I'd love to hear what players think :)

[Deleted member 5412613]

A few months ago I started creating my first AVN game. Before that, I had no experience with rendering, modeling, etc., but I was really interested in working on it, so I learned everything over time and you can say that today I already have some experience. I'm slowly but surely approaching the end of "chapter 1" and the self-confidence I had at the beginning is disappearing more and more and many questions are starting to run through my head - mainly whether anyone will be interested in my game at all. I've always been interested in story-based games and that's why I'm also one of those who make them. I've never really been interested in sex, sex animations, and the main character having a relationship with 10 other women. I respect anyone who enjoys it and likes it, but I was never interested in it. So what I'm interested in is this...

Can you be interested in a game today that is based on a story and does not contain sex and decisions?

Story - music - visuals - these are the three things that have been a priority for me since the beginning of creation. Of course, visually you can still move forward and the only thing that can limit you is the hardware, just like me. I don't consider myself a professional and I don't think I'm doing it to the best of my ability, because there's always something you can improve, but you can say that I'm quite satisfied with my work considering that I've been doing it for about 3-4 months (which is actually quite a few).

So how are you doing? Are there people interested in story based games or does it make no sense to even release something like that? Thanks for the answers, if there are any

PS: A random picture from my game so that someone can better imagine the visual side of the game

 

[CardinalRed]

No

 

[UncleAi]

If you mean commercial success? Then No. Without sex it is very hard to beat other entertainments.
But the meaning of what to do is decided by yourself. If you feel happy, then do it. Just remember tag clearly no sex and decisions.

 

[Sscdrake]

There are obviously tons of people interested in story-based games, but this isn't going to be the community that cares especially much about them. You'd have to put out something incredibly compelling for that, and imo this would still be a terrible community to start.

If you really want to focus on story, music, visuals, you're probably still going to need to bait people with pron. Many of the games people consider to have great stories and/or characters still also have pretty great pron too.

Also, 3-4 months is absolutely nothing, though I guess that depends on how much work you've actually done. Anyway, based on your qualifications, no, I don't think there would be any point in releasing something like that. No offense either, but your grasp of English doesn't seem especially strong either, so if you're doing the writing yourself too, it might miff people and you're already asking them to trudge through without pron.

 

[Rafster]

Nothing stops you from trying, you can go ahead and publish it. As a non-sex VN, maybe you'll fare better on itch or steam. You can try here, but it will get tagged with a tag more deadly than gay+futa+NTR+scat fused together: non-sex tag. That tag will kill any interest of the users here (kinda like what happens to the non-TF games section on TFGames forum)

EDITED TO ADD: Even if you are in the SFW sector, you'll have to compete with games with lots of decisions, gameplay elements (some of them being sandbox!) or better visuals/ stories. You need something different or no one will even try your first demo.

 

[soprano31]

why not?

look at summer's gone,
as long at it has a beautifully emotional or meaningful story,
beautiful renders and characters.

but i wouldn't do it without decisions at all,
the player still has to be able to decide something.

 

[JuniorAT]

As others have said, there is a community that'll appreciate your work, just not here, or perhaps just a few of us may be into that.

I'm wrestling with a similar dilemma with my own AVN (I've yet to create it, only writing a rough draft of the story), and I too want to focus more on the story, character development, etc. Some of the early sex scenes that I'm including seems shoehorned, only because I feel like I need to satisfy some quota that I've built in my head based on other successful AVNs I've played.

If there is no sex planned for your VN but there is romance, have that be one of your focus as I know there are people here like myself that appreciate a well written romance.

 

[Eagle1900]

Can you be interested in a game today that is based on a story and does not contain sex and decisions?

I think that at least in this community/forum, you won't have much success. maybe out of a sample of a hundred people, you'll be able to have a maximum of five or six, but I don't think you want to start such a demanding job, for these percentages. but nobody forbids you to try it somewhere else, or changing your mental approach and insert those tags that "are needed". I assure you that there are people who are also attracted by images, but then they read the various tags to get an idea, and that pushes them to try a game or leave it alone to save GB and download time.
I'll give you an example of how I behave when I'm looking for a new game:
the first thing i look at is the pictures (and yours, might even be eye catching) then the graphics are good.
the second thing I'm going to look at are the tags (if there are tags that I don't like/or don't interest me at that moment, I don't go any further). if you "pass" the second step, i move on to the third thing i observe which is if there is a compressed version or if it doesn't take up too much space in the hd. if it goes on all the points (even if the third is not as decisive as the first two), unloading and playing, in the hope that it is also well written. the decisions that a player can make make the game much more fascinating and are certainly another plus point.
Anyway I wish you good luck with your project.

 

[Vanderer]

I like kinetic novels (no choice), but no sex...I probably won't play it.

Your render looks very good by the way.

 

[Ophanim]

I love reading, but I'm quite picky, and kinetic novels don't tend to have as wide a selection as regular books. Combined with me rarely finding myself wanting more images while reading a book, I don't find that their strengths as a medium work well for me, and I tend to drop them over the writing quality or subject matter. Like... kinetic novels are self-published levels of editing quality, which means they're usually about as much of a crapshoot to read as selecting fanfics from Wattpad completely at random.

Speaking of pictures, though, the render you posted looks wonderful! If they're all like that, you have some real talent at 3d modelling, at least to my untrained eyes haha

Anyway, when it comes to reading, for me, you'll always be competing for my time against the endless torrent of fairly decent fanfiction, or ebooks, I could otherwise be spending my time on, sorry

 

[Deleted member 5412613]

I love reading, but I'm quite picky, and kinetic novels don't tend to have as wide a selection as regular books. Combined with me rarely finding myself wanting more images while reading a book, I don't find that their strengths as a medium work well for me, and I tend to drop them over the writing quality or subject matter. Like... kinetic novels are self-published levels of editing quality, which means they're usually about as much of a crapshoot to read as selecting fanfics from Wattpad completely at random.

Speaking of pictures, though, the render you posted looks wonderful! If they're all like that, you have some real talent at 3d modelling, at least to my untrained eyes haha

Anyway, when it comes to reading, for me, you'll always be competing for my time against the endless torrent of fairly decent fanfiction, or ebooks, I could otherwise be spending my time on, sorry

In my game, the focus is on five characters; each character has their own story, but they all survive together, plus they have one story in common (4 real, 2 fictional). I don't know Wattpad at all, but my wife has been writing on Wattpad for several years and has been quite successful at it; she even owns a huge Discord server for people who write stories and are interested in it, so she gave me quite a lot of advice. I don't know what procedure is chosen when writing a story for a game or a book (normally), but when I was creating the story, my wife and I sat down, put ourselves in the role of the characters, and created conversations based on our conversations and how we acted and presented that given situation. Based on that, I also created the scenes themselves and their progress in the game. The bottom line was that I wanted it to be natural, real, and not annoying.

But thanks for your opinion, and I'm glad you like the render.

 

[Rafster]

I don't know what procedure is chosen when writing a story for a game or a book (normally), but when I was creating the story, my wife and I sat down, put ourselves in the role of the characters, and created conversations based on our conversations and how we acted and presented that given situation.

It's so beautiful when your other half not only supports you but participates in your project, she may give you an insight that most games lack (we write them very male focused).

I wish you good luck to you both, you deserve it.

 

[ZephyrCloack]

Can you be interested in a game today that is based on a story and does not contain sex and decisions?

Story - music - visuals - these are the three things that have been a priority for me since the beginning of creation. Of course, visually you can still move forward and the only thing that can limit you is the hardware, just like me. I don't consider myself a professional and I don't think I'm doing it to the best of my ability, because there's always something you can improve, but you can say that I'm quite satisfied with my work considering that I've been doing it for about 3-4 months (which is actually quite a few).

So how are you doing? Are there people interested in story based games or does it make no sense to even release something like that? Thanks for the answers, if there are any

Yes, i would be interested in a VN without porn content or even Kinetic Novel.
I do have my own genre preferences but once in a while i try to check out outside those genres... so even though i can't tell if i'll be interested in your project, i have shown interest in the approach be it in games, manga, web novels, light novels and so forth...

As mentioned in this Forum the majority probably won't care much about it, since this is a biased environment towards sexual content.
Still there is a market for it as well as an audience looking for it, exposure will be tough because VNs and Kinetics are often mixed with games and porn content.

Hope it goes well for you and perhaps i will be a future supporter of yours.

 

[Deleted member 5412613]

Yes, i would be interested in a VN without porn content or even Kinetic Novel.
I do have my own genre preferences but once in a while i try to check out outside those genres... so even though i can't tell if i'll be interested in your project, i have shown interest in the approach be it in games, manga, web novels, light novels and so forth...

As mentioned in this Forum the majority probably won't care much about it, since this is a biased environment towards sexual content.
Still there is a market for it as well as an audience looking for it, exposure will be tough because VNs and Kinetics are often mixed with games and porn content.

Hope it goes well for you and perhaps i will be a future supporter of yours.

Just the fact that there is a person who writes that they are interested in such games is a certain form of support for me, because as a beginner I am logically afraid of several things. The game will be completely free; it's not about money for me. I care about other things

 

[thereaper27]

TL/DR : i would be interested, but not on this site/community

honestly, i don't have many experiences with visual novel that don't have sex content. while decisions, in my opinion doesn't matter, some popular VN have no choices and are still loved while those who have don't always make great use of it.
on the sex content though it's might be a dealbreaker for a lot of people here, including me, usually it's the reason that i play some VN while not liking the genre.
although if the game is free i'm pretty sure it would be a hit. (just check games like everlasting summer or Narcissu)

 

[Müptezel Emo]

No tits, no tips.

 

[sonhot]

Without porn is totally fine as there're always pornhub or nhentai if i just want a quick fap. Without decisions might be fine too as long as the protagonist is a badass and make the same decisions that i would've made had i been in his shoes.

 

[Deleted member 5412613]

No tits, no tips.

As if anyone is interested in your "tips" here

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Can you be interested in a game today that is based on a story and does not contain sex

Sure thing, if it's actually good enough to not put me to sleep immediately.

and decisions?

Hell no.
0 interest in kinetic novels, much more fun will be just going to read some manga.
And you don't even need to download it. There is literally no point in kinetic novels so don't bother.
Just try doing manga instead then.

 

[karumi56]

I think a kinetic novel is a safe way to learn how to make (and complete) a game. Even if it isn't a monetary success, it might give you the confidence to try a second project that has more commercial appeal (sex, decisions/branching).

A lot of devs seem to stumble and drop their initial project after it proves too challenging/frustrating. Keeping it simple and finishing it also gives you a credible track record.