H-Games and Game Engines

[GreenGobbo]

It dawned on me recently that when it comes to normal (mainstream) games I don't really care too much about the engines used to make/play them just as long as the gameplay is fun. When it comes to adult games though, I definitely have favorites (mostly Ren'Py with a little HTML on the side) and that kinda got me wondering what other folks think about the matter.

So just out of stupid/idle curiosity, when playing an eroge, h-game, kinetic/visual novel, or other type of adults-only game do you have a favorite game-engine at all?
Or conversely is there a game engine out there that you absolutely hate? (Personally I won't touch anything if it's made with RPGM or WolfRPG.)
Or does it just not matter to you either way?

Pick a favorite or two in the poll up top and feel free to chat about the whys and why-nots down below.

(Sorry if I missed some btw, poll option only allows for a maximum of 10 answers.)

 

[F4C430]

Just needs to work on Linux, preferrably without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

 

[Ratrio]

As a player, Renpy and maybe Unity.
Renpy because it's built in features like rollback and quicksave/load, tons of save slots and only have to right mouse click to get to save.

Unity for games that aren't trying to be vn's just the few unity games I've played seem well done. If they're trying to be vn's though then Unity is really annoying because it's missing all the stuff I like about renpy.

RPGM is an engine that I typically dislike, it seems really slow and cumbersome by default in most of the games that I've played that use it.

 

[Jofur]

Overall I'll play anything that looks interesting enough no matter the engine. But I'm primarily a Unity dev myself so of course I'm a bit biased towards it.
I'm not big on RPGM games either. Mainly because playing anything that isn't just a basic FFIV clone is a pretty frustrating experience.

Renpy is always fine. Game quality varies astronomically of course due to the low barrier of entry, but few things beat the simplicity and familiarity of a well made Renpy game.

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

I prefer Renpy for visual novels (or visual novel adjacent) because I can mess with the game ridiculously easily. If it's anything else, renpy feels like pure garbage. In the case of anything else, I very much prefer Unity or Unreal.

Having said that, I think most game engines are fine if the game's creator knows what they're doing. For example, I'm certain rpgm or unity get a bad rep here because the creators don't know what to do with them.
Rpgm can do so much stuff well and for 99.9% of the games here it's used as a walking simulator and/or boring combat mechanics regurgitator. Same goes for Unity.

Lastly, and I mention it because it's just in the poll, Flash can go fuck itself.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Ren'py: Made for VNs, and generally used for such. 99% of the time there will be no worthwhile gameplay, so I'm not thrilled to see it.

RPGM: Easiest to have some basic gameplay systems. Can be used for anything from JRPGs to shooters to sandbox VNs. But anything Japanese on it is extremely likely to be rape-filled shovelware, and it also tends to be babby's first game engine for a lot of aspiring smut devs.

Wolf Engine: Seems exclusively used by Japanese devs, but considerably less so for shovelware. I've played some actually decent games on it.

Unity: Highly versatile, but not used that much for porn. Mostly action games and sims, but I've also seen VNs and JRPGs on it.

UE4: Very rare and usually doesn't run very well on my potato. Mostly action games and sims.

HTML/Twine: Open-world RPGs and strategy games, mostly. One of the best places to find decent gameplay and writing quality at the expense of graphics. Dev probably has a vision and exotic fetishes.

RAGS: Not sure what it's for, probably point&click adventures, but seems archaic and takes some hoop-jumping to get running. Haven't bothered.

Tyrano: Ghetto Ren'py?

 

[GreenGobbo]

RAGS: Not sure what it's for, probably point&click adventures, but seems archaic and takes some hoop-jumping to get running. Haven't bothered.

From what I've seen QSP and RAGS is, or rather were, used mostly for older games like "Son Of A Bitch" and "Unfaithful Rebirth". Basically open world sandboxes that are 90% text with an occasional picture shown of a location or character.
In my (limited) experience with games built in those engines they seemed to mostly revolve around excessive and extensive stat-grinding so you can slowly unlock sex scenes at a rate of about once every century or two.

Tyrano: Ghetto Ren'py?

 

[Back]

I prefer Ren'Py for my VNs as it's just very easy to use. Tyrano isn't nearly as well put together in my opinion. I also don't mind HTML/Twine as games developed in them tend to be text-heavy while also allowing for more interesting (gameplay) options over a typical VN. Those were my two allowable votes for the poll.

However, I want to mention two other systems -- RPGM and RAGS. In regards to the RPGM system (and I'll throw Wolf in the same pot), as long as it's not a boring walking simulator where events occur linearly and there is actual gameplay within a populated and open game world, then I don't mind. (Here's some standouts according to the metrics on the site.) Unfortunately, often times it feels like it's used as a vehicle to pad things instead when a VN would have sufficed.

In regards to RAGS, it is indeed antiquated -- much like Flash or QSP. Since many developers weren't using the full, paid-for version of the engine but a stripped down one, many of the games built on it were quite lackluster. Though there were some real gems to be found in there too. (The first that immediately comes to mind is MDQP's Tales of the Drunken Cowboy, an excellent action-packed space opera with a surprising amount of cerebral puzzles.) Many years ago, I didn't mind the engine at all having enjoyed several games that managed to utilize many of the tools and elements under the hood into their games. Nowadays, everything that RAGS could do, other engines can simply do it better. (Even the aforementioned TotDC was exported out into a web-based HTML game.) Other than revisiting some old RAGS classics that never made the transition to a better, more modern engine such as Twine, there really is no reason to go back to RAGS in my opinion.

Oh and one other thing, I do get wary of games that digs around the registry in order to place its saves. For example, this occurs in Unity-based games if the developer fails to put that into consideration and allows the game to root through a system's registry.

Welp, hopefully that was informative. Cheers all!

 

[GreenGobbo]

However, I want to mention two other systems -- RPGM and RAGS. In regards to the RPGM system (and I'll throw Wolf in the same pot), as long as it's not a boring walking simulator where events occur linearly and there is actual gameplay within a populated and open game world, then I don't mind. (Here's some standouts according to the metrics on the site.) Unfortunately, often times it feels like it's used as a vehicle to pad things instead when a VN would have sufficed.

Yeah, that kind of walking simulator stuff is one of the main reasons why I ignore anything made in RPGM and WolfRPG.
Most of them are just cheap "open world" games in the vein of old school Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games, where you trudge a pixelated MC across a cheap tile-set map to get from a to b.
Also find the controls and menus/interface for most of them to be really crappy.
So I just avoid anything in made in those engines like the plague.
I'm sure there's plenty of "good" or "great" games made with those engines, but since there's already so many options out there for games made with better/more user friendly interfaces an control schemes. Instant-pass.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

In regards to RAGS, it is indeed antiquated -- much like Flash or QSP. Since many developers weren't using the full, paid-for version of the engine but a stripped down one, many of the games built on it were quite lackluster. Though there were some real gems to be found in there too. (The first that immediately comes to mind is MDQP's Tales of the Drunken Cowboy, an excellent action-packed space opera with a surprising amount of cerebral puzzles.) Many years ago, I didn't mind the engine at all having enjoyed several games that managed to utilize many of the tools and elements under the hood into their games. Nowadays, everything that RAGS could do, other engines can simply do it better. (Even the aforementioned TotDC was exported out into a web-based HTML game.) Other than revisiting some old RAGS classics that never made the transition to a better, more modern engine such as Twine, there really is no reason to go back to RAGS in my opinion.

RAGS games on TFGS and Hypnopics Collective got me into adult games. Tales of the Drunken Cowboy is a classic. I don't think RAGS itself is bad, you could do a lot with it if you knew how, it's just that more accessible options like Ren'py and Twine came along. At the end of the day, engines are just tools and the quality of a game will always depend on devs using those tools competently. Ren'py is a great and pretty easy to use tool, yet most Ren'py games are still terrible.