My take on current problems about adult games

[DigitalFire]

I can't get myself to play adult games lately. The reason? Well, when there were just a handful of games which were interesting and well-done enough to get me to play them, I didn't mind the certain problems like they were made to force me to use a walkthrough which I really hate atm. If you make a game that's complex enough to require a walkthough you need to implement an in-game guide especially when there are dozens of other games like it, worst of it all? The ones that also don't have save compatibility. Another thing is that, I've played games "looked promising" but had lots of grinding and in the end all they gave me were "teasers", not real content, after a while most of these developers just started to milk it without much progress anyways. I realized I couldn't get myself to play the majority of the games I'ld play before and games that I actually liked in the past. Right now, I don't desire "choice", I desire a game that just lets me ride along whatever the story it got and shows me good content. Anyone else feels the same?

 

[ChaosOpen]

If it's going to be a kinetic novel then it should be short. However, I agree on choice, a lot of games put in choices where the result is often the opposite of what logic would dictate, for example, I recall one game where the girl had fallen down during gym and the choice was to either "help her up" or "stare at her crotch," turns out the correct answer for her route was "stare at her crotch" which made no sense even in context nor does the game ever explain why staring at her crotch was a good thing.

I think the game that did choices right was

You must be registered to see the links

as it did four things correctly:

1. It has a
   You must be registered to see the links
   , in which you could follow your choices where it splits. It didn't give away the ending, but you could track your progress to reach one of the endings.(btw, each dot is a scene, so each ending would be the dot at the end of a route)
2. It had a meter which tracked your favoribility with each girl that was constantly displayed, so you know how clearly you are making your attraction towards one girl or another. Closer to the mid point will make your decision less clear and the girls will feel less secure in their relationship with you. To support this meter, story events play out according to where this gauge is, when you're more wishy washy the girls will be very desperate to win you over and their actions will be far more emotional as they struggle with their frustration and jealousy. If the meter is further one way or the other the girls are more calm and trusting, but the consequences of betrayal are far more severe.
3. The choices are logical but dynamic, rather than watching the same story play out each playthrough with only a slightly different endings(normally just which girl you have sex with). Choices determine how the story plays out and which scenes you watch and in what order. Each playthrough can tell totally different stories depending on your choices. However, in general: selfish choices will lead to more interesting character interactions and plot twists but the girls don't like being toyed with, while being more loyal will have less conflict since your relationship with your girl is more stable.
4. The endings aren't the crux of the story in which are split into "good" or "bad" or "what girl you sleep with" depending on the choices made during what is essentially the same story prior to that while you're making decisions(resulting in you not knowing the consequences of your decisions until hours later). The ending is more grey, wrapping up the events that had already happened in-game rather than trying to carry the weight of being the result of every decision made during the common route that played out verbatim no matter what you chose. As a result, the endings deal with the consequences of what happened during the story rather than trying to fit your entire romantic relationship with a girl into a few scenes.

I think it's worth playing at least once, the entire thing is fully animated as if it was an anime adaptation rather than a visual novel(though the game is over 12GB on two .iso files as a result)

EDIT: tried to make points more clear, so I added some details to each point.

 

[Thr3L]

Well the first time i discovered this website and this world of adult game i've played a lot of it, and since i was new to this i didn't mind that much about the default, but now that i've played a bunch of them i'm less forgivable about the default and drop game i would have go through when i was a "newbie"

I think the recent popularity of this genre of games created a lot of improvised dev, so there's now a lot of games but i think that in the future, if those dev stick to making games, they'll improve and we'll have more polished games.

 

[gunderson]

Might also just be worth taking a break. Sometimes after you mainline an archive for a while, it starts to get disappointing when the flood of great new (to you) games turns into a trickle. So unless you have ignored one of your preferred fetishes up to this point and just need to turn specific 'tags' on in latest releases and look through a few pages to find older stuff you might dig, it might be worth taking a break. Y'know, watch some videos, check out some captions, read some stories if so inclined? This isn't the only kind of porn out there.

Skipping a few updates (I've done this with SuperPowered, for example) is an easy way to become more forgiving of games that you'd previously become bored of that lack save compatibility, in that after a while there's often a bunch of new content to see.

 

[polywog]

If you don't like game demos, search tags for "completed" and play only those.
While a game is in development, a lot of things happen, changes are being made, and sometimes that means your old saves won't be compatible. It's nothing to cry about,... It means play again from the beginning to see the new content that has been added.
Maybe v0.3 was made with stick figures, and now they have been replaced with better graphics... why wouldn't you want to check it out.

 

[Sphere42]

Unfortunately I can't be bothered to put in the effort and check whether my feelings actually reflect objective reality. To me it sure seems as if we're being flooded by lazy cash grabs and have been for a while now, but the release rate of quality completed games may actually be constant with those "v0.01alpha demo"s merely adding on top of it.

The viability of crowdfunding does appear to have dried out the freely available hobby works though because artists with the talent, dedication or fetish interests to be worth following as hobbyists can now put their work behind a paywall and earn a pretty penny. Not that they don't deserve it, I just wish sites like pixiv had exclusion filters for outright paywall ads.

View attachment 576394

He's wrong, alcohol by itself is a solvent. Vodka on the other hand...

 

[DigitalFire]

If you don't like game demos, search tags for "completed" and play only those.
While a game is in development, a lot of things happen, changes are being made, and sometimes that means your old saves won't be compatible. It's nothing to cry about,... It means play again from the beginning to see the new content that has been added.
Maybe v0.3 was made with stick figures, and now they have been replaced with better graphics... why wouldn't you want to check it out.

I think you failed to understand what I'm saying.. Save compatibility isn't the problem by itself, it's not even the main thing I'm talking about here, I wish your logic would apply for the majority of the games which have no save compatibility like "it doesn't have it because new scenes are added or reworked in earlier parts". Even if it's completed, I can't get myself to play games that have lots of grinding and text or "the illusion of choice" where you have to follow a walkthrough to view the content. I'm saying because we have more games being made, creators should adjust their projects accordingly.

 

[polywog]

I think you failed to understand what I'm saying.. Save compatibility isn't the problem by itself, it's not even the main thing I'm talking about here, I wish your logic would apply for the majority of the games which have no save compatibility like "it doesn't have it because new scenes are added or reworked in earlier parts". Even if it's completed, I can't get myself to play games that have lots of grinding and text or "the illusion of choice" where you have to follow a walkthrough to view the content. I'm saying because we have more games being made, creators should adjust their projects accordingly.

Unfortunately I can't be bothered to put in the effort and check whether my feelings actually reflect objective reality. To me it sure seems as if we're being flooded by lazy cash grabs and have been for a while now, but the release rate of quality completed games may actually be constant with those "v0.01alpha demo"s merely adding on top of it.

The viability of crowdfunding does appear to have dried out the freely available hobby works though because artists with the talent, dedication or fetish interests to be worth following as hobbyists can now put their work behind a paywall and earn a pretty penny. Not that they don't deserve it, I just wish sites like pixiv had exclusion filters for outright paywall ads.


He's wrong, alcohol by itself is a solvent. Vodka on the other hand...

It's true, by creating tools and sharing knowledge with others, we have created an environment that makes it easy for anyone to attempt to make visual novels, and games.... as with any venture, many will fail in their first attempts, but at least they tried, which is more that you can say for most people. Maybe your anger stems from jealousy... have you scaled the wall from the pit of despair, and attempted to make something of yourself... challenged yourself to give it a try?
Hopefully, those who fail, learn from their mistakes, and get back on the horse.... if not, then it wasn't meant to be, they, having tried, can move on with their lives, and go back to flipping burgers... but now they have a shiny game developer badge
next to their name, and you can never take that away from them, no matter how bad their game stank... they rose above, and while they may not have been successful, they will be able to one day tell their wife's children the amazing tales of their accomplishment.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[DigitalFire]

Unfortunately I can't be bothered to put in the effort and check whether my feelings actually reflect objective reality. To me it sure seems as if we're being flooded by lazy cash grabs

Yup, that's true. What bothers me the most is the people start milking the game after they gained enough support to work on it full time. Also even for somewhat dedicated devs "too much" money slows down the development of decent games. They start to enjoy their success during the development, it inevitably makes them more lazy and sloppy. I'ld prefer paying 10$ for a decent finished product. Seems rare except japanese market.

 

[polywog]

 

[DigitalFire]

View attachment 576934

Someone had a terrible childhood.. Sad..

 

[polywog]

Someone had a terrible childhood.. Sad..

It wasn't typical, but i'm ok with it. Certainly nothing you should cry about. It was a long time ago, try and focus on the present. Maybe take advantage of the emotional state you're in by writing a visual novel about it. Share your story with others might make you feel better about it.

 

[DigitalFire]

It wasn't typical, but i'm ok with it. Certainly nothing you should cry about. It was a long time ago, try and focus on the present. Maybe take advantage of the emotional state you're in by writing a visual novel about it. Share your story with others might make you feel better about it.

Poor guy.. I think you should use that to create an adult game. Make sure it's animated, then you're golden. I'm waiting for a regular commercial videogame to mod it. 3D doesn't appeal to me otherwise and I simply lack the tools and skills for an animated 2D game. You're trying hard to get people create games, I like that.

 

[polywog]

You're trying hard to get people create games, I like that.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

If i may ask what is your definition of milking a game?

Yup, that's true. What bothers me the most is the people start milking the game after they gained enough support to work on it full time. Also even for somewhat dedicated devs "too much" money slows down the development of decent games. They start to enjoy their success during the development, it inevitably makes them more lazy and sloppy. I'ld prefer paying 10$ for a decent finished product. Seems rare except japanese market.

 

[polywog]

If i may ask what is your definition of milking a game?

Cows don't give milk, if you don't get them pregnant. So it's win-win. The cow is getting something out of the relationship, in return for the milk. But if the milker isn't plowing the cow, the cow gets sore.

 

[ShamanLab]

Man, you absolutely right. There is almost no real adult 'games' with interesting game play. No matter how devs call it almost all of them making amateurish visual novels. They may call it 'sandbox' but it isn't. There is few strategy and managing adult games but they are very simple and grindy. So, no reason to bother.

Writing good adult story is hard.
Making deep balanced gameplay maybe even harder.
Integrate two of this together -- almost impossible.

 

[polywog]

 

[anonymous558]

My problem with most of these 'adult games' is the 'game' aspect. One person putting in a heck of a lot of effort to make a good HTML thing with a lot of good images, creative routes, INTERESTING MECHANICS, without bombarding the viewer with essays of text...well is a good thing, and a rare thing.

Most of the time there are too many incomplete 'HTML' games that are glorified visual novels with a few separate outcomes possibly. Or just very bad images/animation, ect.

Honestly, while I know this takes a lot of time and effort, I would much prefer an influx of games like Anthophobia, or Flower Fairy, or Lilith's Throne. Games that actually feel like you are playing a game with lewd elements, and not just a step-by-step VN.

 

[Deleted member 1684328]

I am a developer myself, so it's really interesting to read what people like and dislike. I also play these games myself, and I completely agree with you. I want to add a few things to the list:

- RPGM games where the map is huge for no reason and where you have to go from A to B the whole time and waste precious minutes doing only that

- Games where choices lead to a game over without any reason

- RenPy games where basic controls are disabled (like going back a few dialogue lines)

- Games with slow textspeed as default

- Games without obvious markers for quest items

- Difficult minigames (unless that's what you're looking for) that block your progress, it's not very cool to play a complex minigame with 1 hand

- Games where you must grind for content