innocent bystander, steals a couple of fries from a toddler, flips the bird to the crowd watching, kicks the door open, and sits on the curb outside to pout in peace. Kinda an asshole, right? But then a stray dog wanders by and sniffs his hand, he tries to shoo the dog away and the dog steps back a bit before returning to beg him. Finally, he gives in and feeds the dog a fry at a time until he has none left. Instant relatability in my opinion (Btw, was totally imagining Sacha Baron Cohen as the worker, incase you were wondering).

To me, Heavy Five, a scifi game, and Deluca Family, a mafia game, both fail to establish a human connection from their audience to their main characters and this must be done almost immediately off the bat. The longer you go without that connection, the less the audience gives a shit about your characters and the more the drive to continue diminishes.

I guess the part "done almost immediately off the bat" should also take into consideration the length of the work you are analyzing. A movie has a much shorter amount of time to establish a connection than say a book does, but I still feel the longer you go without said connection, the worst that experience is for you. Pivotal moments become trivial because you don't quite care about what happens to that character and suddenly you don't quite see what's the big deal about saving the world of a person you don't care about.

So, I changed away from the mundane and followed the more acknowledge storytelling techniques which are starting from a more interesting point. We start with an unusual situation where the goal is to make the reader question and interested in what is going on. Why is the guy forced to work for this unknown entirety that is known to be 'bad' and dangerous? Who is he? What will happen next? The goal is never to try to make the reader relate to his situation. Only to his emotion of confusion.

Venturing into the unknown is interesting if there's a reason for it established ahead of time. Otherwise, we're just opening random closed doors for the sake of seeing if there's anything inside. Unfortunately, from what I remember (kinda hazy, sorry), you didn't give a strong enough motivation to venture into said unknown.

The issue I had in particular with your story was, and this probably warrants another play through on my part, I don't remember any point where you attempted to relate the audience with the MC, though I played through maybe 2 hours of the main story before I gave up. All I remember was plot interspersed with small talk with very weak motivations from the MC to do anything or even stick around, other than threat of death. He's kinda just strung along by the story. I think even if he had sufficient motivation, it wouldn't have improved because I still don't care what happens to the MC, whether he completes or fails his objectives. The bit about the parents was semi-interesting but ultimately fell a bit short to me because you never really established what the MC's parents meant to him prior to that point.

One part that I sorta remember fondly though, was the jeans scene where I think Luna shoots holes through pants to give it the teared look. As ridiculous as she is (as all your characters are), it still creates relatability to her character because of her pure, innocent intentions overlaid by her batshit insanity. I would have liked to see a bit more of those humanizing events weaved into the main story as I can't be bothered to run around completing tasks (I heard that the draw of the game is its story, not its minigame) to get what I deem is an essential part of the experience. Again, it's not that jeans are important to the story, but I think it'd bring a bit of balance to your story and, as is the entire point of my posts in this thread, they'd create much needed relatability that improves the emotional impact of your later scenes. Again, maybe the criticism I'm making is moot because I can't quite remember all the details in your game, but I don't think I would have dropped your game otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

Strange thing is, Hopes's game never caught on with me. No mistake its written well, just don't do anything for me. Similar with WVM, I cannot immerse myself into the story. Sorry devs.

Cordia was / is a way more interesting character for me. I would like to have had the opportunity to romance her but I've stopped playing. Sorry Hopes.

What I'm saying is what tickles one's persons fancy may not do so for another.

that was so beautiful boss just beautiful but just one thing when that guy was saying that the game fail to establish a human connection or whatever

you should have been like oh yeah but if my game fail to establish a human connection how do you explain the Luna fans

and then you should have just dropped the mic and walk away

 

[Diconica]

that was so beautiful boss just beautiful but just one thing when that guy was saying that the game fail to establish a human connection or whatever

you should have been like oh yeah but if my game fail to establish a human connection how do you explain the Luna fans

and then you should have just dropped the mic and walk away

Fans.
I manged to win 6 tickets to a country music concert from a radio show.
I lucked out the person handling security that night was another friend who recognized my name so was waiting with the tickets at the venue. After the show we are all sitting around back talking. The particular star of this concert apparently noticed one of his fans had driven from his home state and had a local high school sticker on the car from where he grew up.
The conversation goes about like this.
Star, "So you must be pretty big fans of my music to drive several states to see my show." (we are in CA they are from IA)
Husband, "It's ok.."
Star, "That doesn't sound like you are that big of fan so can I ask why you drove all the way out here then?"
Wife, "Because I wanted to see what your wife was going to wear."

I don't think I ever seen so many people spew bear and bust up laughing so hard. She said it so matter-of-factly, like it was the most natural thing in the world to say.

The lesson, you have no idea why a person is a fan until they tell you.

 

[HopesGaming]

Actually, I don't disagree with most of your points, the misunderstanding we have is mostly due to my poor words of choice and maybe your misinterpretation. I agree that a hook is extremely important, it's what sets up the focus/conflict of the story. However, I conveniently left out the hook because:

It wasn't the topic of my discussion. Maybe it's relevant for the "make it exciting" part, but I don't think hooks are what many story-driven games fail at so I didn't address it.


I should have expanded upon this part. You don't need to have a long, peaceful moment in your story to create relatability, my point was that the reason why the opening was so long in the Lord of the Rings in particular, was to hammer home the idea that this peaceful innocence was what the fellowship was fighting for, fighting to preserve. You can create that human connection in a much more compact, concise way by a simple hesitation, a selfless gift, and any other variety of things that take a minimum amount of time to show. For example, a young man who sucks at his fast food restaurant job curses his boss and coworkers, smashes the trash can, throws soda at an innocent bystander, steals a couple of fries from a toddler, flips the bird to the crowd watching, kicks the door open, and sits on the curb outside to pout in peace. Kinda an asshole, right? But then a stray dog wanders by and sniffs his hand, he tries to shoo the dog away and the dog steps back a bit before returning to beg him. Finally, he gives in and feeds the dog a fry at a time until he has none left. Instant relatability in my opinion (Btw, was totally imagining Sacha Baron Cohen as the worker, incase you were wondering).


I guess the part "done almost immediately off the bat" should also take into consideration the length of the work you are analyzing. A movie has a much shorter amount of time to establish a connection than say a book does, but I still feel the longer you go without said connection, the worst that experience is for you. Pivotal moments become trivial because you don't quite care about what happens to that character and suddenly you don't quite see what's the big deal about saving the world of a person you don't care about.



Venturing into the unknown is interesting if there's a reason for it established ahead of time. Otherwise, we're just opening random closed doors for the sake of seeing if there's anything inside. Unfortunately, from what I remember (kinda hazy, sorry), you didn't give a strong enough motivation to venture into said unknown.

The issue I had in particular with your story was, and this probably warrants another play through on my part, I don't remember any point where you attempted to relate the audience with the MC, though I played through maybe 2 hours of the main story before I gave up. All I remember was plot interspersed with small talk with very weak motivations from the MC to do anything or even stick around, other than threat of death. He's kinda just strung along by the story. I think even if he had sufficient motivation, it wouldn't have improved because I still don't care what happens to the MC, whether he completes or fails his objectives. The bit about the parents was semi-interesting but ultimately fell a bit short to me because you never really established what the MC's parents meant to him prior to that point.

One part that I sorta remember fondly though, was the jeans scene where I think Luna shoots holes through pants to give it the teared look. As ridiculous as she is (as all your characters are), it still creates relatability to her character because of her pure, innocent intentions overlaid by her batshit insanity. I would have liked to see a bit more of those humanizing events weaved into the main story as I can't be bothered to run around completing tasks (I heard that the draw of the game is its story, not its minigame) to get what I deem is an essential part of the experience. Again, it's not that jeans are important to the story, but I think it'd bring a bit of balance to your story and, as is the entire point of my posts in this thread, they'd create much needed relatability that improves the emotional impact of your later scenes. Again, maybe the criticism I'm making is moot because I can't quite remember all the details in your game, but I don't think I would have dropped your game otherwise.

I see. With that I can follow you a bit better and yeah, not a lot on the story department we disagree on with a quick look.
It is mainly the usage, when, and the obligatory usage of the toolsets (reliability) of a story we disagree on. But also on the fact that I do not believe that Nottravis and my games are only liked due to the lack of better alternatives.

The issue I had in particular with your story was, and this probably warrants another playthrough on my part, I don't remember any point where you attempted to relate the audience with the MC

Mc was writing in such a way that he is very closed off. He was never meant to be relatable. At the beginning that is. He has a closed shell we slowly open throughout the story. We get a few snippets of it already from the intro scene of the game. When he spoke to the lady don where his thoughts talk about the 'devil' of a mother and a father he doesn't know to hate or not. But those thoughts are quickly cast away due to his inner self-defense mechanism with a cold attitude.
Secondly, we get to see him speaking in two different ways. The way he thinks and the way he actually says.

I like to work with the subtle stuff instead of the in-the-face stuff. The coolest thing I see as an author is when my players have played through an event further down the line and then go back and look at a sentence that didn't give a lot of meaning at the given time but after events that develop the characters more, it suddenly makes sense. A sentence that originally was dismissed as a joke is now something more in-depth.

As mentioned before, even tho I think being relatable is a good tool, it is not an obligatory tool to use. For some people, they need to relate to a character to care about the story while for others they do not have to relate to him/her to feel invested in the story.
It depends on the expectations of the reader.

I should have expanded upon this part. You don't need to have a long, peaceful moment in your story to create relatability, my point was that the reason why the opening was so long in the Lord of the Rings in particular, was to hammer home the idea that this peaceful innocence was what the fellowship was fighting for, fighting to preserve. You can create that human connection in a much more compact, concise way by a simple hesitation, a selfless gift, and any other variety of things that take a minimum amount of time to show. For example, a young man who sucks at his fast food restaurant job curses his boss and coworkers, smashes the trash can, throws soda at an innocent bystander, steals a couple of fries from a toddler, flips the bird to the crowd watching, kicks the door open, and sits on the curb outside to pout in peace. Kinda an asshole, right? But then a stray dog wanders by and sniffs his hand, he tries to shoo the dog away and the dog steps back a bit before returning to beg him. Finally, he gives in and feeds the dog a fry at a time until he has none left. Instant relatability in my opinion (Btw, was totally imagining Sacha Baron Cohen as the worker, incase you were wondering).

I agree with this actually. But like mentioned before, it depends on what the writer is trying to convey. For LoTR it was as you wrote, the peaceful lifestyle and what needs to be protected. The feelings conveyed at the start of mine are the feeling of being thrown into a situation you have no control over.
How much people get invested in such settings depends as much on the writer as it does on the reader.
Of course, the way I gauge how well I did that part is by looking at the feedback.
If the majority of the readers can't get invested in the premise it is the fault of me as the author. But if the majority does like it with the few that do not - then it is the more expected outcome.
As mentioned before, not everyone will like your story.

though I played through maybe 2 hours of the main story before I gave up. All I remember was plot interspersed with small talk with very weak motivations from the MC to do anything or even stick around, other than threat of death. He's kinda just strung along by the story. I think even if he had sufficient motivation, it wouldn't have improved because I still don't care what happens to the MC, whether he completes or fails his objectives. The bit about the parents was semi-interesting but ultimately fell a bit short to me because you never really established what the MC's parents meant to him prior to that point.

One part that I sorta remember fondly though, was the jeans scene where I think Luna shoots holes through pants to give it the teared look. As ridiculous as she is (as all your characters are), it still creates relatability to her character because of her pure, innocent intentions overlaid by her batshit insanity. I would have liked to see a bit more of those humanizing events weaved into the main story as I can't be bothered to run around completing tasks (I heard that the draw of the game is its story, not its minigame) to get what I deem is an essential part of the experience. Again, it's not that jeans are important to the story, but I think it'd bring a bit of balance to your story and, as is the entire point of my posts in this thread, they'd create much needed relatability that improves the emotional impact of your later scenes. Again, maybe the criticism I'm making is moot because I can't quite remember all the details in your game, but I don't think I would have dropped your game otherwise.

This sounds very much like you only played the beginning of the game. The 0.01 of the game.
The way the game is made is the 'story section'. In that part, the Mc is a very passive mc. This is purposely done to give a character development. In the beginning, he has just strung along while wishing he wasn't there. Later and gradually he gets more active and his character evolves.

The side quest (with the girls) is an active role and that part focuses heavily on the reliability of the girls as the main focus is getting close to them and learning about them.

This style works for some and not so well for others. A second playthrough won't help it as you already have different expectations which in turn makes it harder to get invested in the story.
That's why I don't believe a second playthrough will do much as we as humans simply like different things. The same applies to MrKnobb.
But that doesn't mean that either of us is wrong. It is just human nature. What others like is not necessarily what we ourselves like.
My standpoint and argument come from the fact that your view of the story is being discussed as the game is only being liked due to a lack of good stories out there. That people are simply settling. It's the fact that you are seeing your own view of the story as being the true view and shared with all the other players of the game.

Now, could the story get a bigger following with better usage of story toolsets? yeah, of course. I am after all just an amateur. But I do not believe that the current players are simply settling and I dare say that they enjoy the story and not due to lack of better.

 

[standbygames]

There's just way more porn games being made these days in general. So there's naturally going to be way more garbage games being pushed out, but there's also way more good games being pushed out. I don't think the ratio of good to bad has changed that much, as the tools and resources available have increased over the years to compensate for the higher number of nooby game makers. Years ago I found a handful of enjoyable games per year, now there's often a few per month that are pretty good or promising. Though it is harder to find them now because you do have to wade through a much, much bigger pool of games. You really have to commit to downloading and trying a few games per week to find the worthwhile ones.

I will say though, there's definitely a bigger trend to these rushed out, ridiculously short on content .1 "releases"/demos. Some actually seem promising in their ideas and assets but there's so little content that it's a waste of time and not worth caring about or trying again for like a year. I don't get it, these devs are just shooting themselves in the foot. Making a good first impression is very important to gain a following on pateron/subscribestar/etc when there's so much more competition, yet many of these devs are so impatient they work on a game for a few weeks, it has like 30 minutes of playtime and they just push it out anyway and then wonder why they gain no followers.

Who is going to want to invest in a game that's like 2% done and has almost no content? Some devs really sabotage themselves right from the start and put a bad name out there for some other first releases/.1 versions that actually do have quite a lot of content. I see a lot more people saying now ".1 version, won't download, maybe I'll check back in 6 months". If you're going to make a game, I say be ready to put many months of work into it before putting it up on patreon/here. Make a strong first impression and then maybe you'll get noticed amongst the metric shit ton of games that get posted daily now. That's what I plan to do anyway.

 

[Helmeted Smith]

There's just way more porn games being made these days in general. So there's naturally going to be way more garbage games being pushed out, but there's also way more good games being pushed out. I don't think the ratio of good to bad has changed that much, as the tools and resources available have increased over the years to compensate for the higher number of nooby game makers. Years ago I found a handful of enjoyable games per year, now there's often a few per month that are pretty good or promising. Though it can be harder to find them now because you do have to wade through a bigger pool of games. You really have to commit to downloading and trying a few games per week to find the worthwhile ones.

I will say though, there's definitely a bigger trend to these rushed out, ridiculously short on content .1 "releases"/demos. Some actually seem promising in their ideas and assets but there's so little content that it's a waste of time and not worth caring about or trying again for like a year. I don't get it, these devs are just shooting themselves in the foot. Making a good first impression is very important to gain a following on pateron/subscribestar/etc, yet these devs are so impatient they work on a game for a few weeks, it has like 20 minutes of playtime with almost no scenes and they just push it out anyway and then wonder why they gain no followers.

Who is going to want to invest in game that's like 2% done and has no content? They really sabotage themselves right from the start and put a bad name out there for some other first releases/.1 versions that actually do have quite a lot of content. I see a lot of people saying now ".1 version, won't download, maybe I'll check back in 6 months". Which is unfortunate but understandable. I've been working on a game myself for a while and I don't plan on releasing it and putting up patreon until maybe after even 6 months more of work. It will already have more content than most the half done abandoned games on this site and I plan to start it as a .5 version rather than .1 because these impatient devs have tainted what you can expect from .1 versions on this site (almost nothing).

I agree with some of your points. From a player's perspective it's annoying to see so many 0.1 releases, but if you're a dev, especially a newbie one, that feedback you get from the first updates... a mine of gold.
Though, you have to display your game/VN to the right folk in order maintain clean discussions. I've kept the description of my VN quite vague and lowered the the expectations as much as possible (it barely has any tags atm.). It seemed to do wonders in terms of constructive feedback. Now I'm working on a bigger release, and I'm taking into account all that criticism I've received from my first two updates.
I might've shot myself in the foot twice, both feet, but I would say... It was worth it, walking wasn't my intention anyway (figure of speech).

 

[Cryswar]

I'm not by any means a big-name dev, but I don't regret for a second doing a 0.1. The amount of constructive criticism I got was amazing, and helped ENORMOUSLY to improve UI, mechanics, writing, and inform future decisions relatively early in development.

Granted, that 0.1 was after about 3 months of work, but without it I would have continued making some pretty poor choices over the next hour of content, and by Monday I'll be ~50k words added and 2 biweekly updates in with a FAR better game than if I had just worked an extra month on my own and then released.

Realistically, I definitely got lucky that people were willing to be kind to my first attempt, and I think it was helped that I had put a lot of work into the 0.1 already. But as long as you're dedicated to adding content at a meaningful pace, a solid 0.1 can be incredibly useful from a dev perspective imo, without fleecing players.

If your idea of a 0.1 is 5 minutes of buggy shit and then 6 months until the next minor content drop, that's probably not as conducive to success.

 

[Anonimed]

I remember years ago, when games were TRUE GAMES, like simbro, breeding season, slave lord, witch girl, kasumi rebirth, etc. Nowadays, almost all the games are slideshows with beautiful renders and zero interaction with the user, literally you can "play them" only with ctrl button.

Now, call everything as "grindy" if it's not a slideshow, where you can push ctrl and get the porn scene... for that better go to pornhub or look for porn comics.