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

[GNVE]

You don't need to avoid tropes tirelessly. Fact is, there is a reason they became tropes and continue to find success in games: people like them. While many tropes exist simply because of bad or uncreative writing, often times a tired old trope used in an interesting way can make people enjoy the game more.

For example, in my game, I twisted some tropes and used others to create a scenario where:

I took the typical anime holier-than-thou blond with drills and followers(normally associated with femdom)
View attachment 947149

And made her into an unapologetic hardcore masochist
View attachment 947150

She ended up being a fan favorite, because she retained that assertive and domineering personality as she demand to be abused. The constant contrast between how she asked and what she was asking for kept her interesting. Even if subversion is as tired as the tropes you're supposedly subverting, applying it only to her interactions made her more interesting as a character even if what she was doing wasn't all that unique.

So you get lines like "A normal blowjob is boring, I wanted you to fuck my throat like an animal, but that was pathetic, my throat barely hurts now. So, we're gonna try it another try and if I can still talk afterwords then I'm not going to do it anymore."

Yeah I may have been a bit harsh. Shouldn't have gone for the example of dead parents. I'm really done with games that use that trope. As you stated it usually is just lazy writing to get the hero's journey going.
My advice for (aspiring) devs is. Play a lot of games so you know the tropes. Generally avoid said tropes and if you do use tropes do it knowingly and make informed decisions when implementing the trope so you don't come of as generic.
It is not as much an issue when the game doesn't focus on a single trope. You can get away with a few generic ones if the rest of the game elevate them with good storytelling. (Even AAA games do that).
And you shouldn't be on a quest for ultimate originality either because it is impossible for one and original does not equal good. (Better to make a game with a trope well than a totally original game badly).

At this point everything that is in any adult game is a cliche ... all the scammers that are trying to make money out of nothing (the developers) are doing literally the same thing over and over again. Plot ... assets ... events ... UI - everything is the same.
Some family ... some school ... some house ... over and over again To get this fat pile of patreons and check in on the whole adult game thing. There is a time when it does not matter how many hours someone left the pc to render the next 200 images - they are the same as the ones from the other 1000+ wanna be developers.

Yup a lot of devs use the same engine as Renpy is easy to use (you can have a basic understanding of programming a game within the hour) and it is just amazing when programming VN's it does everything you want for a VN while still having a lot of power if your goals are bigger.

As for assets it comes down to the program the dev is using to create the game (Honey Select is a lot more limited than Daz for instance) and in case of using Daz how much time is a dev willing to spend on the preproduction. One can make amazing sets in Daz but it takes a lot of times (over a week for my more involved ones). Oh and lets not forget that it is costly. I am literally mixing and matching dozens of assets to get something unique looking.

 

[redtornado]

Grind is a problem and cheats solve this? Oh, my friend, you are overlooking...

The Russian Grind
When you have to repeat an activity an absurd number of times to progress and even the cheats don't help and your resolve is worn down worse than the Wehrmacht during the Russian Winter.
View attachment 37382

"Life is suffering" is a Russian proverb. Thus, to make your porn true to life, you must be suffering in porn as well. A grind so terrible not even cheats can make it tolerable, when you spend entire weekends just to get a handjob from one character after you've installed cheats.

Consider a character that you can only talk to once a week, when the stars align, at Saturday, 6AM in the morning in an obscure corner of the park. Your character normally awakens at 7AM, so to be anywhere at 6AM you need to spend the night in the park. You have to miss out on the Party on Friday night, which is a much more preferable location overall. To interact with the character, you have to bring her fairy dust, which you can't stockpile because you can only carry one at a time, and you can only get it during the day time. But there is only a 50% chance the character will be there at all, and only a 50% chance the character will accept your gift of fairy dust based on your maxed out speech skill, and if the character accepts the gift, there is only a 50% chance it will actually advance the counter based on pure luck. This makes it a 1/8 chance to increase the counter at all - PER WEEK. To what level do you need to advance the counter to get a sexual interaction? Just about 10. That sounds like a reasonably low number, right? Except because of the 1/8 chance it works out to 80 weeks where you attempt this, missing out on all the important friday night activities for over a year of in game play time. Truly a grind from hell.

And what does the cheat do? It gives you unlimited money. Which doesn't help you in this situation at all. The cheat also fills up your fairy dust, and lets you max your speech skill. So now you only need to do it for 80 continuous weeks. THAT is a russian grind.

Your reward? Your new friend gives you a handjob and the unfinished storyline ends there.

And if your game is very extra Russian, it will contain "anti cheat measures" that locks up the progression if it detects tampering of any kind, and will probably do so silently and unbeknownst to you.

Examples of a Russian Grind:
Big Brother
Second Happiness
Girl Life

I was laughing so hard I had to go lay down for a half hour before I could write my reply. Damn this was spot on. I had a job once that required me to be in angry peoples' homes. Sometimes my best efforts to appease them weren't enough and they would ask how they can contact my company's managers. This following quote was my go to last effort to appease them and successfully complete the work order: My managers are available between 8:00 am and 8:15 am every other Tuesday...during leap years only. Do you still want their number?

 

[IhaveNoPornAndIMustFap]

I was laughing so hard I had to go lay down for a half hour before I could write my reply. Damn this was spot on. I had a job once that required me to be in angry peoples' homes. Sometimes my best efforts to appease them weren't enough and they would ask how they can contact my company's managers. This following quote was my go to last effort to appease them and successfully complete the work order: My managers are available between 8:00 am and 8:15 am every other Tuesday...during leap years only. Do you still want their number?

Glad you enjoyed it!

 

[TheAvatar]

That is a law enacted in 1917 which has produced a society where they are so homophobic that they think it is gay to look at a penis when watching porn.

Well, now I'm sad, it's like taking seriously the "two guys don't look at each other during threesomes" meme

 

[g5s1y3]

A most excellent thread.

 

[ChaosOpen]

Well, now I'm sad, it's like taking seriously the "two guys don't look at each other during threesomes" meme

A real man doesn't break eye contact.

 

[yihman1]

Japanese Game Names

It will often be something nuts like:

"My mom fucked a dog and now I'm a dog!"

 

[yihman1]

Random Bad Endings

Did you grab the girls butt? BAD END!
Did you spy on the shower girl too long? BAD END!
Did you kiss her too soon? BAD END!
Did you not earn enough points to get past the check point? BAD END!
Did you try to blackmail her too soon? BAD END!
Did you go in the door on the left and not the door on the right? BAD END!
Did you insult the police officer? BAD END!
Did you whip that 14 inch cock out at the wrong time? BAD END

I think this trope is becoming less popular, but back in the day it was somewhat more common .

 

[Klaabu]

Random Bad Endings

Did you grab the girls butt? BAD END!
Did you spy on the shower girl too long? BAD END!
Did you kiss her too soon? BAD END!
Did you not earn enough points to get past the check point? BAD END!
Did you try to blackmail her too soon? BAD END!
Did you go in the door on the left and not the door on the right? BAD END!
Did you insult the police officer? BAD END!
Did you whip that 14 inch cock out at the wrong time? BAD END

I think this trope is becoming less popular, but back in the day it was somewhat more common .

Did you grab the girls butt? BAD END! OK
Did you spy on the shower girl too long? BAD END! OK
Did you kiss her too soon? BAD END! OK
Did you not earn enough points to get past the check point? BAD END! OK
Did you try to blackmail her too soon? BAD END! OK
Did you go in the door on the left and not the door on the right? BAD END! OK
Did you insult the police officer? BAD END! NO This is not trope. Insulting police officer is and always will be BAD END!
Did you whip that 14 inch cock out at the wrong time? BAD END OK

Sorry about my bad Engrish.

 

[GNVE]

Insulting a police officer is not an automatic bad time. At least where I'm from. An isolated insult will get you a stern talking to and/or a fine and/or you might not be allowed to be in a certain area for a certain amount of time (e.g. the inner city for a week) depending on the situation and local bylaw. You need to display worse behaviour if you want to get arrested let alone for more than a night to sober up.

 

[Quaszog55]

I was laughing so hard I had to go lay down for a half hour before I could write my reply.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Made me read this entire thread again and even waddle through the amateur behavioral science crap.

Thank you fellow perverts for your tiresome research and yihman1 for taking over the torch from Burt Reynolds Mustache under great risk of sanity.
Very tragicomical that half of what has been posted here is still the AAA+ of VN and renpy games.

"My mom fucked a dog and now I'm a dog!"

' ...leap from Doge-King in Milf-dog island of Dogs and Milfs.'

I felt a more descriptive title would help to make a more informed choice.

Insulting a police officer is not an automatic bad time. At least where I'm from.

Clearly you must belong to one of the tribes hailing from west of the rhine. 24 hrs. 'Sobber-up Confinement' is the least you get. And then there is this one stair on the way to the cells that everybody slips on...

 

[GNVE]

Clearly you must belong to one of the tribes hailing from west of the rhine. 24 hrs. 'Sobber-up Confinement' is the least you get. And then there is this one stair on the way to the cells that everybody slips on...

Yeah I know it is different in lots/most places. Just wanted to say there are differences between police forces around the world (And I'm not suggesting ours is perfect at all there are issues that need to be solved).

 

[Quaszog55]

Well I think I had cornered it but failed to box it in...

Rebel without a Clue (Looking for clean examples. Help appreciated)

You are a that young of heart, aspiring MC with a decent sized harem and nakama of friends? All would be well if it wasn't for The Conspiracy threatening your Goals, The Bank evicting you from your love-nest, Eric I loathing your property and your Vampire Aunt demanding the next sacrifice. The pillars of the earth rest on your shoulders and the Armageddon Clock struck n-1!
If only your circle of competent, ungratified, self-depreciating, pro-bono acting familiars could be trusted to solve these problems on your behalf? Familiars may even offer to take the bullet for you when applying the only viable solution. Alas the price would be far beyond measure! For such benevolence must be to good to be true and therefore - be outright - refused.

Accepting help would not only make you a sizzy feel loved, take away that choking sense of dread you crave so much or simply keep you from blundering into the next content update. It would also make you look like you are unable to Do it Yourself and may make everyone else realize, that you are just The Creeper and Useless Eric or a Trophy Wife. Not that you are cheering for the Bad Ending you are just constantly in over your head. Truly, if there was a guaranteed way of proving your familiars benevolence that doesn’t involve drugs, Mind Control, Blackmail or Extortion, you would take it. This may make you your own worst cock-block as you cannot allow them to treat you to a good time out of their own volition and gives you ample opportunity to Ruining Somebody Else's Life.

Thus familiars need to be treated worse, mistrusted more, and restricted further than any optional villainous nakama of lecherous companions, whose purely accumulative and self-serving nature, offer NO BENEFITS (looking at you other Eric, Fat-boss George, NTR-GF and Skinny Dealer).
Bonus points, If your MC is childless mid-30s something and is openly pondering sterilization to protect himself from a forced attachment to people that care about him.

Some familiars may have adapted to your antics and transformed into: The choleric, drinking Milf-shrew; The disillusioned, bully Onesan; The manipulative, prankster Imouto; or The Max. Not because they genuinely despise you, only because your reactions to hostility are far more human and caring than to adoration. In rare cases forcing you into submission has proven to be more efficient than bribes. Thus, you only cooperate with your familiars, when they forcefully repress your passions or when they are powerless to stop you. Relieving nymphomaniac partners may only be permitted when you are a nymphomaniac, too and offered first.

Female Rebels may eventually end up as the reluctant Retard in Leechertown and through Sperm de lá Bocuse transcend to The Cockhungry Slut. Or just live rent-free in Rape Street.
Of course, in some cases this dysfunctional treatment may be warranted: Frequent Loss of Consciousness (Forbidden Passion), Amnesia (ThisIsHeaven), Body Swaps (MyBestDeal), Supernatural Forces (DreamsOfDesire), Conspiracies (Mother Seduction), Mind Control (SisterSisterSister, Lucid Dream), Alpha Male Corruption (Big Brother) and non sequential story telling (Dating the Devil) are far to common to simply trust supposed familiars with anything other than enforced sexual gratification.

Games: Literally every Mom or Son centered corruption game that doesn’t have trust as the base of their relationship or is made by a depressed Russian Dev.

 

[Quaszog55]

Ruin Somebody Else's Life

So you have been cursed with Rape or Die but asking your Cockhungry Slut Onesan for therapeutic bonding sessions would make her worship your Monster Cock ruin your Revenge Plot? Financial Troubles abound but asking your Depraved Milf Gold-Digger-aunt for money could turn you into a Sissy lead to mutually satisfactory Transactional Affection? Mid-term finals need to be improved but asking your asocial Imouto to help you study might just be the nudge to transform her into a Vampire-witch Loving Family member? Telling your Mom about The Conspiracy might allow her to 'Succeed at Life' but may also make her marry Eric question being your personal Relief Girl? In any case, just Doing it Yourself would require that other MC and eventually Content needs to Happen? Well do I have news for you! Why not Ruin Somebody Else's Life?

Force yourself on your Black-Best-Buddy's Mom, your sister in-law or your female Childhood Friends's identical Twin. Sell explicit pictures of your 'Family and Friends' on the web or offer perverts live-stream subscriptions for your home (might gather some fans yourself). Guilt Trip your submissive asian-Goth girl-friend into screwing the principal while you swap the final results by hand. Blackmail your mom's friends and yours to cover for you every time your plans turn to shit. As long as it escalates the scope of tragedy, keeps you from taking the brunt of the hit and redirects most of the fallout onto your patsies, it is fair game. Extra points if the abused party doesn't gain anything in return, is unaware of your actions or has voiced clear dissent.

Important distinction: Rapist Ojisan and Professional Perverts may also do this, too but take the first best victim to solve THE D sized problem at hand.
A Paternal Authority Figure (Ecchie Sensei, Class Next Door) may only use the aforementioned methods to prevent their victims wards from becoming a NTR-Magnet Retard in Leechertown.

Games: Any Corruption game in which the MC isn't an Alpha. Even the Retard in Leechertown ropes her nakama in at some point.

 

[yihman1]

Girl On Ladder

There is always something important on a top shelf, and it's a females duty to climb a ladder to get it. Fella may look up her skirt, or she may fall and he will catch her, but it's a scene that has been seen countless times.

 

[Helmeted Smith]

Cuckquean Unicorn Dream Girl

Such a female in real life has proven impossible for me to find, and I don't think such females exist in nature, and if they do exist they are extinct in the wild. I have never found one. If you find one please capture her (without hurting her) and bring her into the laboratory so that we can study her. The cuckquean unicorn dream girl fits all of the following characteristics:

1) She is cool with you, cool as fuck. I'm talking you can sit and chill with her for hours like a best friend, and she is not a bimbo and contributes to the conversation like she is your best friend.

2) She is not going to have any sort of large social media presence. She is not going to be sitting on Facebook all day or Instagram. She finds such things of little interest.

3) She is not a gold digger at all. She is not after you for your money, and if she were to be unemployed she would totally contribute around the house washing dishes, cleaning the house, washing your clothes, cooking your meals and so on. So she may or may not be dependent, and if she is a dependent she doesn't freeload and she contributes.

4) She will have 0 interest in the attention of other males regardless of physical attractiveness, wealth, or social standing. She is incapable of having good chemistry with any other male other than you.

5) She will love you no matter what you do so long as you want her love. You may have the option to avoid such a female, but it wouldn't make good sense to do so. She will not turn into some sort of crazy ex or stalker were you to end intimate relations with her and she will handle things like a mature adult.

6) She does not mind one single bit if you are with other women. In fact, she will encourage you to do so as much as a cuckold would encourage his partner to sleep with other men. She is perfectly happy to be in a half-open relationship with you, and she has a more the merrier mentality.

7) She will be open to threesomes (and more) with other girls, but not other males. She will convert other females to be like her, and treat you as she does and not be jealous of her "sister wifes". She will happily help you build your harem as big as you want it to grow.

8) Physically she will be of model attractiveness. She won't be a fatty or deformed, or ugly. She will be a hot enough girl to get any mans attention.

 

[Helmeted Smith]

GOOD VIBES

...


EDIT:
Nothing wrong with that.
It's just me.

 

[LoneWaker59]

Grind is a problem and cheats solve this? Oh, my friend, you are overlooking...

The Russian Grind
When you have to repeat an activity an absurd number of times to progress and even the cheats don't help and your resolve is worn down worse than the Wehrmacht during the Russian Winter.
View attachment 37382

"Life is suffering" is a Russian proverb. Thus, to make your porn true to life, you must be suffering in porn as well. A grind so terrible not even cheats can make it tolerable, when you spend entire weekends just to get a handjob from one character after you've installed cheats.

Consider a character that you can only talk to once a week, when the stars align, at Saturday, 6AM in the morning in an obscure corner of the park. Your character normally awakens at 7AM, so to be anywhere at 6AM you need to spend the night in the park. You have to miss out on the Party on Friday night, which is a much more preferable location overall. To interact with the character, you have to bring her fairy dust, which you can't stockpile because you can only carry one at a time, and you can only get it during the day time. But there is only a 50% chance the character will be there at all, and only a 50% chance the character will accept your gift of fairy dust based on your maxed out speech skill, and if the character accepts the gift, there is only a 50% chance it will actually advance the counter based on pure luck. This makes it a 1/8 chance to increase the counter at all - PER WEEK. To what level do you need to advance the counter to get a sexual interaction? Just about 10. That sounds like a reasonably low number, right? Except because of the 1/8 chance it works out to 80 weeks where you attempt this, missing out on all the important friday night activities for over a year of in game play time. Truly a grind from hell.

And what does the cheat do? It gives you unlimited money. Which doesn't help you in this situation at all. The cheat also fills up your fairy dust, and lets you max your speech skill. So now you only need to do it for 80 continuous weeks. THAT is a russian grind.

Your reward? Your new friend gives you a handjob and the unfinished storyline ends there.

And if your game is very extra Russian, it will contain "anti cheat measures" that locks up the progression if it detects tampering of any kind, and will probably do so silently and unbeknownst to you.

Examples of a Russian Grind:
Big Brother
Second Happiness
Girl Life

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
This is "Fashion Business" in a nutshell, a game that i hate to love and love to hate

 

[yihman1]

Slutfest minus one

There will be a whole town full of pussy. You can barely walk out the door without some girl jumping at your cock. You are one step away from starting to walk around town with a crowbar to pry them off of your penis. Yet there is one girl who is different from the rest... There is always that one girl you haven't slept with yet. The hold out. Eventually you will get in her pants... but it's going to take at least 3 or 4 times longer than the other girls. She is like the final boss of the pussy brigade.

 

[joecoe]

Slutfest minus one

There will be a whole town full of pussy. You can barely walk out the door without some girl jumping at your cock. You are one step away from starting to walk around town with a crowbar to pry them off of your penis. Yet there is one girl who is different from the rest... There is always that one girl you haven't slept with yet. The hold out. Eventually you will get in her pants... but it's going to take at least 3 or 4 times longer than the other girls. She is like the final boss of the pussy brigade.

Sometimes it's slutfest minus two. One shy virgin who is nice to MC but it takes some time to get into her pants and one bitchy girl who at first hates MC for some reason.