Ren'Py How important is the environmental details in an AVG to you?

[Tauro Thurius]

Hello!

Throughout the years I played hundreds of adult video games and realized the environmental details in the title I'm playing is very important to me for an immersive experience. I love it when the story takes place in a beautiful city, the U.S. style suburbs, a small beach town etc.

I love the idea of exploring that beautiful town, sightseeing while playing an adult themed video game. I hope to see more titles with such details. What do you guys think about this?

 

[EvolutionKills]

Yes, but that's because good storytelling rich in details is appealing to me, not that a story happens to take place in a particularly scenic location. Now & Then takes place among the collapsing urban infrastructure of a world succumbing to a global pandemic. It is not a setting I would categorize as beautiful by any means. But Kinderfelds' writing is so rich in detail that it paints a vibrant picture as needed to establish various scenes, characters, and their emotional state of mind. The narrative itself just wouldn't be half as interesting if you ripped out all of the ancillary details.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

I don't like the binary yes/no but I'll have to say not very important. It's one of the things that are nice to have, like good audio. But the gameplay and the writing are by far more important than how the scenery looks.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I love it when the story takes place in a beautiful city, the U.S. style suburbs, a small beach town etc.

How is this "environmental details" ?

The details are precisely what differentiate a good environment from the basic, and so generic, examples you gave.
Shattered, by example, have a relatively dull and decrepit, when not trashy, environment, and just this is already enough to place the game above the average. Precisely because this environment, that apparently you wouldn't like, match the story.
But a beautiful city, or an suburbs (especially an US style one), are way too generic. If it match the story, then the story too would be generic. Probably yet another story about some MC going to college, or who just graduated, who will finally lost his virginity through the building of an incestuous harem. At least it's what I would expect to see with such environment.

Too clean, too beautiful, is also too unrealistic. It have that US sitcom feeling, with the protagonists struggling in life, yet living in a place that would cost them twice their monthly earnings.
So, yeah, it's probably pleasant to see, but it would also kill my mood, because totally not coherent with the story or, as I said, coherent with a totally basic and generic, and therefore boring, story.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

If one is truly serious about this whole game making thing, then every little detail is important. It all adds up.
Particularly to immersion which is extremely important if you want the player to feel like they're there, an adventurer in the world you have created.

 

[Tauro Thurius]

How is this "environmental details" ?

The details are precisely what differentiate a good environment from the basic, and so generic, examples you gave.
Shattered, by example, have a relatively dull and decrepit, when not trashy, environment, and just this is already enough to place the game above the average. Precisely because this environment, that apparently you wouldn't like, match the story.
But a beautiful city, or an suburbs (especially an US style one), are way too generic. If it match the story, then the story too would be generic. Probably yet another story about some MC going to college, or who just graduated, who will finally lost his virginity through the building of an incestuous harem. At least it's what I would expect to see with such environment.

Too clean, too beautiful, is also too unrealistic. It have that US sitcom feeling, with the protagonists struggling in life, yet living in a place that would cost them twice their monthly earnings.
So, yeah, it's probably pleasant to see, but it would also kill my mood, because totally not coherent with the story or, as I said, coherent with a totally basic and generic, and therefore boring, story.

What I mean is more work's put in the little details when it comes to environmental designs. You can place pre-made asset and be done with it or you could spend some time to make it more real and pleasant. I understand that the plot of the game has an effect on the setting.

Good renders of LI's are very important, but you have to place them into a detailed environment in order to achieve an immersive experience.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

For me, environmental details are part of the story and emotions that are to be conveyed. They can tell the player (at least) something about
(a) the world, the protagonists live in
(b) protagonists themselves
I enjoy it very much, when the environment fits the story and adds something to it. But If environment elements are used arbitrarily or even totally contradict protagonist characteristics or the story that is to be told or the emotions that are to be conveyed, it's better to keep it more simple. For some environments, many items could also be too much. As also the lack of items can be a story telling device e.g. to show that an environment looks sterile or to convey loneliness.

While I would enjoy more games with fitting, detailed environments, I also know, that it is a hell of work to create them and probably would lead to vast time extensions in development processes, that already take quite long. For me it is more important:

• that a developer can create an interesting story with interesting characters,
• that the characters look at least decent
• and especially in VNs are positioned and transitioned under consideration of aesthetic and visual storytelling aspects
• and mimics and gestics of the characters are used to convey story and emotions, rather than words.

Many things can already be conveyed with rather sparse use of environment details. Adding a high detail level to environment can be nice, but is not necessary and has to be really well considered, as it can also destroy atmosphere.

 

[Hagatagar]

Apart from the typical uber-perfect female character models who look like made with an instagram-filter, the cookie cutter rooms and houses, taken right from a furniture shopping catalogue are what always stick out to me like a sore thumb.

Sure they have "details" but they nearly always lack any sort of personalization.
Character is young? Let's use this generic gamer-bedroom that looks like the owner spend thousends of [insert your currency] in its setup without even being a gamer or anime/pop-culture fan. Oh shit, the dev forgot to remove the pre placed high-end streaming gear from the desk, guess your LI is a cam-girl then, upsies!
And the rest of the house? Don't touch anything, don't move anything, don't leave anything lying around, the real estate agent could come by at any moment. And don't you dare to replace any of the sample pictures of the picture frames that came with the product!

Of course it's a bunch of extra work to personalize a room for a character but that's the point. A character is more than just the visuals of its model, gestures or speech patterns, they also impact their enviroment, the place they live in. Their living space should at least look better than a typical porn shoot with their rented pre-decorated rooms.

Too clean, too beautiful, is also too unrealistic. It have that US sitcom feeling, with the protagonists struggling in life, yet living in a place that would cost them twice their monthly earnings.

Even sitcoms put more effort into decorating their environment. Their houses often have much more personality, because there are usually little things lying around everywhere that at least give a lived-in feeling and have stuff that match their inhabitants.

 

[khumak]

For me the setting is really just window dressing. If it's good, it enhances the game, but what I care about is the story and the characters.

 

[anne O'nymous]

You can place pre-made asset and be done with it or you could spend some time to make it more real and pleasant.

I get what you say, but disagree with this being "a detail". Of course, it's not obvious when looking at the average game on the adult gaming scene, but doing this is the base.

Take "Ashley Boutique" by example, that is probably the most used clothing store. It don't need advanced knowledge, nor really more than a hour, two if you want to fully rearrange it, to turn it into something more personal.
It come with an empty version where you place the mannequins and clothes. Changing the name of the store take 2 minutes to make a beautiful "My store" image with transparency into Gimp and use it in place of the current texture for the shop window. While changing the color of the walls don't really need more time.
It would still be the same assets, and it would probably looks a bit familiar, but in the same time it would have that unique touch you're asking for.
But yeah, I agree that too many devs don't do this... And the worse is that it make players think that they are all as lazy. Then, when a dev need one week more, because (s)he struggle to make some assets looks the way (s)he want, not only near to no one will notice the efforts, but (s)he'll also be called "milker".


But, once again, this isn't a detail, it's the base.
It's the first thing that a dev (or his/her artist) should do, taking ownership, figuratively speaking, of the assets. Looking what can be removed or even just moved, sometimes mixing two assets, using the shelf from one in the walls of the other by example, and so on. Not that it need to be done with every single assets, some are perfect as it, but it's the assets that should adjust to the story, not the opposite.
I mean, how many fucking games have the cash register show a sum that isn't what the seller is saying ? And how many clocks display the same hour whatever the scene ? How changing this can not be the base ? At worse you don't know how to do the exact same display, then just use a full black texture and make someone tell that it's broken, it will looks less stupid.


Edit:

Sure they have "details" but they nearly always lack any sort of personalization.

It's Daz Studio simplicity, and large assets catalogue, counter part.
Assets are good right from the starts, and once you placed your characters and posed them, you can click on "render" to get something good enough... So, people don't really looks further, and miss the whole power behind.

All this being coupled with...

Character is young? Let's use this generic gamer-bedroom that looks like the owner spend thousends of [insert your currency] in its setup without even being a gamer or anime/pop-culture fan.

A total lack of imagination.
If dev can't achieve to give a personality to his characters, why would he achieve to give one to the place he live ?
They browse Daz ship, use "girl room" as criteria, and will use the one that they love the most, period.

And the rest of the house? Don't touch anything, don't move anything, don't leave anything lying around, the real estate agent could come by at any moment.

To be fair, this isn't something easy to do. There's tons of clutter assets, but to turn a room into a living place need to use a tenth of them, hoping that they'll more or less marry harmoniously. But sometimes it don't need much. Luna's room in The DeLuca Family just need need few guns on a table to take life.

And don't you dare to replace any of the sample pictures of the picture frames that came with the product!

While this is probably the easiest element to tweak. Click on the surface, go to the surface panel, look at the file used as base color (it's generally where you'll find the main texture), then open it in Gimp/Photoshop/whatever, and replace the picture. Yet this is only when the picture don't have its own personal texture, what is even easier to change...



And... grumpy me is back, I'm sure you all missed him.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

I love the idea of exploring that beautiful town, sightseeing while playing an adult themed video game. I hope to see more titles with such details. What do you guys think about this?

Exploration doesn't work for me in certain genres, where the player has no control of the character's movement. VNs are out, Daz VNs doubly out. Unless I can interact with a somewhat random object/NPC —and I can't in a VN— it's not exploration. Exploration is not sightseeing.

VNs aside, yes, there is some importance to putting care into the environment, but the amount of locations is not important. Basically, the locations need to have some details that make them feel lived in. If there's a mechanical element involved, that raises the bar since it's now level design. Level design should have serious thought put into it. But ultimately, an adult game can take place in a single room/map, and still work.

Ultimately the exploration aspect is not important in an adult game. And I love exploration in games, it's just that adult games are not on the level to make it work. Given limited resources, I prefer devs focusing on the characters, mechanics (if any), story, and porn.

 

[qwoppe]

The principles of photography apply to any visual medium that makes use of any form of appeal, and things you jack off to are certainly within that category.