For me, a true harem is:
- At least 4 girls
- All of the girls must know about the others, it's not necessary for them to be happy, but they are willing to accept and have foursomes under certain cirscumstances
- No drugs, mind control or anything weird, the girls have to willingly and consciously agree to it.
- Not necessary a exclusive relationship, one of the girls could be married and cheating with MC, but the more devoted they are to him the better
I'm making a game (check my signature) and I am going for harem because harem rules but also going for love. I don't want to spoil to much but the "basics" for the initial part of the game, for the family girls is "we both love each other as man and woman and as family, but we shouldn't so it would be ok for us to try to met others" and for the friends, one of them doesn't feel love for him and when she finds out she thinks it is arounsing, and the other friend is like "I love you but I also know she loves you too so I am ok with her".
I'm going for some cliches and I am fully aware of it and I don't really mind it because even if they are cliches, the cliches still works and people usually don't mind them neither, maybe them don't recognize them as cliches but they enjoy it anyway. As an "excerise" of this, anyone could watch this doujin:
You must be registered to see the links
Not necessary harem (probably orgy would be better) but it is a MASTERPIECE (in my opinion) when everyone fully knows about each other and all of they are happy with it, this doujin doesn't use any orginal idea tbh but fuck yeah if it works.
In my game, the only thing I couldn't figure out yet is how to make the teacher to willingly accept it, I already though about how to make her be okay with one other girl but not with all of them.
Another thing I think it helps to make a harem game "works" is that the girls will know about each other but they can't be fucking one day, and the other day she finds out about 4 more girls without any previous warnings or clues about it and suddenly be ok with it. In my opinion, if you make them gradually accept it feels more convincing (for a porn game of course).