The title says it all. For any new devs who want to make a game decide on a number of Li’s before starting and preferably I would say choose between 1-4 Li’s I think that’s the best range for these types of games and for new developers.
I bring this up because I’ve played a lot of these games and I see a lot of new devs. Devs that are new to programming, making a game, making a game by themselves, and/or managing it all.. They make a game and put 10 different Li’s in there and while this isn’t bad it can and tends to lead to some bad things. I understand why a new dev would want more Li’s, a wider range of characters means more things to do and a wider range of audience, right? But while some new devs can make it work I feel like it hurts new devs more than it helps them.
Some problems I’ve seen from new devs with too many Li’s
These aren’t the only problems but I think they’re probably the most prominent. But all these problems along with a few other things leads to new devs getting burntout and either abandoning their game or even worse prolonging their game with super small updates because they don’t want to disappoint, invested too much time, or are just being shitty and milking their supporters with empty promises and lackluster updates.
I’m not demanding new devs stop making too many Li’s. You probably have a bunch of ideas for different Li’s, you're thinking of so many possibilities. I’m just saying take a step back and think “Maybe this is too much.” If you really want multiple Li’s I think the golden range is 2-4, if you pick the maximum of 4 you have 5 total with the MC and have a good range of characters to do different stuff with. I even think having only 1 Li would be good too, honestly it’s more rare and unique than multiple Li’s at this point.
TLDR; For your first game if you have too many Li’s it might be fine but most likely you will burnout.
I bring this up because I’ve played a lot of these games and I see a lot of new devs. Devs that are new to programming, making a game, making a game by themselves, and/or managing it all.. They make a game and put 10 different Li’s in there and while this isn’t bad it can and tends to lead to some bad things. I understand why a new dev would want more Li’s, a wider range of characters means more things to do and a wider range of audience, right? But while some new devs can make it work I feel like it hurts new devs more than it helps them.
Some problems I’ve seen from new devs with too many Li’s
- Balancing content: Content between Li’s is unbalanced where some Li’s get noticeably more content than others
- Disappointed players: Now this one will happen no matter what but with too many Li”s I think it happens even more. A player will see that the Li’s they like are getting crumbs of content and be turned off form the content
- Minimum Position Variety: This one mainly applies if you’re using software like Honey Select, Koikatsu, DAZ, and Etc but could be a problem for game with original art. What I’ve seen from new devs having too many Li’s is that they stick with default positions because they have too many Li’s to play around with the software and get creative with the sex positions because they don’t have the energy or time because of writing and programming all those different character routes and then decide to just go with the default positions.
- Route Bloat: This applies to a game that has multi[le routes for each LI like Netorare/Harem, Maledom/Femdom, or whatever you wanna do. Let’s say you just do 2 routes each character, you have 10 Li’s that’s 20 different routes you have to write. That a lot for a new dev doing everything by themselves or even in a group.
- Unsatisfying updates: This doesn't just apply to games with too many Li’s but too many Li’s definitely make it worse. With too many Li’s it leads to either too focused updates in a row on 1 or 2 Li’s or broad updates that offer too little content to be worth the wait which leads to players being turned away.
These aren’t the only problems but I think they’re probably the most prominent. But all these problems along with a few other things leads to new devs getting burntout and either abandoning their game or even worse prolonging their game with super small updates because they don’t want to disappoint, invested too much time, or are just being shitty and milking their supporters with empty promises and lackluster updates.
I’m not demanding new devs stop making too many Li’s. You probably have a bunch of ideas for different Li’s, you're thinking of so many possibilities. I’m just saying take a step back and think “Maybe this is too much.” If you really want multiple Li’s I think the golden range is 2-4, if you pick the maximum of 4 you have 5 total with the MC and have a good range of characters to do different stuff with. I even think having only 1 Li would be good too, honestly it’s more rare and unique than multiple Li’s at this point.
TLDR; For your first game if you have too many Li’s it might be fine but most likely you will burnout.
