Must players be given choice in harems

[Mimir's Lab]

Must players be given the choice of who is in their harem, and who is not? Keyword here is "must". Keep in mind, this post was made with choice-based VN format in mind, no sandbox. On the surface level, it seems like a good thing to have; Not every girl will appeal to everyone and it makes sense to allow players to ignore content from girls they don't like. However, I've run into a predicament. One of my guiding philosophies in storytelling is to put purpose into everything that is shown and said in every scene. If it has no purpose, it needs to be cut. With that in mind, in my quest to produce an ambitious story-driven VN, I've tried to put more meaning behind the harem genre and each girl in the harem. My resulting conclusion is that each girl should contribute something significant to the overall story arch of the main character, otherwise they have no purpose in the grander scheme of things and should be cut.

However, if every girl has a purpose in the story, allowing players to choose who is in their harem removes one or more essential pieces of character development the MC needs to solve his problem.

The way I see it, there are several directions I can take here.

One, I can allow player choice and write all the branches for the story if a player choose to ignore certain girls and write the consequences of all of those branches. Impossible to do if I want to finish the VN within this decade or if I want more than 10 minutes of content for each branch per release.

Two, allow the player to choose who they want to get sexual with, while the others remain friends and a relevant part of the story. This would have been the best compromise but I have written some sex scenes that are absolutely essential to the overarching plot (see guiding philosophy from above). Of course I can always retcon those but I feel like they bring something unique to my story that others don't quite have.

Lastly, I can ignore player choice and force them to have sexual relationships with all the girls and, where the sex is less impactful on the story, allow them to refuse sex with a girl. This is currently what I'm leaning towards. I plan to offset the hate that I'd get by putting all my efforts into making each girl as likeable as possible in hopes that players would have chosen to have relationships with all of the girls anyways if given the choice. Easier said than done, but it's less work than going the other directions.

But maybe there's other directions that I can take that I'm not seeing. I'm still at a point in my writing where I can choose any direction to move towards so I'd like any opinions on the matter before I make a final decision.

 

[Avaron1974]

I'd follow the Evenicle method if you want to give the girls in depth story in a harem game. You do the story first then give people the option to add them to the harem or not.

The sex part is the problem because you absolutely will have to force some girls on the players to get sex content and not everyone is going to be happy about that.

Take WVM, the main 2 girl are not optional, you have them no matter what and there is no removing them. While both Jaime and Shauna are quite popular they do still have their share of people that want them removed from their game.

Sisterly Lust is probably my fave harem game and I don't see any game ever beating it although My Sister My Roommate came damn close with the Cory ending.

For starters you've got your core girls, you need them to start and build up from but all other girls were optional. Not only that but it also has the best harem in terms of action and running. See while the MC is busy with whicher girl or girls he happens to be with on any given night the girls all have their thing goin on with each other too. While he is still the centre of the harem, no one is left out and there is no jealousy.

There are those harems where only the MC ever gets any action and the rest of the girls all wait in line for their turn but i've always found those a bit boring.

Long and short of it is you will have to force some stuff on players. If you make everything optional it will take you years to get anywhere.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

I will have to try this Evenicle that you mentioned, provided it isn't too long.

I think ultimately, I will end up doing the forced relationship route because it just makes sense story-wise and gives me more to play with as the writer.

 

[Untolddead]

It seems to me to be more about scope then whether you must let players choose. In this case removing or side lining characters from the story because the player doesn't like them will increase scope and complexity to the project. Now you'll have to create scenes with and with out said character. Events that may make sense with that character in the Harem may not any more.

Now if you never let the harem characters interact in almost separate stories as many games do then this is less of a problem. As for trying to make everyone likeable I fear that such a plan will make all characters generic.

Anyways if you have the time and budget you can do anything. But for me minimizing scope is always my top priority.

 

[Avaron1974]

I will have to try this Evenicle that you mentioned, provided it isn't too long.

It's a full length adult RPG, you're talking 50+ hours, maybe longer or shorter depending how fast you get through it.

 

[Untolddead]

Sorry for posting again. But my point was there is no must in game design. I feel that too many game creators think that way. Like oh if I make the player have sex with this girl they don't like they'll hate my game. Or I have to have this open world system where every character is dynamically generated with complex dialogue.

But in the end they never finish the game and leave a confusing unfinished mess leaving no one happy. It's way better to have a game where some people don't like it because of the sex scenes with a particular character. Then have every one hate the game because the story/gameplay is destroyed/never completed because of your fear of people hating a specific character.

 

[Adabelitoo]

Make some coffee because this got long. I'm the dev of Complex Society and I'm dealing with the same dilemma than you. I'm dealing with it now and I was dealing with it a year and a month ago when I released the game.

There is no emoji in this world that could express how "identified" I felt while reading your post. The only different is that my game is a sandbox but sometimes I feel like the order you must interact with the girls is so forced that I tend to think of it as a VN. Everything shown and said must have a purpose, I 1000% agree on that, and that of course includes the girls. I don't know what's the story you have in mind but in my game, not only all girls will live to worship MC's cock like every single harem game does, I really want to build that relationship and justify why things get to that point, but I also want the girls to meet each other, to make all of them aware of the situation, to care about each other and to help MC and each other reach their goals and dreams.

I thought those exact 3 situations:
- If I do 1) then the player doesn't have that girl and all the things that she will contribute to the story, so it's basically an untold game over, and if I do a different paths for every combination of girls that the player may want to discard, then I'll meet my grandchildrens before finishing the game.
- If I do 2) then sure, I get to tell the story I want overall but I feel like it gets significantly less meaningfull and it feels more empty or even incomplete as a story telling point of view.
- If I do 3) which is the choice I'm currently doing (more on that later) then I can tell the story I want in the way I want and make what I think makes the game meaningfull, but then I'm not only forcing girls onto the player, which as you said it doesn't seems like a good thing, I'll also get me and the game hated by some players.

I didn't have too much confidence on my writing skills when I started doing my game so I opted to not force myself to write paths or stories that I don't feel comfortable doing, so to avoid writing paths with consequences for all scenerios that I felt like didn't have a real purpose and were there just to fill a void (1) and to avoid writting silly/lame excuses/work arounds to justify why things matter and get so emotional and/or intense (2), I opted to go with the third option.

But when I released my game I totally understimated two thing: how much some players can and will hate me and my game, and how many people will dislike a lot of things that me and my proofreader thought that it would be unthinkable to dislike.

Now I feel more confident with my writing skills and I have more ideas about potential paths and stories, but even now that I got better and learn about the hate factor, I feel like I took the right choice back then.

That's something that I feel now, not when I started. Now I'm getting some hate but at least I'm telling the story I want to tell in the way that I feel is the best way to do it. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who will hate it and let you know about it because it's impossible to please everyone, so now I'm sure that if I chose 1) or 2) someone would have hated it anyway and I wouldn't even be doing what I think it was the right thing to do or what makes me happy, and I don't know how you are but it doesn't take too much for me to ruin my mood. A lot of times, knowing that I'm telling the story I love and want to share is the only thing that makes me keep working on it.

What I thought in this time was similar to what Avaron said that happens in WVM (I didn't play that yet) and what Evenicle apparently does: Make the two main girls not avoidable, give players the option to add or reject girls only when things start to get physical and force them to play their stories until that point, and lastly when a girl gets rejected, the story for the rest of the girls will be the exact same until they need something from the rejected girl or a few scenes before reaching that point. At that point I could write a short path but it wouldn't be my main story anymore, it could be just a short excuse to solve everyone's problems and show a "happy ending" that won't be the true ending but will bring clousure to the game.

That way I shouldn't spend tooo much extra time working on that and people will be free to reject girls. It comes with the price of having a shorter game with a different ending but if somebody complains about it then:
- First, having a different outcome based on your choices is called branching, and that's nothing weird or out of place in these games.
- And second, if someone complains about not getting the true ending for rejecting a girl then I feel okay with telling them "Dude, you rejected the girl that contributes the necessary elements to solve X problem. How is that my fault?"

Right now the player is forced to be with all girl, I didn't apply it yet. I want to think more about it before doing it but I think that's the path I'll take.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Yeah, I definitely see where you're coming from. When it comes to hate from players, I don't really mind it since I am making my VN for me first and foremost, I'm just sharing it with everyone else. However, storytelling is a skill I'd like to improve on and there's not much of a guide on writing harem romance stories, let alone on writing a CHYOA harem romance story. We are sorta pioneers in this respect. Even though it is within my right to ignore the hate and do what I want, I like to step back and view things from an objective lense, just to make sure I don't have any irrational biases that might prevent me from making the right choice, story-wise.

As far as adding in content to allow choice in your game, I think the people who care about that already left. Satisfy the people who are still there and supporting you. I know that for me, when giving the players a choice in-game, I've already thought of all the possible choices I can give and their impact on the story as a whole. Having to go back and think about new choices and consequences to things in the past is difficult and in my opinion, a waste of time.

 

[Adabelitoo]

You'll be surprised to know how many of those player who don't like to be forced onto X girl are still there every time I pull an update, even those who are the most "aggressive" about it, not all of them of course but more than what you would originally think. Even if all of they had gone, and I know it isn't the case so it isn't too late for them, with each update the game reachs new players and some of those player will have the same problem than those who already left the game so it isn't too late for them. In my game I have an intro section where I talk about what the player will find and a "future" section where I can talk about future plans. I can write "Hey, it isn't possible to reject girls in the game for now but I'm thinking how I can handle it so give me some time" in any or both sections and with that the players will be warned and it should be more tolerable, for some of them at least.

I usually stress a lot when I work on the story and having to go back and think about new choices and consequences would not only be difficult for me too, it would also kinda drive me crazy, especially considering the amount of variations (5 girls so far and I already wrote the story of 3 more) I should cover. The good thing of how I see things now is that those new choices and consequences won't be that long as the original story is, it would be just 1 or 2 extra scenes and I won't go crazy thinking about how should I do it. I could even give someone else the work of writing those scenes because that isn't the story I want to tell anymore. Now that branching becomes a "What if" scenario and I feel better if I just do things instead of thinking how should I do those things.

For example, one of the girls, let's call her girl A, is super mega rich and her dad has a lot of conections in the city, but nobody knows that yet. At one point another girl, called girl B, will need a lot of money to do something so if A is still in the story, when B tells the group about her problem then A will reveal who her dad is and daddy's conection would get the job done that otherwise the money that girl B needed would do. If A isn't in the story then I just call say that everyone in the group bought a lottery ticket and one of them won it and that way not only solve that problem but also solve a lot of things and give that story a clousure. If someone says that it felt rushed or out of place then I can tell them "Yes, because that isn't the true story, that's just an extra ending a did for you so you can have a proper clousure instead of suddenly blocking your game for forcing you to be with girls that you didn't want".

 

[Volta]

By the nature of story there is always going to be a main girl or a core group in any harem game, someone has to join first and by the nature of that they won't be optional, that's fine IMO but i get why some people could take against that/those girls and it ruin the game for them.

I think there should be important choices in a harem centred game, however i think that the number of choices is the big deal, i don't think that it should scale with the number of harem members, otherwise you have a huge number of permutations for very little story just by the benefit of each girl being optional, lets think of it mathematically, one girl, two options, in or out, easy, two girls, in+in, in+out, out+in, out+out, then for three girls using the shorthand i for in and o for out, iii, iio, ioi, ioo, oii, oio, ooi, ooo, i'm going to stop there, it's an exponential increase for each new girl, simple as that, even if it is as simple as in or out which for a good story it is unlikely to be that simple. One way around this is to group girls together as package deals, also great for GG content which is often sorely lacking in a harem game, if one goes her friend/lover/relative would leave too, also means that it reduces the potential number of states that the harem can be in, providing more stability for story and providing more than one character to write a story line with which if each girl is discrete would become an could become an issue, making the story boring and shallow.

Basically in any choices based VN you need to ration meaningful choices to a degree and "wasting" too many of those choices on who is in or out of the harem at a given time would simplify the story by means of taking choices from that area, better some choices in both areas than no choice in one or the other (or at least too few choices in one area).

 

[woody554]

seems like an impossible puzzle to solve perfectly, there's always gonna be some inconsistencies if you want to make EVERYTHING optional.

from story perspective, if someone over a pint told you a story of how they once ended up with a harem, the best version of that story is a static one which can't change without making the story weaker. it happened how it happened, and that either made it the best story or something less. so the idea of figuring out a perfect story where all relationships are optional is already an impossible goal. you don't take a classic greek story, remove any chosen relationships from it, and expect to get the same story back. you get something less, no matter how good your execution is. you can't dialogue yourself out of missing blocks in the puzzle. no matter how good you are at polishing things.

but. also you ARE making a harem game. it will have a harem tag. and while there will be tons of people complaining about it not being some completely different genre or plot that YOU have zero interest in, surely the tag alone reserves you the right to write any forced pairings you like. even if the only ending is ALL the girls.

I'd look at it the other way, that the default is none of the harem girls are optional, that all of them are forced because THAT is the story you wanted to write. you never signed up for writing 7 separable single stories that magically all fit together as an 8 person intervowen meaningful story where no part is redundant. can't be done. and if you add single paths or smaller groups, THAT is the bonus content. you do the ones that make sense to you, that you have time and interest for, and if and only if you feel like it. if you don't, then it's tough titties.

about which girls to choose as forced main girls, I don't think there's any way to win that fight either. what constantly amazes me about the "best blonde appreciation threads" etc is how wildly people's tastes differ. around 50% of entries in any of those threads I find hideous. I just can't see the attraction. yet even those seem to have about equal following to any other. people simply like different things, and there are no external ways to predict who's thought the hottest before you actually see the likes.

holly hunter said in some interview that the thing she likes in porn industry is that ANY type has its fanatic followers. there is no female form that isn't hot to an audience. fat, old, no tits, teen, granny, pussy on a man, EVERYTHING is deeply loved by some. everything has its followers. and of course haters too. (I like to think that the hating is a form of popularity. only the widely liked things are also widely hated. the things people ACTUALLY don't care for they ignore. you'll never hear it, just crickets.)

so I'd just write the story I want to read, whatever it is. sure make it as good and filled with optional pairings as you like, but don't worry if you can't find a way to make EVERY possible permutation work. it's enough that your favourite story works, the one you set out to tell.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. It's hard to explain how I'm working out this harem dilemma without showing the script, but I'm also closing in pretty fast on a first release so it'd probably be best to see it in practice than conceptually. I hope in the near future, after a couple of releases, you guys will revisit this thread and let me know how I did.

 

[Avaron1974]

There is no wrong or right way to do it, you'll bring in players regardless.

You do want to keep it as simple for you as possible though.

Every dev dreams of that game where they can give players free choice to do whatever they want but the sheer complexity of a job like that is staggering. Keep it basic keeps it easy to build upon.

 

[Adabelitoo]

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. It's hard to explain how I'm working out this harem dilemma without showing the script, but I'm also closing in pretty fast on a first release so it'd probably be best to see it in practice than conceptually. I hope in the near future, after a couple of releases, you guys will revisit this thread and let me know how I did.

@ me when you release your game. I definitely want to check it.

 

[215303j]

Maybe it's a simplistic way to approach this, but to me, harem games are generally "gotta catch them all".

This is generally not what I prefer, because I prefer to focus on one or maybe two girls, but that's not harem.

But if you make a "gotta catch them all" game, I see no point in excluding anyone, except, maybe, if you include some girls to appeal to a specific fetish, like trap.

Also, in my opinion, most harem games tend to be better at creating sexual situations than at creating great stories. One reason is that if you have 8 girls in the game, their characters aren't going to be as deep as if you have 1 girl, or, if they are actually deep characters, then chances are the players aren't going to notice.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Also, in my opinion, most harem games tend to be better at creating sexual situations than at creating great stories. One reason is that if you have 8 girls in the game, their characters aren't going to be as deep as if you have 1 girl, or, if they are actually deep characters, then chances are the players aren't going to notice.

Yeah I get what your saying, I have played a couple of harem games and watched one too many harem anime (never once did I not get burned btw) and they do, in general, have that problem. Like I've said above, in my VN, each girl's story is essential to helping the MC with his problem. However, it isn't so on the nose as to say, for example, "You have to save your mom and the only way is to get a key from each of the 6 maidens of the land by helping them and banging them". It's significantly more subtle than that and the "key" that one girl gives might be obscure until the MC can get the "key" from another.

As for making characters deep, the way I make each character deep is through misdirection; show the audience the symptoms of the core issue that a character has. It's the main character's (and the audiences') job to derive the true issue from those symptoms. The drama, conflict, and plot for the story all stem from those symptoms and the most interesting thing to me, the reason why I wanted to make a harem VN, is to watch how those develop and interact within each member of the harem and the MC.

As for players not noticing deep characters, that's fine. One rule that I like in storytelling is don't underestimate the intelligence of your audience. I feel like there are far too many stories on here that are egregious offenders of that rule and have a need to explain every nuance away. I want to craft an intelligent narrative and make it simple enough for the "masses" to understand, but deep enough for others to dissect and analyze.

 

[Avaron1974]

As for players not noticing deep characters, that's fine. One rule that I like in storytelling is don't underestimate the intelligence of your audience. I feel like there are far too many stories on here that are egregious offenders of that rule and have a need to explain every nuance away. I want to craft an intelligent narrative and make it simple enough for the "masses" to understand, but deep enough for others to dissect and analyze.

Before you go making a story too intelligent just remember that quite a few people on here struggle with "copy file you just downloaded and paste in game folder".

As a general rule, sure, your average reader will get what is going on but we do have quite a few people here that need a step by step guide to completing a paint by numbers picture.

 

[215303j]

As for making characters deep, the way I make each character deep is through misdirection; show the audience the symptoms of the core issue that a character has. It's the main character's (and the audiences') job to derive the true issue from those symptoms. The drama, conflict, and plot for the story all stem from those symptoms and the most interesting thing to me, the reason why I wanted to make a harem VN, is to watch how those develop and interact within each member of the harem and the MC.

That does sound pretty good. Hope you can pull it off!

One approach to harem which I really like is how Sins of the Father does it. The (supernatural) story is basically that the MC must fuck a lot of women to increase his powers. But at the same time, the player must choose a certain path, focussing on one of the three main girls. Although while on one path, he can still pursue the other main girls but the story focus is on the main girl of choice. This means that one can never see everything in one playthrough and also that it is quite difficult to find certain scenes. Although this did lead to some complaints by players, I personally think this gives the game a much more organic feel. And it increases the interactions and thereby story depth of the chosen character, at some expense of those not chosen.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Before you go making a story too intelligent just remember that quite a few people on here struggle with "copy file you just downloaded and paste in game folder".

As a general rule, sure, your average reader will get what is going on but we do have quite a few people here that need a step by step guide to completing a paint by numbers picture.

I hope to be simple in the way Pixar movies are simple, kids understand the basics of what's going on mostly through imagery, but adults get the most enjoyment out of it because they see and understand the story that is being told in its entirety.

That does sound pretty good. Hope you can pull it off!

One approach to harem which I really like is how Sins of the Father does it. The (supernatural) story is basically that the MC must fuck a lot of women to increase his powers. But at the same time, the player must choose a certain path, focussing on one of the three main girls. Although while on one path, he can still pursue the other main girls but the story focus is on the main girl of choice. This means that one can never see everything in one playthrough and also that it is quite difficult to find certain scenes. Although this did lead to some complaints by players, I personally think this gives the game a much more organic feel. And it increases the interactions and thereby story depth of the chosen character, at some expense of those not chosen.

Sounds a lot like how the Fate series does it, though I don't know much about them (watched 2 of the animes). But yeah, that sounds like an insane amount of work. If I was going to do large branches like that, I think I'd want to write it as a time-travel story instead where you hop between the paths. At least it gives you an excuse to develop all paths simultaneously

 

[lazymunchlax]

Ultimately, if someone doesn't like your main character, they'll not play the game. You'll have to deal with that, as well as any blowback that follows in reviews or comments.

For every non avoidable main girl you add, the higher the likelihood of a person not liking them, and that's something you have to be prepared for.

Take WVM as an example. I'm sorry, but the mother figure just isn't my type. I've avoided sexual content with her much as possible because of it, but I still play the game because there's enough content without her. The more content she's in that I must endure through, the more of your game I'm holding the skip button for, and the more likely I am to just quit.

You cannot please everyone if you want the girls to be distinct, but even if you force the girl, you don't need to force the sex. Decide in advance what sex scenes MUST occur, and leave the rest as optional, can even throw in the option for them to occur but outside of view if you like. This system works, because if none of the sex scenes are required for her development, then you don't have an issue. I find it unlikely that every sex scene will be required.