I think some designers are missing the point of making an erotic game

[Memorin]

There are in general several kinds of ways you can build an erotic game.

1. Strong theme and minor erotic content. The focus is generally on story or gameplay while the erotic content is just icing on the cake. The main theme is generally non-erotic. A visual novel example I can bring up is Muv Luv Alternative (strong story).
2. Balanced theme and balanced erotic content. The game tries to balance between story, gameplay, and erotic content. The theme is at least semi-erotic. An example of that is Long Live The Princess.
3. Minor theme and strong erotic content. The focus is generally on the erotic content, with minimal story or gameplay. The theme is strongly erotic. Some examples are strip poker/mahjong games, match 3 games and the like.

If your goal is to enjoy erotic content, you should find games of type 3. They have almost no story, they have extremely familiar or simple gameplay, and the you get to ogle at NSFW things almost every few minutes.

But I get that you - and indeed, most of the user here, I dare say - are looking for light type 2 content. And not just any light type 2 content, but Western light type 2 content, or you could've just downloaded a translated Japanese erotic game. That is where I have to disappoint you. The Western erotic game development scene are in general, inferior to the Japanese erotic game development scene. It's not just a difference in culture, but also in experience. There, making erotic games is a legitimate business. Elsewhere, it's a risk that might land you in trouble. Just months ago Patreon banned a specific range of sexual fetishes that in turn, destroyed games that might have had great potential and quality. So I think it's somewhat forgivable that the budding developers of an immature industry that's also under constant assault to produce less-than-ideal erotic games.

 

[anne O'nymous]

What constitutes a game can be quite varied. Especially on here, where many items are visual novels and not games in a more traditional sense. However, throwing a mini-game into a VN doesn't magically transform it into more of a game.

I have mixed feelings with all your positions on the subject. They are both mostly true and globally wrong. Take this by example, my first intention is to answer something like: it's a good news that there isn't VN with mini-games.
But in the same time, what constitutes a VN ? Basically speaking, a Choose Your Own Adventure is a novel, and interactive novel. And so, what about their numerical versions ? Are they VN, or are they games ?
Therefore, you're right, adding a mini-game to your creation isn't enough to transform it into a game if it wasn't one at first. But you're also wrong, because your comment imply that there's VN with mini-games, which is wrong. This both for Ren'py games available here, even with a definition of VN including "almost interactive stories", and for RPG Maker games which, even when they are limited to walk simulator, tend more on the game side than on the VN one.

Obviously it doesn't or I wouldn't be here. It's a bit reductionist and I feel like you've missed my larger point.

Like you seem to have missed mine.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you only read my first post and not the rest of the thread. What I'm advocating is that designers not put pointless time wasting elements in these games or VN or whatever you want to call them.

Yet the right/wrong thing... Yes, Authors shouldn't put pointless time wasting parts, but what's a pointless time wasting parts ? To stay on your first comment (for better understanding), you toke the last ICSTOR game as example, using the dad/money thing as proof of your point. But you're wrong, because the problem here isn't at all this part. Yes, you'll need to repeat it a lot of times to reach your goal, but it's not a pointless part, since it will help you advance, neither a time wasting one, because it take you less than 30 seconds. The problem here is the lack of possible occupation during the days needed to reach the right amount of money.
A game isn't bad because it have a pointless time wasting parts, but because it have empty days ; which isn't totally true for ICSTOR game, since you can find things to do, but not necessarily interesting ones. It's not a problem of content, it's a problem of balancing. But here it's more a natural limit than anything else. To have a good balancing, you need to have side content. Take

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by example. While the main stories advance slowly, you have three side stories for free ; three girls you don't need to seduce/corrupt.

But this kind of balancing isn't always a possibility. Firstly because it can goes against the story. In

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, the MC is a woman (re)discovering her sexuality through her children. She can't give up to lust else the story lose all its meaning ; if she can fuck with anyone, she don't need her children to be remembered that she's also a woman.
Secondly because it can mean more characters than possible. In

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, you survive a plane crash and end alone with your daughter on an island in the middle of nowhere. Unless you're into fish, there's no possibilities.
Thirdly because the size isn't unlimited.

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, that you took as example, use 2.3 Go once archived, and it's still just the version 0.3. If the author don't change the way he deal with CG and the format he use, it will reach 20Go before the end of the story. And an out of control growing size is what you get if you start to include too much side content and/or variations for the repetitive scenes.
There's few games which achieve to conciliate all this and reach a good balancing, it need to make compromise and, because of them, being disliked by a part of the public. So, like they'll be disliked anyway, authors made their choice

Maybe you are right, maybe I am way outside the target audience for this one. I don't find the concept of playing a good wife to be particularly engaging.

I'm not right just for this one (A Wife and Mother), I'm right for all the "slow burn" games. Most of them will end where, for you, they should have started, and that not a problem because it's the purpose of the game. Take

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by example. With each update you found at least one guy saying, "is it finally for this time, will MC bang his daughter ?". And the same probably happen for any games like this. What they fail to understand is that, mostly, the day they wait so impatiently mark the end of the game. Once he's not just dating his daughter, the game lost his meaning.
Well, for DmD there's potential for a few more, but globally speaking it's still true. I talked about Sisterly Lust. The day the MC will fuck with his three sisters and his mother, the only thing left is to make them accept to be part of his harem. All these games repose on the antici... pation. Once what's expected happen, the game is emptied of all its substance and must end. That's why DmD have potential for a few more content, because it grown more than a single anticipation, but still it will end when the moment the last one will die.

So, obviously, they're not games for you, because you clearly aren't appealed by the anticipation, you want something right now. Whatever if this "something" is still small at start, as long as it's present almost since the start of the game.
That was the purpose behind my, perhaps a little harsh, "they target your brain, not your hand".

I have seen games where, like you say, you can get all the way through without any erotic content. At that point, I have to ask why? [...] I just don't see the point of playing an erotic game that isn't erotic. It's like playing a fighting game as a pacifist or a dating sim as a loner.

Why ? Because it's a game before being a game for adults.
Playing a fighting game as a pacifist is one of the best possible pleasure you can get with these games and generally one of the hardest path. As for the point, its to the beat the game. Everything is designed to make you kill, and still you achieved to reach the end without doing it a single time. One of my best memories in more than 30 years of gaming, is my no kill play on Dishonored.
And the same apply for adult games. All the game is designed to make you give up to temptation, and still you end it virgin. You did it, you don't just finished the game, you beat it.

I guess my assumption (perhaps incorrect?) is that these games should all be erotic in some form or another.

The incorrectness is on your definition of "erotic". You seem to limit your definition of eroticism at softcore porn, when it's way more than this and start way before this.
All of the games (at least after their version 0.2/0.3) have erotic content. In A Wife and Mother, which have nothing erotic according to your previous saying, the moment she ask her son to help her fix her bra is, both in the dialog and in the CG, fully erotic. In fact it's one of the most erotic scene you can actually find.
What a lot of games miss, mostly because they are at early stage, is porn content. Well, let's compromise here, they miss explicit erotic contents if you want, but they clearly don't miss erotic content. This whatever it's subjective eroticism, like the one I talked above, casual eroticism or regular eroticism.
But once again, eroticism is a question of anticipation. It's a matter of "what will happen next" or, in the particular case of games, "what would happen if", which is also a "what would happen next time". This while what you want is more what follow these questions.

Again, the main issue I am concerned with is wasting the player's time. Erotic content aside, imagine you were reading an ebook and halfway through you had to play what amounts to a shitty mobile game to be able to read any more of the book. Now if you knew this going in, or perhaps if the game tied directly into the story you might accept it. But if it just shows up and makes you spend 30min not reading the book you want to read, is it a valuable addition?

It depend of the said game and on what I expected about the book. But the question is not here.
Let's say that I disliked it. I was fooled once, twice, then fooled so many times that I can't take it any more and need to complain about this... and still I continued all this time to try to read books like this, wasting 30 minutes of my life because of a mini-game, when 10 minutes reading the comments about this book would have been enough to know that I will dislike it...
So, the question is more, why am I still trying to read books like this ? Or even, why am I still trying to read e-books when there's real books ?

You can look at the rating and the tags, you can read the reviews and comments on the thread. And if you fear to be hooked by the story, then see your time wasted because a wild mini-game will appear in a future update, you can stick to completed games, there's plenty of them here. Hey, you can even goes on the mod section, find the right sticked thread, and ask for a mod which make the mini-games disappear ; but this one is without guaranties of success.

 

[BannedAccount6543]

Whilst I agree more with GuyFreely than anne O'nymous I can see each one’s POV. The question boils down to What does one expect from a porngame? And that is totally up to the player. As to fapping to a VN it does happen :firstimekiss:because the combined CG and text stimulate the brain to the extent that no other mental stimulii is required for an orgasm. No video porn provides that kind of stimulus. I also believe that different genders and sexual inclination will affect one’s expectations. You both have valid points and you are both right for certain sections of the porngaming world.

 

[DarthSeduction]

So NewLife. That one has a weekly schedule and you (the player) only interact during events and to set up the schedule for the week. As for the OP, I mostly agree with you. There really is too much grind in a lot of these games. Granted, it could be worse. It could be something like game-over rape (GOR) which is antithetical to what a video game player wants; a person playing a game wants to win the game, while a person playing a porn game wants to see the scenes which can only be done by losing.

On the opposite spectrum we have things like Kamidori which seems like the porn gets in the way of the gameplay. Hell, there's not really any scenes for the first few hours or so (up to ten for some players) and after that the porn doesn't stop.

So, first off... no, not new life. I meant it when I said more like the timeline in a harry potter novel or movie. There's absolutely no reason we should be following our MC on a day by day fashion. I think that it would be absolutely ok, even great, if sometimes weeks pass between one update from a game and the next, if nothing of value would have happened in the intervening weeks. We need to step away from the "I only have the summer" type of games that are counting down the days till the game ends, and move toward games with a defined narrative. Most stories, especially those involving taboo concepts like incest, or corruption happen too fast. Too much is crammed into a few days. DmD, while it gave good reasons for it, crammed so many things into 14 days, that it had to keep inventing reasons that the MC didn't have to return to work. These time constraints harm writers abilities to write a story that is grounded, no matter how fantastical, while also harming pacing.

Spoiler: Too much to say about how the day to day affects pacing and boxes in narrative

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I also wanted to talk a bit on grind. Grind, as I've also stated, is what happens when you can't think of a good reason for the characters in your game to want to fuck one another. There are other grind elements, like money, which are often used as a hurdle to pad game time, which generally should be avoided, but for the most part when someone complains about grind it's about the repeated events, the timed delay between them, the randomization, and the fact that for the most part, it makes the character who you're grinding to get content with a passive character. There's a rule in writing that states, in a general sense, that all your characters should be reflections of the central conflict for the MC. For instance, if your MCs goal is to discover who they really are and change for the better, then each of the characters around him should reflect some aspect of that.

Spoiler: Too much to say about eliminating grind through characters who are designed to support the narative

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[GuyFreely]

@anne O'nymous I'm not going to pull in all the quotes, I'll just try to cover the bases. First of all, you seem perfectly happy to tell me what I want and what I enjoy meanwhile in your first post you took offense thinking I was speaking for you. So it's a bit hypocritical. Maybe we can just discuss the topic without making it personal?

I didn't follow your logic on the VN with mini-games section. I guess in general, I'm not that worried about labels. I don't want to play a mini-game unless it is particularly fun (subjective) or tied directly to the plot or erotic content. This extends to almost any element, mini-game or not. One decent enough example is Daughter for Desert where you go to an arcade and have to beat an old school game to win a bet. I still didn't enjoy the mini-game that much, but it was tied well into the story, so I rolled with it.

To be clear, a mini-game that earns X to get Y to move on to something is not, IN MY OPINION, strongly tied to the story. It's a speedbump, a time sink. It simply slows you down before letting you continue. Presupposing that most mini-games are not particularly fun (from experience), I have suggested ways to at least make them erotic since it's an erotic game. You could, however, make them story driven as well.

Let's take the hidden object mini-game as an example. In Milfy City, you clean your mother's office, you look at a screen and find pieces of trash. While it is thematic it is not story driven (or fun or erotic). Let's take the exact same mini-game, but now one piece of trash is a crumpled note. When you pick up the crumpled note, you read it and find out that someone has arranged a meeting in the maintenance closet. This then let's you go to the closet at the scheduled time and find out your mom's boss is banging his secretary. Boom, now the mini-game is story relevant and possibly erotic.

How about a purely story-driven non-erotic mini game? Let's say you have to take deliveries to various addresses on a map (not uncommon). What if you go to the Smith's house, but Mr. Green answers the door. That's odd, Mr. Green is at the Smith's house in the middle of the day while Mr. Smith is at work. Maybe something is going on here. How about you go to deliver a package at the Jones residence and the daughter answers the door. The mother asks who it is and the daughter replies "Oh just <player> from school!" then takes you aside. She makes you promise to forget about the delivery, maybe she can make it worth your while. Hmm what's in that package, why is it a secret?

IMO, if your mini-game doesn't serve a purpose beyond taking up the player's time, you can just skip it. -Click- You spend time cleaning your mother's office. Next scene, move on.

As far as non-erotic plays of an erotic game, let me be clear. I don't care if there is an OPTION to do a no lewd play of a game. Knock yourself out. I don't think I'd personally bother with it, but it doesn't matter. I guess the only concern I would have is if the non-erotic options take away from the development of the erotic options. So many games are half-baked as it is and to spend too much time on an option that seems to be for a minority, could be counterproductive. However, if a game doesn't contain anything erotic, is it an erotic game? As you point out, I guess it depends on your definition of erotic. The son helping with the dress from WAM as you referenced. I would call it intimate, sensual, evocative maybe, but it falls short of what I'd consider erotic. If the son began to caress the mother, you start dipping your toes into eroticism. I will accept that my definition of erotic is not the only definition, but that's how I feel about it.

Again, my main concern with WAM is the pure amount of time spent on intervening scenes where people are just talking or walking about. Not that I think those scenes should be taken out, just that there are 100s of renders of ordinary scenes, which I know takes a great deal of time. As you say, that game at it's current rate will be one of the biggest file sizes of any adult game when it's done (if it gets done). I would rather fewer rendered ordinary scenes and more story progression. I fully expect that one to have more erotic content as it moves on, though I may be wrong.

I feel like I understand the eroticism behind sexual tension and anticipation. I even enjoy the build up, but I still want the main event. I realize this is an inherent problem with so many games mid-development that a lot of them haven't progressed that far. Also, I like there to be a few minor events along the way. I have a certain tolerance for the anticipation phase and I think it's a difficult thing to balance some times. Maybe my tolerance is lower than others and that's my own fault. On the flip side, if some incest game starts out with the mother sneaking into the son's room and riding him I'd be a disappointed with the lack of build up. Again, there's a balance to be struck. Some games avoid this with fantasizing or dream sequences, which I think are fully valid if you want to deliver quickly. Some people might not like this method or see it as cheap, but that's a personal preference I think.

It seems like your general advice is don't play games with mini-games I don't like. While that would be one approach to it, my point is don't make games with mini-games players don't like. There are a lot of games that I enjoy that include these time wasting elements. I would enjoy them more if they would just cut them out. I don't see anyone making an argument for wasting players' time. So can we try to stop doing it? As a community, we can do better. That's what I'm hoping.

 

[anne O'nymous]

First of all, you seem perfectly happy to tell me what I want and what I enjoy meanwhile in your first post you took offense thinking I was speaking for you. So it's a bit hypocritical.

Happy ? What happiness have to do here ? :/
Now, what can I say ? Firstly you blamed me because you thought that I didn't read your other comments, then you blame me because I, really few times in regard of the whole text, summarized what you previously said. Well, why not. It will make answering really easier...

It seems like your general advice is don't play games with mini-games I don't like. While that would be one approach to it, my point is don't make games with mini-games players don't like. There are a lot of games that I enjoy that include these time wasting elements. I would enjoy them more if they would just cut them out. I don't see anyone making an argument for wasting players' time. So can we try to stop doing it? As a community, we can do better. That's what I'm hoping.

So, over the option which imply that you have to filter what you'll play, you want the option where games should be made in regard of your own tastes. You want the community to adapt to your needs, so you'll not have to do works on your own side. And before you start again with the "happy" thing, that's exactly what's explicitly wrote in the two first quoted lines.
All this whatever if there's people who think otherwise. Whatever if they are, or not, more numerous than people thinking like you. Because yes, there's people who think otherwise. There's people who don't see mini-games as time wasting parts, there's even people who want them. But, yes also, they don't feel the need to make a fuss about it, because they aren't under the "dislike bias" ; it's easier to deal with the lack of what you like, than to deal with the presence of what you dislike.
But, well, bad news, game's author will never comply to your demand. They'll continue to make their games the way they want to make them, and as long as they have a public, which is the case, they even have no reason to do otherwise.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Happy ? What happiness have to do here ? :/
Now, what can I say ? Firstly you blamed me because you thought that I didn't read your other comments, then you blame me because I, really few times in regard of the whole text, summarized what you previously said. Well, why not. It will make answering really easier...




So, over the option which imply that you have to filter what you'll play, you want the option where games should be made in regard of your own tastes. You want the community to adapt to your needs, so you'll not have to do works on your own side. And before you start again with the "happy" thing, that's exactly what's explicitly wrote in the two first quoted lines.
All this whatever if there's people who think otherwise. Whatever if they are, or not, more numerous than people thinking like you. Because yes, there's people who think otherwise. There's people who don't see mini-games as time wasting parts, there's even people who want them. But, yes also, they don't feel the need to make a fuss about it, because they aren't under the "dislike bias" ; it's easier to deal with the lack of what you like, than to deal with the presence of what you dislike.
But, well, bad news, game's author will never comply to your demand. They'll continue to make their games the way they want to make them, and as long as they have a public, which is the case, they even have no reason to do otherwise.

Anne, you and I get along well so I hope you'll understand that I think you're wrong here. Guy has been more than amicable with offering solutions to the perceived problem, and not outright damning its existence. I too share the opinion that a minigame that doesn't serve a purpose to the plot, or that has contrived reasoning is poor game design. I'm gonna look at Life is Strange her to illustrate this, because it has a "minigame" that I plan to incorporate into my own titles, but it also as a sin of inconvenience added to that minigame.

So, in the game everywhere you go there's a clickable object that either gives you minor story and plot details, or gives you information relative to your game, like all the things you find in Kate's room, which, spoiler for a game that has been out for 3 years, you will need to know in order to stop her from committing suicide. In another part of the game though you have to look through Chloe's garage in order to find tools to hopefully fix your camera. When you are there there's plenty to find out, but what I'm going to talk about now is the silly puzzle you have to complete rather than just getting on your knees and reaching for something. You see, once you get whatever it is to fall, if you haven't moved things around just right, it rolls under the stuff, and makes you reverse time to get it right... seriously, it's just a time sink at that point. Looking around, finding clues, being able to piece together a story from the data you have in order to affect the story in a positive way, this is a good use of a minigame. But a random puzzle in the vein of all those old PC adventure games, nah, you're just wasting my time.

I'm absolutely ok with the existence of gameplay mechanics and minigames within the media. What I'm not ok with is time sinks. A perfect example is the Rock Paper Scissors game from Milfy City. That is just there to make you spend time earning a virtual currency so that you can purchase virtual items from the stores in the game. Give me some other way to earn money. Maybe, you could do something like Summertime Saga, with the rap battles in the park, only with money on the line. And moreover, have winning those rap battles lead to a relationship with a character who's into that. Or maybe give me a set amount of money at the start of the game, with the promise of a weekly allowance or paycheck that forces me to use my money responsibly to get the items I need most when I need them, and not splurge all at once, forcing me to play the game, but not making me sink time in a boring minigame. Someone earlier, might have even been guy, suggested a minigame for work as a masseuse. many games add massage content to them already, Big Brother, School Love and Friends, Max's Life, Dating my Daughter, etc. Why not take that to the next step, have our MC be a part time masseuse, go to an appointment and begin a massage, if they're successful, do the steps for the person just right, maybe following a key press pattern or something, they'll get a better tip, and maybe, with some customers, this could even turn into an erotic massage session, earning a bigger reward, and sexual content.

Minigames don't have to be boring random chance generators. They can be fun and engaging. And that is the point Guy is trying to make. If you can't make a minigame that is fun and engaging then don't make a minigame.

 

[GuyFreely]

So, obviously, they're not games for you, because you clearly aren't appealed by the anticipation, you want something right now.

Since you seem to think I'm unjustly accusing you, this is the kind of statement I'm referring to.

On the topic of what is erotic and not erotic and what makes for a good erotic game, that's up for debate. I'm not saying every game needs to be for me. My larger concern is not really about like or dislike, it's about good or bad game design. If there are people out there who like disjointed mini games and repetitive tasks like doing the same loop on multiple game days with very little change, I'd love to hear from them and find out why. I think people are more than likely willing to put up with certain game elements or "don't mind" them more than like them. Even then, I'm not saying no mini-games. I'm saying everything you have in your game should serve a purpose and not just waste time.

[Edit: yeah, pretty much everything DarthSeduction said above.]

 

[anne O'nymous]

Anne, you and I get along well so I hope you'll understand that I think you're wrong here. Guy has been more than amicable with offering solutions to the perceived problem, and not outright damning its existence.

Perhaps that I'm too old for this shit (and obviously I don't mean this thread in particular, but this kind of "yet another what they are all missing" thread), or too tired. Or perhaps that my son starting to live on his own and my daughter being 17yo since a week, made me more sensible. But the french guy in me is screaming seeing this thread. Voltaire, Montaigne, Rousseau, everybody is prompt to quote them and their defense of individual liberties, of thought as well as of act, forgetting that this defense imply that you should also respect the liberties of others, because they have the exact same than you.
What I mean is that, whatever what I can think on the subject itself, and you probably remember that I mostly agree, the way he expressed his thoughts is a totally different thing. And even after reading it again, I fail to see the acknowledgment ("ckn", "dgm", seriously English !) that it's just his opinion and that there's a lot of people around here that don't share it and have the right to see their own view about games being satisfied.

How can someone explicitly say that ICSTOR was just close... He's on the scene since enough time to know what his public want. And seeing that he made around 400 new patreons since he launched his new game, sorry but he succeeded. His public mostly don't care about his mini-game, when they don't simply like it.
Same for the complain about A Wife and Mother. He have the right to not like it, as I said, I dislike it myself but not for the same reason. But, sorry again, this game is a hit for a lot of people, the fact that he don't like it doesn't made it "an example of what not to do in these situations". It's the opposite since it's just one among a lot of almost interactive visual novel, and one of the really few to have a real success.

I too share the opinion that a minigame that doesn't serve a purpose to the plot, or that has contrived reasoning is poor game design. I'm gonna look at Life is Strange her to illustrate this, because it has a "minigame" that I plan to incorporate into my own titles, but it also as a sin of inconvenience added to that minigame.

That's the other point which bother me in his saying, and thanks to you to illustrate is in a so beautiful way. There's what the author want, and there's what he need to do. It's something which will perhaps never lead to a reality, but few convinced me and I'm working on my own title. Well, I'm facing both the grinding problem and the mini-game dilemma. This said, don't expect anything before your grand children wedding, I let it grow slowly while I'm writing it.
More seriously, you'll put a mini-game in your title. Not because people asked for it, not because you like them, but because... Just this, "because". In this particular case it's partly a personal pleasure, but there case, not this rare, where it's the less lame solution to the problem the author is facing.
It doesn't mean that it's always the only solution, nor that all mini-games are/were needed. Like it doesn't imply that it should be a boring thing. Just that there's time when you can't really avoid it. What's the lamest ? "You passed your day at work, you earned $10, please click to continue the game", or a mini-game, so something depicting the working action ? For some authors the answer is "the screen", for other it's "the mini-game". And both are as right as they are wrong.
It became worse when you've the choice between two jobs, one offering more than the other. What the matter of this choice if the job is just a screen ? Take summertime saga. Whatever the quality of the mini-games, with one you've an easily earned small amount, and with the other a bigger amount but you'll have to won it. The mini-games can probably be better, but they have a real purpose. It offer a real choice to the player, a choice which don't exist if it's simply an "you worked" screen.

Same for the grinding, which is sometimes the less lame way to deal with the fact that you can't seriously thought that saying one time, "you're mine, you'll do everything I ask you because you live to please me", is enough to corrupt a girl's mind. It doesn't mean that it must be the exact same scene every time, just that despite the boring feeling, it's the best way to deal with the problem in regard of the time needed and the available space on the disk. Here, I'll once again address A Wife and Mother, and it's 2.3 GB (grr, speak english, not french !) at the 0.3 stage.
Take dreaming of Dana by example. A pure grinding game, but a good game and a liked one. Ptolemy can have made it less repetitive, he can have made change in the scenes, but at which cost ? The last none WEBP version was more than 7 GB once compressed, and it's still over the 1 GB now. Making these change in the scenes would have added one or even two giga. It's just like that, sometimes there's simply no other possibilities ; at least with Ren'py, since Unity can use real time rendered scenes, and so open the gate to more variety for a small cost in space, especially once compressed.

In another part of the game though you have to look through Chloe's garage in order to find tools to hopefully fix your camera. [...] seriously, it's just a time sink at that point.

I agree, but do you see the difference between your, "at that point", and his, "Ah, you were so close ICSTOR" ? You address the way it was done (which is expressed more explicitly in what you said just after this), while he address the fact itself.

[...] have our MC be a part time masseuse, go to an appointment and begin a massage, if they're successful, do the steps for the person just right, maybe following a key press pattern or something, they'll get a better tip, and maybe, with some customers, this could even turn into an erotic massage session, earning a bigger reward, and sexual content.

There's a game, in Flash if my memory is correct, which is exactly this. Don't expect a name, I've played too many and can't remember anything except that MC is a girl starting a new live and that her job is exactly this.

Minigames don't have to be boring random chance generators. They can be fun and engaging. And that is the point Guy is trying to make.

Well, perhaps it have to do with the language barrier, but it's not really clear in the way he address the problem and express his thoughts.

 

[uradamus]

Just as a bit of constructive criticism from someone who stopped reading a page or so back. Comments in a discussion thread should generally be less than a single screen in length whenever possible. If I have to scroll to read all you have to say, I am almost certainly just going to skip most of it. I doubt I'm all that unique on that opinion either. I know things can get heated and we all have a lot to say, but please show some respect for your fellow community members and their precious time by pruning down your thoughts to the most important bits before posting.

 

[DarthSeduction]

A pure grinding game, but a good game and a liked one. Ptolemy can have made it less repetitive, he can have made change in the scenes, but at which cost ?

Honestly, at the cost of his pseudo life sim format. I love the story with Dreaming of Dana, but the repeated interactions to earn an arbitrary number of points to advance to the next part of the plot could be completely rid of, especially considering you've gotten rid of the stairway to heaven question with both the secretary and the swinger chick by the very nature of having fucked them almost immediately after meeting them. There is no reason his game couldn't have mechanically been a VN. He simply tried to replicate the Life Sim style without needing it to tell his story.

Same for the grinding, which is sometimes the less lame way to deal with the fact that you can't seriously thought that saying one time, "you're mine, you'll do everything I ask you because you live to please me", is enough to corrupt a girl's mind. It doesn't mean that it must be the exact same scene every time, just that despite the boring feeling, it's the best way to deal with the problem in regard of the time needed and the available space on the disk. Here, I'll once again address A Wife and Mother, and it's 2.3 GB (grr, speak english, not french !) at the 0.3 stage.

As I often say, Grind is the result of a developer not having a narrative reason for his characters to have sex. Take a look at most games with grind and you'll find that the female characters are dead fish. They have no personality beyond a handful of traits thrown at the wall in narration at the beginning. They make no choices on their own, they have to be constantly pushed by the MC to do anything. When it comes to Grind, nowadays I like to point to Milfy City. It, mechanically speaking, is a life sim. But in spite of that fact the only grind in the game is the minigame grind to get money to buy the camera and stuff. Another example would be Mythic Manor, also mechanically speaking a life sim, however there's no grind. Are the file sizes larger? Sure. Mythic Manor even gets away with recycling a lot, since a lot of conversations with the characters will take place in the same places they always do, and they can often recycle poses and whatnot to accomplish this as well, but the content is varied enough with new dialogues and new things to do that you don't really care that the conversation reused old renders.

In both games you are able to advance the plot through narrative and activities. But not repetition. And that's the key. It's not grind if everything you do advances the plot.

 

[GuyFreely]

I do think perhaps we have some miscommunication, language barriers, etc. Let me try to clarify at least one thing. I think ICSTOR is making a solid game in Milfy City. I don't think it's bad by any stretch. Could it be better? In my opinion, yes. The two things that stick out to me are the Rock, Paper, Scissors computer game to make money and the cleaning mom's office mini game. I already provided a way in which the cleaning game could be made more relevant. I'm sure there are other ways as well. In its current state, I don't feel like it adds anything to the game. If you want to tell me what you think it adds to the game, I'd be happy to discuss it as a specific example.

For the Rock, Paper, Scissors game it's literally you press a button with an equal chance to lose or gain money (can also draw which doesn't affect the game state). It's not explained as to why it is there and doesn't seem to connect to the story at all. At least the cleaning game is related to working for your mother. My hope is that this is actually some sort of placeholder, that they plan to put in a better solution later. If that's the case, then I'll wait to see if it sticks around in later versions to judge it.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Just as a bit of constructive criticism from someone who stopped reading a page or so back. Comments in a discussion thread should generally be less than a single screen in length whenever possible. If I have to scroll to read all you have to say, I am almost certainly just going to skip most of it. I doubt I'm all that unique on that opinion either. I know things can get heated and we all have a lot to say, but show some respect for your fellow community members and their precious time by pruning down your thoughts to the most important bits before posting.

Excuse me? Show some respect for your fellow community members you say, whilst admonishing us for having a discussion that's too long for your personal sensibilities? You're the one being disrespectful by being dismissive and frankly pompous in making this request that we shorten our commentary to accommodate you. If it's not worth your time, then fine, don't participate, but don't you dare tell me how much I can say in a post, especially when there's a lot to talk about in such a broad subject.

 

[uradamus]

Lol, it is funny how you are getting all bent out of shape, Darth, when I thought you were one of the few who were generally being more concise with your posts in this thread. Anne's post have been the worst offenders here on the long winded front, and some of Guy's as well, but mostly when responding to anne. This has been an interesting thread, but about half way in it just stopped being worth following because so much of what was being said didn't really need to be. I'm not demanding anyone pay heed to my advice, it was meant as a helpful reminder that this is a public forum and not a personal journal. If you want to be heard, it tends to help if you stay brief enough to not lose your audience.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Lol, it is funny how you are getting all bent out of shape, Darth, when I thought you were one of the few who were generally being more concise with your posts in this thread. Anne's post have been the worst offenders here on the long winded front, and some of Guy's as well, but mostly when responding to anne. This has been an interesting thread, but about half way in it just stopped being worth following because so much of what was being said didn't really need to be. I'm not demanding anyone pay heed to my advice, it was meant as a helpful reminder that this is a public forum and not a personal journal. If you want to be heard, it tends to help if you stay brief enough to not to lose your audience.

I mostly took umbrage with the confrontational nature of your statement. It was, as I said, pompous. I see the value in brevity and try to make my points as clearly, but in as few words, as possible. However even I have made some really long ones, one on this very page where I had to put several paragraphs behind spoiler tags because I felt it was bloated, but still necessary to get the point across. It's sometimes difficult to cover such complexity in few words. That's all I'm saying.

 

[uradamus]

Ya, I agree, I even really appreciated it when I saw you put some stuff behind spoilers and ended up reading them, probably because of that show of respect to everyones time. Some times things can't be said in a few words and that is why I said "generally". I've made plenty of long posts myself, but I always go over what I've typed and cut out what I can before I hit the post button. I regularly toss out half or more of what I've written in my replies, heh.

 

[GuyFreely]

To keep things on track, I'd love to hear other people's opinions on the topic of parts of games that seem to waste players time. I think we went on a bit of a tangent, and it's largely my fault, of what constitutes an erotic game. That could be a separate discussion really.

 

[uradamus]

For me the big offenders on time wasters are pointless running around in games with maps. Usually this is down to poor planning, some times its intentional with time wasting in mind. It generally shouldn't take more than 3-5 clicks/transitions to get anywhere in an ero game, unless it's some grand RPG with a big world worth exploring or a fun platformer game, but really how common are either of those in the adult market?

Another, that has already been covered fairly well here, is excessive money and stat grinds that don't generally pay off all that well for the effort and time wasted. These just get worse when they entail RNG-based mini-games to gate progress.

The only other big one I can think of off hand, that I'm pretty sure has been covered already, is poorly offered dialog options that rely on a player's guessing to send them down different routes, which will often require a lot of reloading/backtracking to find the route you actually wanted.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Honestly, at the cost of his pseudo life sim format.

Well, I was addressing the size, but you're not wrong. Especially since the late events are purely VN style.

As I often say, Grind is the result of a developer not having a narrative reason for his characters to have sex. Take a look at most games with grind and you'll find that the female characters are dead fish.

I agree with the dead fish, but can't completely agree with the narrative reason. Not that you are wrong, but you're not necessarily right either.

I'll take a concrete example, your roommate is a bimbo you want to fuck. It's the classical "behind closed doors" found actually, and I'll not go for the mother/sister because what will follow make no sense in this case. Each morning you see her while eating the breakfast and greet her. You see her during the dinner, and compliment her if she's the one who cooked. You can cook, you can make some cleaning. It's a natural behavior and the more you do it, the more strong will be your relationship.
Now, the author need to give some points because he don't want a pure VN, he want to implicate the player and make him earn the content. Those events are a good occasions to give the points, but then come the problem. Once you've given 1 point because the MC greet her in the morning, why should you stop the next morning ? In the same time, it imply that you can't have a, "she'd one point, she'll be more lewd now" situation, because on a single day the player can earn 4 points.
It's the problem that most authors are facing because of the narrative format they've chose. Once they start with the conventional (in an IRL way) path to make the day advance, they feel trapped by it. Both giving points and don't giving them seem meaningless in these situations.

But, like I said, it don't completely invalid your point. The format make it more difficult to make these parts more narrative, but it don't make it impossible. And effectively, here come the lack of reason behind the situation. Why are you here, why do you want her, and more importantly, why haven't two you already did it ? If there's answer to these questions, then you've your narrative content.
Don't know, you haven't did it because she was still in couple few days ago, and the break-up was hard for her, so you'll have to works hard, to comfort her, to make it clear that you aren't like him, and thinks like this. A compliment will not works, you'll have to make her accept it at first. So while you'll have the point because you were gentle, the dialog will describe another situation, evolving with the time. At first you'll have to fight with her to make her accept it as a sincere compliment, then the fighting will be less hard, and so on until the day she'll accept it. All this don't necessarily need to be real narrative parts, at least in a strictly speaking ; it's just the dialog which evolve with time.
And, yes, here most authors fail completely. They also fail in a coding way. They don't necessarily need to give significant points. To keep my example, you'll start to earn points only after the fifth won fight, because it's only at that moment that she start to think that, perhaps, you are sincere. So, there's the "compliment points", which are more a internal counter than anything else, and only make this scene advance. And there's the "relationship points", which make the story advance.
Still, it's not really narrative, even if it's also not completely grinding. An in between not used enough, probably because hard to take under control. If the player avoid the breakfast during half the game, he'll have to fight against her lack of confidence in his sincerity, while she was blowing him good morning two minutes before.

In both games you are able to advance the plot through narrative and activities. But not repetition. And that's the key. It's not grind if everything you do advances the plot.

But it is if it just advance a part of the plot. See my example above like a mandatory side quest to achieve if you want to being able to advance the main one. Still it's narrative, have a meaning and don't feel too much like grinding, because it's less repetitive playing it, that it is coding it.

[Note, it's 5AM, hope I haven't too messed my thoughts.]

 

[GuyFreely]

@uradamus I'm with you on these. As soon as I see something is RPGM and has multiple map transitions I'm immediately worried. It doesn't guarantee that it's a bad design, but I've seen it be a burden many times. This was even worse in The New Life when each map transition cost you an hour of the day as well. I figured out how to use the bus system to cut down on this, but that was pretty clunky too. I don't fault people for using RPGM, especially if it's a more exploring or even adventure game. If it's just going to be a couple key locations you go to often though, I much prefer a simple map with all locations in one screen.

The dialogue options one is tricky. I think that's partly a design choice. Some people want to have failure states and optimal paths. My personal preference is when there is no "wrong" choice (instant game over). I much prefer when the choices just lead to different results and it's up to you if you want to try the other paths. I talked in a separate topic on what breaks games for you on this in more detail.