Opinion on "defeat rape"?

[MannBobinson]

As the title says, what do you think about games with "defeat rape" mechanics? I've heard a lot of people saying they don't like them, most commonly because the game is barring content for not failing at it. But, I'm also not really sure how else the game could lead into a "the heroine lost a fight, now her enemies are going to take advantage of it" scene. Is there something that devs can do better when it comes to this trope?

 

[bansdebar]

Would make it better if you could choose to play the battle as monster or heroine.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Simple solution, for players who just want to win instead of losing on purpose, have a gallery at the end of the game, or better yet updated with each passed level, where you can see all the defeat animations.

More indepth, you could encourage the player to take more optional risks which could lead to seeing the defeat animations without losing on purpose. Say, being given a choice to increase the rewards of the level, but MC gets debuffed, leading to more defeats organically. And you get to keep the rewards through defeats. This should have several settings so different players could find a nice balance where there's a chance to fail, but skill will get them through.

 

[SeaTheTree]

Having a gallery that you can access after you defeat the monster with the defeat rape animation/scene can help i think?

 

[JoGio]

I personally dislike having to go to the gallery for scenes I missed.

If I were to design a game where being defeated leads to a sexy scene, then I would balance the game around the player losing, maybe the first couple of times fighting a creature, but being able to win afterwards.

For this to work, there are three basic requirements:
1) Losing a fight does not lead to a "game over" state. The player should be able to challenge the monster and lose as many times as they like.
2) The game is balanced so that the player loses despite trying their best, rather than losing intentionally to see a scene.
3) Losing gives the player some sort of progress which allows them to become stronger. This can be xp/points which can be used to strengthen combat capabilities, gold to let the player buy better equipment, or some other tangible progress.

This way the process of losing feels like a real part of the game that helps move the player forward, rather than being a waste of time where you challenge a monster and intentionally lose just to see a scene, then loading a previous save and fighting for real.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

I personally dislike having to go to the gallery for scenes I missed.

If I were to design a game where being defeated leads to a sexy scene, then I would balance the game around the player losing, maybe the first couple of times fighting a creature, but being able to win afterwards.

For this to work, there are three basic requirements:
1) Losing a fight does not lead to a "game over" state. The player should be able to challenge the monster and lose as many times as they like.
2) The game is balanced so that the player loses despite trying their best, rather than losing intentionally to see a scene.
3) Losing gives the player some sort of progress which allows them to become stronger. This can be xp/points which can be used to strengthen combat capabilities, gold to let the player buy better equipment, or some other tangible progress.

This way the process of losing feels like a real part of the game that helps move the player forward, rather than being a waste of time where you challenge a monster and intentionally lose just to see a scene, then loading a previous save and fighting for real.

Basically, Karryn's prison.

 

[Shady_Jeph]

It would double the amount of required animation work, but I would just reverse the roles and have the game be about roaming around and subduing monsters so that you can fuck them. That way every battle ends with a scene, either you win and fuck them, or you lose and they fuck you. Folks who are into it for the humiliation aspect or who prefer the submissive role probably wouldn't like that as much, but it seems like the logical way to structure any game where combat leads directly into sex.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Simple solution, for players who just want to win instead of losing on purpose, have a gallery at the end of the game, or better yet updated with each passed level, where you can see all the defeat animations.

Nah, sounds like crap.
What we need is simply submissive scenes on defeat, or dominant scenes on victory.
That is, the player subs if they lose, or doms if they win.

 

[qwoppe]

It's just a feature of the genre. You like it or you don't.

All the solutions proposed in this thread exist in one game or another, and I have failed to enjoy all of them. Other people do enjoy such games, and especially if you count the text-based stuff like CoC, that kind of content seems to have a fairly passionate creator/fanbase, not to mention the RPGM and platformer types all over the place.

I just move on without touching the game or its thread when I see them, like any good NTR hater should move on when they see a game bearing that particular tag.

 

[MannBobinson]

I personally dislike having to go to the gallery for scenes I missed.

"The gallery" in general is really iffy to me. I understand why it exists in the games that it does, but going to the gallery to look at a scene feels like it defeats the purpose of using an interactive medium. At that rate, I might as well go to Danbooru and search my favorite tags to jerk off rather than boot up a game. Adult games are at their strongest when they actually take advantage of being a game, and drawn-out game over rape is pretty much the antithesis of that.

For an example of the defeat rape/"gallery rape" that I dislike the most, Stygian Flowers is the worst offender I've seen. Time forcefully rewinds and the characters never react to the scene after it's over. It makes the entire endeavor feel tacked-on. "Game over" scenes in particular have a weak place in adult games, existing as a diversion from the main gameplay and plot and incentivizing failure, and I think this is the "defeat rape" that most people are referring to when they say they don't like the trope.

 

[obibobi]

There are 2 solutions

Melty Quest way, you get a scene on defeat but the boss still bars your progress, you need to defeat them, heroine gets fucked, dumped and can then go back and kick their ass. This removes the annoying never allowed to win aspect.

The other is not have the loss tied to the mechanics, the heroine defeats the thug, the thug then grabs some innocent bystander, does the heroine risk taking the thug down or does she drop her weapon.

 

[chainedpanda]

I haven't played many of these games, simply because I didn't enjoy the few I tried years ago. That said, I think there is a pretty easy solution, although still isn't something I'd play tho...

You play as the dungeon overseer, or perhaps some sort of God. There is a group of heroines who are continuously attempting to invade the dungeon, and each time they are stopped, and raped, by your minions. Afterwards, the group escapes, grows stronger and tries again. Creating the game loop and difficulty curve.

Granted, on paper this seems like a strategy, management or tower defense game. AFAIK most games lose/rape games tend to be side scroller action platformers no? You can still use that genre for this idea, however instead of playing as the heroine, you play as several of the monsters. Each monster could have different mechanics and such to make the game more interesting.

All in all, it can remain the same game from a different perspective. The heroine remains the protagonist, and you are simply the observer attempting to block her path. It remains as a lose/fuck game, where the player never loses.

 

[Jaike]

For one, I don't like it.

The thing with defeat rape is it often becomes the main content, though I hope devs planned that, just because of the number of scenes. Either because there's a unique scene for every enemy type and there are many enemy types OR because there is more than 1 scene for every enemy type. Though plenty Jap devs are happy to have no scenes for some enemy types. And it's easier to make too than a carefully written plot-significant scene. That's an incentive to go all in on defeat rape, where the sexual content goes against the protagonist's in-story interests, and make little or no alternatives. It leads in an extreme case to a split between rape playthroughs and virgin playthroughs with no in-between.

And because these defeat scenes are repeatable if it isn't game-over rape, avoidable, or both, their story significance is usually zero. Like it makes no difference for the protagonist's mental state if she's a virgin or got raped a couple dozen times, except maybe in the ending. I think that's where game-over rape makes more sense from a story perspective, but I understand it isn't something all players of this kind of female protagonist game like. Tbh I don't like both alternatives, but I agree putting all sexual content in game overs is a pretty bad gameplay mechanic.

There are 2 solutions

Melty Quest way, you get a scene on defeat but the boss still bars your progress, you need to defeat them, heroine gets fucked, dumped and can then go back and kick their ass. This removes the annoying never allowed to win aspect.

The other is not have the loss tied to the mechanics, the heroine defeats the thug, the thug then grabs some innocent bystander, does the heroine risk taking the thug down or does she drop her weapon.

No Escape has an alternative where the MC can submit for an immediate but usually "nicer" gameover, or resist and risk a defeat with a nastier gameover. The scenes are usually pretty similar but have story significant changes.

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

Is there something that devs can do better when it comes to this trope?

Yeah, avoid it

Look, there's a fundamental issue with this trope. It rewards being bad at the game and penalizes being good at it (doing a virgin run). It's not salvageable, at best you can mitigate just a part of it. I.e. if you unlock gallery both on defeat and on victory you're now rewarding failure and success in equal measure instead of rewarding failure and punishing success. It is an improvement, but also still not a good design.

Best you can do in my opinion is make defeat content just a small portion of total content in the game, so you retain the narrative, but don't penalize the player that much (relatively).

 

[woody554]

this seems to be a female protagonist problem. make the game male protagonist and raping defeated female enemies makes sense every time.

 

[nulnil]

It's not ideal to have it as the only source of sexual content, but games that do often have much larger issues.

Edit: In the context of the player losing, not the player winning.

 

[tomcyberpunk]

Maybe, let player be an Org that has to win a fight before unlocking some hot scenes with the elf?

 

[MannBobinson]

and penalizes being good at it (doing a virgin run)

The entire concept of a "virgin run" being something to aspire to/your """"""reward"""""" for being good is beyond lame to me. It's kind of a tricky problem, because when you are playing as a female protagonist, your desires as the player (see her get fucked) are at odds with hers (don't get fucked). I wonder if a game that has the player be treated more as an outsider that guides the MC's playthrough, for better or for worse, would create a better dynamic for those sorts of scenes?

 

[MarshmallowCasserole]

The entire concept of a "virgin run" being something to aspire to/your """"""reward"""""" for being good is beyond lame to me. It's kind of a tricky problem, because when you are playing as a female protagonist, your desires as the player (see her get fucked) are at odds with hers (don't get fucked). I wonder if a game that has the player be treated more as an outsider that guides the MC's playthrough, for better or for worse, would create a better dynamic for those sorts of scenes?

Yeah, you got it. The natural desire of the protagonist is to not get fucked, and the game mechanics also unequivocally point towards that being the most "correct" way (read: mechanically hard) to play the game. Only the player's horny brain dissents, and it runs the show. I don't think a better dynamic is possible. A different dynamic is possible. Several, actually. You can play as the monster (or a slaver, or a dungeon keeper, or a goblin commander, etc). Or you can make it dub-con, where heroine can agree to sex in exchange for some boons, like better gear.

Yes, you can make the MC a separate strategist character (Going Deeper as an example of such game), but fundamentally the girl's desire is still to not get fucked by adversaries. The strategist's desire should be aligned because they are, supposedly, a team. The girl and the strategist need to win, and the girl still gets fucked only when she is defeated by monsters. Flawless victory -> no sex, loss -> sex. The fundamental contradiction is still the same.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

So we need more games like this one, where MC is a devious pervert that *wants* his allies to get raped, and more importantly, the gameplay is balanced around that being the goal.