As long as by you mean her fucking everything, you just mean other girls I guess and not the futas or other males or animals, then I guess what you say would be ok at least for me anyway though does sound kind of bad for her to have sex with the mom because he has to do something that like for example Ness says if he doesn't do a project for her, she won't pay him. Like we have a choice of joining the sister and mom for some sex and have Ness mad the next day about a missed project she told him to do, and he gets no money or work on what Ness told him to do and get the pay to manage to pay for the fancy house they have, but the player misses out on the action because the two girls couldn't wait.
I'm not going to be putting any stuff in where I punish you by having two characters have sex without the MC because of a choice you make. It will all be somewhere along the lines of the MC saying, "No thanks, not for me but you girls have fun". And yeah, I meant she'd be trying to fuck all the other girls. She won't succeed in fucking them unless the player lets it happen, except for her kind of girlfriend and she won't be trying to take them from the MC. She'll just be a horny little shit who struggles to control herself. There won't be any animal content in this game.
Speaking more broadly about my intentions with the player choices - I don't intend to lock you out of any content because you didn't make the right sequence of choices. I'm going to let you turn down certain things and there will be some variation depending on your previous choices but you're not going to need a walkthrough to follow a narrow path to get the stuff you want. There may be some additional stuff based on your previous choices, and I know there's a bit of a potato/potato semantic argument between addition and subtraction here, but that would be kind of just me giving you a little incentive to try multiple playthroughs. For example, if you repeatedly choose to have sex with a particular character you might get the option for anal or something whereas a player who turned her down two or three times might only get a blowjob. If you repeatedly choose to witness/interact with one of the character's sims the MC will figure out their desires sooner so you might get an earlier opportunity to satisfy those desires in the real world. But again, I won't be locking you out, you can avoid one character's sims entirely and still get to have plenty of weird sex with them later.
So there will be a couple of characters in the real world who will be transwomen. They're going to be minor characters so they're probably only getting a scene or two each. Those scenes might include options where they penetrate a woman while being penetrated by the MC. Or maybe they get penetrated by a woman and the MC at the same time. Or maybe it's just one on one between them and the MC. You'll be able to skip this content, as in the MC can say no thanks and no sex will occur.
In one of the character's virtual simulation scenes, there will be some futa content that is much more fantasy/biologically impossible. You won't have to watch these scenes but it will be considered to have taken place regardless. If you go back and look at some of my earlier posts I shared a teaser image of one of the scenes planned. I'll spell it out in more depth behind a spoiler tag here though.
Frist: that absolutely qualifies the game for the corruption tag.
Second: while it is admirable for a dev to be so open about talking with the community for this long, i would like to inform that there is a limit, these forum can be quite drain on ones passsion and drive, i would recommend that the dev should not literally engage with everyone, or at least take brakes, because while i do enjoy the interactions (and specially the previews of the game) i do worry for the devs sanity!
Thanks for this I was having trouble deciding if I should take the risk and play now I know. Sounds like I would rather stuff the sister in a black bag and drop her a hole in the ground and fill it in than have a depraved slut as a wingman. Also not interested in watching others fucking anything. Thanks for being open and good luck, sounds like your going to need it.
Frist: that absolutely qualifies the game for the corruption tag.
Second: while it is admirable for a dev to be so open about talking with the community for this long, i would like to inform that there is a limit, these forum can be quite drain on ones passsion and drive, i would recommend that the dev should not literally engage with everyone, or at least take brakes, because while i do enjoy the interactions (and specially the previews of the game) i do worry for the devs sanity!
Yeah I haven't added the corruption tag since we haven't gotten there in the story yet. There's also going to be some ambiguity baked in as to whether the girls are actually being altered or just embracing personality traits that they were repressing.
I'm really only so active because I'm stuck in front of my computer rendering. Also, game just got updated so I imagine the conversation will start dying down pretty soon. Most everyone has been pretty chill, I tend to read things a charitably as possible, so I've probably still got the mental fortitude to answer the same NTR/Harem related questions like 7-8 more times before I need a break.
The only major note I need to make is that as far as the middle ground comment goes, it was not in reference to the type of game I'm making so much as what tags I'm including. The game I'm making is the game I'm making. I'm happy to adjust some things based on user feedback but I'm not shooting for a watered-down compromise that leaves nobody happy.
The distinction is moot for the vast majority of people. People generally perceive "tags" and "game type" as one and the same, since tags specifically describe the content present in the game.
Despite the official definitions of those tags (harem, ntr) not being directly contradictory, in practice they are mutually exclusive. Harem fans do not like other dicks in their games, and often want romance involved. NTR fans want the MC getting cucked, and only want romance for the purpose of humiliating the MC.
I don't see this as an NTR game. I also do not see any of the content I will be including as NTR since there will not be any situation where someone is taking a girl from the MC against the MC's will.
I get it, but that's why I mentioned the unofficial term I use, "NTR-adjacent". LIs having sex behind the MC's back or without his permission. People who aren't the MC fucking the MC's LIs.
For example: I generally strongly dislike sharing, and vastly prefer romance-heavy harem stories, with a group of women falling in love (and sex) with the MC and preferably all getting knocked up by him. It takes a lot of work for me to be okay with sharing in a game. For a more specific example, I enjoyed NSFW: Natural Selection Female Wrestling despite a relatively strong sharing theme (mostly because there was a deep undercurrent of romance, friendship, and camaraderie that is missing in most sharing-heavy games), and even left all the content options on while playing it... But I cannot stand the interquel (Masters of the Island), because it has two MCs who each get and share women, and I utterly detest one of the two MCs.
Going back to the example of two characters in a pre-existing relationship, if I start fucking a married woman, I'm not really in a position to complain about how she is sleeping with her husband. I'm not the one being betrayed in this scenario.
That's up to you as the writer. What you're describing is "netori", which is not part of the "netorare" tag here on F95. It's the reverse of netorare, the MC stealing a woman from her existing partner... And, yes, if I start fucking a married woman in a harem game, I absolutely do expect her to stop having sex with her husband, if she's still keeping up appearances and sleeping in the same bed as him.
I do not care what the written character of the wife or her cucked husband think, and I do not care about their hurt feelings, because they are pixels, not people. The writer makes the decisions about how they react to the situations. In the netori situation, I (the MC, but let's use the first-person here for immersion's sake to give you an idea of the mindset of a harem game player) am stealing her from him; I am not borrowing her from him. She is betraying him for me. So once she's mine, she is mine, and I do not want anyone else dipping their wick in what's mine. This is also why netori tends to be most popular when the cucked husband/boyfriend/whatever is an asshole.
Fundamentally, harem fans want all their LIs to be loyal to them, period. Preferably so much so that they wouldn't have sex with anyone else for the duration of the game (even if they're in a relationship before meeting the MC). Once they're the MC's girls, they wouldn't have sex with anyone else period, without the MC's and player's explicit permission.
Or going even further if I pay a street walker $20 for a blowjob she's not "cheating" on me when she takes another customer later on.
Heh. You will find that harem fans almost categorically despise prostitutes as love interests, for exactly this reason. If they continue working, they absolutely are being unfaithful to the MC.
Read my posts in the "Forgotten Pathways" thread (and the dev's responses) for an example. As originally written, the first LI the MC has sex with was a prostitute, has sex with the MC before he (or the player!) knows she is one, and keeps working for a couple weeks after. It was... not well-received, shall we say. After I gave the dev some tips and ideas, she came to the conclusion that it wasn't necessary for that character to be a prostitute, and she rewrote the backstory so that character was originally a stripper instead (and that's the job the MC saves her from instead of prostitution). There are still people in that thread who detest her so much that they refuse to have anything to do with her even with the rewritten backstory.
Maybe this isn't a harem game? The planned story can, and probably will in most people's play-throughs, end with the MC on top of a pyramid of women.
That's generally considered a harem game, yes, but it's the rest of the stuff you've talked about that's going to trip things up (as evidenced by the people who felt distaste about your provided examples of futa sex).
I'm not trying to mislead people with tags I'm just trying to give a general idea of what type of content will be heavily featured and there will be a lot of content with the MC fucking multiple women. Sometimes all at one time.
Almost no one dislikes this kind of content. Threesomes/moresomes are usually welcomed by everyone... As long as the MC is the dominant/primary partner of everyone involved in it.
What harem fans strongly dislike is: (1) LIs fucking anyone who isn't the MC without the MC's and player's explicit permission (and choice to decline, at least on the player's behalf); (2) non-LIs fucking LIs for ANY reason whatsoever outside of "seducing the non-LI to become an LI and join the MC's harem"; (3) LIs preferring to fuck anyone other than the MC. The way you've described the game so far, it seems like some of the girls will actively seek out specific other partners who are not the MC, whether they're other LIs or not LIs, and that's a big turn-off for most harem fans. Most harem fans will want the option to 100% decline any character who seeks other lovers, whether those scenes are declinable or not, because she is NOT loyal to or invested in the MC.
So yeah, if this game isn't for you because of unavoidable content, I totally get it.
The game probably isn't for me because it does not sound like it's going to have the type of sharing content I like, nor will it have the type of harem content I like. For instance, I do want all the girls to fall in love with the MC. I want romance involved in my harems. Sharing is near the bottom of my list of acceptable content, and from the way you've described the sharing in this game, it is decidedly not to my tastes, because it's not about the MC.
If this game isn't for you because the option will exist in the game for content that you don't like, then okay, I guess? I used a food analogy before with pizzas and tacos, but to put another spin on it- this is a pizza shop. If you don't like bread, then I'm sorry but all of my pizzas contain bread, no hard feelings and I hope you find a pizza without bread somewhere. If you don't like green peppers, cool I can give you a pizza without green peppers. If you hate green peppers so much that the thought that someone else might be ordering a pizza with green peppers at my pizza shop upsets you to the point that you can't even enjoy a pizza with the toppings of your choice then again, I'm sorry. But also, I don't even know what to say if that's the case. I'm sorry for giving you options?
The problem is that instead, to continue the analogy, while options are good, you only have space on each pizza for (arbitrarily) three ingredients.
Since you're trying to give options and please everyone, you end up with options of pepperoni, sausage, cheese, green peppers, onions, and anchovies, and you pick three of those toppings to be on each pizza (since you're writing each update). The customer doesn't get to decide which toppings will be there.
Let's say for the first pizza, you include pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers. As someone who cannot eat green peppers, I now have a pizza I do not like. I have to pick off the green peppers (decline scenes), and I do not get any alternative topping for the one I had to remove.
Then for the next pizza, you include cheese, onions, and anchovies since those weren't choices on the first pizza. This time, rather than being mildly frustrating, the pizza is wildly unpleasant to me, because while I dislike onions (e.g. sharing), I find that anchovies (e.g. ntr) taint absolutely everything around them, and you can never get rid of the smell. (Outside our analogy, the unavoidable part of this might be an LI expressing that she WANTS to fuck someone other than the MC, even if the actual sex scene is declinable; technically not NTR, but really, really shitty for someone who dislikes NTR.) Even if I can stomach that, I still have a pizza with just foul-tasting cheese left.
One of those updates, you might end up making a green pepper, onion, and anchovy pizza, which is completely inedible to me, and I get absolutely nothing that time.
This is the problem with going for middle-ground in terms of tags. You have to spend writing, posing, and rendering time and effort on every scene, whether they are skippable, avoidable, or not, and if half the scenes are unpleasant for some set of people, they only get half the game each update, and quickly become disillusioned. Thus it's best to pick a focus and focus on it.
Some of them might become something similar to that but others will still want the things they previously wanted which might include having sex with other women.
And that's kinda the issue. Women who would rather fuck other women than the MC do not generally belong in a harem game's harem.
Women who enjoy other women can work... But only when they respect and consider the MC and the harem as more important than all other factors, including their own desire for other women. Cassie in Stormside is a good example of this: she's very forward and sexual, but once she and the MC start a relationship (and it's the first relationship you can form in the game), she talks to him about other women, and if the player says no, that's that. She stops trying, and doesn't bring it up again for the rest of the game. If the player says yes, she and one of the other LIs fool around a bit afterwards, though the other LI is far more interested in the MC than in Cassie (which is another way of blunting the frustration of girl-girl stuff that happens without the MC), and after her, any other girl-girl stuff Cassie gets involved in is either with other harem girls and the MC at the same time, or further corrupting the girls for the MC's benefit.
Like I said before, it's all about the focus: on the MC and his harem being with him.
Just crossing my t's and dotting my i's: this is one of the comments that led me to be certain I won't be interested in this game. I do want romance and affection in my games.
That's come up before, too. It's a bad tag definition, because it is useless when applied literally. Same with NTR. There's a game that had a harem tag, and after the first couple updates, it turned out that the harem is a bunch of women who all fuck the MC's brother in front of the MC, and he gets absolutely nothing. Literally the worst possible type of game to appeal to harem fans, but because of the shittiness of the tag definition, it got the tag, leading a lot of people to feel lke it was a bait-and-switch. Hell, it technically didn't even qualify for the netorare tag, since the MC was never in a relationship with any of them, despite the entire point of the game being to humiliate the MC and make him and the player feel that jealousy.
It's all fantasy and its all fiction and most of it isn't designed to be thought about too much but, guys, come on. Be real. Taking advantage of some kind of magic/sci-fi shenanigans to stick your dick in your family isn't exactly the basis of a fucking love story.
You just said earlier that you wouldn't yuck anyone's yum, but you are coming very close to it here. Those types of games are very popular for a reason. A lot of people play these games specifically for these unrealistic scenarios that still work out happily for everyone the player cares about. These games are fundamentally power fantasies. If they didn't want story and actual relationships, they'd just watch porn where they're not making decisions on behalf of the MC.
This means I have zero interest in "being real", and I don't particularly care how outlandish the macguffin is that allows the harem to happen without jealousy, infighting, or hurt feelings. If I wanted reality, I already have that. It's simply not what I look for in games or stories.
The distinction is moot for the vast majority of people. People generally perceive "tags" and "game type" as one and the same, since tags specifically describe the content present in the game.
Despite the official definitions of those tags (harem, ntr) not being directly contradictory, in practice they are mutually exclusive. Harem fans do not like other dicks in their games, and often want romance involved. NTR fans want the MC getting cucked, and only want romance for the purpose of humiliating the MC.
I get it, but that's why I mentioned the unofficial term I use, "NTR-adjacent". LIs having sex behind the MC's back or without his permission. People who aren't the MC fucking the MC's LIs.
For example: I generally strongly dislike sharing, and vastly prefer romance-heavy harem stories, with a group of women falling in love (and sex) with the MC and preferably all getting knocked up by him. It takes a lot of work for me to be okay with sharing in a game. For a more specific example, I enjoyed NSFW: Natural Selection Female Wrestling despite a relatively strong sharing theme (mostly because there was a deep undercurrent of romance, friendship, and camaraderie that is missing in most sharing-heavy games), and even left all the content options on while playing it... But I cannot stand the interquel (Masters of the Island), because it has two MCs who each get and share women, and I utterly detest one of the two MCs.
That's up to you as the writer. What you're describing is "netori", which is not part of the "netorare" tag here on F95. It's the reverse of netorare, the MC stealing a woman from her existing partner... And, yes, if I start fucking a married woman in a harem game, I absolutely do expect her to stop having sex with her husband, if she's still keeping up appearances and sleeping in the same bed as him.
I do not care what the written character of the wife or her cucked husband think, and I do not care about their hurt feelings, because they are pixels, not people. The writer makes the decisions about how they react to the situations. In the netori situation, I (the MC, but let's use the first-person here for immersion's sake to give you an idea of the mindset of a harem game player) am stealing her from him; I am not borrowing her from him. She is betraying him for me. So once she's mine, she is mine, and I do not want anyone else dipping their wick in what's mine. This is also why netori tends to be most popular when the cucked husband/boyfriend/whatever is an asshole.
Fundamentally, harem fans want all their LIs to be loyal to them, period. Preferably so much so that they wouldn't have sex with anyone else for the duration of the game (even if they're in a relationship before meeting the MC). Once they're the MC's girls, they wouldn't have sex with anyone else period, without the MC's and player's explicit permission.
Heh. You will find that harem fans almost categorically despise prostitutes as love interests, for exactly this reason. If they continue working, they absolutely are being unfaithful to the MC.
Read my posts in the "Forgotten Pathways" thread (and the dev's responses) for an example. As originally written, the first LI the MC has sex with was a prostitute, has sex with the MC before he (or the player!) knows she is one, and keeps working for a couple weeks after. It was... not well-received, shall we say. After I gave the dev some tips and ideas, she came to the conclusion that it wasn't necessary for that character to be a prostitute, and she rewrote the backstory so that character was originally a stripper instead (and that's the job the MC saves her from instead of prostitution). There are still people in that thread who detest her so much that they refuse to have anything to do with her even with the rewritten backstory.
That's generally considered a harem game, yes, but it's the rest of the stuff you've talked about that's going to trip things up (as evidenced by the people who felt distaste about your provided examples of futa sex).
Almost no one dislikes this kind of content. Threesomes/moresomes are usually welcomed by everyone... As long as the MC is the dominant/primary partner of everyone involved in it.
What harem fans strongly dislike is: (1) LIs fucking anyone who isn't the MC without the MC's and player's explicit permission (and choice to decline, at least on the player's behalf); (2) non-LIs fucking LIs for ANY reason whatsoever outside of "seducing the non-LI to become an LI and join the MC's harem"; (3) LIs preferring to fuck anyone other than the MC. The way you've described the game so far, it seems like some of the girls will actively seek out specific other partners who are not the MC, whether they're other LIs or not LIs, and that's a big turn-off for most harem fans. Most harem fans will want the option to 100% decline any character who seeks other lovers, whether those scenes are declinable or not, because she is NOT loyal to or invested in the MC.
The game probably isn't for me because it does not sound like it's going to have the type of sharing content I like, nor will it have the type of harem content I like. For instance, I do want all the girls to fall in love with the MC. I want romance involved in my harems. Sharing is near the bottom of my list of acceptable content, and from the way you've described the sharing in this game, it is decidedly not to my tastes, because it's not about the MC.
The problem is that instead, to continue the analogy, while options are good, you only have space on each pizza for (arbitrarily) three ingredients.
Since you're trying to give options and please everyone, you end up with options of pepperoni, sausage, cheese, green peppers, onions, and anchovies, and you pick three of those toppings to be on each pizza (since you're writing each update). The customer doesn't get to decide which toppings will be there.
Let's say for the first pizza, you include pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers. As someone who cannot eat green peppers, I now have a pizza I do not like. I have to pick off the green peppers (decline scenes), and I do not get any alternative topping for the one I had to remove.
Then for the next pizza, you include cheese, onions, and anchovies since those weren't choices on the first pizza. This time, rather than being mildly frustrating, the pizza is wildly unpleasant to me, because while I dislike onions (e.g. sharing), I find that anchovies (e.g. ntr) taint absolutely everything around them, and you can never get rid of the smell. (Outside our analogy, the unavoidable part of this might be an LI expressing that she WANTS to fuck someone other than the MC, even if the actual sex scene is declinable; technically not NTR, but really, really shitty for someone who dislikes NTR.) Even if I can stomach that, I still have a pizza with just foul-tasting cheese left.
One of those updates, you might end up making a green pepper, onion, and anchovy pizza, which is completely inedible to me, and I get absolutely nothing that time.
This is the problem with going for middle-ground in terms of tags. You have to spend writing, posing, and rendering time and effort on every scene, whether they are skippable, avoidable, or not, and if half the scenes are unpleasant for some set of people, they only get half the game each update, and quickly become disillusioned. Thus it's best to pick a focus and focus on it.
And that's kinda the issue. Women who would rather fuck other women than the MC do not generally belong in a harem game's harem.
Women who enjoy other women can work... But only when they respect and consider the MC and the harem as more important than all other factors, including their own desire for other women. Cassie in Stormside is a good example of this: she's very forward and sexual, but once she and the MC start a relationship (and it's the first relationship you can form in the game), she talks to him about other women, and if the player says no, that's that. She stops trying, and doesn't bring it up again for the rest of the game. If the player says yes, she and one of the other LIs fool around a bit afterwards, though the other LI is far more interested in the MC than in Cassie (which is another way of blunting the frustration of girl-girl stuff that happens without the MC), and after her, any other girl-girl stuff Cassie gets involved in is either with other harem girls and the MC at the same time, or further corrupting the girls for the MC's benefit.
Like I said before, it's all about the focus: on the MC and his harem being with him.
Just crossing my t's and dotting my i's: this is one of the comments that led me to be certain I won't be interested in this game. I do want romance and affection in my games.
That's come up before, too. It's a bad tag definition, because it is useless when applied literally. Same with NTR. There's a game that had a harem tag, and after the first couple updates, it turned out that the harem is a bunch of women who all fuck the MC's brother in front of the MC, and he gets absolutely nothing. Literally the worst possible type of game to appeal to harem fans, but because of the shittiness of the tag definition, it got the tag, leading a lot of people to feel lke it was a bait-and-switch. Hell, it technically didn't even qualify for the netorare tag, since the MC was never in a relationship with any of them, despite the entire point of the game being to humiliate the MC and make him and the player feel that jealousy.
You just said earlier that you wouldn't yuck anyone's yum, but you are coming very close to it here. Those types of games are very popular for a reason. A lot of people play these games specifically for these unrealistic scenarios that still work out happily for everyone the player cares about. These games are fundamentally power fantasies. If they didn't want story and actual relationships, they'd just watch porn where they're not making decisions on behalf of the MC.
This means I have zero interest in "being real", and I don't particularly care how outlandish the macguffin is that allows the harem to happen without jealousy, infighting, or hurt feelings. If I wanted reality, I already have that. It's simply not what I look for in games or stories.
Great response, I'm not going to hit on everything you mentioned because I'm about to go to bed but I do want to highlight a couple things.
Regarding the tags, something I kind of hit on in a separate private conversation is that fundamentally the argument about this game not qualifying as a harem or that this game does qualify as NTR are based on both a stricter definition of the harem tag and a looser definition of the NTR tag. I agree that the tags aren't perfect and there are probably a lot of tags I could technically add but don't intend to. My definition of a harem game is just a game where the MC ends up with a whole lot of women. My definition falls within the definition of the harem tag on this website. Some people's definitions include other requirements, but those aren't things required by the tag. I'm not trying to lawyer my way into or out of tags I'm just illustrating how non-specific the tags can be. If you don't think a game that involves the MC collecting many sexual partners qualifies as a harem maybe you should talk to the mods*.
And if I came off as being against those types of corruption games I mentioned that wasn't really my intention. I play some of those games. I've supported some of those games on Patreon and stuff. Yeah, it's total power fantasy stuff and there's nothing wrong with that but that's not what this game is. This game also isn't about romance. This game is about a normal guy whose life suddenly gets filled with deranged sex stuff.
You've been respectful and as far as I can tell are engaging in a good-faith conversation which I absolutely appreciate. I'm sorry my game isn't something that interests you. I have no issue making some changes to current content or planned content to give my audience what they want or even making some changes to slightly expand the audience, but I'm not going to be making changes to appease people who are fundamentally uninterested in the game's concept. You guys aren't wrong for not liking it but your opinions just aren't super relevant.
*Please don't actually do that they are probably very busy people and have heard every argument already.
I'll consider it. I've mentioned before that I'm leaving wiggle room to add content to meet demand, so if anyone else is interested in seeing the MC take some girlcock, let me know. My only reservation is that the further I go away from stuff I personally find appealing, the harder it is for me to write. I'm not personally into futa stuff but I can sort of manage scenes where they fuck women or the MC fucks them. I don't know what makes a sexy scene involving a man getting penetrated though so I'm not sure if I can satisfy people who are looking for that.
Well I hadn't even finished typing my initial response before someone else voiced their support. I guess I'll start brainstorming some scenes. No promises yet.
And to sort of clear something up based on a few scattered comments I'm seeing throughout, there's not going to be much romance in this game. I'm going to try my best to make it so the player can go through the game and be almost entirely faithful to his girlfriend. We can use the term love interest to describe all the different women the MC will be able to regularly have sex with, the word love might be a bit of an exaggeration if you're expecting handholding or watching sunsets or lovingly gazing into a girl's eyes while you both profess your devotion to one another you're going to be disappointed
If you're expecting to see weird, depraved sex acts, I got you covered.
Kinda weird that romance and depraved sex acts are being treated as mutually exclusive here. There are quite a few games that can scratch both those itches at the same time, so it's not like I'm starving for content. It just seems strange that a story with an emotionally healthy (presumably) relationship at the core of its narrative would go out of its way to avoid depicting that relationship and its evolution over the course of such interesting events. Seems like a waste of an interesting premise to me. Might as well be any other fuckbuddy simulator.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still gonna play it. I just think the story would be more interesting with feelings than pretending they don't exist, which could just be me misreading the vibe of what you're trying to say.
Also, feel free to ignore the advice of any genre purists. The problem with a purist is that purity is an illusion. I've seen at least a few mention the incompatibility of harem and NTR as genres/tags, but there are loads of games with both that are doing just fine. The mental gymnastics some people are capable of performing while trying to explain why something they don't like can't possibly exist next to something they do like is actually medal worthy. Any assumptions people like that make about game content based on tags are their responsibility, but they will absolutely blame you instead. Probably should ignore that too
- Continue to maintain a touch of realism in the story and in the relationships between the characters: no one likes BOT characters with hormones always at full blast.
- Review some 3D models if possible.
- Start writing the whole story if you haven't already done so because the story is central here and is the most important element.
- Insist on kink and characterize the project on this (personally I really appreciate bdsm but it doesn't necessarily have to be just this).
I really enjoyed it and for the moment I would give this project a 4 stars out of 5 but it has the potential to become a top tier project.
If you've played the current content it should give a pretty good idea of how I plan on handling the different sex scenes. I can't guarantee that by the end of the game something that someone dislikes won't slip through but the more "extreme" the content the more effort I'm putting into telegraphing it for the player.
Kinda weird that romance and depraved sex acts are being treated as mutually exclusive here. There are quite a few games that can scratch both those itches at the same time, so it's not like I'm starving for content. It just seems strange that a story with an emotionally healthy (presumably) relationship at the core of its narrative would go out of its way to avoid depicting that relationship and its evolution over the course of such interesting events. Seems like a waste of an interesting premise to me. Might as well be any other fuckbuddy simulator.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still gonna play it. I just think the story would be more interesting with feelings than pretending they don't exist, which could just be me misreading the vibe of what you're trying to say.
Also, feel free to ignore the advice of any genre purists. The problem with a purist is that purity is an illusion. I've seen at least a few mention the incompatibility of harem and NTR as genres/tags, but there are loads of games with both that are doing just fine. The mental gymnastics some people are capable of performing while trying to explain why something they don't like can't possibly exist next to something they do like is actually medal worthy. Any assumptions people like that make about game content based on tags are their responsibility, but they will absolutely blame you instead. Probably should ignore that too
I'm probably giving the impression that the MC and or every other character will become emotionless fuck bots which isn't really what I have planned. I plan on giving the player the option for the MC to take on a sort of nihilistic detached attitude but that won't be the only option. Your girlfriend will still love you, even if she starts to act a little peculiar, some of the other girls will be varying degrees of affectionate, and the MC's family will all still love each other. I just don't think it's going to end up qualifying for the Romance tag.
One of the potential paths I have planned for the MC is letting you play him as kind of shocked/reluctant/outright horrified by the changes he sees in the people he loves. So, for example, he still deeply cares about his family and is concerned for them but feels pretty conflicted/opposed to getting a blowjob from his sister.
Some of the "genre purists" have give pretty thoughtful inputs and while I fundamentally disagree with most of their points, I don't mind offering them some clarification or explanation of my thoughts. The randos who are just chiming in to say they don't like the game and then dipping out are just funny to me. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon but every time I see one of those comments I just mutter "Sir, this is a Wendy's".
- Continue to maintain a touch of realism in the story and in the relationships between the characters: no one likes BOT characters with hormones always at full blast.
- Review some 3D models if possible.
- Start writing the whole story if you haven't already done so because the story is central here and is the most important element.
- Insist on kink and characterize the project on this (personally I really appreciate bdsm but it doesn't necessarily have to be just this).
I really enjoyed it and for the moment I would give this project a 4 stars out of 5 but it has the potential to become a top tier project.
Great notes. Some of the characters will probably fall into the hormones at full blast category by my intention is, for some of them at least, for there to be a sort of jarring juxtaposition of who these characters are to the MC, what their normal interactions are like, and their sudden sexual appetites. So, the MC and his girlfriend might be casually having breakfast while she talks about some errands she needs to run and how the MC should make sure to cum inside the girls that are collared and chained up before he heads to work.
Are there any models in particular that you think need work? It's still early days so I can tweak some of them without starting over from scratch. Not all of them are intended to be universally attractive. Or at least I found when building them that they were all starting to look pretty similar and generic so I made the trade off of making some of them more distinct even if it means they don't have as much broad appeal.
The major plot points of the story have been worked out. I know the beginning (obviously), middle and end. I have figured out a lot of how we're getting from point A to point B and C. Some parts are a little more fleshed out than others in my notes, which is fine because it gives me room to do some tweaking as we go. My work flow can be a little chaotic at times since one of the ways I work out the details of the story is I come up with a scene that might not fit into the story for awhile but I build a rough draft of it both script and in Daz. This way I end up with a sort of waypoint I have to make sure I steer the story towards. It's probably not the most efficient method but it helps keep me on track.
The game is going to be very kinky. Each of the different girls will kind of feature different kinks and bdsm will be a common theme.
Maybe? I know that's not a great answer. I actually rendered a couple quick animations for the original release but I ran into some issues with getting them into Ren'Py.
(This might be tl;dr overly technical) Part of that was playback related which I'm sure I can figure out but the other issue is that Ren'Py plays videos in an outdated color space. The scene with the girl at the club was going to have a short looping animation of her blowing the MC but because of the color space thing when the still image switched to the video there was a very noticeable change in the colors of the scene. I decided it was too distracting to be worth the inclusion of the animation. Instead of rendering the animations as a video file I can instead code them into Ren'Py as a slideshow that cycles through a bunch of still images (which is how I did the little transition effects in the scene with Qai) but that's not an ideal solution, it is tedious to code and it will quickly bloat the filesize of the game.
Shorter answer, I'm trying to figure it out but it is not my top priority.
If you've played the current content it should give a pretty good idea of how I plan on handling the different sex scenes. I can't guarantee that by the end of the game something that someone dislikes won't slip through but the more "extreme" the content the more effort I'm putting into telegraphing it for the player.
I'm probably giving the impression that the MC and or every other character will become emotionless fuck bots which isn't really what I have planned. I plan on giving the player the option for the MC to take on a sort of nihilistic detached attitude but that won't be the only option. Your girlfriend will still love you, even if she starts to act a little peculiar, some of the other girls will be varying degrees of affectionate, and the MC's family will all still love each other. I just don't think it's going to end up qualifying for the Romance tag.
One of the potential paths I have planned for the MC is letting you play him as kind of shocked/reluctant/outright horrified by the changes he sees in the people he loves. So, for example, he still deeply cares about his family and is concerned for them but feels pretty conflicted/opposed to getting a blowjob from his sister.
Some of the "genre purists" have give pretty thoughtful inputs and while I fundamentally disagree with most of their points, I don't mind offering them some clarification or explanation of my thoughts. The randos who are just chiming in to say they don't like the game and then dipping out are just funny to me. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon but every time I see one of those comments I just mutter "Sir, this is a Wendy's".
Great notes. Some of the characters will probably fall into the hormones at full blast category by my intention is, for some of them at least, for there to be a sort of jarring juxtaposition of who these characters are to the MC, what their normal interactions are like, and their sudden sexual appetites. So, the MC and his girlfriend might be casually having breakfast while she talks about some errands she needs to run and how the MC should make sure to cum inside the girls that are collared and chained up before he heads to work.
Are there any models in particular that you think need work? It's still early days so I can tweak some of them without starting over from scratch. Not all of them are intended to be universally attractive. Or at least I found when building them that they were all starting to look pretty similar and generic so I made the trade off of making some of them more distinct even if it means they don't have as much broad appeal.
The major plot points of the story have been worked out. I know the beginning (obviously), middle and end. I have figured out a lot of how we're getting from point A to point B and C. Some parts are a little more fleshed out than others in my notes, which is fine because it gives me room to do some tweaking as we go. My work flow can be a little chaotic at times since one of the ways I work out the details of the story is I come up with a scene that might not fit into the story for awhile but I build a rough draft of it both script and in Daz. This way I end up with a sort of waypoint I have to make sure I steer the story towards. It's probably not the most efficient method but it helps keep me on track.
The game is going to be very kinky. Each of the different girls will kind of feature different kinks and bdsm will be a common theme.
Maybe? I know that's not a great answer. I actually rendered a couple quick animations for the original release but I ran into some issues with getting them into Ren'Py.
(This might be tl;dr overly technical) Part of that was playback related which I'm sure I can figure out but the other issue is that Ren'Py plays videos in an outdated color space. The scene with the girl at the club was going to have a short looping animation of her blowing the MC but because of the color space thing when the still image switched to the video there was a very noticeable change in the colors of the scene. I decided it was too distracting to be worth the inclusion of the animation. Instead of rendering the animations as a video file I can instead code them into Ren'Py as a slideshow that cycles through a bunch of still images (which is how I did the little transition effects in the scene with Qai) but that's not an ideal solution, it is tedious to code and it will quickly bloat the filesize of the game.
Shorter answer, I'm trying to figure it out but it is not my top priority.
Its alright. I mean renders looks one of the best and the art style also. I just hope it gets the animation tho cuz with these renders the animation will look flawless. Great work on the renders tho.
Its alright. I mean renders looks one of the best and the art style also. I just hope it gets the animation tho cuz with these renders the animation will look flawless. Great work on the renders tho.
You will be able to stay with Nat and fuck every other girl in the game if you like. I have no plans to write a branch that involves Nat leaving you. Some of the other girls interactions with the MC might lean closer to a traditional romantic relationship but ultimately outside of Nat all of the relationships will be built around sex. It's not going to be a dating sim. You can and probably will fuck your way through all the girls. Some of them might end up moving in with you. Some of them might end up being kept as pets. But the game isn't going to be sweet and romantic. In the words of the great American poets Snoop Dogg and Mob Deep, we don't love them hoes.
Not an NTR game. And if your intention is to ignore, why even comment?
So guys, look I've gone over it a few times before but just for future reference here are this site's definition of NTR, and harem since apparently that's up for debate too.
Netorare [Designed to cause jealousy by having the romantic interest involved with someone other than the MC.]
Harem [1 person being courted by at least 3 others, all engaging in consensual sex simultaneously.]
So, not an NTR game. None of the sexual content involving characters other than the MC will be designed to cause jealousy and while I cannot account for each player's reaction or attachment to every single fictional lady in this game, I do not believe any reasonable person would feel jealous in the situations I have planned.
Interestingly the Harem tag doesn't even specify that it has to be the MC with 3 or more partners but don't worry the MC is the one who's going to be doing most of the fucking in this game. But, more relevant to our current discussion, the harem tag doesn't say anything about romantic love. You will have also noticed I have not tagged this game as Romance.
I'm not ragging on any other specific game but I for one am a little bored of corruption-themed games where the girls are turned into uber sluts but also loving girlfriends. In a lot of those games, the MC actively and intentionally will use some sort of mind control type effect on women causing them to go from being sexually uninterested in the MC to uncontrollably desiring the MC. Then suddenly the MC wants to go on candlelit dinner dates with the girl. It's all fantasy and its all fiction and most of it isn't designed to be thought about too much but, guys, come on. Be real. Taking advantage of some kind of magic/sci-fi shenanigans to stick your dick in your family isn't exactly the basis of a fucking love story.
It's porn. Hopefully, it's going to be sexy and hopefully, the story will be interesting but it's not going to model real life romantic relationships.
I would recommend that you don't use the current tag system too much as a reference (although they are useful), those are being changed, many tags have been rewritten and many new ones have been added to the list, although there is still time left for them to be applied, they surely have better information than the current ones, and in the future the tags will be defined by the new descriptions.
Here is the link in case you are interested in seeing the new descriptions and tags.
I would recommend that you don't use the current tag system too much as a reference (although they are useful), those are being changed, many tags have been rewritten and many new ones have been added to the list, although there is still time left for them to be applied, they surely have better information than the current ones, and in the future the tags will be defined by the new descriptions.
Here is the link in case you are interested in seeing the new descriptions and tags.
I'll absolutely update the tags if/when they change to the new ones. But the harem will be centered on the protagonist, I only mentioned that the current harem tag doesn't require that to point out that people were expecting me to apply their personal definitions as opposed to the actual meaning (at least in regards to this site) of the tag. The netorare lesbian tag would probably be debatable but I'll err on the side of caution. If you've played the game and seen the content in there I think you'd understand what I mean.
In the meantime, I'll be making a good-faith effort to apply the current tag definitions as best I can.
If anyone ends up playing this game under false presumptions due to the tags I've given it and somehow feels wronged I will happily refund them the $0 they've paid to play the game.
Also, feel free to ignore the advice of any genre purists. The problem with a purist is that purity is an illusion. I've seen at least a few mention the incompatibility of harem and NTR as genres/tags, but there are loads of games with both that are doing just fine. The mental gymnastics some people are capable of performing while trying to explain why something they don't like can't possibly exist next to something they do like is actually medal worthy. Any assumptions people like that make about game content based on tags are their responsibility, but they will absolutely blame you instead. Probably should ignore that too
They are doing just fine being outside of the top best earners and probably having the biggest percentage of abandonment, because they can't catch an audience willing to put up with the bullshitery and mental gymnastics on why its not that bad, or its important for the plot. I gotta be honest, it is kinda funny seeing devs that went this route with under 200 subs after 5 years of development, I hope your advice pays their electricity bill!
People forget that the visual novel genre is a glorified dating simulator at its core, dating the girl(s) and riding into the sunsets is the expectation of the vast majority of the playerbase. Blows my mind that so many clowns can't figure out why someone interested in romance, friendship, wholesomeness, building relationships will have an issue with LI that would cheat at one wrong mouse click, or them being the town bicycles...
A MC can't be both a proactive, dominant character protecting his loved ones and a doormat voyeur cuck being lead along by everyone else in the narrative, LI can't both be unconditionally loyal to serve a harem and cheating sluts falling for the one dimensional villain. Do I need to continue, or you see why avoidable content is ultimately a narrative myth? That is if we are ignoring the technical aspects of trying to juggle wildly different scenes and the personality changes to go along with those scenes. It will never successfully going to be pulled of until triple AAA studios start doing AVNs.
Thats why its best to pick your lane early and stay in it rather than trying to mix tags that are diametrically opposed, good financially and good for your piece of mind.
In one of the character's virtual simulation scenes, there will be some futa content that is much more fantasy/biologically impossible. You won't have to watch these scenes but it will be considered to have taken place regardless. If you go back and look at some of my earlier posts I shared a teaser image of one of the scenes planned. I'll spell it out in more depth behind a spoiler tag here though.
They are doing just fine being outside of the top best earners and probably having the biggest percentage of abandonment, because they can't catch an audience willing to put up with the bullshitery and mental gymnastics on why its not that bad, or its important for the plot. I gotta be honest, it is kinda funny seeing devs that went this route with under 200 subs after 5 years of development, I hope your advice pays their electricity bill!
People forget that the visual novel genre is a glorified dating simulator at its core, dating the girl(s) and riding into the sunsets is the expectation of the vast majority of the playerbase. Blows my mind that so many clowns can't figure out why someone interested in romance, friendship, wholesomeness, building relationships will have an issue with LI that would cheat at one wrong mouse click, or them being the town bicycles...
A MC can't be both a proactive, dominant character protecting his loved ones and a doormat voyeur cuck being lead along by everyone else in the narrative, LI can't both be unconditionally loyal to serve a harem and cheating sluts falling for the one dimensional villain. Do I need to continue, or you see why avoidable content is ultimately a narrative myth? That is if we are ignoring the technical aspects of trying to juggle wildly different scenes and the personality changes to go along with those scenes. It will never successfully going to be pulled of until triple AAA studios start doing AVNs.
Thats why its best to pick your lane early and stay in it rather than trying to mix tags that are diametrically opposed, good financially and good for your piece of mind.
Thank you for your advice? Words of encouragement?
It's *not* an NTR game. No one is stealing your girl. There is no romantic rival in this game. Avoidable content is not a narrative myth. Unless you literally accidentally click the wrong button or just don't read anything before making a choice in this game you're not really going to have to worry about the love interests having sex with people other than the MC. And if that does happen? Just scroll back and pick again. I think I've clearly explained how things will work but obviously the strawman you're describing does sound pretty bad.
I have picked my lane. I'm sorry it's not the exact same lane as the majority of the games on this site.
I'm making pretty good progress, but mostly because I had some of the scenes rendered already before I went back to rework the initial release. The story is going to pick up the pace a little and we're going to get closer to the really fun (fucked up) parts of the game.