In this thread I would like to discuss about gameplay in our porn games, and to find ways to improve them.
Your classification is a mess but so are porn games...
Porn games are games. The problem is devs look at porn more for inspiration.
What are the major elements of a porn game :
- A story
- Dialogues
- Sex scenes
No. Well, 1 out of 3. Porn games are GAMES. And games consist of:
- Story
- Gameplay
- Presentation(art, music, sounds, text etc)
And pretty much only two of these are mandatory. Story is optional. For example, a tetris game that reveals a line of sexy picture for each line exploded. It has no story, only gameplay and presentation.
Porn integrates into one or more of these aspects, usually at least two.
Porn in story. Typically "porn as background" or "porn as reward". You can write a story with large amount of casual sex or at the end of a particular storyline.
Porn in gameplay. "Porn as reward" or "porn as a way to interact with the world/npcs". Reward part is easy - player does something well, player gets show a picture or an animation or unlocks something. Interaction is harder, because the game has to be designed around it. Can be as easy as sex moves for combat(look at myriad of RPGM games) or as hard and deep(lol) as you are willing to go.
Porn in presentation. This doesn't have to be explained. You can take a non-porn game, mod the nude models in and bam! You have a porn game. 2D sprites, 3D models, textures, text... It all can be pornified to the extreme.
Note about "porn as reward" thing. It doesn't have to be the only reward. It sucks when the only reward is porn.
What are the biggest strengths of porn in games? First and foremost, INTERACTIVITY. Unique to games(unless you count IRL sex). Ranges from the choice of partner, position, outfits, actions... a game can have all of it or none of it. Secondly, story-driven investment. Following the character, player is more invested and achieves greater satisfaction than purely "mechanical" porn can provide.
These two things are neither fully compatible no mutually exclusive. They fight for attention. In fully interactive, open world, free roam games story tends to suffer, and in fully story driven and railroaded ones, the interactivity loses. It's a balance.
My point is... STOP LEARNING FROM PORN, START LEARNING FROM ACTUAL GAMES. To this day, the best porn games are Skyrim and Sims, because modding fails to ruin the underlying gameplay. So learn what works. Learn from witcher games... No that doesn't mean that you have to make a game like witcher, but you can learn how it is integrated into the game. Start from the first one.