I've noticed that the narrative of games like Milfy City makes more sense when you pursue one girl at a time

[rb813]

I'm not sure which of the "young male protagonist living with two sisters and a mom" games came first, but I first noticed it with Milfy City because I decided to replay it with a walkthrough, and the walkthrough that's on this website separates each character into their own section (I'm used to the LOP type of game where there's a time limit, so you have to follow a bit more of a tightly-planned path if you want to get all the content). As I played through it, I realized that the writing seemed a lot more believable than it had the first time I played. It always seemed a little bit silly how the MC has an internal monologue going about how perfect this or that girl is, how much he's in love with her, even though he's wolfishly going after two or more other women at the same time. If you're just doing one, then that isn't a problem anymore.

But then, of course, the problem is in the gameplay, because just pursuing one object of affection means there isn't anything you can do toward that goal for most of the day. This might be more pronounced in Milfy City than in some other games, because you don't have any stats to grind, but on the other hand, it's also easier to jump forward in time. With Man of the House, you can spend pretty much the whole day working, and you might get a BJ from a hot client, or at least make some money. But the games definitely don't seem like they were designed (in terms of giving you stuff to do) for the player to only go after one gal, even though the narratives are almost always written that way (except for brief glimpses of what could be, like the bit in MotH were the older sister catches you peeping on the mom, and helps you out a little).

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I overthinking it?

 

[kytee]

Well you could say the problem is with free roam games in general. When the writers for those stories write, they can't anticipate the path you as a player chose. If they wrote for a character that has been pursuing other girls, it'd alienate the players who stayed faithful to that girl and vice versa. It's possible to create paths or events for different girls that intertwine or intersect at a point that makes sense for each separate story. An example of this is Mythic Manor where there are special events if your relationship with two girls are above a certain threshold.

But in the end, making a route where the MC seems to be faithful to the girl of that route satisfies both crowds. The ones who are faithful to a girl can play the faithful character, and the ones who aren't don't usually mind too much. Or they can imagine her as main waifu, whatever floats their boat.

 

[Volta]

Wait wait wait wait, Milf City has a story?!

To be honest most sandbox games suffer from story problems because of their non linear nature, with no enforced play order context becomes variable, that's why it takes far more careful writing to build a compelling story in a sandbox than in a VN. In a VN you know all of the potential actions a player has taken or could take before the current moment and can tailor the dialogue to fit, sandboxes can't do that and often fail on story because each scene is divorced from the others, save the few required to reach the current scene, in that way each "line" follows it's own discrete story and is irrelevant of the others.

In that way you also can lose the MC's voice, the MC can be all lovey dovey with Caroline and Sarah but is a sadist with Celia, potentially in the same day, this makes the MC's character nebulous at best and non-existent at worst. I think what we're encountering here is just a limitation of the format, sandboxes are good for games that don't sell on story, rather they have story to fit together the scenes, which are the selling point of the game.

Yes, i am biased toward VN's but that's just because i prefer story and intrigue, the latter of which is very hard to do in a sandbox game due to the potential disorder of scenes, effectively neutering the structure required for a more compelling story or at least certain types of story.

 

[rb813]

Milf City has a story?!

It doesn't have an overall unified plotline, but it certainly does have a narrative in regard to the main character's interactions with the women he's pursuing.

I think what we're encountering here is just a limitation of the format

There are still little things here and there that really wouldn't take much more effort. At the point when MC is thinking about how Mom is absolutely the most perfect woman ever, maybe just have him say something slightly different if you've progressed beyond a certain point with either of the sisters. I'm not saying there needs to be a unique option for every relationship stage of every other girl in the game.

 

[AmazonessKing]

even though he's wolfishly going after two or more other women at the same time

I don't see why he can't like more than one woman, though. But as people have pointed out before, the problem is the free roam aspect of the game. I personally go all the way with one girl before moving to another, and I absolutely hate time constrains and missables because of this.

The way I'm solving it in my own game is that, despite you can choose different girls, you are actually punished by doing so, BUT, when you go all the way with all girls and then choose different girls, you will get the harem ending, for story reasons and stuff. The game is clear to tell you that you are going in the wrong direction, but you can try this later. That way you originally are meant to be faithful, but your reward for being faithful is an harem route.

 

[polywog]

Getting 1 girl seems more believable than getting 9 girls at once.

 

[Volta]

Getting 1 girl seems more believable than getting 9 girls at once.
View attachment 425599

Of course it does but isn't juggling the lies the fun part?

 

[kytee]

Hardly any games touch on the aspect of juggling multiple girls in a harem though

 

[AmazonessKing]

Ironically, GTA SA kinda does.

 

[rb813]

Hardly any games touch on the aspect of juggling multiple girls in a harem though

I wonder; would games like Milfy City and Man of the House be more interesting if you had to act carefully to not let one girl get suspicious about another girl, or would it just be another cumbersome impediment to progress?

 

[pasunna]

I wonder; would games like Milfy City and Man of the House be more interesting if you had to act carefully to not let one girl get suspicious about another girl, or would it just be another cumbersome impediment to progress?

yes it will more interesting
but it put more load work to develop
just to make complicate choice system alone without render maybe need months
and... I don't see anyone around can wait...

 

[AmazonessKing]

or would it just be another cumbersome impediment to progress?

I think the games could be better IF that's the focus of the game, if the game is made to work around that scenario. In games like Milfy City or ICSTOR games in general, I think the whole point is to get all the girls regardless. If the later is what you intend, then it would be a cumbersome task.

 

[AmazonessKing]

just to make complicate choice system alone without render maybe need months

I found that making a complicated choice system isn't really that complicated in Ren'py if you know how flags work. If you have your game work in points, it can simply work by having a choice adding and subtracting points at once. For example

menu:
    "What should I do?"

    "Say Laura is cute in front of Vanessa":
        $ Vanessapoints -= 1
        $ Laurapoints += 1

    "Support Vanessa":
        $ Vanessapoints += 1
        $ Laurapoints += 1
        
    if Vanessa_Distracted:
        "Tell Laura she is cute without Vanessa knowing"
            $ Laurapoints += 1

And so on and so forth. The list can get bigger depending on how much it grows or not, but it doesn't seem impossible or THAT hard. I guess it can get harder as the list grows bigger, but as long as you know where each you are putting each stuff, it shouldn't be a problem. You can also make an specific class to sort things out automatically. I can see it being doable.

 

[Bakkalon]

Unfortunately many supposedly harem games here lack a lot of harem elements.

 

[Volta]

I like the idea of a guy who is going after multiple girls having his behaviour have consequences, not necessarily them dumping his ass but accepting that he is a player if they know or simply not being willing to be involved with him or at least being reluctant to be, at least to begin with.

It would make sense for a game like Milf City to have a certain "collect em all" element, some girls could be totally fine with that, with the MC having an incest harem at his back, like say Linda in Milf City who seems to get off pretty hard on the incest element, that and she likes younger guys, same with the Aunt's wife, she's only in it for the sex, whereas little Sarah would be heart broken to know her brother had been screwing everything with a pussy this side of the pacific.

I think the illicit part of the incest taboo falls flat though if too many people know, you'd have to keep the group small or risk being discovered by the wrong people, it would add a nice peril element actually if you had a game over that results form the MC being prosecuted for incest, though i can see that being met with almost as much approval by the fan base as Eric continuing to breath.

 

[rb813]

I'm not really a big fan of game over results in this type of game. It's not as if this is a roguelike; you can just reload a savegame anyway, or even use the rollback feature. So I think it would make more sense from a design perspective to just have something like that cause a big setback (what exactly that would be, I don't know) and then maybe the player would accept it as a challenge instead of just reloading and wiping it all away.

 

[AmazonessKing]

Pretty much that! My biggest problems in games like visual novels is "missables". It doesn't make sense, same with a game over. A bad ending is one thing, but it would be a consequence of your choices, and you should really be told what you did wrong instead of somehow try to find out what the hell you screwed.

I remember an old japanese VN where the "Easy mode" told you what each choice did instead of having you figuring out, I think that was pretty nice.

If you are making a game with such consequences, and if you are going to "game over" the player, I think it's worth at least telling the player what each action do exactly, and that way it would only be fair if the player fails or not.

Basically, always give information, that way the player at least will sense and know what they need to change to avoid those pitfalls.

 

[rb813]

I remember an old japanese VN where the "Easy mode" told you what each choice did instead of having you figuring out, I think that was pretty nice.

There's actually a mod for Dating My Daughter that can do that (or, it can alternately just highlight the right choices). Basically, a game-integrated walkthrough, very convenient.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Hardly any games touch on the aspect of juggling multiple girls in a harem though

Playing Crusader Kings II, having a wife, 3 concubines, and 2-3 lovers on top. Oh there be consequences, lol.

 

[kytee]

Playing Crusader Kings II, having a wife, 3 concubines, and 2-3 lovers on top. Oh there be consequences, lol.

I have almost 2000 hours on that game lol. Now that they allowed seducing a relative using seduction focus, been inbreeding my dynasty to death literally