Game Mechanics

[True Element Games]

What are some different things you've always wanted to see implemented?

 

[Houtamelo]

More "sort of" strategy games like https://f95zone.to/threads/attack-it-devil-legion-v1-21-poring.31182/

 

[DuniX]

Dungeon Keeper style Management. Especially with Trap Setting.
Basically a more complete and developed Dungeon Lord.

Brothel and Trainer Sims are already a staple and can be further developed. Especially since Bifrost have already shown how to get it right.
Softhouse Chara style games tend to have incredibly good mechanics.
Strategy Games like Venus Blood or Sengoku also work well, more captured heroines that are fucked, more units.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Dungeon Keeper style Management.

I could get behind this one.
We could go further and replace death-traps with sex-traps and torture devices with sex-torture devices, creating a sex-molestation/training dungeon. Mm~ that'd be so much fun.

 

[nulnil]

I've always thought style shooters like DOOM: Eternal and ULTRAKILL were good options for 3D real-time combat. You already have a system where you can easily add some kind of sex attack to the player's arsenal (and the enemies' as well).

 

[Crooked13th]

Brothel and Trainer Sims are already a staple and can be further developed.

How would you like to see brothel and trainer sims improved?

 

[ShinigamiSodomizer]

Not directly a game mechanic, more like a technical feature - but I've always found RenPy's save system annoying. I'd love an additional level so that in your Load Screen, you'd have "playthrough selection" (showing some dev-designated variable, likely the MC name) - this should per default show your most recent one - and then see all saves from that playthrough with much smaller images as a list, so you can have more on one page. Ideally, they'd even show as a tree (like in a GUI git client), so that you can see which saves are in order and which are in a fork from the playthrough (if you made a save, then went back to an older one).

 

[AdventAnyx]

Not directly a game mechanic, more like a technical feature - but I've always found RenPy's save system annoying.

This sounds cool and very useful. But have you ever seen this type of system in any non-porn game?
For now I'm simply using different pages (they usually come with 8-10 slots) to save different playthroughs (while playing)

 

[DuniX]

How would you like to see brothel and trainer sims improved?

The first thing they have to understand is the Depth of a Management Game is in Satisfying the Demands of the Customers.
The reason you Train your Girls and Upgrade your Brothel is precisely in Interacting and Manipulating the Customers and Satisfying them to get the Grand Bucks.
Bifrost does this exceptionally well since they show you the clientele beforehand so that you can plan and train for.
The problem with Brothel King is even if they have "Customers" they are generic, they are not individual with their own wants and traits and you cannot really plan for them and interact with them.
The Debt is also great because it forces you to actually Manage your business Efficiently. That's what the Challenge and Gameplay in a Management Game is to Micromanage and Optimize.

More fundamentally speaking for a Training Sim you want your Actions to have a Purpose. This is why Actions can have Tradeoffs and Costs in terms of Stamina, Sanity, etc.
Venus Blood Chimera is a good example of a pure Training Sim without a brothel.
Yakuza Boss Ririka also has good mechanics with the AV System where you need to train to particular skill thresholds and trait combinations for the scenes that increase in complexity. This could work well for a game like Porn Empire.

The Rising Costs and Pacing of the Progression is also important. You want to double your costs or even increases it by a magnitude(10x) for the next tier(upgrades,upkeep,debt,items,girl advancement), this will keep your Economy healthy and even keep the Challenge without a Debt by locking things behind this Tier Gates, this way no matter how efficient and optimized and exploitative the player becomes you can still keep up with them.
The point is to let the Player learn and play well and have fun doing it setting up insane combo multipliers and strategies and getting the Grand Bucks.
You don't want to be an Idle Game where you wait for the 10% improvement to pay off in X amount of time, let the player play actively setting things up and waiting for opportunities and adapting to the situation.
Racettear is also a good source of inspiration how to pace things and fun mechanics.

The other aspect of Brothel Sims and Slave Trainers is that of the Sandbox where you Freeform Customize and Tailor Your Girl for Your Tastes and Fetishes.
This can be another Mode you unlock after paying your Debt and are in the Late Game.
This is also what gives longevity and replayability with things like Image Packs for characters like you see in Brothel King.
There is still a case to be made for giving Purpose to your Actions and still maintaining the "Game" aspect here. You still want some long term goals you want to work towards and achive higher milestones.
Maybe TF Card Battle can also as inspiration to give you an idea for customization and replayability.

More specifically you want Your Girl you made by your own Tastes and Fetishes to be Acknowledged and have Value.
In order to do that you still need to be Evaluated and the Challenge maintained. You become the Customer, but AI Customers will also acknowledge what you Value. A relationship between brotherly gentlemen with high class.
A long term goal could be to manipulate and transform the Customers themselves to be more towards your Tastes by using your Girls and Backstage Politics to your Vision of the World. Something like Free Cities basically.

Another aspect is that of Breeding, where you do Customization on a more Genetic Level for the purpose of creating Ubermensch children.
Portals of Phereon is the best around this in that you customize units that are used for the Tactical RPG Combat.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Not directly a game mechanic, more like a technical feature - but I've always found RenPy's save system annoying. I'd love an additional level so that in your Load Screen, you'd have "playthrough selection" (showing some dev-designated variable, likely the MC name) - this should per default show your most recent one - and then see all saves from that playthrough with much smaller images as a list, so you can have more on one page.

This is already parts of Ren'Py save system. Not natively, but it's possible and relatively easy to do ; there's even some games that are doing it.

Ideally, they'd even show as a tree (like in a GUI git client), so that you can see which saves are in order and which are in a fork from the playthrough (if you made a save, then went back to an older one).

You have access to an infinite number of save pages, that you can natively name them all independently, and you've the date and hour when the save have been made. There's no need for a feature that even AAA games wouldn't care to implement.

 

[ShinigamiSodomizer]

You have access to an infinite number of save pages, that you can natively name them all independently, and you've the date and hour when the save have been made. There's no need for a feature that even AAA games wouldn't care to implement.

I think what 'need' there is is highly subjective - while not super important, it would definitely be useful for me, which is the prompt of the thread after all. Having to keep track of hundreds of flat save files just by naming is certainly not the same.

"AAA games don't do it" should imho never be an argument for anything - AAA games rarely innovate except when it comes to monetisation mechanics, and VNs come with their own unique requirements.

This is already parts of Ren'Py save system. Not natively, but it's possible and relatively easy to do ; there's even some games that are doing it.

Huh, wasn't aware of that. Could you point me to an example game? Would like to see that.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I think what 'need' there is is highly subjective,

It works both way.

and "AAA games don't do it" should never be an argument for anything

Good, because it's not an argument, just an observation.

- AAA games rarely innovate (except in monetisation mechanics),

Games, and AAA games, existed before the 10's you know ?
But anyway it wasn't a question of innovation, but something way more down-to-earth than this. AAA games cost tenth of millions, and if something can make them sell more units, the studios will implement it. If it's not in an AAA game, then it targets a too small minority.

It's really not super important, but it would definitely be useful for me (which is the thread prompt) and an improvement over having to name a complicated tree of saves;

And now I'm curious to know who need a "complicated tree of saves", especially with VNs. Games are supposed to be entertaining, not and administrative task.

and as a Python coder myself, it would probably even be kinda fun to implement.

Well, what are you waiting for ?
An universal mod that would implement this save tree is perfectly doable and it don't need to touch the core of the engine.
You just need

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to add the tree information to the save, and the couple

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and

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to the the information back.
Then of course you'll have to update the tree each time a save is made. Again not something too difficult to do.

Huh, wasn't aware of that. Could you point me to an example game? Would like to see that.

From memory, The Inn is one of them, but I don't guaranty it.

But anyway it will never match your expectation, because it will never give you more than a really raw overview of the game context for this save. Something that you can already know by looking at the name of the save page, and the date where the save slot have been updated.
What define the effective context isn't a bunch of values, but the sum of all the flags processed so far ; the "so far" being an important point, because those flags have to be seen in regard of the place where the save was made. It's doable this way, but no one will do it, because it's way too much works for so few effective interest.

 

[DuniX]

Games, and AAA games, existed before the 10's you know ?
But anyway it wasn't a question of innovation, but something way more down-to-earth than this. AAA games cost tenth of millions, and if something can make them sell more units, the studios will implement it. If it's not in an AAA game, then it targets a too small minority.

That's pretty much wrong.
The problem with AAA Studios is the problem of Design by Committee.
Very rarely do you have a Creative Director that has a clear Vision. The example of Anthem is a good demonstration of that.
This is also why Sequels are their bread and butter, they don't have to design it, they just have to iterate on it.
They may also have a Division that work on the Technology, Engine and Tooling, that is as far innovation as you are going to get in a AAA studio.

Even if you had a good Creative Director with a good vision for the project he is in charge of the broad strokes designs, things like QoL and smaller features and details are left to the Designer Grunts that are too busy with making the Content to worry about that.
It's precisely because projects have a cost of hundreds of millions that there are hundreds and thousands of people working on it so the creative decisions are more diffused and the hierarchy of responsibilities is more rigid.
You would need some savvy designers and programmers that go above their job and sneak in some stuff.
At best you would need to wait for a GDC presentation by which through Cultural Osmosis they might learn a lesson from time to time. That's as far as a "creative brain" AAA studios have.

The advantage of AAA studios has always been the Budget and the amount of Content. But that is all that is needed as Graphics Sells and Content that is Novel is Consumed.
A "lesson" that "adult developers" will be well to learn, it's not your domain to compete on the Graphics and Content.