Bored with repetative game patterns

[Diconica]

With Covid-19 I've had a lot of extra time on my hands. So I played way to many adult games.
It has gotten to the point were it feels like most the games got written using the same play book over and over again.
I won't be covering games that don't have a plot or story line like match 3 or other puzzle style games in this discussion.

The only things that really change are the character names, locations, and general plot out side of that the games are repetitive as fuck in other ways.
There are a limited number of game types:
Control - protagonist seeks to gain control of others
Downfall - the protagonist decline usually in behavior sexually and or other ways socially economically
Management - you run a business
Those are a few examples. You can find them mixed with each other and other types.

If you ever called a tech support that works for a script they have for solving problems you probably know what I mean here.
It's like all the developers are working from the same script just selecting some basic options but when it comes down to finer detail they seem to lack any creativity of their own.

God forbid a female protagonist can actually think. Real life women are some of the most devious, cunning, cruel, strong characters in history. Hell the most successful pirate in history was female, "Ching Shih".
It is as if every author has a button that says take the easy way out to solve this. That or they assume if the plot event is more than a few sentences long readers can't keep up. I swear if I read another female character's "I got to do this" crap I'm going to vomit. If you use this you don't deserve any stars the fact I have to give a single star just to rate your game is bullshit. I should be able to give ZERO stars. Giving one star artificially inflates the appearance of crappy games.

Forget abiding by normal social constructs and the way societies work. Just throw any logic or reason out the window so long as we don't need to think very hard to achieve her taking her close off / getting fucked.

Male protagonist aren't much better half are written as lucky morons and the other half are just bad because the people writing them have no real understanding of the perspective they writing from or the topics they are writing about. In short they are writing beyond their capability. J.R.R Tolkien once said write about yourself. You know you best. He also said write about people you know. Writing about stuff you know is good in a number of ways. Lets say you know someone that went through an ordeal well you know the story fairly well and what lead up to what happened and the out come. What you may not know unless you talked with the people in-depth is their perspectives and the way they few stuff. So it is easier to write about it from an observational position. To many authors fail because they attempt to capture the perspective of characters they have ZERO chance of actually understanding. That isn't to say with a lot of research and information you can't write a book from that perspective. It would just take a lot lot more work to do so. From what I seen in the number of adult games I played not author has been willing to commit that kind of effort to their work.

While I was dealing with RL someone hit on the probably the biggest issue of all with most of these games / stories, that's the proper addressing of the conflicts in the stories. Honestly, I doubt half the writers even know of the concept of story conflicts after what I have seen.
Story conflicts:
Man vs Man ~ This is the struggle between two beings.
Man Vs himself ~ This is the struggle or the internal conflict a person goes through making a decision, living with an action, dealing with what is going on & so on
Man vs society ~ The struggle can often include values and expectations
Man vs nature ~ Enviromental factors and how they effect the individual
Man vs fate /god ~ Some people will say Gods an entity or being, while others will say fate or destiny is environmental it has to do with time and nature. The point is it usually covers struggles a person has with their destiny fate or religious deity expectations...
I cover this more in one of the replies below.

Character development is incredibly shallow for most main characters. It's even less developed for supporting characters.

Tangents. I can't count the number of stories that go off on some weird tangent simply as some fucked up fan service to incorporate some stupid aspect that adds no value or depth to the story. I haven't seen a single game or story that has at least one fully developed story line finished before they have gone off on something stupid. If they would at least create the primary story they would have a baseline for all the other character reactions to gauge shit by. Instead you end up with shit stories and games where a character is perfectly fine one minute getting stripped naked and fucked in front of a crowd and then the next time when you are alone suddenly they are to shy to drop their panties.

That brings up the next part character values and measures for actions in most cases are complete shit and its pretty evident that most authors don't bother to chart them out and keep track of them. The few that do aren't much better when you have a girl willing to strip her panties and get fucked on stage and but is to shy to take her bra off. Or she has no issue showing her tits to a bunch of drunks and bums but gets squeamish showing them to her boss. The number of examples I could list here is nearly as large as the list of games I played.

Enough for now.

 

[Cul]

Don't comment yet.

comment now

 

[DuniX]

comment now

He said you shouldn't comment.

 

[peterppp]

Don't comment yet.

Does it count as a comment to ask when we can comment? If it does count, ignore this comment.

 

[Cul]

Does it count as a comment to ask when we can comment? If it does count, ignore this comment.

I actually meant comment now? but my ? doesn't work, I copied yours. I am also wonderinf.

 

[Diconica]

Good to see there are so many smart asses on here.

 

[Cul]

Oh, I see you added a lot. I have to run and make food (maybe beans) or I would answer more.

Short answer is that an atomized community geared towards consumption does not fully make use of human potential.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Funny, I share similar sentiments when it comes to the current state of the adult visual novel industry. It's becomr extremely stagnant and stale and the games that bring any innovations are minor and/or quickly fall in line. I've gotten so frustrated that no game has come anywhere close to hitting the mark for me that I've decided to throw my hat in the ring in the hopes that, succeed or fail, other developers would take note of what can possibly be done to innovate and help inch the industry toward that mark.

There was one concept that I was saving up for a big post on the issues that I see with visual novels but I will share here because I think it makes sense. Almost all of these games, at least the non-ntr ones, are designed as power fantasies, with everything built to serve said fantasy. From the plot to the choices you get to make, the self-insert main character can do no wrong. All your choices are black and white and the consequences spelled out for you in bold letters so that you know exactly what to pick to fuck what you want. It sounds like it's just logical to present things in this way but the huge unintended consequence of this practice is that it makes stories extremely predictable. All good stories need ebb and flow; good things and bad things should happen with an emphasis on the bad. Conflict is what makes a story interesting and the lack of good, meaningful, and relevant conflict makes a story drab and boring. These games are so focused on the power fantasy that the conflicts become an afterthought which makes the entire story suffer as a result. This is a problem unique to the adult games industry and it perpetuates itself. I think people are blinded to how terrible the stories in these games are by the promise of sex, much like how a toddler blindly follows a trail of candy to their doom. If you removed all the sex in any game on this site and made every female character's appearance a 5/10, you'll be able to see the substance, or really the lack thereof, that the game really has. Imagine the plot of your favorite adult visual novel as a PG-13 film and see how it stands up to real films. It doesn't. These issues, in my opinion, are the result of what happens when the power fantasy completely overwhelms the need to tell a good story. The fix then is to sacrifice a huge portion of the power fantasy for the sake of good conflict. You can still have your sex and all the women to yourself, but you need to be willing to potentially lose everything and get beaten up once in a while if you wish to be entertained when not bumping uglies.

 

[anne O'nymous]

All good stories need ebb and flow; good things and bad things should happen with an emphasis on the bad. Conflict is what makes a story interesting and the lack of good, meaningful, and relevant conflict makes a story drab and boring. These games are so focused on the power fantasy that the conflicts become an afterthought which makes the entire story suffer as a result. This is a problem unique to the adult games industry and it perpetuates itself.

It's not at all a problem unique to the adult game industry. It's a problem common to all wanabe writers that aren't as good as they think. It's just that the adult game industry is one of the few markets, if not the only one, where those people can be seen. Simply because it's a niche market, therefore not only there's less productions, but there's also almost no editors to filter them ; mostly there's just

You must be registered to see the links

and

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.

But I can assure you that each year, there's tons of books, tons of movie/TV show/game ideas, crappier than the average adult game story, that are rejected. The fact that they'll never be produced doesn't mean that there isn't one guy to though that it was good enough to become reality. Yet, with nowadays number of diffusion platforms that do their own productions, the less crappy ones start to be produced more often ; and you can still look on the side of short movies released online by wanabe screen writers who expect to be discovered by Hollywood. Same for the books, that can be sold online directly by their authors, giving us a good idea about the hell that members of the reading committee for regular book edition companies have to live.
Each year, there's also a lot of "regular" indie games with a stupidly ridicule story that are released. But they are drowned in the mass and you never see them. But once again, the fact that you don't dig deep enough doesn't mean that those games don't exist.

Imagine the plot of your favorite adult visual novel as a PG-13 film and see how it stands up to real films.

Oh my fucking god... I so want a The DeLuca Family and a Heavy Five tv show.

But to be more realistic, you know that, alas, most of the games here are just porn games, right ? Why do you expect the percent of good interesting innovative stories to be higher that for porn movies, books or comics ?

Yet, talking about porn books and comics, especially the last ones, the European scene proved, since near to a century now, that you can have good and interesting stories without conflict. What make a story interesting is the triggered emotions. A conflict is a good way to do it, because you fear for the hero and you're happy when he avoid the evil trap or finally succeed, but it's not the only way to do it.
Adult stories offer other triggers. Isabel narrative arc in The DeLuca Family rely on Isabel emotional loneliness, not on the opposition between the MC and Antonio. In fact, if she wasn't talking about him, the player would totally forgot that he's supposed to be her husband. There's a treat, the menace of a possible conflict, but it stay on the background ; it give even more depth to the story, but it is neither the story nor its key. In top of that, the treat itself is the ghost of a menace, more than an effective one ; the MC have to fear that he will never ever be able to be left alone near the girls, nothing more.
The same can be said about Luna narrative arc. It come with Luna personal war, but once again it's not what interest the MC, not what make the story interesting and good. From the MC's point of view, helping Luna win her war isn't facing a conflict, it's healing a little girl's heart ; exactly like helping Isabel isn't confronting Antonio and the Family, but filling the hole in her life. And what make the "My name is Luna" quest (still near to cry just thinking about it) amazingly good isn't the conflict between the girls and the ravishers. Once again it's just the background of the story, and once again it just give more depth to it. No, what make this the best scene ever wrote in an adult game, is the shared love between the girls, their unity and devotion to each other. Would they've be stranded on an isolated island, after a plane crash by example, therefore without the background conflict, that it would have worked as well.

The fact is that it's way easier to trigger purely negative feelings than positive ones, reason why most stories effectively rely on oppositions and conflicts. But what effectively miss in all those stories isn't a conflict, it's a motive. There's the power fantasy you talk about, but it's a circular motive ; the MC want to have a harem because he want to have a harem.
That's why so many MCs are pure looser. It permit to give an illusion of effective motive. He don't want a harem for the sole purpose to have a harem, but to change his fate, to not be anymore a looser. But, like I said, most of the time it's just the illusion of a motive. For it to effectively be one, the MC should see the light, understanding that he have to change, while most of the time this change happen against his own will and he's fighting against it ; whatever it is because a succubus want to use him as weapon, or because he's cursed/blessed, the MC too often start by rejecting the change, wanting to stay the looser he is. And this is a conflict that would make a really interesting game. A game when the game over is when you achieved to build your harem, instead of staying faithful to your only love ; a game when you have to effectively refuse the power you now have. The conflict being purely limited to the player itself ; does he want to win the game, or to fuck them all...

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Yet, talking about porn books and comics, especially the last ones, the European scene proved, since near to a century now, that you can have good and interesting stories without conflict. What make a story interesting is the triggered emotions. A conflict is a good way to do it, because you fear for the hero and you're happy when he avoid the evil trap or finally succeed, but it's not the only way to do it.

Hmm, guess I should have made myself more clear. Conflict, in the context of what I said, includes not only the external conflict of fighting against physical obstacles to your desires but also the internal conflicts within a person, whether it's a clash between what a character wants vs what they need or trying to overcome emotional trauma that prevents someone from doing something. I stand by my point that there has to be conflict, internal or external, for a story to potentially be interesting, otherwise we're just watching characters be happy all the time which gets real old real fast.

 

[desmosome]

I think anyone who has some standards when it comes to the art and media they consume will quickly come to the same conclusion.

At first, you discover this obscure niche market and everything is fresh. Incest, 3D models, RPGs with porn, and just the prospect of playing a porn game better than some newgrounds garbage is exciting. You dive into it. You fap to your heart's content on this new avenue of porn.

Slowly, you begin to realize that almost all the games on here are utter horseshit. More than half the games are in Engrish. Even the ones that use proper English have incredibly stilted writing. You begin to see patterns in the "story." How many fathers must die for their son's wish to become the "man of the house?" Are all RPGM games about naive girls that get raped by all townspeople and monsters? Do these devs think grinding for the sake of the grind is a good idea?

Eventually, you come to terms with the state of affairs. Any chump can churn out some crap and make a patreon. It's like expecting good literature from fanfiction dot com. You start to get very picky when searching and downloading. You filter out almost everything after reading the overview and looking at the preview pics. Even the ones with promising overviews and tags lets you down time and time again. Then you find the handful of diamonds burried in mountain piles of shit. And you appreciate those games that much more.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Hmm, guess I should have made myself more clear. Conflict, in the context of what I said, includes not only the external conflict of fighting against physical obstacles to your desires but also the internal conflicts within a person, whether it's a clash between what a character wants vs what they need or trying to overcome emotional trauma that prevents someone from doing something.

Well, then you prove my point.
The main problem isn't the lack of conflict, because every single incest game have internal conflicts, as well as the games where the MC start by rejecting his new powers.
But these stories stay boring because the MC don't have a motive. He want to turn his family into a harem because one day he awaken with this idea, dot. Like he have no reasons to effectively reject his new powers ; especially since generally they come right after he past hours explaining how miserable is his life and how much he want this to change.

I stand by my point that there has to be conflict, internal or external, for a story to potentially be interesting, otherwise we're just watching characters be happy all the time which gets real old real fast.

Hmm... You can be happy while living through constant conflicts, and never been happy while still having the more peaceful, even mentally speaking, life.

 

[Silver]

What I find funny is how women always throw themselves at the protagonist, and vilifies other men unless it's a NTR game. In some games there are either no men, or lack of men, but plenty of women around. Sure there are a lot of women who throw themselves at men when they see opportunities in real world, like gold digger types, but most of these games have young men who achieved nothing in their life. Besides, a lot of them instantly fascinated by the size of the willy of MC. Then there are games in which male protagonist is ultra horny, does nothing other than perverting on their family members. So there is something in what you have said. However, there are interesting games among them too, such Deliverance, which mixes the adventure with an adult story. I found when the game has a meaningful story, and when sexual content is a part of it instead of being the whole story, it can be really great.

 

[fenelia]

Hell, a lot of Hollywood blockbusters are utter shit, and those cost hundreds of millions of USD to produce. Even/especially big budget US media isn't all that great because so much is hit or miss in terms of cinematography (Hello, "Battle of Winterfell") or writing/storytelling (Hello, Game of Thrones, the last few seasons) and so on ("CGI is expensive you know!").

Porn is not immune to sameness and boring qualities. I was bored out of my mind with Avengers: Endgame, but I guess some people really liked it.

Even the simply okay/good entertainment is hard to find (so jaded), but that's okay.
"

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"

 

[Adabelitoo]

Sure, games can be repetitive, I think we all can agree on that, but thing is: porn in itself has become repetitive.

Go and watch/play/read western movies, jav, games, hentai, doujins, comics, 3d animations, whatever, you name it. If you'll get picky and said that for porn games then you could say the exact same thing for the others.

I think I said this so many times that someone will remember and put it in my grave: The reason why cliches even exists in the first place is because if they are well implemented, they work and are always good to see no matter how many times you've seen it before.

With that being said, 99% of the developers here aren't Hollywood writers. Some of them think they are but others (I would say a half at least) know they aren't and also don't care about it. For those who do this for money then sure, fuck you dev, but for the rest (which I would like to think it's the majority) who do this as a hobby, most of them won't care (or they care, but they don't want to hear it) about things like this because they just want to have fun doing their games, even if it's about the same story you already read 14738 times because that's what they like.

It isn't the first time that I read something like "these games are carried by the porn content because without it you would notice how bad they are". Dude wtf? That's like saying that Celeste is carried by its hard plattaforming because without it you would only have just another mediocre story about a teenager with anxiety/depression issues. Of course these games are as good as they are thanks to the porn content, that's the main reason why people got here.

 

[Diconica]

Hmm, guess I should have made myself more clear. Conflict, in the context of what I said, includes not only the external conflict of fighting against physical obstacles to your desires but also the internal conflicts within a person, whether it's a clash between what a character wants vs what they need or trying to overcome emotional trauma that prevents someone from doing something. I stand by my point that there has to be conflict, internal or external, for a story to potentially be interesting, otherwise we're just watching characters be happy all the time which gets real old real fast.

All stories should have a conflict. It comes down to the 5 types of stories and conflict. Man vs Man, Man vs self, man vs society, man vs nature, man vs fate.
There are longer list but the truth is they are just taking categories that can be combined into the 5 listed here. One list I read recently listed Technology and the unknown. Technology can actually be listed in nature because nature is referring to environmental. If they mean an AI it goes in to Man vs Man along with any other entity. Man vs Man doesn't actually mean to people just to beings. In short the people making longer lists just got hung up on wording. Same goes with the unknown once the unknown is revealed it false into anyone of the other categories.

Most good stories have multiple conflicts going on but the overall story may cover a single conflict. Say you have to people at odds with one another that's one conflict then the emotional way they each view the situation can show the internal conflict each of them is enduring. Maybe the conflict between them wouldn't be happening if circumstances weren't what they currently are. That's just a simple example.

 

[Diconica]

It's not at all a problem unique to the adult game industry. It's a problem common to all wanabe writers that aren't as good as they think. It's just that the adult game industry is one of the few markets, if not the only one, where those people can be seen. Simply because it's a niche market, therefore not only there's less productions, but there's also almost no editors to filter them ; mostly there's just

You must be registered to see the links

and

You must be registered to see the links

.

But I can assure you that each year, there's tons of books, tons of movie/TV show/game ideas, crappier than the average adult game story, that are rejected. The fact that they'll never be produced doesn't mean that there isn't one guy to though that it was good enough to become reality. Yet, with nowadays number of diffusion platforms that do their own productions, the less crappy ones start to be produced more often ; and you can still look on the side of short movies released online by wanabe screen writers who expect to be discovered by Hollywood. Same for the books, that can be sold online directly by their authors, giving us a good idea about the hell that members of the reading committee for regular book edition companies have to live.
Each year, there's also a lot of "regular" indie games with a stupidly ridicule story that are released. But they are drowned in the mass and you never see them. But once again, the fact that you don't dig deep enough doesn't mean that those games don't exist.




Oh my fucking god... I so want a The DeLuca Family and a Heavy Five tv show.

But to be more realistic, you know that, alas, most of the games here are just porn games, right ? Why do you expect the percent of good interesting innovative stories to be higher that for porn movies, books or comics ?

Yet, talking about porn books and comics, especially the last ones, the European scene proved, since near to a century now, that you can have good and interesting stories without conflict. What make a story interesting is the triggered emotions. A conflict is a good way to do it, because you fear for the hero and you're happy when he avoid the evil trap or finally succeed, but it's not the only way to do it.
Adult stories offer other triggers. Isabel narrative arc in The DeLuca Family rely on Isabel emotional loneliness, not on the opposition between the MC and Antonio. In fact, if she wasn't talking about him, the player would totally forgot that he's supposed to be her husband. There's a treat, the menace of a possible conflict, but it stay on the background ; it give even more depth to the story, but it is neither the story nor its key. In top of that, the treat itself is the ghost of a menace, more than an effective one ; the MC have to fear that he will never ever be able to be left alone near the girls, nothing more.
The same can be said about Luna narrative arc. It come with Luna personal war, but once again it's not what interest the MC, not what make the story interesting and good. From the MC's point of view, helping Luna win her war isn't facing a conflict, it's healing a little girl's heart ; exactly like helping Isabel isn't confronting Antonio and the Family, but filling the hole in her life. And what make the "My name is Luna" quest (still near to cry just thinking about it) amazingly good isn't the conflict between the girls and the ravishers. Once again it's just the background of the story, and once again it just give more depth to it. No, what make this the best scene ever wrote in an adult game, is the shared love between the girls, their unity and devotion to each other. Would they've be stranded on an isolated island, after a plane crash by example, therefore without the background conflict, that it would have worked as well.

The fact is that it's way easier to trigger purely negative feelings than positive ones, reason why most stories effectively rely on oppositions and conflicts. But what effectively miss in all those stories isn't a conflict, it's a motive. There's the power fantasy you talk about, but it's a circular motive ; the MC want to have a harem because he want to have a harem.
That's why so many MCs are pure looser. It permit to give an illusion of effective motive. He don't want a harem for the sole purpose to have a harem, but to change his fate, to not be anymore a looser. But, like I said, most of the time it's just the illusion of a motive. For it to effectively be one, the MC should see the light, understanding that he have to change, while most of the time this change happen against his own will and he's fighting against it ; whatever it is because a succubus want to use him as weapon, or because he's cursed/blessed, the MC too often start by rejecting the change, wanting to stay the looser he is. And this is a conflict that would make a really interesting game. A game when the game over is when you achieved to build your harem, instead of staying faithful to your only love ; a game when you have to effectively refuse the power you now have. The conflict being purely limited to the player itself ; does he want to win the game, or to fuck them all...

Yep, there are countless books rejected each year that are pure crap. I've also seen pure crap get published. I've also seen really well written stories that get rejected simply because the publishing company chose the wrong employee to review it and it wasn't their genre or interest. They seriously could do a better job with that process.

There is no such thing as a story without conflict though. Man vs Man, Man vs self, man vs society, man vs fate and man vs nature. What there are are shitty writers who fail to address those issues.

Simple story, "John walked to the store." First, conflict is John is going to the store his method is walking. His goal is getting to the store the struggle is simple he is walking. But that can probably expanded a bit if one looked at why John is walking. Why John is going to the store. Why is John walking. Maybe his car is broke down or he doesn't have one. Maybe, he chose to get some exercise and save gas. Maybe, his mom took his car from him. What was the purpose also John going to the store can also be looked at maybe he wanted to buy something, maybe he was going there to work. Maybe, he went there to meet someone or talk to someone or maybe its the distance he chose in his exercise routine to loose weight. Those are all openings to other conflicts. You could look at also what's John's feelings about going to the store. Is it a bother to him? Maybe, he is excited about going there for some reason or another. ... Things like distances, terrain, weather .... can all add to nature conflict. Maybe the store is on a hill and its raining cats and dogs and has high wind blowing, its also coming up on winter so its cold. Those would all be natural part of the nature conflict of what he is having to endure from the environment. It could also include smells stuff he has to view on the way. Maybe he passes by a chicken farm they just pulled cleaned the barn out and the chicken shit laying in the field with the rain is creating that hell of stench it does. Maybe the neighborhood is slummy and he can see various activities he learned to ignore and try and keep his head down and not draw attention to himself.

Like I said no story is with out conflict, just shit writers fail to address them!

 

[Cul]

Short answer

And a longer one... Instead of thinking if only everyone read Hollywood screenwriters on drive, conflict, expectations, etc. The way human potential works, you could have thousands of stories being written & rewritten by a million people. As long as they think the "reason" is enough, as each one gives a piece of their life away. "I want to see my story in a game." "I want my name, on a popular game." "I need to tell this story."

And then we can make it sound as unrealistic as we want. As the same goes for the creation itself. Instead of thinking if only everyone spent enough time learning X, the way software and knowledge work, every new creator could have a thousand scenes & a thousand characters to choose from, already set-up to look beautiful. But it could not depend on consuming X assets from Y. You need a real community that makes them. Which should become easier with time, even talking of a professional PBR 'look'.

The point is to see it as a structural problem, before an individual fault. Even if 'understanding' ourselves meant accepting we are mediocre at most things, a better understanding of human nature also means feeling its potential. Even as it is wasted, by every new 'app' that makes workers & consumers out of millions, by also making use of extreme growth without infrastructure. Which just means, over the internet, with folks using their own time & their own cars.

Just as people would use their own experience in life, to write, or all the knowledge they have of structure, to edit, or all the creativity inside their heads, to go on & on about ideas. Then you take that to extreme growth, without physical infrastructure. And it becomes less unrealistic than expecting a thousand groups of 2-3 people, disconnected from each other, to give a big enough slice of their lives. For a hobby or a project on the side, while they have to work to eat.

 

[peterppp]

The observations in the OP is like "Yeah, what did you expect? This is how the world works." Why would porn games, made mostly by happy non-professional amateurs, be more groundbreaking or unique than other fictional media? Of course there will be cliches, tropes, formulaic settings etc, used to peddle the erotic/porn content.

I started writing on a novel some years back, with no writing background. First time I ever wrote a story. After having spent some months on it, I started noticing patterns, signs and tells whenever I read a novel, because I recognized the way the writer introduced something, or told about something, from how I did it in my novel. And again, this was the first time I ever wrote something. This insight I had gained in a few months, led me to be able to figure out what was about to happen in a scene, before it happened, simply because it was set up in a special way. Not all the time, but often. Which was thrilling in the beginning, like a superpower, but eventually you get tired of knowing what will happen before it happens. I like to be surprised and not knowing what will happen.
The point of all this is: Very few works of fiction are groundbreaking or unique. Even those that are (like the first Matrix movie, visually at least), are usually still heavily incorporating standard ways of doing things; tropes, cliches, generic formulas, etc.

So really, what do you expect from porn games?

 

[おい！]

With Covid-19 I've had a lot of extra time on my hands. So I played way to many adult games.
It has gotten to the point were it feels like most the games got written using the same play book over and over again.
I won't be covering games that don't have a plot or story line like match 3 or other puzzle style games in this discussion.

The only things that really change are the character names, locations, and general plot out side of that the games are repetitive as fuck in other ways.
There are a limited number of game types:
Control - protagonist seeks to gain control of others
Downfall - the protagonist decline usually in behavior sexually and or other ways socially economically
Management - you run a business
Those are a few examples. You can find them mixed with each other and other types.

If you ever called a tech support that works for a script they have for solving problems you probably know what I mean here.
It's like all the developers are working from the same script just selecting some basic options but when it comes down to finer detail they seem to lack any creativity of their own.

God forbid a female protagonist can actually think. Real life women are some of the most devious, cunning, cruel, strong characters in history. Hell the most successful pirate in history was female, "Ching Shih".
It is as if every author has a button that says take the easy way out to solve this. That or they assume if the plot event is more than a few sentences long readers can't keep up. I swear if I read another female character's "I got to do this" crap I'm going to vomit. If you use this you don't deserve any stars the fact I have to give a single star just to rate your game is bullshit. I should be able to give ZERO stars. Giving one star artificially inflates the appearance of crappy games.

Forget abiding by normal social constructs and the way societies work. Just throw any logic or reason out the window so long as we don't need to think very hard to achieve her taking her close off / getting fucked.

Male protagonist aren't much better half are written as lucky morons and the other half are just bad because the people writing them have no real understanding of the perspective they writing from or the topics they are writing about. In short they are writing beyond their capability. J.R.R Tolkien once said write about yourself. You know you best. He also said write about people you know. Writing about stuff you know is good in a number of ways. Lets say you know someone that went through an ordeal well you know the story fairly well and what lead up to what happened and the out come. What you may not know unless you talked with the people in-depth is their perspectives and the way they few stuff. So it is easier to write about it from an observational position. To many authors fail because they attempt to capture the perspective of characters they have ZERO chance of actually understanding. That isn't to say with a lot of research and information you can't write a book from that perspective. It would just take a lot lot more work to do so. From what I seen in the number of adult games I played not author has been willing to commit that kind of effort to their work.

While I was dealing with RL someone hit on the probably the biggest issue of all with most of these games / stories, that's the proper addressing of the conflicts in the stories. Honestly, I doubt half the writers even know of the concept of story conflicts after what I have seen.
Story conflicts:
Man vs Man ~ This is the struggle between two beings.
Man Vs himself ~ This is the struggle or the internal conflict a person goes through making a decision, living with an action, dealing with what is going on & so on
Man vs society ~ The struggle can often include values and expectations
Man vs nature ~ Enviromental factors and how they effect the individual
Man vs fate /god ~ Some people will say Gods an entity or being, while others will say fate or destiny is environmental it has to do with time and nature. The point is it usually covers struggles a person has with their destiny fate or religious deity expectations...
I cover this more in one of the replies below.

Character development is incredibly shallow for most main characters. It's even less developed for supporting characters.

Tangents. I can't count the number of stories that go off on some weird tangent simply as some fucked up fan service to incorporate some stupid aspect that adds no value or depth to the story. I haven't seen a single game or story that has at least one fully developed story line finished before they have gone off on something stupid. If they would at least create the primary story they would have a baseline for all the other character reactions to gauge shit by. Instead you end up with shit stories and games where a character is perfectly fine one minute getting stripped naked and fucked in front of a crowd and then the next time when you are alone suddenly they are to shy to drop their panties.

That brings up the next part character values and measures for actions in most cases are complete shit and its pretty evident that most authors don't bother to chart them out and keep track of them. The few that do aren't much better when you have a girl willing to strip her panties and get fucked on stage and but is to shy to take her bra off. Or she has no issue showing her tits to a bunch of drunks and bums but gets squeamish showing them to her boss. The number of examples I could list here is nearly as large as the list of games I played.

Enough for now.

If you are bored with playing games on here, try taking up knitting. Oh maybe not, because you would probably get bored with using the same old patterns.