Porn Game Tropes: The good, the bad, and the fugly

[Burt Reynolds Mustache]

If anyone here is old enough to remember the "choose your own adventure" books those were actually games too. The object in them was to make it to the real ending, and not die one of the myriad horrible deaths that awaited the reader... it was a simple game, but a game nonetheless.

Most VNs also have a point system of some sort, behind the scenes, most have bad endings of some sort or another, and nearly all of them have scenes that a player can miss. The gameplay is about choosing the actions of the player, seeing how those actions play out and reacting.

We could get lost in the weeds very easily debating if a VN is or is not a game... so let's just not do that and say that they are.

 

[toolkitxx]

If anyone here is old enough to remember the "choose your own adventure" books those were actually games too. The object in them was to make it to the real ending, and not die one of the myriad horrible deaths that awaited the reader... it was a simple game, but a game nonetheless.

Most VNs also have a point system of some sort, behind the scenes, most have bad endings of some sort or another, and nearly all of them have scenes that a player can miss. The gameplay is about choosing the actions of the player, seeing how those actions play out and reacting.

We could get lost in the weeds very easily debating if a VN is or is not a game... so let's just not do that and say that they are.

I can easily relate and agree to the first part. Games are simply defined by having a goal - which is true for the 'choose your own adventure' books (because of possible failure when choosing certain paths). But its not automatically true for a VN - which is my overall point.

Many VNs are just pepped up books and an invisible point system is exactly a category where the player/reader is kept in the dark. A game will always deliver feedback whereas many VNs simply take you along a ride to a given (or multiple ) end. Games in general have rules and will punish you if you dont obey or follow them. Which doesnt mean you cant do that - but you will get feedback accordingly. Quite a few of the examples earlier in this thread simply dont qualify as games and thus dont have to follow the same rule set. A regular VN has a lot more creative freedom than an actual game.

 

[Ennoch]

I still got like.. 15 or so Fighting Fantasy books :coldsweat:

 

[Baka_Energy_studios]

Daddy poof



At the begin of the game you know nothing. With the reveal that your father left the family for reasonable reasons or just because plot demands it, you somehow realise that you have a dick in need and some pussy to feed. This hole in your past is also the reason why you wanna bang your sister/aunt/mom/cousin stepdoggo. Sometimes you ask yourself: "Why Dad? Why did you left us?" But not so much for getting into a foul mood when there´s soooo much money. Yes, the unexplained vanishing of your Dad also left you something nice to compensate: a fuckton of Money, a grandioso Mansion(with optional suspicious neighbors) or your own company.
Sometimes you don´t need to grind for cash to buy stupid things like surveillance cameras for your sisters bedroom anymore but sometimes you still do need cash for other shit to buy, although your filthy rich for unknown reason you can´t tap into that wealthy pool.

Your family members rarely show sadness or grieve for their fathers or husbands absence. Too much to bare all the emotional impact when your ready to enjoy some lewdy sloots in noody shoots. Just roll with it MC. Most of the time, daddy just left.
They talk about it once, maybe twice but then life goes on. It also gives a fair reasoning why your older or younger
sister gets attached to the MC and why you go full Aí Papí on everyone else(including mom, aunt, secretary, outerdimensional ice cream vendor or stepdoggo) because everyone has to know you´re Jon Plough now and you gonna use the D mercilessly. It´s a rough world out there after all and your family needs protection ... mostly paid in sexual favours of some sorts.

Sometimes the disappearance of daddy can leave the family in Financial distress, so MC has to climb ladders of unknown origin to be the Man of the House. Includes fucking everyone, too.

Examples: Big Brother, Bad Brother Saga, Man of the House, Summertime Saga



This trope goes hand in hand with the The Digsite: Just when you hit puberty, the spontaneous enlightenment of your consciousness or some other sort of an introduction to the game, someone tells you abt the secret never told to anyone mystery of the family... which you aren´t aware of because your dick and so you as yourself were sleeping for years after your birth. It´s just now that it´s convenient for the hollow plot to tell you so. *whispers* a weeewwyy weewy dark secret ... yeeees. In some cases even your littlest younger sister knew about THE obscure family mysterioso and when she discovers that you didn´t she goes into full "i can´t even"-mode and uses it to play with you until some updates later she can suck your dick.
And you´re set out on a journey to reveal the mysterious mysterity that has hung over your family for years or centuries even. Very comfy way to throw some shit at MC: an unknown sister, a friend from your father, locations to explore or stats to grind. Most of the time, the oh so mysterious mysterioso dark secret is more or less stupid in conclusion and could be solved easily in one form or another.

There are some instances where the secret isn´t a secret, MC never had parents of some sorts and he doesn´t care.

Surprisingly it´s never the mom that disappeared and left the MC and/or family with sick wealth

Examples: A new home, The Family Secret, Dreams of Desire

 

[woody554]

In other words, in porn games, do players just want to bang every chick as quickly as possible, or are they interested in more than that?

I think this is an important choice every dev should make first before anything else. are you going for INSTANT or DELAYED gratification? choose one and stick with it.

the #1 problem with writing porn + plot is that porn in its essence is all about instant gratification, skipping right into the sex part. where as a story is all about delayed gratification + catharsis. a story works only because there's increasing tension and expectation, but the second you find out there's sex on the table your dick takes over and you lose all interest in the story. you start mindlessly clicking through the content to get to the sex. and when you get there, it's all meh and underwhelming because you didnt work for it. free stuff is not worth shit, emotionally speaking. you get no catharsis because you experienced no tension, no buildup. story and porn don't mix well, if at all.

the solution is to either go full porn and give up the goods in 5 seconds flat, OR put obstacles and _effort_ between player and payoff. THAT is why the grind exists, that is why the stairway to heaven exists, to build up tension for the catharsis. that's also why eric exists, outside the ntr crowd. I have zero interest in ntr, but I don't think I've ever hated a fictional chracter more than eric. dispatching that little shit was oh so satisfying. that alone justifies his existence, he was a great obstacle. (but leaving him in would've been a massive mistake as it would've robbed all non-ntr people of that particular catharsis. I think what big brother did was optimal, give the player choice to go either way.)

both approaches seem to have a wide audience so I don't think either is somehow inherently inferior. it's just different audience. and a lot of the frustration I see in game threads and even here are really clearly about confusing these two.

I mean there's a lot of complaining about the grind especially in incest games, but what's the option really? make the mom jump at your cock the second you whip it out? seems very unsatisfying to me. a game needs to have things to play for or it's not a game. if anything it's always way too easy to turn the mom into a drooling sex zombie. yet there's no shortage of those slut-mom games either so who knows. some people just want the mindless sex and that's fine too.

obviously you can't please everybody, and most people are notoriously bad at reading the tags. but I'd like there to be some kind of tag for this. something like 'early sexual content' vs 'late sexual content', or 'nukige'. maybe 'instant/delayed gratification' would be more descriptive though.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Many VNs are just pepped up books and an invisible point system is exactly a category where the player/reader is kept in the dark. A game will always deliver feedback whereas many VNs simply take you along a ride to a given (or multiple ) end.

The feedback doesn't have to be in the form of a concrete number that you can point to and say, I shouldn't have done that. In fact, I'd say that games that do have such a system, like Babysitter, suffer from it. There's a scene wherein you are given the option at the club to dance with your niece, Christine, or her hot slutty friend, Jessica. No matter which you choose to dance with, the other will end up dancing with the bartender, Robert, and a sort of competition to see who is willing to be the most sexy will come up. If you chose to dance with Jessica, however, after all the dancing, Christine will ask to invite Robert back to the apartment for the hot tub and truth or dare scene. You're given the choice to allow this or not. Not allowing it results in a negative point value in regards to your relationship with Christine, but allowing it to happen results in some light sexual content with Robert that you have to deal with, as well as opening the door to your romantic rival to make more moves if you're not careful. A large number of players complained about "Forced NTR" because of that scene, using the negative points as justification for their rage, not considering that the negative effect was something that could be mitigated, or the fact that their dumb asses are the ones who wanted to keep Christine all to themselves but still chose to dance with Jessica.

Which doesnt mean you cant do that - but you will get feedback accordingly. Quite a few of the examples earlier in this thread simply dont qualify as games and thus dont have to follow the same rule set.

VN have rules too. And there is feedback, it's jut not the sort of feedback you recognize. There's not a health bar, and there's not always a physical stat system you can point to, though most VN do tend to have one, in fact, I have a hard time thinking of one that doesn't show you the relationship points, aside from the two I'm writing for. And lets talk about those two for the moment. Seraphim Academy is by all accounts a Visual Novel, but the way I'm trying to tell it is like a crossover between the decision based games in the Telltale lineup and old school adventure games, like Kings Quest. Making the right decisions, acquiring the right information, allows you to further relationships without a solid number value behind your points, but instead successful navigation of conversations and information being properly applied.

The other game, The Things We Do For Love is a lot more like Babysitter, with it's relationship points, values determining how things work. But taking a lesson from Babysitter, those values are hidden, and it will be up to you to use the information given through the feedback of character reactions to determine if the choices you're making are right or not. These choices open and close doors down the line determining your path in exactly the same way they might in a game like The Witcher, or Vampyr, the difference being there's no flashy combat system or 3d graphics to distract you from the fact that the entire game is driven by and changed by your decisions.

A regular VN has a lot more creative freedom than an actual game.

I get the feeling that you simply don't play games that have a solid narrative and choices then. The Witcher Series, any game made by Bioware, Life is Strange, Telltale Games, Dreamfall, Vampyr, these are all examples of games in which your choices, which don't always have a direct points feedback value to determine how they'll affect things, do affect the story. It doesn't matter how well you kill the bad guys in Mass Effect, if you don't earn the loyalty of your crew, there's a possibility they'll die. It doesn't matter how well you slay monsters in The Witcher 3, or how morally just your choices are, there will be consequences in the form of lives lost for every decision you make. In Life is Strange you have the ability to go back and change what you did wrong, but no matter what you do you are still headed toward a future with the tornado until finally you're forced to choose between the girl you love and the whole town. The feedback in these games isn't in the form of a raw number, it's in character development, reactions, and plot. They have all the creative freedom in the world. The only thing holding them back is narrative.

 

[khumak]

The feedback doesn't have to be in the form of a concrete number that you can point to and say, I shouldn't have done that. In fact, I'd say that games that do have such a system, like Babysitter, suffer from it. There's a scene wherein you are given the option at the club to dance with your niece, Christine, or her hot slutty friend, Jessica. No matter which you choose to dance with, the other will end up dancing with the bartender, Robert, and a sort of competition to see who is willing to be the most sexy will come up. If you chose to dance with Jessica, however, after all the dancing, Christine will ask to invite Robert back to the apartment for the hot tub and truth or dare scene. You're given the choice to allow this or not. Not allowing it results in a negative point value in regards to your relationship with Christine, but allowing it to happen results in some light sexual content with Robert that you have to deal with, as well as opening the door to your romantic rival to make more moves if you're not careful. A large number of players complained about "Forced NTR" because of that scene, using the negative points as justification for their rage, not considering that the negative effect was something that could be mitigated, or the fact that their dumb asses are the ones who wanted to keep Christine all to themselves but still chose to dance with Jessica.

While a visible "score" of some sort isn't necessarily required, it seems to be the easiest method to give the player feedback on whether they made a good or bad choice. For the scene you mention above it wouldn't be necessary since the consequences are pretty clear, but there are many games I've tried that do not have any sort of visible scoring system and the game gives you no clues at all about whether you've made good or bad decisions until you stumble into the bad ending with no idea what you messed up.

If the scene is set up with dialog and/or body language/facial expressions/consequences that make it clear when you made good or bad decisions then I would agree that not having a visible score adds to the immersion but if you're unable to make it clear to the player any other way then I would much rather have a score to let me know that I did this thing right and that thing wrong, etc.

 

[desmosome]

I think this is an important choice every dev should make first before anything else. are you going for INSTANT or DELAYED gratification? choose one and stick with it.

the #1 problem with writing porn + plot is that porn in its essence is all about instant gratification, skipping right into the sex part. where as a story is all about delayed gratification + catharsis. a story works only because there's increasing tension and expectation, but the second you find out there's sex on the table your dick takes over and you lose all interest in the story. you start mindlessly clicking through the content to get to the sex. and when you get there, it's all meh and underwhelming because you didnt work for it. free stuff is not worth shit, emotionally speaking. you get no catharsis because you experienced no tension, no buildup. story and porn don't mix well, if at all.

the solution is to either go full porn and give up the goods in 5 seconds flat, OR put obstacles and _effort_ between player and payoff. THAT is why the grind exists, that is why the stairway to heaven exists, to build up tension for the catharsis. that's also why eric exists, outside the ntr crowd. I have zero interest in ntr, but I don't think I've ever hated a fictional chracter more than eric. dispatching that little shit was oh so satisfying. that alone justifies his existence, he was a great obstacle. (but leaving him in would've been a massive mistake as it would've robbed all non-ntr people of that particular catharsis. I think what big brother did was optimal, give the player choice to go either way.)

both approaches seem to have a wide audience so I don't think either is somehow inherently inferior. it's just different audience. and a lot of the frustration I see in game threads and even here are really clearly about confusing these two.

I mean there's a lot of complaining about the grind especially in incest games, but what's the option really? make the mom jump at your cock the second you whip it out? seems very unsatisfying to me. a game needs to have things to play for or it's not a game. if anything it's always way too easy to turn the mom into a drooling sex zombie. yet there's no shortage of those slut-mom games either so who knows. some people just want the mindless sex and that's fine too.

obviously you can't please everybody, and most people are notoriously bad at reading the tags. but I'd like there to be some kind of tag for this. something like 'early sexual content' vs 'late sexual content', or 'nukige'. maybe 'instant/delayed gratification' would be more descriptive though.

you dont have to use the grind to go for delayed gratification. You can write an actual compelling plot to do so. 95% of games with grind have boring gameplay, repeated scenes, mind numbing mini games, and as a result, a terrible story progression and character interactions.

 

[DarthSeduction]

While a visible "score" of some sort isn't necessarily required, it seems to be the easiest method to give the player feedback on whether they made a good or bad choice. For the scene you mention above it wouldn't be necessary since the consequences are pretty clear, but there are many games I've tried that do not have any sort of visible scoring system and the game gives you no clues at all about whether you've made good or bad decisions until you stumble into the bad ending with no idea what you messed up.

If the scene is set up with dialog and/or body language/facial expressions/consequences that make it clear when you made good or bad decisions then I would agree that not having a visible score adds to the immersion but if you're unable to make it clear to the player any other way then I would much rather have a score to let me know that I did this thing right and that thing wrong, etc.

Honestly you sound like the people who try to tell me that it's ok that x life sim has a shit ton of grind because there's also a cheat system, ignoring the fact that the grind is there to make up for the fact that the dev can't write for shit so the only way you gain a sense of accomplishment at playing a game is the grind.

If the dev doesn't put in the work with the art to give you the feedback then they're doing it wrong. The points being shown is just a crutch that gets them out of doing the art and telling the story well.

Lets give another example, one I don't think is as well written as Babysitter, but that does a pretty good job of introducing an element of consequence to things. Early in the game you're given a hint that there's a political movement in the background to crack down morally. At first this seems like it might just be a dig at patreon, but as the game has gone on and certain antagonists have appeared, plus this new law about morality, there's an actual worry about being exposed. So when the opportunity to show interest in and spend some intimate time with the frustrated wife of a reverend comes up, you're a little worried. On the one hand, you don't want to piss her off and give her a reason to look too closely, but on the other hand, you don't want to get caught by the reverend and have him looking into you. Also, you're already developing other relationships, and you don't want to give her the wrong impression.

So, when you bed the wife you're given a choice to tell her this was a one time thing, which results in a very depressed looking expression, as if you're confirming her suspicions that she's not good enough, as well as taking advantage of her. Or you can tell her that you really enjoyed this and would be interested in seeing her again, but that just brings you in deeper, making me worry about the reverend finding out. Now, Perverteer does still have to give you the feedback of that depressed expression, and build up the idea that she has low self esteem, but he doesn't ever have to actually make use of the morality police for me to continue worrying that they pose an actual threat to me, making me weigh every decision I make with them in mind.

 

[GuyFreely]

Since we are already a bit off topic, I'll say that most of the problems being mentioned aren't with the tropes themselves, but the writing being bad 99% of the time. Tropes are fine, they serve a purpose. The thing is you can't just throw them in without thinking about how they serve the story. I think some of the issues being discussed recently sound like the dev didn't have the game planned out from the start. I think before you make version .00001 you should have an arc in mind (or multiple). You have a start and a finish and some idea of how you're gonna get from A to B. I'm mostly talking about main story elements not little side plots and diversions. When you introduce main antagonist in update 2, you should already know the trajectory of that character which might end in update 9 or whatever. Otherwise it just feels like it's a whole lot of "then this happens."

I can't speak to other devs' processes, but it feels like some of them are just making it up as they go along. It's fine to incorporate some feedback here and there, but the main story should always be in focus. If a dev decides to put something in for their patrons, say a bondage scene or something. One approach is to go, okay the next time the MC has sex with his sister he ties her up. The other approach is to say "okay, who is most likely to be into bondage?" "How can I introduce the idea of bondage naturally?" So you say, oh the secretary character already has some sub tendencies, she'd probably go with some bondage. Maybe you take her to a sex shop to buy a new toy and she sees some handcuffs and says "You know, I've always wanted to try something..." I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but hopefully you get the point.

 

[khumak]

Honestly you sound like the people who try to tell me that it's ok that x life sim has a shit ton of grind because there's also a cheat system, ignoring the fact that the grind is there to make up for the fact that the dev can't write for shit so the only way you gain a sense of accomplishment at playing a game is the grind.

Actually you missed my point. I agree with you that a point system is a crutch and shouldn't be necessary. But if you can't write dialog or do renders that give enough feedback for a point system to be unnecessary then not including it turns your game into just a series of renders linked by dialog or event choices that just amount to coinflips or dice rolls, in which case they would have been better off just doing a comic with no choices at all.

I suspect a big part of the issue for a lot of games is that the skill sets needed for the coding, dialog, and rendering don't really have much overlap. If you're making the whole game by yourself you have to have some skill at writing, coding, and rendering. Most people are probably only good at 1 or 2 of those rather than all 3 so unless they get someone to help them that has the skills they lack it's blatantly obvious where their shortcomings are when the finished product comes out.

As an example, Cockwork Industries has some of the best renders I've seen in any game on this site but the poorly designed feedback system and dialog and the pointless minigames make it completely unplayable to me. It's pretty clear that they have some good artists on that team but game design and dialog is not their forte. By contrast, a lot of the games I've tried that have good storylines have fairly mediocre renders.

 

[DarthSeduction]

As an example, Cockwork Industries has some of the best renders I've seen in any game on this site but the poorly designed feedback system and dialog and the pointless minigames make it completely unplayable to me. It's pretty clear that they have some good artists on that team but game design and dialog is not their forte. By contrast, a lot of the games I've tried that have good storylines have fairly mediocre renders.

What my point was is that using the points system as a crutch wouldn't save this game for me. As you can see on every post I make, "CHARACTER DEPTH MATTERS!!!" if your game suffers from bad writing, and I blame all instances of needing the points display on bad writing, then you have already lost me.

To explain, I'm not the artist on either of my games. But, while I'm writing the dialogue I'm also writing the art direction. I don't create the renders, but I do ensure that what the story needs to get across is communicated to the artist in a way that ensures we get the message through.


This image is a combination of my writing and Funfiction's skill at bringing that to life. You don't get one without the other. And from it, you get, visually, things I don't even have to say with dialogue. Seraphim Academy is full of this, instances where I leave things unsaid because the art is meant to speak for itself. I have very little in the way of narration, and when I do have to narrate, it's in recalling an event or describing a non visual sense, like sound, smell, or touch, and even then, I try to get those across through dialogue rather than narration.

So, in summary, if a game needs it to be playable, it won't be playable even with it, because I care far more about the writing than I do about the art or the wonders of the game's code.

 

[RogueKnightUK]

I think the interesting thing when it comes to villains is that they absolutely NEED to fit into the story and atmosphere congruently.

There's one, golden, rule above all others that I personally hold to with villains: Nobody ever sees themselves as a villain.

When writing a villain, you absolutely must establish how, from their own perspective and rationale, they see themselves as justified and reasonable. Hell, even the insane villains have justification and reason, it just isn't necessarily based on reality as we can see it.

The single most-common stumbling block I see to the realisation of most villains is when a writer has them do something because he wants it to happen in the story, but doesn't bother to think why the villain themselves would see it as a reasonable and justified action. If any writer even half-dismisses the reason as 'because they are evil' or 'because they are crazy' then it is absolutely certain that the villain, and their actions, will be utterly unbelievable and cartoonish.

Of course, if a plot itself is written to be unbelievable and cartoonish, such as an over-the-top parody, then Mr. Moustache's rule certainly comes into play - it can work there, and potentially might even be necessary.

Since we are already a bit off topic, I'll say that most of the problems being mentioned aren't with the tropes themselves, but the writing being bad 99% of the time. Tropes are fine, they serve a purpose. The thing is you can't just throw them in without thinking about how they serve the story.

Absolutely agree. Tropes are simply tools. On the positive, they are instant points of connection and orientation, like shared-culture references. One well-placed trope can shortcut a huge chunk of backstory or scenario explanation and so be used to keep the pace going. But when tropes are used without good reason, especially if used solely because the successful thing you want to emulate used it, then that's a big warning sign.

 

[Carion_Crow]

Here is a villain trope, your villain is time itself. Because even being right outside the check point or being a day late for paying those bills the protag was working 8 odd jobs for doesn't matter the bank is waiting right outside your house to evict you.

 

[IhaveNoPornAndIMustFap]

Daddy poof

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I briefly considered writing Standard Incest Setup - Absentee dad, repressed lonely mom, bitchy older sister, loving younger "eighteen" sister, lewd aunt, random school girl, creepy gentleman MC who looks like he's 12 but sports Mr Eds gear under the hood, inexplicably lavish mansion despite a lack of income, while the son becomes the sugar daddy, but then realized it'd just be a description of Big Brother.

We have to sit back and occasionally appreciate how much codification BB did for porn game tropes, especially The Eric.

 

[IhaveNoPornAndIMustFap]

Which actually does bring up a Trope that maybe hasn't been written about yet. I just thought of a great name for the trope:

Your mom doesn't love you unless you pay her



If you want your mom to get you off, you better be ready to pay her off.
Also applies to other close family members who will outright charge you for incestuous services.

Many games, to pace out the romantic conquests or inflate the game time, involve a Russian Grind. While some of those grinds can consist of purely sexual activity - You need 10 blowjobs to proceed - quite a few involve an exchange of money, where you have to shower the target of affection with increasingly lavish gifts to unlock new lewds, or straight up giving them money. Which leads to the Unfortunate Implication that, Dude, your mom's a whore. But what else are you gonna think of a mother/sister who requires you to provide her with such-and-such an amount of money to even proceed with the Stairway to Heaven.

Background: A particularly russian trope, where outright paying a woman for sex seems to have a different cultural connotation from the west. Whereas western sluts often vigorously differentiate themselves from actual whores by performing their whore-like activities purely pro bono, no such separation appears to exist in the former soviet bloc. Even marriage is considered a form of pay-for-play, where the wife is simply renting her pussy exclusively to the highest bidder, the husband. However, because it is easy to create a core game loop (Grind money, spend money, get lewds, rinse repeat) the same prostitution mechanic is also often found, more often thinly veiled, in many western games, where the girls "quests" require you to buy expensive items for them before they get their baps out, but this Trope is not about them. This is about close relatives who do outright charge you before they are "affectionate" with you.

Examples:
Big Brother
Summertime Saga (Jenny)
Second Happiness

 

[Burt Reynolds Mustache]

Which actually does bring up a Trope that maybe hasn't been written about yet. I just thought of a great name for the trope:

Your mom doesn't love you unless you pay her

If you want your mom to get you off, you better be ready to pay her off.
Also applies to other close family members who will outright charge you for incestuous services.

Many games, to pace out the romantic conquests or inflate the game time, involve a Russian Grind. While some of those grinds can consist of purely sexual activity - You need 10 blowjobs to proceed - quite a few involve an exchange of money, where you have to shower the target of affection with increasingly lavish gifts to unlock new lewds, or straight up giving them money. Which leads to the Unfortunate Implication that, Dude, your mom's a whore. But what else are you gonna think of a mother/sister who requires you to provide her with such-and-such an amount of money to even proceed with the Stairway to Heaven.

Background: A particularly russian trope, where outright paying a woman for sex seems to have a different cultural connotation from the west. Whereas western sluts often vigorously differentiate themselves from actual whores by performing their whore-like activities purely pro bono, no such separation appears to exist in the former soviet bloc. Even marriage is considered a form of pay-for-play, where the wife is simply renting her pussy exclusively to the highest bidder, the husband. However, because it is easy to create a core game loop (Grind money, spend money, get lewds, rinse repeat) the same prostitution mechanic is also often found, more often thinly veiled, in many western games, where the girls "quests" require you to buy expensive items for them before they get their baps out, but this Trope is not about them. This is about close relatives who do outright charge you before they are "affectionate" with you.

Examples:
Big Brother
Summertime Saga (Jenny)
Second Happiness

Nice one! Title needs a little work though. Maybe rename it "Transactional Affection"? Or if you want to keep the mom angle "Motherhood is the Oldest Profession"?

 

[redknight00]

Is second motherhood is the oldest profession :FeelsGoodMan:

 

[Baka_Energy_studios]

How about "No mommy, no cry"?

 

[RogueKnightUK]

How about "Motherly Economics", or simply "Money, Money, Mummy"?