Family-building in incest games

[megaplayboy10k]

Incest games are one of the most popular genres of "fap game"/eroge/h game, and there are a variety of reasons for that. Aside from the various appeals of the incest taboo, it is an easy "setup"--the MC lives with/visits a household with 2-4 women(typically), of which 1 is a MILF, 1 is a loli or high school girl, 1 is a college girl or young woman and so forth. If there's an aunt, that's another MILF. Of course the family members have friends, classmates and co-workers of similar ages. Perhaps there are MILF teachers at school. And so forth.
But, of course, to make a "good" incest game, there's more to setting things up than that.
1. Families have relationships(non-sexual) with each other before they have relations(sexual) with each other. If you have a mother-son relationship in a game, it's a good idea to show it in some way--not just the mom cooking, cleaning and going to work. The mom giving advice to her children, worrying about them, nagging them, and doing the things a mom does. She's not just there to wash the cum stains out of the MC's underwear. Ditto for the brother-sister relationship, cousins, aunt-nephew, even grandmother-grandchild. Big sister-little brother relations can be warm and supportive, or they can be fraught with rivalry and resentment. Big brother-little sister relations also involve more than "teaching" little sis about sex.
2. Not only do the family members have characteristics based on their family relationship, but they have personalities and backstories of their own. Mom had a life before she was Mom, and she has her own career, friends, interests and so forth. Ditto for every other family member. Their personalities don't have to be "stock"--they can be distinctive, even modeled off of real world people. The older sister doesn't have to be a bitch. The younger one doesn't have to be sexually naïve and inexperienced, or endearing and adorable. Mom doesn't have to be warm, nurturing and motherly all the time.
3. Spending time setting up these relationships before diving into the sexual deep end isn't a terrible idea. Maybe spend 3 days to a week of in-game time showing how things work in the MCs family before he goes on an incestuous rampage.
4. Check the math on everyone's ages. If the oldest child is 21, and mom is, say, 37, then mom got knocked up at 15 or 16! If Grandma is 51, then she was pretty "busy" freshman year in high school!
5. Most family members in a household communicate regularly with each other. An incestuous relationship is a huge development, and multiple simultaneous ones developing side by side would be extraordinary. You'd expect Mom and Sis and Auntie and whatnot to chat about that a bit, particularly as things develop and it becomes more obvious that something is going on. So figure out how that plays into the story and gameplay.

 

[jkkjjkjkjjkkkjjl]

cool

 

[215303j]

Another thing: there should be a "driver" why the incest happens.

This is a problem in games where everybody needs to be 18+, as people don't generally have known each other for 18+ years and then decide to fuck all of a sudden.

Childhood separation works, but is often overdone, unless the backstory is really good, like in Our Fate.
Sudden trauma is another one, and probably better because it also gives more background to the story in general.
Gradual attraction is one that I like as well, like in Intimate Relations or Haley's Story, but it requires really well written characters. And not "oh fuck, my little boy's dick is huge, now I can't control myself".

5. Most family members in a household communicate regularly with each other. An incestuous relationship is a huge development, and multiple simultaneous ones developing side by side would be extraordinary.

This is one of the things that annoy me the most...

 

[freedom.call]

Milfy City and FILF have the best approach imo...

The moms are and have been attracted to the kid for a long time and the kid seems to know what a boob is, what a pair of panties look like and sex doesn't appear to be an alien concept.

Still bonkers but makes more sense than 'OMG, big dick'. I've known this woman for 18 years 'OMG she's suddenly hot!'.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Another thing: there should be a "driver" why the incest happens.

This is a problem in games where everybody needs to be 18+, as people don't generally have known each other for 18+ years and then decide to fuck all of a sudden.

Childhood separation works, but is often overdone, unless the backstory is really good, like in Our Fate.
Sudden trauma is another one, and probably better because it also gives more background to the story in general.
Gradual attraction is one that I like as well, like in Intimate Relations or Haley's Story, but it requires really well written characters. And not "oh fuck, my little boy's dick is huge, now I can't control myself".



This is one of the things that annoy me the most...

Something that destabilizes the status quo--father's death or disappearance, mom's loss of income and/or nervous breakdown, MC is hospitalized for some reason--can work, particularly if the MC vaults into a position of household authority(mom is broke and not mentally strong, son is now the sole breadwinner, maybe he's a genius and actually homeschooling his own sisters!).

Another idea is to go the corruption/mind control/mind break route, but be really subtle about it. Dad gave MC a ring to "help keep the family together". So long as the MC wears it, the family will get closer and closer(and other NPCs will be drawn ever closer to the MC), but there's no giving of commands or casting of spells, things just gradually drift into a "new normal" which is quite different from the old one.

Noticing that one's child is becoming an adult and feeling some sexual attraction is within the realm of normal(98+% of people resist those impulses even if they feel them), and could be handled without going into "magic teen cock" territory. Even more so for siblings close in age.

You could have a MC who is actually a "boy genius" with extraordinary social intelligence, incredibly skilled at manipulating others. Of course, finding a way to make such a character relatable and a non-asshole might be a challenge...

Or something is unconventional about the family or its current situation, forcing the family members to think outside the box(or inside it!) to cope with the new circumstances(zombie apocalypse, regular and step relations forced to live together in cramped close quarters, etc.)

Another option is just to deliberately make their reactions a bit off the wall, to subvert the various tropes(e.g., Mom finds the porn stash of MILF and barely legal porn, and 20 minutes later the entire family is looking at your porn and asking provocative questions--ludicrous scenario, but kinda hot, too!)

 

[215303j]

Good ideas, but:

Noticing that one's child is becoming an adult and feeling some sexual attraction is within the realm of normal

Agreed, but the problem here is that people don't suddenly become adults at their 18th birthday.
That happens somewhere in the teen years, with girls being earlier than boys.
But obviously you can't have a 14 year old girl in a game, both for legal and moral reasons.

If you have this scenario with the siblings being 18 and 20 respectively, it becomes a bit stupid by default. I mean, where were they the last 6 years?? Physically there is not that much difference between some 14 year old girls and 18 year old women. Mentally, it's a different matter... Maybe the mental aspect could be the trigger to a relationship: "My sister was always hot, but recently (after she turned 18) she started treating me like an actual human being, I think I'm in love now". But that does require solid writing skills.

 

[Deleted member 2657500]

I have what I believe is a plausible reason for the incest to begin. The story could begin with a family taking what was supposed to be a short cruise (Gilligan's Island anyone?) the ship crashes during a tropical storm and the parents are killed leaving young brother and sister on the Island alone learning to survive. They are eventually rescued by the time they turn 18 (or whatever age you want to set here) Now they have to adjust to society because they have been lovers ever since they were old enough to start exploring their sexuality. From there you can add as many temptations for the two of them as you like and can go many different directions with the game.

 

[DaughtersOfJanus]

I think the game I am developing the incest mod for lends itself very well to having interesting, realistic incest dynamics, so I will try to condense what I think makes that game so in a way that adds to this conversation.

I think as OP states, having well defined characters and relationships help a lot. Adding on to this, two or more characters having an incestuous relationship, if we want it to be realistic and interesting, has to have a purpose other than they think one another attractive. There must be a unique quality inherent in an incestuous partner that you can't get anywhere else or something to be gained from pursuing an incestuous relationship that is so important to that person that they'd be willing to risk getting caught to pursue. The dev then has to do a decent enough job of conveying that reasoning to the players that they'd believe it'd be plausible for one to commit to an incestuous relationship in those very specific circumstances. The problem arises when the circumstance is so unique that you lose relatability and you end up losing the appeal of incest in the first place (mom and son have to fuck or debt collectors will kill dad). All in all, I think there's way more ways to do it wrong than there are ways to do it right if what you want to achieve is realistic incest but it might not even be required. Really, I think the appeal in incest is seeing relationships transform from one way drastically into another, albeit the taboo adds significantly to it. I think as long as you can nail that transformation in a realistic way, the premise, if unrealistic, would make a negligible difference to the overall experience for incest lovers.

 

[javier_himura]

There is another important thing that developers should check on their incest games. Is small but important.
Family members' names, especially for mother and father. I have seen some games in which the incest past is just changing landlady/landlord for mom/dad and roommate for brother/sister and that's it, but then in most of the conversations between the characters they use their real names.

It makes sense in the Patreon version to call the landlady by their name, but the normal thing for a son is to not use Mom's real name. Mom is not Claudia, Mom is Mom. The same for Dad. For siblings, it makes sense for both to use their real names but it doesn't make sense for siblings to only use each other real names and never call the other bro/sis/brother/sister.

Of course, they could make the story progress to the point that the mother tells her son to use her real name because they have become lovers. Personally, I dislike that, because I think is hotter if they don't drop family titles but it still the change have sense. But most times the games that have this fail have it even before the incest relationships start.