How to add meaning to sexual content in adult games ?

[Donjoe81]

Well first, they are porn games and should be focused on Sex Scenes that are packaged within an interesting Story.
It´s basically like a porn movie, where you have a story that leads to sex.
I have never developed a game or wrote a book, but I would structure it like this....
What is the premise of the Story?
Develop Your Characters
What Genres/kinks fit the story?
How can I go from point a(story) to point b(sex scene) and let it make sense?
Flesh out your concept
I would look at movies/porn movies that I like and see what I can take from it.

I think the Story itself is not necessarily the most important part, but the lead up to the Sex Scene should make sense and the sex scene should look good and be animated.
Don´t make the story unnecessarily complicated, because you are not a movie writer.
The Game shouldn´t be too vanilla/based around the story with little to no sex scenes.
I see it a lot where the Dev lost his plot already after 5-10 minutes of the game and the story fizzles out and doesn´t make any sense, and, or you have already claimed all the girls, but have over 50% of the game left with no stakes.
The writing of the dialogues is probably the most difficult part, because it should fit the characters.
Don´t let people pressure you in to adding genres that don´t fit your story.
I would choose character models that haven´t been used so often that fit the character of your story.

 

[Lerd0]

Would you play f95 games together with your sister, brother, friends? Would you watch a movie you know has long explicit sex scenes together with your mom,dad?

 

[Nutluck]

My opinion and advice below, use them, ignore them as you feel.

Hello everyone,

I've been interested in story-focused porn games for a while as many of my favorites share many themes and values that resonate quite well with me, even inspiring me to start writing my own scenarios for my future porn games. However, I cannot go through many of these games without wondering for what reason do those games even have sexual elements in the first place. What justifies it ? Why did their authors choose to follow the way of adding porn scenes in their games while their stories very often could have stood on their own, and possibly given them better traction in getting funds to help them finish their projects (if that's their motive) ?

Honestly it is not a easy answer as it partial depends on the intent of the game. Is the game about a specific story? is it just a excuse to have sex images for the player to fap to? Is it more of a life sim? Why they have sex scenes and where they have them depend a lot on answers to questions like that.

I'm in the process of finishing a pitch for my first adult game, and I've already laid out the foundations for the setting, the hook, and the core gameplay, but it is hard for me to justify the presence of porn when some simple tweaks could have made the story work just as well. I can't help but keep asking myself what value does porn add to my game because, while some genres lend themselves quite well to the sexual connotation (like management games), some more action or story-focused games (like RPGs) very rarely have any in-game tie-in to the sex scenes in gameplay or in the context the story provides.

Again it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I mean people have sex in RL for a variety of reasons, love, lust, boredom etc. So the question is, if this was happening in RL does it make sense for sex to happen. Now take that with a grain of salt, if you are making a adult game then the rules of porn apply. Lets face it how often does the pizza delivery boy have sex when delivery a pizza in RL? It happens sure but almost never, in porn it happens more. So first thing you need to decided about your game is how realistic it is and how much does it follow the rules of porn? Most games fall somewhere between the two and only you can decided where that is.

So maybe some of you who have been playing or studying those games for a long period of time could help me in figuring out this issue. I personnaly am not one of those people who pretend the reason those games introduce these elements is because sex sells, but I am willing to hear an explanation as to what is it about porn that would attract people to projects that otherwise would not reach their attention ?

For me it is like this, does it fit the story you are making and make sense? For example nudity in R rated movies. If you have a reason for showing a girl take a shower, then just show her naked. If her taking the shower is important then just do it right and show her really taking one. Same with guys, take the latest Thor movie where Thor loses his clothes, was that needed? no was it amusing and fit the scene you could argue either way. Regardless though in my opinion if you are going to do it, then don't censor it and just show it. Same thing with games

hopefully you find this helpful

As a last bit of advice I could give, if you are unsure about stuff. Then before you dive in head first, maybe go find one of the community projects games and ask if you can help out for awhile and learn stuff. Then talk to the other working on the game, ask question, work directly with some of them creating content and learn first hand why.

I sorta did that, my journey to working on a adult game was this
I started playing table top games like DnD when young
I started to become the game master and run them, using published worlds and adventures
I start making my own world and adventures from scratch and as we got older we started adding NC17 rated stuff. No graphic sex but sex would happen in the game, nudity would happen(though it was all just talking so no images) etc
Next I started working on some mods for Skyrim, helping with some of the writing for them,
then I started working on adult skyrim mods and writing for some of them.
Next I started helping translations by machine to better English in GL.
Then I started helping someone on a project by having guidelines to work from
then I started making my own content

I also went and wrote for several other games as well to get a feel for how they did things differently. There is a number of games I have written a few scenes for out there.

And now I am here writing this. Journey complete... I guess.

 

[ZyanZedan]

Why must it have meaning ?

 

[Nutluck]

Why must it have meaning ?

That goes into what I was first talking about, the intent of the game. If the game is just a excuse for porn then it doesn't, but if the game is suppose to be something more than it does.

 

[asen-de]

I believe that every story in a sex game should have a strong sexual theme. If you want to make just a good story, then showing sex is often times completely displaced.

To explain:

Narrative driven porn games are a must. Monster Girl Quest is a great example. It is a great story on it's own but its theme is highly sexual, making the h-scenes in the game because if it's narrative even hotter, this is how you make good stories in a porn game! On the other hand, If your story generally does not have a sexual theme and you just add sex in there as a bonus, then you better just leave it out completely.