we ARE making a game (Update!!)

[Almost96]

So this is a short story, but maybe someone someone here can relate to me.
For a while now I was in hunt for good hentai games, I played some trash from steam and other free flash games but, surprise surprise, 95% of them are trash. In the end I posted on reddit for help finding good hentai games (because I knew they were there somewhere). Skipping some details, found dlsite then F95 where I download the game to see that the game on dlsite actually deserves my money (I always buy the games that are deserving for that amount of money), in my opinion a lot of the are just greedy cash grabs type of game, make half decent art, a very obscure story, make it appealing at first by showcasing the best things in the game which makes you think they are the worse and market it for 10$ which for some of you maybe its not that much, but where I'm from with 10$ you can do a whole fucking lot.
I have a lot of fetishes, that's why games who fall in the bdsm genres are the best for me. I found a lot of great completed or in development games but my personal favorite its, not a surprise for many who are into the genre, The Moral Sword of Asagi. Its my favorite for the simple fact that, its not great in absolutely anything, but its good in everything, its no thing in the game that in my opinion can be considered bad, except one.
There are two frustration that I have for, one is personal and one I think most of you can agree. The personal one is that no games have my exact vision of hardcore (don't get scared of this statement because I'm only into legal things). And the fact that all games lack consistency. What I am saying with this? Consistency I believe that in most cases its key, personal life, school, friends, relationships etc. I want to see games that ,for example if you characters have a status effect, your character to actually have it displayed on the character, costumes and accessories to be exact exactly that to change your character, not just stat changing Items, I understand that most creator just want the games to go out and have some good things because for some of them this is their actual job, which falls in the cash grab zone I talked above, I'm not saying what they do its wrong, because its not, its a way to do business, not the most honorable one, but still a legit way to do it.
Now the game. The game will be in rpgm, I consider it to be the best platform for what I want it to be. The game will have the following things
1. I will not use the system of, loss battle to get the lewd action, in my opinion that things its just from lazy story telling
2. The game will start in our day and age, but *because the plot will happen* you will go through 6 different realities, for now we have, medieval, SF, a Hell-ish type of zone, a curent day and age zone that will have some important plot things changed, the other two we are still thinking because we want those to be the more special ones
3. No bad ending, instead how many times you lose will alterate the story in some ways and in the end of the game you will obtain (place holder names incoming) Hell Ending or Holly Ending and if you want the ultimate ending it will be, Uber Hell Ending or Uber Holy Ending, but keep in mind that none of the ending are good or bad.
From this point of view this is the maximum of details I want to disclose for now. We are a team of 4. Me for most of the technical shits and story, one for art and story, another one for art level design and another one just for art. Why 3 people for art? because It will have a huge amount of it. At first the game will be in English and if it goes well, most probably I will talk with my Japanese teacher to help me translate it and hope he will not kick me out of japanese class for asking something like this, but you know, no risk no reward.
We want to launch the game in 6-8 months, because we cant work full time on this, because all of us have university or work or both.
The launch game will have the prologue and the first zone which will be the medieval one, just because I see people really enjoying the theme. The prologue will be half an hour and the first zone will be 3-5 hours of gameplay. Why we want to do it this way? All zones will be 3-5 so when the full game is launched, back to back you will have anywhere from 18 to 30 hours of gameplay. The prologue and the first zone will be launched here on F95 and we will really enjoy your full and honest feedback, also we will want you to decide which theme will be zone 2. After the launch of the prologue and the first zone we will launch on patreon for everyone who thinks our works deserves money and when we will have the full game ready and the japanese version we will launch it on dlsite.
Now I want your feedback. Even though I bet there were tens if not hundreds of people with stories similar to mine and never mounted up to anything, but please give me the benefit of the doubt.
What do you think of this concept?
Do you think this business model can work?
What advice can you give to us as rookies?
What hardships can we expect?
....and just say anything you feel like telling.
Thank you for your time and I am very grateful for each response, good or bad.

 

[Winterfire]

Good luck!

 

[Almost96]

Good luck!

Very deep ) , thank you <3

 

[kytee]

Talk is cheap. Like you said, everyone has an idea, pulling it off is another thing. Your project sounds very ambitious with a significant amount of complexity, which means more work for your team. Are they on the same page as you? Are they as passionate about your project as you are? Because if they're not, you'll see that when you hit patches in the game development process where hard work is required, they'll bail on you and you'll be left doing everything yourself. Regarding the amount of work needed to develop a game, I'd say take the amount of time you think you need to develop the game and 10x it.

If you and your team stick to it, then I hope to try out your game in 6-8 months, but if not, you can join the rest of the developers with big hopes and dreams who's fires died out in the cold.

 

[Almost96]

Talk is cheap. Like you said, everyone has an idea, pulling it off is another thing. Your project sounds very ambitious with a significant amount of complexity, which means more work for your team. Are they on the same page as you? Are they as passionate about your project as you are? Because if they're not, you'll see that when you hit patches in the game development process where hard work is required, they'll bail on you and you'll be left doing everything yourself. Regarding the amount of work needed to develop a game, I'd say take the amount of time you think you need to develop the game and 10x it.

If you and your team stick to it, then I hope to try out your game in 6-8 months, but if not, you can join the rest of the developers with big hopes and dreams who's fires died out in the cold.

We are mostly on the same page, because one of the persons involved is my gf and the other two are my best friend and his gf. We live 2 blocks from each other, we have the advantage to just go out for a drink and settle things up. But if we will need it we will not say no if someone wants to join us and help out when things are a bit rough. We talked about it and all 4 of us is something to gain, even is its just experience in coding, writing or art. We try to take is as a passion project. Especially me and my best friend are very competitive if we get to involved in things and even tho in most cases that's good, you can fall in the extreme of it and just fuck everything up.

 

[DawnCry]

What do you think of this concept?:

Overall I find it quite random and not very interesting from what you have said, the thing is that unless you have a really good writer it would be nice to stick with 1 world 1 realm, it is already hard enough as it is and while I don't fully know what is planned, it seems to make the game overly complex.

Do you think this business model can work?:

Well it can, it seems to be a combination of dlsite and patreon, but I would rather stick to only patreon and then try other options.

What advice can you give to us as rookies?:

First of all you have to work on the mechanics, menus and write about characters, missions and developments, doing a good job in this part is what guarantees if a game will be succesful or not.

Do we play a male MC or female one? who are the other characters? when you talked about about consistency and relationships can they have sex with each other or develop relationshios with someone that isn't you?

Related to mechanics: Will we have sex stats? can we be the dominant one of the BDSM? a lot of things matter! but it requires a lot of information to build up a good game.

What hardships can we expect?:

Being a new developer isn't easy, having an idea has no value, to make it have value you need to develop it a lot.

Don't expect people to throw you money any time soon, you should just take it as a side project compared to your usual life, at least unless you are lucky enough to get enough money to support yourselves.

A conflict that may arise is related to fetishes, because BDSM isn't one of the most used ones, even more when it gets used is more like plain bondage rather than the SM part. Even more don't know exactly what parts of it will be focused, orgasm denial? foot fetish? toys use? light pain actions?. It isn't easy at all.

 

[fidless]

What hardships can we expect?:
Codding, writing, making models&scenes+at least 1 hour of new story content each month. If you can't do that, you're no good.

 

[おい！]

What hardships can we expect?:
Codding, writing, making models&scenes+at least 1 hour of new story content each month. If you can't do that, you're no good.

Really https://f95zone.to/threads/milfy-city-v0-6e-icstor.8012/
https://f95zone.to/threads/waifu-academy-v0-7-1a-irphaeus.9414/
https://f95zone.to/threads/parental-love-v0-15-luxee.3222/
https://f95zone.to/threads/become-a-rock-star-v0-5-mr-jet.17836/
https://f95zone.to/threads/the-tyrant-v0-8-5-fix-saddoggames.6025/

 

[Almost96]

What do you think of this concept?:

Overall I find it quite random and not very interesting from what you have said, the thing is that unless you have a really good writer it would be nice to stick with 1 world 1 realm, it is already hard enough as it is and while I don't fully know what is planned, it seems to make the game overly complex.

Do you think this business model can work?:

Well it can, it seems to be a combination of dlsite and patreon, but I would rather stick to only patreon and then try other options.

What advice can you give to us as rookies?:

First of all you have to work on the mechanics, menus and write about characters, missions and developments, doing a good job in this part is what guarantees if a game will be succesful or not.

Do we play a male MC or female one? who are the other characters? when you talked about about consistency and relationships can they have sex with each other or develop relationshios with someone that isn't you?

Related to mechanics: Will we have sex stats? can we be the dominant one of the BDSM? a lot of things matter! but it requires a lot of information to build up a good game.

What hardships can we expect?:

Being a new developer isn't easy, having an idea has no value, to make it have value you need to develop it a lot.

Don't expect people to throw you money any time soon, you should just take it as a side project compared to your usual life, at least unless you are lucky enough to get enough money to support yourselves.

A conflict that may arise is related to fetishes, because BDSM isn't one of the most used ones, even more when it gets used is more like plain bondage rather than the SM part. Even more don't know exactly what parts of it will be focused, orgasm denial? foot fetish? toys use? light pain actions?. It isn't easy at all.

From how I described it I see how It doesnt make that much sense. But il will be the following, think about the 6 realms as 6 trials for how our MC will develop (the simplest way to describe them although will be way more complex that this, is, go in the portal, solve the problem there, kill the semi and final boss, get back to the real world, go the next one until you arrive at the 6th one from where the final battle happens), and how your results will be at the end of each realm (the realm will be closed after completion) it will decide how your character goes. We want to target as many fetishes as possible (main one being bdsm with most of its forms) this is where the 6 realms come in play, because we want to have as many fetishes as possible, it will be a little bit for mostly everyone. Our MC will be female and you will have 2 main companions and one other (so 4 companions in zone 4 and 5) who will be your helping character in the specific realm to help bridge the gap about why is happening what is happening in that realm.
Regarding mechanics, yes, we will have sex stats, I was really impressed with the concept from Metal Edge Girl Blazer, I want to do something like that and take it up a bit, your companions will also have a stat system but It will be way lesser then of your MC. No, our MC will be only sub, we are thinking about making one of the main companions do be dominant so we could have some femdom scenes.

 

[Almost96]

What hardships can we expect?:
Codding, writing, making models&scenes+at least 1 hour of new story content each month. If you can't do that, you're no good.

Ok, one hour of content/month at the very least, noted <3

 

[AdultCandy]

I like your enthousiasm! But.. bringing it into reality is quit daunty and get's messy real fast. From my experience, if you want to start big like you do, you'll run into many obstacles that'll force you to lower your expectations, which in turn can be quit demotivating. So my advice is to think small, and build up from there. Still, I'm not aware of your experience/skill in developing a game like the one you're proposing and the fact that you can do it in a team is awesome and will surely help a lot. I hope to be able to develop games in a team one day to Good luck!

 

[Ragnar]

Well, with those walls of text maybe you should try to make a text based one with some pics here and there.

 

[Almost96]

Well, with those walls of text maybe you should try to make a text based one with some pics here and there.

Yeah, but is my text any good or its just a lot of text and end of the story? )

 

[Almost96]

I like your enthousiasm! But.. bringing it into reality is quit daunty and get's messy real fast. From my experience, if you want to start big like you do, you'll run into many obstacles that'll force you to lower your expectations, which in turn can be quit demotivating. So my advice is to think small, and build up from there. Still, I'm not aware of your experience/skill in developing a game like the one you're proposing and the fact that you can do it in a team is awesome and will surely help a lot. I hope to be able to develop games in a team one day to Good luck!

The things with me is not exactly that I get demotivated myself, its that I get very angry which demotivates the rest ) who is a bit worse...anyway thanks a lot, good luck and I have faith you will find a great team to work it, but as most great things in life, they come when you are least expecting them

 

[Almost96]

Oh boy, what a situation. A few of you commented or just rolled their eyes and moved forward when they saw my first post is here.
This was almost two months ago, time in which the girl who did the art said she cant do it because she is to busy with work, uni and other things. We remained three, me, my best friend and my gf but silently it started to die. Until one and a half week ago when my gf said ,,I wanna draw something. She grabbed the pen and paper and started and in the end I was like ,,Hey that's pretty good". Then she told me she hadn't draw anything in 5 years (we know each other only for 2 years) so I talked to someone to lend us an old Wacom bamboo fun (2007 state of the art graphics tablet) and without ever using photoshop or ever drawing on graphics tablet she did this in a few days.



Me and her really want to know your honest opinion and every critique is much appreciated (if you say its shit, say why its shit or else I will be the one who will struggle all night to stop her from crying). But keep in mind, this is just a prototype, so basically this is the worst art that will ever be made, all will go up in therms of quality

Now I have a way more clear image of the game. At first I was like most people I wanted: Mass Effect level of story and characters, Path of Exile level passive tree, Fire Emblem 3 Houses combat etc. But after all the documentation and talking with some people who know more then I do, I started to see things more realistic.
I wanted all those things (even though we would have never been able to be close to most of them) I realised what I was really doing, just an RPGM porn game. For me this was a really big deal, because if I remained with that mentality that my game will be the holy fuck of H-games, be the most unique thing in the world and in the end see that it was a fail and only 3 people out of 10000 liked it, i would have never opened RPGM ever again, but right now I am at peace, I will work and put my heart for this game, but if its a fail, as Frank Sinatra said, That's Life and I will put again my heart for the next one.

Here is how things WILL be in Destiny of A Fox: The Elder's Trial (most probably this will be the name)

1. STORY and CHARACTERS. In my opinion every story needs to have a head and a tail, this is a thing I saw in many h-games, you are just thrown in a situation and go do your shit. In here things will have a intriguing start (I hope) and I really good finish (I hope X2). I dont feel like spoiling the story because it will ruin a whole lot of the game so I will keep things as vague as possible. In this story you will play as the girl in the picture, Vupix, and some thing will happen and you will have to go somewhere with your new found 2 friends, there will be 6 different zones each with totally different styles of bdsm (yes, the game will be full bdsm) and with totally different styles of gameplay and world issues. For example, I can say that the first world will be a medieval one, that will be a classical type of experience, two sides are in conflict, but as you will learn about both of them you will see that neither side is good or bad, depending on what you feel is right, one can be bad, the other good, or both bad or both good. The reason I decided to go that way is because if there is one thing I hate about this games is the absolutely terrible band endings (in my opinion they are the worst things in RPGM games and in VN in general) which means that you will have to do 2 playthrough to get scenes but I have faith it will be worth it. We will have a decision system (not as complex as mass effect) in which your decisions and sex stats will change how she behaves consistently (all throughout the game). Z2 for example will be a what if situation in which depending on what you do and what you will talk with the things there will change how things very going up until that point. Also (only in extremely few ocassions there will be a "lose to get scene")
2. COMBAT, ITEMS ETC. One thing I really love was ahriman's hentai battle system in moral sword of asagi, so expect my version of a hentai battle system. In Z2 expect a lot of combat, but in Z2 will be less, in Z3 again some more and in Z4 and Z5 will be almost none because those zones are the most important to the story and I dont want the story line to be broken by combat that almost never gives anything to the story and Z6 will have again a lot of combat. The way items are and work will not be way more different than what most of you are used to, I feel like working way to much on it can be in the end just trying to reinvent the wheel and it can actually be even worse or overly complicated. I talked at first about a passive tree, there will be one, not path of exile complexity, but the same ideea, you will not receive skills or to much stats from leveling, skills will be given to you from certain situations and and you will add whatever stats you feel like adding (dont worry, thats will have an impact even in the no combat zones but that is way to hard to explain in text). Combat will not be grindy (its another things
3. GRAPHICS, UI and Menu. In the end (when the game will be fully completed, each and every single zone will have background for the cut scenes and everything fully parallaxed. Nothing regarding the UI will be default, because lets face it, the default UI and Menu is dog shit in every possible way and I saw that you can make in RPGM UI's and Menu's that look actually really good.

So this I feel like are the most important things, but I will be happy to answer most of your questions if you have any.
What will happen next? I will regulary post updates on this thread, with all sort of different news.
Our first version will be V 1.00 (surprise surprise) at first the game will have the prologue and Z1 fully, the world will not be parallaxed at first, because right now my priority is to put the game out for you guys so we can get real feedback and really make it the best thing we can possibly do. Each V1.XX will come with bug fixes, maybe some balance changes, maybe some dialogue adjustments and while the paralaxing and cut snece background are being made, we will work in parallel on Z2. Basically, when paralaxing is done for Z1, V2.00 will begin and so on.
We will have a patreon and a discord only when V1.00 is launched, it will be stupid to launch anything like this before V1.00 is out, but if someone feels my ideea and wants to send a donation, I will not say no, in return you will receive a warm thank you and a sexy virtual dance from me (I dance better and sexier than my gf)
If you have any questions, suggestions, tips and tricks, dont hesitate to comment <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

 

[!2d10]

Well you have piqued my interest even though I dont know alot about bdsm. I look forward to what come out of this.
I like the picture. v cute. I was wondering is can you do something about shading the bottom of the skirt, though my major concern is can you replicate the pictures style from a different angle? If you do that I think the art will be nice.
Don't give up, I'm be waiting for the next update form the Almost game developers team!

 

[AlmostFoxy]

Well you have piqued my interest even though I dont know alot about bdsm. I look forward to what come out of this.
I like the picture. v cute. I was wondering is can you do something about shading the bottom of the skirt, though my major concern is can you replicate the pictures style from a different angle? If you do that I think the art will be nice.
Don't give up, I'm be waiting for the next update form the Almost game developers team!

Thank you very much for your suggestion!About the question....Yes,I can replicate it in different angles but the art will be a bit different, like more polished with slightly differtent features...
Can I ask you what do you look in a hentai game art,what kind of style, how do you like the characters (girls) to be? XoXo

 

[!2d10]

Can I ask you what do you look in a hentai game art,what kind of style, how do you like the characters (girls) to be? XoXo

Well after alot of analyzing and pschoanlaysing here my response. Gameplay and tags are usually how I find the games. The thing that I look for is "do the characters look like some I would want to fuck/cuddle" which is subjective. Some thing I like is consistency of style though. Issues with this usually come from changing the POV in one scene that the art just feels out of place or long development time and switching artist without fixing old scenes. note this is different from gradual improvements or combat vs standing models.

Spoiler: you probably know this but...

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As far as art style I think yours is pretty good. I tend to like simple/curvy thin lines and bright matte colors for clothes. Gloss can take a way from the picture especially when used in excess, and dull color work better in pixel art. With faces I like anime/lager eyes, not a lot of detail with the nose and mouth, a health amount of empty space, and in general very expressive.

As far as the type of girls I like big boobs. hell I even found hentai games because of

Spoiler: breast expansion

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But thick thighs and ass that give curves are nice. Have some character designs foil each other can help accentuate their features (e.g. Panic Party). Slight curves to the stomach can be hot. As for clothes I like tight clothes (seeing hard nipples or camel toes) and showing some skin (like keyhole sweaters, mid-drifts, and tall socks and skirts). As far as more erotic clothes go pasties, shibari, and bunny girl leotards. also when the character become more sexually open it nice when the art reflect that.

All that said my answer are my personal respone and are horrible subjective. they should also be taken with a grain of salt because I'm not an artist. you should draw what you can and what you think looks good. Hope this helps

 

[Cndyrvr4lf]

Our MC will be female and you will have 2 main companions and one other (so 4 companions in zone 4 and 5) who will be your helping character in the specific realm to help bridge the gap about why is happening what is happening in that realm.
Regarding mechanics, yes, we will have sex stats, I was really impressed with the concept from Metal Edge Girl Blazer, I want to do something like that and take it up a bit, your companions will also have a stat system but It will be way lesser then of your MC. No, our MC will be only sub, we are thinking about making one of the main companions do be dominant so we could have some femdom scenes.

Ah see and I thought it sounded like a good idea until I got to this part. I can't immerse myself into a female's perspective so I don't bother playing female protagonist games. Add in the whole sub thing that's a hard nope for me. Good luck with your game though.

 

[Almost96]

Ah see and I thought it sounded like a good idea until I got to this part. I can't immerse myself into a female's perspective so I don't bother playing female protagonist games. Add in the whole sub thing that's a hard nope for me. Good luck with your game though.

Yeah, you are not the first one who I saw saying something like this and I really do understand your point. Because this is our first game we want to do the things we are the most comfortable to do and know the most. But I take this seriously and I am doing my best so that people can relate to her as much as possible through her personality and what she does and react, thats why there will be almost no "lose to get scene" and also there will not be that thing in which you are some super hero half God girl and get raped 200 times by some random bandits after you already killed 500 of them.