Do adult games need an easy mode?

[Crooked13th]

I am curious about what you guys think on this topic. Do you feel that an adult game should always have an "easy mode", AKA "get me to the smut mode" that enables you to avoid most of the game's mechanics, or is it acceptable for the game to keep its sex scenes and adult material as rewards for progressing through the story?

If you're in favor of an easy mode: I already acknowledge that many adult games have very poor game loops that are simply not fun to play, and in those cases, the game mechanics serve as a pointless grind to the visual content. But if a game had competent and fun game mechanics, would you still want an easy mode to avoid the core of the game loop?

 

[PochitaTheChainsaw]

if the mechanics are actually fun (not applicable in most cases imo) an easy mode should not be needed, but would be appreciated anyway. If the game has a long, boring, gameplay loop of "click here, then here, now do it again" or "do this minigame 500 times" then an easy mode, or an optional debug/cheat menu would be extremely pleasant

 

[Crooked13th]

if the mechanics are actually fun (not applicable in most cases imo) an easy mode should not be needed, but would be appreciated anyway. If the game has a long, boring, gameplay loop of "click here, then here, now do it again" or "do this minigame 500 times" then an easy mode, or an optional debug/cheat menu would be extremely pleasant

In the first case, how do you imagine an easy mode? Just a more casual gameplay difficulty, or something more akin to a cheat mode to skip the gameplay segments altogether?

 

[Deleted member 5410619]

Wait.
There are hard adult games?
Where?

 

[K3NJ1]

An 'easy' mode on the side would be nice.
I mean it's hard to imagine that 95% of our user base on here don't play with one hand anyway

I'm not saying that I don't but... Yeah... Anyway... If it's not too much of an effort for the developer to implement such a feature where all the 'filler' stuff in-between and gets you straight to the 'real' content without it actually being like a gallery mod but still the game itself, then sure... Why not.

 

[Deleted member 5410619]

An 'easy' mode on the side would be nice.
I mean it's hard to imagine that 95% of our user base on here don't play with one hand anyway

I'm not saying that I don't but... Yeah... Anyway... If it's not too much of an effort for the developer to implement such a feature where all the 'filler' stuff in-between and gets you straight to the 'real' content without it actually being like a gallery mod but still the game itself, then sure... Why not.

So visual novels?

 

[K3NJ1]

So visual novels?

Somewhat, but less of a novel.
Like I said, a feature that allows you to bypass all the narrative stuff that isn't related. I mean sure you can skip, but if we're thinking about a potential feature, etc.

Also there's tons of RPGMs that need this too...

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

It really depends on what kind of gameplay we're talking about. If it's grinding, or constant dice-rolls, or QTEs, or trial-and-error, or inconsequential fluff (e.g. most trainers) I don't think much is lost from fast-forwarding that kind of "gameplay". If it's a proper RPG, or strategy, or whatever legitimate genre, I will not want to to skip it on a first playthrough. Probably not subsequent playthroughs either unless it wasn't very good.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Wait.
There are hard adult games?
Where?

https://f95zone.to/threads/corrupted-saviors-release-36c-csdev.63932/
https://f95zone.to/threads/venusblo...onal-v1-09-fandiscs-dual-tail-ninetail.42356/ (to be fair, I only know that it's complex and not new player-friendly)
https://f95zone.to/threads/daibanchou-big-bang-age-alicesoft.6166/

 

[Crooked13th]

An 'easy' mode on the side would be nice.
I mean it's hard to imagine that 95% of our user base on here don't play with one hand anyway

I'm not saying that I don't but... Yeah... Anyway... If it's not too much of an effort for the developer to implement such a feature where all the 'filler' stuff in-between and gets you straight to the 'real' content without it actually being like a gallery mod but still the game itself, then sure... Why not.

That's.. a reasonable way of looking at it lol. Basically an accessibility mode, for the "one handed". Gotcha!

 

[PochitaTheChainsaw]

In the first case, how do you imagine an easy mode? Just a more casual gameplay difficulty, or something more akin to a cheat mode to skip the gameplay segments altogether?

as an example; for an RPGM game, an easy mode would be lowering the overall stats of enemies. for something like the bartending minigame in Aurelia, it would be raising the amount of time it takes for a customer to get mad. for a visual novel it would be a little note next to choices saying "this choice is bad" or "+1 relationship with [character]" or something similar.

 

[Crooked13th]

as an example; for an RPGM game, an easy mode would be lowering the overall stats of enemies. for something like the bartending minigame in Aurelia, it would be raising the amount of time it takes for a customer to get mad. for a visual novel it would be a little note next to choices saying "this choice is bad" or "+1 relationship with [character]" or something similar.

Thanks for explaining. Yeah that's a logical way of lowering the difficulty without literally adding a "skip button".

 

[redknight00]

Easy mode = full save.

 

[DawnCry]

Wait.
There are hard adult games?
Where?

If you want some adult games in which you can actually have some difficulty try:

-Kamidori alchemy meister
-Big band age daibanchou
-Sengoku Rance

You may enjoy them quite a bit.

 

[Deleted member 5563201]

In my humble opinion, you don't need an easy mode if your game has good gameplay and story and no grinding.
But if you want to put something that facilitates the game or saves the player's time, think of something like "A Struggle with Sin" has, if you are strong enough to kill the enemies you don't enter combat but you receive the battle rewards . The "auto resolve feature".
Or hire people to do tasks that the player would have to do, like a cook or a lumberjack.
If it's an open world RPG, resetting routes without having to go through any grind is a very good idea too.
And if you're going to do some kind of puzzles, please post puzzles that are fun and not fetch puzzles or anything like that.

 

[Gunizz]

Easy mode can be useful when you replay to discover other paths. Too much effort needed and people simply avoid playing again, so in many cases missing most of the content. That's what I too often see in reviews, where people judge an adult game after having played only a single path, so they complain about the little content. I think a developer would prefer that players could see all the content to appreciate all the work that's behind a product. That's were skipping mini-games or similar could help (I would like to be able to have the option to skip single minigames in Being a DIK, for example).
That's also my experience, I tend to avoid playing again a VN/porn game if it takes too much effort to reach a few scenes.

What I once found really helpful was an in-game tree branching schema to help visualize the unexplored paths and the missing scenes. So I rapidly loaded a save at the right point and made a different choice to get the new content. That way I was able to see everything and also have a visual feedback that I did not miss anything (not just the lewd scenes). I understand that it's not easy to implement it if the story is complicated.

 

[Deleted member 440241]

Short answer, yes. If devs were releasing full games with fun mechanics I'd say it's not necessary. But since people are typically playing these games one 15 minute update at a time, and "mechanics" are usually just visual or sliding puzzles, there should definitely be an option to skip obstacles and get right to the smut.

 

[rk-47]

adults games are already 70% clicking 30% gameplay
now this wont apply to rpgm games, so its dependant on engine really
that said, an easy mode for most renpy games would be a guide/full save/cheat mods
if the game is well made it will not require these much

 

[Ophanim]

I would say that if your game makes QTEs or twitch reflexes a requirement to progress (hello, Tower of Trample), including accessibility options is a must. An elegant way to handle the QTE situation (at least for me) would be an options slider to change, proportionally, the length of time one is given to complete QTEs (e.g. play at 0.8x normal speed). That way, you can still have your challenge, or even make it harder on yourself if you wanted, while still accounting for people whose reflexes just aren't great or who are otherwise impaired, right?

in-game tree branching schema to help visualize the unexplored paths and the missing scenes

I also agree with this, and it makes a world of difference for my enjoyment of VNs! This should be normalized for any kind of visual novel where choices lead to entirely different scenes for any length of time, imo. Also, doing this helps the player become more literate in the overall construction of VNs, seeing them just that little bit more like how the developer sees it, and encouraging that kind of awareness seems like only a good thing for the community.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Wait.
There are hard adult games?
Where?

Exactly lmao. What a joke.