Eastern culture with 3rd world country setting as a porn game

[gusk]

So I've been developing a VN based game with my other 2 member these past few months with pretty much focused in what the tittle stated above. Our main objective is showing the players how things work in that setting like different perspective on how people socialize with each other, what kind of effect does culture have on people personality / way of thinking, to some extent (if we ever get that much support lol) puzzle adventure mini games that people might think it's stupid but actually work exactly like that in real life.

But the problem is up until now I'm only focusing on what kind of storyline that players might think refreshing and because the topic itself isn't really a common one I thought it would be a good idea to start a discussion here.

Like what would you guys think about this setting ? Does it really matter to have a different storyline or setting like this in a porn game ? or is it purely weighted on whether the art is good or not good enough to your taste ?

also sorry if my english giving you a headache.

 

[Egglock]

Our main objective is showing the players how things work in that setting like different perspective on how people socialize with each other, what kind of effect does culture have on people personality / way of thinking

Place, time, setting, all of that shouldn't matter. A better question to ask your team is, does the game flow correctly? Does the character reflect correctly in their settings, does the mechanics match to what is being said/done, does story flow smoothly? If these are all jumble and random with no explanation than it doesn't matter where it takes place, it'll turn out horrible.

This is the beauty of the virtual world. We are free to create and design a world that has little to no logical sense. Just take a look at some of the games out there, especially females. In what sense and realm of logic does a female go charging in with armor that hardly gives her any protection but can take a hella of a beating? Or it takes 7 clips to take down a humanoid?. Or a medieval era where cars and trains exist? There is none, but most of the time it doesn't matter, because it's fun, entertaining and enjoyable.

Focus on making your game fun, exciting, mysterious. Leaving your viewers/players in awe.

 

[gusk]

For mechanic itself we couldn't provide too much mostly because we don't have a background + assets artist and that leads to us using only placeholder background and kinetic novel mechanic, so only a branching route for now, Game and Story flow honestly is one of our strong point because of that. While it's still in early build I believe most of the player could get the gist of the story from the content we could provide.

Basically you play as one of the university student from unnamed university, you're on your last year over there and graduated early because of your accomplishment the year before that, while waiting for graduation date to come up one of your friend asked you if you wanted to do something to filled that empty days which lead to the first part of this game.

With that intro we could see from story timeline that there's something to discover from the player's past like what thing he accomplished from the year before ? and why would he wanted to do what his friend told him to ? Well, honestly first part of the game will answer that but I believe that the answer while may seem enough will only lead to more question after the player playing it. So there's the mysterious part.

Fun part would be the stripping, foreplay and sex scene we could provide in this early build.

Exciting part would be the characters progression you see as the story goes forward, not only you would progress but also the characters around you. Now to answer what kind of progression we have is a bit spoiler so I'll leave it this way.

Spoiler: Story and Character progression

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Also, do you think providing a sample image from our game would be more interesting to discuss this game ? It would be great if I could hear more feedback regarding our story, and pros + cons we had in our planning.

 

[Egglock]

That's great. You didn't have to tell me anything if you didn't want to. I was merely saying it as questions you could possibly ask to yourself and your dev team. As you were wondering if the culture difference and settings matter. I can't speak for others, but as for myself I love to explore and mix things, for example, taking two different cultures and mix them to create a fictional culture in the game, or mix different style buildings. The list goes on. Again like I mention in my first post, don't concern yourself too much with this, but rather the mechanics, the story, the flow of the game instead.

For mechanic itself we couldn't provide too much mostly because we don't have a background + assets artist and that leads to us using only placeholder background and kinetic novel mechanic, so only a branching route for now,

Yeah that might be tough, as not having an artist to create asset it'll be hard to get things across visually. Seeing how your team is taking the kinectic noval style (a linear story, where the player has no input in choices, correct me if I'm wrong) if so than yes, the mechanic itself would be limiting. Again, it shouldn't matter as much, as long as the story is compelling and wraps the reader, you don't need much mechanic to make it an enjoyable VN. Though you still would need some form of art to catch the readers eyes. As far as a more point and click VN, my thoughts on the matter wouldn't help much, as i'm not working in 2D space. The mechanics from 2D to 3D can vary a lot.

Also, do you think providing a sample image from our game would be more interesting to discuss this game ? It would be great if I could hear more feedback regarding our story, and pros + cons we had in our planning.

With the brief description/spoilers you provided, it's an interesting start. Though do be careful with religion, as that's a touchy subject. I personally don't have any issue with it being used in adult content, but some may see it differently so tread carefully.

With that intro we could see from story timeline that there's something to discover from the player's past like what thing he accomplished from the year before ? and why would he wanted to do what his friend told him to ?

As far as the story goes, I can dig where it's going. Is your team planning on doing flashbacks to cover this subject, or are you planning on doing episode like vn's?

By all means do, if your team is stuck or need some fresh eyes on the project it doesn't hurt to have outside opinions. Showing images is entirely up to you, it's the world your team is building, if you feel that it needs another set of eyes to maybe spot things that have been missed go for it.

 

[gusk]

I don't really mind talking about this game and it's not like this thread is filled with a lot of people either so why don't I try to answer some question lol

About kinetic novel honestly I'm still not sure what the correct terms are so basically I just generalize them to kinetic VN or adventure VN, we will give player a choice option in our game but it didn't really matter that much because there's no bad end or game over plan for this version. And for the art itself we're using fully drawn western style 2D art which I hope didn't contrast that much with placeholder background that mainly used for japanese style one.

Yes I do agree about religion being a controversial topic in this type of game but as developer especially a writer I simply wanted to throw something that's different from the public, something that might be a new perspective for some player. If it didn't go well . . . well that's my responsibilities as the head of this project to tank those reaction.

I don't think it'll be an episodic one even though it might look like that, see our plan is with current storyline each update will bring a new girl + new type of problem + sex scene with new girl. My reason for this is quite simple lol it's because back when I'm only playing the game it's kinda a let down whenever I see an update for the games that l like only adding a few new things and I need to wait for another update to see the significant improvement of the game. The problem is clearly we will took a longer time to do an update but I think keeping our supporters know our progression (new artwork, what kind of story we will use next update, character description, etc) in weekly or bi-weekly time could ease their anticipation while waiting that update to be done.

For flashback / past events, it's fully depending on how much support we could achieve for this project. If we're going kinetic VN then flashback event would be the one we're using, if we're able to made it adventure VN then as a writer I could hide it everywhere in this game like description on some item or random dialogues with another npc or an item that could trigger flashback event and something more like that.

Honestly I'm planning to share some of the artworks to see what people think about it, while every asset is already drawn our artist is still in progress on coloring it. I'll share it here if some of them are already finished especially the girl's character because I think that might be the controversial one.

 

[Egglock]

I think I get the gist of it.

Wasn't aware that there was a Western/Easter art style. I just thought art was art, an expression of the artists creativity, or the ability to express their creativity. In any case, that doesn't really matter to me lol. Art is art, and I love them all.

I don't think it'll be an episodic one even though it might look like that, see our plan is with current storyline each update will bring a new girl + new type of problem + sex scene with new girl.

I agree, small updates with little content isn't so desirable. I'd much prefer longer dev time, with more content to explorer when a release comes out.

Which ever route your team takes the VN in, do what you gotta do to make it good. As far as sharing the images, i'm all for it, I am a bit curious as to what you got in store. I have a knack for hand drawn art, as I severely lack the skill's to do hand drawn art, not that I'd appreciate it any less if I knew how to draw.

 

[gusk]

@Egglock haha it should be that way but for us who develop a game we need to see what kind of things the audiences wanted, right ? Thing like fetishes, gameplay mechanic, story line and even art style might help to attract those people.

as for art we do have an update, I hope this will help to generate some more discussion because honestly with what I have for now it feels like I'm moving blindly and simply wishing for the best lol

anyway here's Naya from our game Brainless University :

 

[Egglock]

Is this the first pass? Looks good, then again I'm probably not the best person to ask for critique when it comes to art.

True that we gotta please the audience, but within reason. If it were that case, our game would slowly become what they want it to be instead of how we want it to be. But that's just my thought.

What makes you say you're moving blindly? If you got a story, game play mechanics, art, and a goal I don't think your moving forward blindly. Or is it the thought of it not being as successful as you want it to be?

 

[215303j]

Sounds like an interesting idea!
Cultural aspects play a big role in any story.

 

[89tasker]

I never realized how often Russian people got mugged until I played "Son of a BItch"

 

[gusk]

@Egglock nah it's the latter lol sometimes it's just kinda scary because as a developer you need to know whether what you create is well received or not. Even when you've planned everything if you can't collect enough feedback all those effort is basically a gambling, that and I don't want to let down my other 2 members hahaha

@Thialf hey thanks man, glad you like it. Yeah I agree with that especially since I live in a place with a lot of culture in it so I think bringing that aspect in a porn game might be a refreshing idea

@89tasker hahaha that's quite an interesting info to learn from a game but I've never played that before, what is that game about ?

 

[215303j]

I also never played Son of a Bitch, but if you take for instance Girl Life, this has a very Russian feel to it, and also deals with several aspects of Russian life and youth culture. Quite interesting!

One real challenge that I see is to make the game both believable for a "native" audience and sexy for a "Western" audience. The more cultures diverge, the more difficult that can become, I guess.

To take one example from Girl Life: at one point you hang out with your big sister (who you have some kind of lesbian crush on) outside the youth centre. Apparently it's a Russian tradition for girls to piss together outside behind some shed. I think this was supposed to be sexy, but I just found it gross.

If you place the story in a very poor middle eastern country, you'll have the big status difference between males and females, as well as the money difference between 1st world and 3rd world to deal with. As well as all kinds of religious issues. In a culture where some people think it's normal to kill a girl for "allowing herself" to be raped, it may be difficult to get a girl to actually consent to sex... On the other hand it could also be very thrilling if you (the MC) is able to pull this off.

 

[gusk]

@Thialf You're exactly correct in that post, but I think that if you wanted to put cultural aspect in porn game you shouldn't put it in the sex scene or at least don't put it early. Learning from a lot of foreigners here I think that by doing day to day basic things people will be more able to adjust themselves that they're in different country with different culture and perspective on how to see things, so my plan is to let the players play and figure out the cultural aspect from basic things like conversation, banter, how people behave, how they think, etc. Later on if I feel that my plan is going smoothly (both on financial and players feedback) I will start to put it on mini games or hide and seek puzzles or sex event that at this point many players should think that it's not that weird at all if you see from this peoples perspective.

Now to talk about setting, no I don't use middle eastern country for this game. Many peoples think that way because of our character design and this thread's title lol but honestly my inspiration comes from some Asian countries that have a lot of different cultures and different religions. We do have our own fucked up aspect but that thing only come up later in this game when we have enough content and if the players are able to connect the information or events that happen in that world, this is only if we're able to proceeds with adventure style mechanic lol if we're going with the linear kinetic one then what I could provide is pretty much just a story telling.

Ah also later today or tomorrow I'll give an update on her scene, our artist is currently shading it so it should be done soon enough.

 

[gusk]

Here's an update of each Naya's standing pose :



For now we're working on her stripping scene, about 70% is done and as usual I'll give an update here when it's ready.

 

[Madeddy]

The basic idea and concept sounds so far interesting. However the art we seen so far is a 200% NO for me. From the first millisecond all in me cry'd out. Doesn't work.
There is something wrong with the body proportions. Not only the too long legs, but also the way too tiny head. Looks ... frankenstein'ish for me.

Greets

 

[gusk]

@Madeddy well for her legs it's supposed to be long to add to her body thickness but if it look too long I think it's because of her hand is in the way and blocking your view of her body, that and because she didn't stand up straight. Her design itself is not supposed to look 10/10, she's not bad but having a board shoulder with a body that way taller and thicker than an average girl around her made her feel insecure about herself.

By the way her stripping pose is done, so I hope you didn't think of it as bad as before because you can see her body from different perspective.

Naya's stripping pose :



Also I'm really glad you like our concept and really appreciate your feedback because it open a new angle to look at her design.

 

[gusk]

So we have another update and this time is about our main character in this game, Bule. In the first few posts I've already talked a tiny bit about his situation in this game so I will talk more about his character trait, personality and a bit more about his background.

Bule :


To put it simply he's kinda "jack of all trade, master of none" type of guy like he's not ugly, not stupid, not financially in trouble, not physically weak but didn't excel at any of those thing either and that also happen with his laid back personality. He is from a mixed family hence the nickname "Bule" which mean foreigner.

Storywise this game will offer the player Bule's journey through his last year in university, progressing as a person who didn't excel at anything to become someone who is dependable, able to understand other people perspective and mastering some of his qualities, while also uncovering the stories on how he didn't slip into becoming another mediocre graduate student from an unnamed university and many past events that happen from his early college life to this point. All of that obviously in between fucking girls left and right lol.

After this we will give an update on a few other characters who will help him throughout this game, each have different role than the others but while I can't talk too much about them because we're still in early build I can tell you that one of their purposes is to show the player many of the characters here do have a progression, an objective, a goal in their mind and of course a different stories or perspective to reveal.

 

[gusk]

Update on another characters.

Asu :



Asu is the one who will be helping Bule the most throughout the story by giving him (Bule) tasks, hints on how to do it and directly or not, teaching him to be a better version of himself. As a character he isn't exactly the type that have many talents... if anything, he is a person with a lot of experience. His stories is more about revealing what kind of person he really is rather than progressing like any other characters and with that I'll stop writing about him before I started to spoiling his plot lol.

Ian :



Ian is the type of person who dress neatly, speak softly and act like he is your true best friend while also fucking your girlfriend behind your back, selling her nudes and casually sharing her with his close friends. Fortunately, he isn't actually that bad and he's on your side. From that alone I think you can guess what kind of plot and role he will offer throughout this game.

Jon :



Jon is a tough guy, a muscle over brain person and a hit first think later type of criminal. Sadly, that will be most people first impression about him throughout his life. Jon didn't have a fit body to compare it with another people nor to have people complimenting it but because he think that exercising his body is important, Jon isn't a talkative person not because he is comically shy but because he is simply didn't want to talk too much. Jon also didn't punch first because he hate arguing with people but his friend's pride is more important than a few days in jail. Jon is the most misunderstood character in this game.


All right, I think this will be the last update on showing our game characters. What's left is coloring few others character pose, sex scene and then making a kinetic novel out of it. Maybe around next month is the soonest the kinetic novel will be done and then I'll make a game thread for it with our actual game name.

Feel free to ask any question though it's not like I'll abandon this thread anytime soon lol.