OnlyProgrammer

[kamileon]

Hi forum,

I am sorry in advance if I've missed the right topic, but my introduction serves more of a purpose to get more relevant answers.

I have a couple of questions I hope will reach you all, especially developers:

1. What's the biggest challenge in developing adult games? Is it design or tech?
2. Does programming and debugging significantly affect your development speed?
3. Do you come from design or programmer background?

From games I've played, I find 97% of them not being tech challenging at all. Your answers will give me more of an insight on what I can do to contribute to this community.

Kind regards,

Kamileon

/* Basic background */
I am Leon Kami, a solid all-round programmer. When I say all-round, I mean in programming areas: abstract problem-solving, backend development, mysql database handling, android development and most recently Flutter (Google's super cool multi-platform UI framework).

I've got a degree in electrical engineering and have limited experience with direct hardware, but I can manage myself, even with physics included. I once wrote a tutorial on Windows drivers development. Minus that last endeavour, I am a Linux fanatic and I've learned a lot of system administration.

Unfortunately, I have zero artist skills and am able to only copycat and slightly alter designers' UI files. That's the biggest reason I've never pursued an adult game development.

I've been an on/off adult game player for past 5-6 years, mostly during my college days.

 

[Wankyudo]

1. Tech and knowledge of tech. It is easier for a programmer to find a guy to do the game design then it is for a game design guy to find a programmer. There's a reason why one can find paying gigs in the recruitment sections easier then the other. Everybody and their mother has ideas for what they feel is going to be the next great game; but everyone and their mother does not have any clue how to put that into practice. For all those idea guys that believe "Let's just grab this thing, watch a couple of videos; and open the floodgates;" there's some kind of baby's first engine that they say they'll go with. Then because all they did was skim the videos, now they're looking at the documentation and have no idea what any of it means.


2. Yes and no. It'll affect the speed of developers who are actively trying to make a relatively bugfree game; but for that one developer there's a dozen others who are going "Well...we'll get to that when I can hire a programmer to bug hunt." You'll find that a lot of the games that have frequent updates fall into one of three categories. Category one is "A game that has a studio behind it with the full gamut of professionals/semi-professionals needed to make it work." Category two is "A game that has a jack of all trades developer who can bandaid the bugs until he figures out the root cause to fix during a rework." Category three is "A game that has an idea man who just appends update after update hoping the new content will drown out peoples complaints about the softlock caused by an erroneous apostrophe at line x."

3. Programmer, primarily in web development.

In terms of contributing to the community, anything that progresses the knowledge of idea guys to the point that they stop perpetuating constant messes or even just working on someones game to make something that's functional and doesn't crash/soft lock for random things would already a huge boon to the community as a whole. (The zero art skills doesn't matter too much either because good artists looking for projects will very happily work with a programmer vs another guy who just says "Let's make a game!")

 

[kamileon]

1. Tech and knowledge of tech. It is easier for a programmer to find a guy to do the game design then it is for a game design guy to find a programmer. There's a reason why one can find paying gigs in the recruitment sections easier then the other. Everybody and their mother has ideas for what they feel is going to be the next great game; but everyone and their mother does not have any clue how to put that into practice. For all those idea guys that believe "Let's just grab this thing, watch a couple of videos; and open the floodgates;" there's some kind of baby's first engine that they say they'll go with. Then because all they did was skim the videos, now they're looking at the documentation and have no idea what any of it means.


2. Yes and no. It'll affect the speed of developers who are actively trying to make a relatively bugfree game; but for that one developer there's a dozen others who are going "Well...we'll get to that when I can hire a programmer to bug hunt." You'll find that a lot of the games that have frequent updates fall into one of three categories. Category one is "A game that has a studio behind it with the full gamut of professionals/semi-professionals needed to make it work." Category two is "A game that has a jack of all trades developer who can bandaid the bugs until he figures out the root cause to fix during a rework." Category three is "A game that has an idea man who just appends update after update hoping the new content will drown out peoples complaints about the softlock caused by an erroneous apostrophe at line x."

3. Programmer, primarily in web development.

In terms of contributing to the community, anything that progresses the knowledge of idea guys to the point that they stop perpetuating constant messes or even just working on someones game to make something that's functional and doesn't crash/soft lock for random things would already a huge boon to the community as a whole. (The zero art skills doesn't matter too much either because good artists looking for projects will very happily work with a programmer vs another guy who just says "Let's make a game!")

Hi Wankydo,

Thank you for your swift reply! I find all of your arguments to be on point in general market, but I am puzzled why they apply HERE as well. From what I've played, the longrunning meta are mostly sandbox interactive 3d/2d rendered galleries/videos packed as games. Don't mistake me, I mostly enjoy in these when there's a good combination of story, graphics (assets which often span across multiple game titles, I only get happier when I spot new models!) and lewd content (not too much). I enjoy the grinding as well and am pretty forgiving (I grinded The Loser for a whole day until I gave up and decided to modify save files).

Your answers are what my answers to the common industry would be, but here I am puzzled: When obviously tech behind games don't contribute at all to 97% of games' donations, because 97% of games are pure click & point, why does it represent a major role?

I think in these games' cases it's far harder to create a story, design interiors/exteriors, link narrative to models, basically create an immersive experience from an artistic perspective.

I would be more than happy to get involved with some of my favourite games if my help would get them to release content at 2x speed or whatever x it contributes. That's why I basically started this post, to see how much of an impact the supporting tech has for majority of games. Even in most successful games (rated by number of supporters and monthly donations) on Patreon, I find programming-intensive games are a minority.

 

[Wankyudo]

Hi Wankydo,

Thank you for your swift reply! I find all of your arguments to be on point in general market, but I am puzzled why they apply HERE as well. From what I've played, the longrunning meta are mostly sandbox interactive 3d/2d rendered galleries/videos packed as games. Don't mistake me, I mostly enjoy in these when there's a good combination of story, graphics (assets which often span across multiple game titles, I only get happier when I spot new models!) and lewd content (not too much). I enjoy the grinding as well and am pretty forgiving (I grinded The Loser for a whole day until I gave up and decided to modify save files).

Your answers are what my answers to the common industry would be, but here I am puzzled: When obviously tech behind games don't contribute at all to 97% of games' donations, because 97% of games are pure click & point, why does it represent a major role?

I think in these games' cases it's far harder to create a story, design interiors/exteriors, link narrative to models, basically create an immersive experience from an artistic perspective.

I would be more than happy to get involved with some of my favourite games if my help would get them to release content at 2x speed or whatever x it contributes. That's why I basically started this post, to see how much of an impact the supporting tech has for majority of games. Even in most successful games (rated by number of supporters and monthly donations) on Patreon, I find programming-intensive games are a minority.

Funny enough, it's because adult games here can take a shallower approach towards being a game which makes tech being that much more visible of a problem when it's lacking.

To draw up a comparison between an adult game on here vs regular games, let's bring up a list of all the necessary functions to constitute the price tags. Your typical game on steam to get regular buyers needs: Good gameplay. Good story. Interesting characters. Features that make sense. Be polished and work from start to finish. In the common market, people aren't buying the games for smut; they're buying it because they want a game to play.
Now for an adult game like here, what majority of the people that come here are looking for is: smut and it works. That's it. Majority of the people here just want something to jack it to. Because less elements are required in order to achieve relative success in the adult game market (outside of the luck that's required for both elements) if games just have smut that you can get to then they can theoretically succeed. That's even how japanese nukiges function where the story is usually just to justify the copious amounts of smut that comes in the nukiges.

But what happens if players are struggling to get to the smut because Andy Joe who's making the game has no idea how to make it work? Well...that's it for that game. Because the game has issues, it doesn't have any other features or functions that can entice the players to keep to it. It's essentially the death knell for that game. The more expectations that are placed on the game; the more one of those expectations succeeding can be used to offset the balance of something else not measuring up. A good story can justify some dull characters. Fun gameplay can justify a dull world. If the two expectations are smut and being able to get to the smut, if them not being able to get to the smut there's no level of smut quality that will keep them interested since the functionality is non-existent

You're right on the 97% of the donations not being because of tech. Nobody is donating to a patreon for a game because it "works," but if the game has frequent save corruptions, crashes to desktop, or just constant bug popups; it will tank those donations to zero because people can find a game that's going to have smut and works. And well, because there's so little expectations expected it also makes it so there's that many more people who believe "I'll just slap a gallery together and I'll be successful." Though if the game works and it has smut doesn't necessitate success; because again. Luck also plays an important factor.

 

[kamileon]

Funny enough, it's because adult games here can take a shallower approach towards being a game which makes tech being that much more visible of a problem when it's lacking.

To draw up a comparison between an adult game on here vs regular games, let's bring up a list of all the necessary functions to constitute the price tags. Your typical game on steam to get regular buyers needs: Good gameplay. Good story. Interesting characters. Features that make sense. Be polished and work from start to finish. In the common market, people aren't buying the games for smut; they're buying it because they want a game to play.
Now for an adult game like here, what majority of the people that come here are looking for is: smut and it works. That's it. Majority of the people here just want something to jack it to. Because less elements are required in order to achieve relative success in the adult game market (outside of the luck that's required for both elements) if games just have smut that you can get to then they can theoretically succeed. That's even how japanese nukiges function where the story is usually just to justify the copious amounts of smut that comes in the nukiges.

But what happens if players are struggling to get to the smut because Andy Joe who's making the game has no idea how to make it work? Well...that's it for that game. Because the game has issues, it doesn't have any other features or functions that can entice the players to keep to it. It's essentially the death knell for that game. The more expectations that are placed on the game; the more one of those expectations succeeding can be used to offset the balance of something else not measuring up. A good story can justify some dull characters. Fun gameplay can justify a dull world. If the two expectations are smut and being able to get to the smut, if them not being able to get to the smut there's no level of smut quality that will keep them interested since the functionality is non-existent

You're right on the 97% of the donations not being because of tech. Nobody is donating to a patreon for a game because it "works," but if the game has frequent save corruptions, crashes to desktop, or just constant bug popups; it will tank those donations to zero because people can find a game that's going to have smut and works. And well, because there's so little expectations expected it also makes it so there's that many more people who believe "I'll just slap a gallery together and I'll be successful." Though if the game works and it has smut doesn't necessitate success; because again. Luck also plays an important factor.

You actually enticed me now to create a little experiment - to see how fast I can create a working game when given assets, be it remaking an existing game or a demo of a new one. Of course, limitations are that it's a "normie" point & click, not some fancy mumbo jumbo, and if it's an existing game, that I remake a reasonable portion of the game, not the whole if it's massive.

I would do it in Flutter and post Win/Linux/Android/Web (macOS/iOS are pain in the ass because I need to borrow a Mac, and an iOS app you can't install on your iPhone if it's not from App Store anyway). I would share the code. Assets aren't hidden by default, and I don't plan to hide them either. Web version I can host from my domain or some other public one.

If there's such an interested party that happen to stumble upon this post, feel free to say hi!