Harem games: How many girls are too many girls?

[Diconica]

If you play harem games like I do, you probably noticed that you can find three types of games:

1) Those games with 40 girls where you have like two H-scene with each girl at most and not so much story development.
2) Those games with 4-5 girls at most, when you know every single detail of her and you already did every pose in the Kamasutra with each girl. Twice.
3) Those games in the middle.

Thing is, some player wants "more harem" than those 4-5 girls and some player wants less girls and spend more time with each girl. The option 1) works better for those game going for the quick fap and the option 2) works better for games who tries to develop a story and characters.

So the question is, having in mind both things and trying to make a balance, how many girls do you think are the right amount of girls for a harem game?

The truth is there is no reason you can't have both.
I'm going to use Skyrim as an example then something I'm working on.
Skyrim is a game with a lot of expand-ability.
You can add in new stories, new characters, you can change the bodies, add in new animations, and more.
Frankly, there is next to nothing from stopping you from creating an entirely different game with it if you chose to do the work.
You could change all the assets even land and make the game in a modern city. Change all the clothing and so on.
There isn't much preventing you from creating 1,2,3,5,10,20,40, or 100 girls with high amounts of detail to their stories.
There isn't even an issue in being able to tie the women together in a harem and have them act like they know each other and so on.

The problem comes down to the amount of time it takes to do that. So when you create a game with 5 characters you have more time to spend working on each individual character and then their interactions and connections in the story.

character personality and relation engine:
So you have your base AI it creates a database of relationships between people the person has met in their life time.
It simply tracks various levels regarding the relationship. Such as how the person feels toward the other person.
Based on that it adjust the levels by which it interacts with the person in that relationship.
You then have a set of modifiable and expandable routines. Maybe, the person isn't liked very much so the girl always find some way to berate the person or cause them problems when they see one another. It would be easy to create enough variety in it that it wouldn't repeat in the game but would still fall in nature. But maybe you want it to repeat because that's the way the person is or the relationship works. You know like the person who always calls another person by a name they don't like because they know it gets under their skin.

Anyway by having such a system you can then focus on the primary story interactions and not have to deal with any of that filler. That filler is just one thing that eats a lot of development time.

It also allows you to add girls in the way you would simply add expansions to a game. You can focus on writing a plot around them and the primary interactions.

This means the guy who wants only a few girls could have those in the game and no suffer a loss of detail and involvement with them and the guy who wants a lot of girls also can get what he wants.

 

[WIRProductions]

As long as they are fleshed out, keep adding more. It all really depends on the purpose of the story. As long as it makes sense the harem keeps growing, the more the merrier.

 

[chainedpanda]

I don't think that's honestly an easy question. There are a lot of variables.
That said, I think 5-7 is the perfect sweet spot but pushing towards 10 seems doable. Anymore than that is overkill.

However that said, the type of game also matters. A MC teacher and his students harem game can and likely should have more than 5-7 while a typical incest harem likely shouldn't have more than 10.

There is also the issue with "which characters are technically apart of your harem"? As there is nothing wrong with introducing a few side characters into the story for the player to play around with that aren't technically members of the harem no? Rather they appear once or a recurring character that can be used to help flesh out actual harem members stories or to fluff out or slow the stories momentum.

So, it may not be surprising for a harem game with 5/7 girls to have the MC bang 20 different girls.

 

[Angelray]

Having seen and played a lot of my new family, i'd say that a 10 is a limit above which it becomes often repetitive for me. Once in a lifetime had 7 girls and still was very fun. I expect the headmaster to have more, but the "groups" of girls mean that 10 from one group is likely to be a max. Those two are good examples of harem game in my opinion.

edit: as other said, the characterization of the girls, their visual diversity is very important. Repetitiveness and redundancy (visual) is boring imo. EG one pair of twins is good. 5 is boring.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

Eight or more is too many. I've played games where the girl count just spirals out of control and games where there were between five and seven girls but had beautiful scene work.

Games where they just keep throwing Funbags Magee at you get boring quickly because you'll eventually realise that Funbags Magee is identical to Funbags Magee #26.

 

[Carrera]

Anyone who's dated REAL women knows that you really don't want more than one, to much drama, don't get me started on the infighting.

For a game, 5. One for each day of the week and none for the weekend so I can relax and have some me time.

IRL, 1, but only for a few hours a day. To much drama, to many games and after my last relationship I think I've been permanently turned straight because I'm finding myself attracted to more than just my male BFF. I'm starting to notice other men, I'm also starting to enjoy the lack of drama and straight forwardness of it as well.

 

[mgtoons]

I think about 10 is the perfect number. Just make sure you can go in some real depth in at least 6 of them.

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

What? Next you'll say there is such a thing as too much Dakka.

That's like sayin' you can ever 'ave enuf teef!

 

[Sieglinnde]

I never really liked Harem games... But it was always hard for me to think of one that would work. I mean, how can you make many girls with different personalities that represent each one of them without falling into a stereotype? It is quite complicated, as far as I know, so that one does not become the copy of another

 

[JoleenStar]

If I start to forget who is who, then it's bad. I think realistically a MC could handle five relationships at once with no one being ignored. But when we go past that, it kinda gets weird lol

 

[grohotor]

if they cant all fit on a bed its too many. so id say 2-4 LI tops. better to condense similar characters into one stronger character and have them share meaningful interactions between each other. You don't need to put all body types, ages and every single character idea you have into a single game.

 

[VortexProtag]

I don't think there's every too many! But I do prefer when in games that have 40+ girls there are at least 3 or 4 that have a lot more content than the rest.