Harem vs. "meaningful choices"; one playthrough vs multiple.

[Deleted member 1121028]

Before players conscencus, there also the untold story tho. Few devs are willing to sacrifice, let's say a third/quarter of their production, on the altar of "meaningful choices" (wasted art that the player will never see). Especially you're already fighting against the clock to pull a game. I think that the main reason.

And let's be honest, most "choices" are not really "meaningful" (a small variation/addition of X scenes, a slight rewritting of Y ones), few games take the bet to really change large portion of a game. Imo, Good Girl Gone Bad does "meaningful choices" really well (not judging art/story, just choices articulation), but those games are quite marginal.

For render-based games maybe we could see more of them, as new cards kinda hammered rendering time, dunno.

 

[79flavors]

Gotta agree with no__name... the difficulty with "meaningful choices" is the inevitable "side" content. As soon as a developer implements any systems which might be considered a "points" system... be it love_points, corruption_points, whatever - you're effectively created a "good route" and a "bad route" through your game. At the very least, you're likely gating off content that once a walkthrough gets written - a good portion of your players will never see.

Choosing to dedicate time (be it story writing time or rendering time) to that "other" choice is hard. Since most devs don't have it them to write equally compelling or rewarding story for the "side" routes.

A compromise that occurred to me when reading previous replies might be some sort of "hardcore mode". In normal mode, the player can reach a harem - but include or exclude partners as they see fit. If they want to end the game with nobody... that's fine. But in hardcore mode, a harem is impossible. Choices with a positive impact on one character, (sometimes) negatively affect others.

The negative points would only be taken off in hardcore mode. In normal mode, no points are deducted (at least for this reason). The negative points, in effect, stop the ability to have a harem.

Maybe the redhead and the blonde both work at the local coffee shop and gossip. Maybe four of the girls are all on the same cheer team and one of them just can't keep her latest sexual conquest to herself. Maybe being nice to one sister is the only way to earn points with the other. Maybe a story arc only become available to the love interest with the highest current points. To make it more challenging, perhaps you need to woo the librarian to make any progress with roommate or her arch enemy (who gets jealous, because of the time you spend with library girl). But that in turn locks you out of library girl's best friend.

It would be incredibly hard to balance - but if you could keep your sanity while writing hardcore mode, harem mode would be a breeze of just NOT penalizing the player for good choices with other potential harem members.

The code could be as simple as this:

define st = Character("Stacy")
define ly = Character("Lynne")

default st_points = 0
default ly_points = 0

default hardcore = 0

label start:

    scene black with fade

    menu:
        "Hardcore Mode : ON (A harem will be impossible)"
            "Hardcore mode activated. Choices matter A LOT. Be careful what you wish for."
            $ hardcore = 1

        "Hardcore Mode : OFF"
            $ hardcore = 0


# later

    menu:
        "Invite [ly] out on a date."
            $ ly_points += 1
            $ st_points -= hardcore

        "Invite [st] out on a date."
            $ st_points += 1
            $ ly_points -= (hardcore * 2)

Obviously... make decisions a little more complicated than that to keep your game interesting and challenging. Otherwise players will just pick a single girl and choices become banal. As I said earlier, cross-interactions (that perhaps only happen in hardcore mode) between potential love interests sounds like a viable solution to that problem.

To make things a little more reactive... the negative points choice could be a percentage of the overall points of the other girl. $ ly_points -= (1 + int(st_point * 0.20)) * hardcore. Where multiplying by hardcore values of 1 and 0 just result in the number always being zero in "normal mode".

Now you've got a game which satisfies both groups of players you're concerned about.

 

[Selek]

Great post, 79flavors ! Now that I think of it, we rarely see "difficulty levels" (or "hardcore mode," as you put it) in adult games. And your pseudo-code suggests one would really only have to make one game -- the player just bypasses some of it in hardcore mode. I'll think on it.

Incidentally, there's a certain irony to using the term "hardcore mode" for a porn game, lol.

 

[Spin256]

The game I’m working on uses a difficulty system (link to demo in sig if anyone interested). The difficulty level adjusts the amount of ‘love points’ you need with each character. The love system is a percentage system and on easy mode you don’t need to earn as many of the points available as you would in hard mode.

The girls will also be more forgiving in easy mode. For example, a girl might get jealous seeing you in public with another girl on hard mode. But in easy mode she might be less jealous, depending on your other actions.

After the start you have a choice of three locations. If you want to see all three you would have to play the game three times, and this style will continue through the game. Does that mean I’ve spent time writing and rendering content people won’t see? Perhaps, but that depends how people want to play the game.

This does mean players may perceive updates to have less content if they are only playing one path.

 

[MidnightArrow]

There's a manga I like called Gather, Mystery Research Club! by the guy who made Squid Girl. It's about an average Japanese dude named Daisuke who gets strongarmed into joining a club with three weird girls: a sullen and quiet occultist, a freakishly strong tsundere stage magician who wants Daisuke to be her victim assistant, and a mature hypnotist who loves teasing and tricking him into making a fool of himself. Every chapter is pretty much the same thing. it starts with them in their club, one of the girls does something weird with her hobby that causes trouble for Daisuke, and it ends with Daisuke being a champ who has chemistry with all of them but is also put off by their oddities and refuses to commit to any of them. However due to the nature of school clubs him and his harem all have to be in the same place at the same time.

One solution to your problem is to come up with an excuse why the whole harem is together all the time. They work in the same office and are gearing up for that big client project or something. An actual plot that's more than just finding harem-ettes to fuck. The story is exactly the same every playthrough but you get the opportunity for sexy situations where you make choices that decide your relationship values.

You're staying up all night to work but halfway through the woman with the giant boobs is flagging. Do you massage her or just get her an energy drink?

Even if you make a "bad" choice your whole harem still has a reason to be in the same room with you at all times. Then you just tweak the dialogue to reflect their current relationship stats and change the ending based on all of them.

 

[Benji13]

After I read all the comments, my first thought was: Don't forget, that you want to make a porn-game. Some have mentioned it and in a way me too. You don't want to create scenes players never will see and players don't want to miss content. I think that's how most people think about it. Someone mentioned Detroid: Becoming Humans. I didn't play it (yet), but saw reviews of it and played similar games from the same studio (Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain) and other games (Until Dawn, Men of Merida,...). Great games. With really big differences depending on your decissions. But I played every on of this games just once. Why? Because the Story is told. Maybe I didn't get the "good ending" (what often just means that all the protas survived), but that's ok. I don't want to play everything again and again to really see everything. That's ok because it's a story game. But you want to make a porn game. I come her and play the games mainly for the porn. I prefer games with a good story, but the main focus is at the end: the porn. And in that point I don't want to miss even one picture with the girl I like. Just look at the comments under games with many "meaningful choices". half of them hate it, half of them like it, but everyone asks for walkthrough mod that erades the "meaningful choices" and gives you what you want: fun with the girls (or males, if that's what you want). You can make choices for if you want to see this special kink or not or choices that differs the story a bit, but please don't hide the good (nude) stuff