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

[yihman1]

THE DEAD GAME THAT WILL NOT DIE

"That is not dead which Patreon fools still fund/
And with strange aeons they dream that even dead games may be done."
​

You first saw it here years ago, five, six, maybe even a decade or more. Overly ambitious, as with all such games, and horribly implemented. The graphics were horrible. The gameplay buggy as fuck. 90% of the advertised features weren't even on the drawing board let alone in the game. The spelling and grammar looked like it was machine translated by a drunken Scottsman trying to read Russian while tripping on LSD. Everything about this game was terrible and you knew that within one month, once that hack excuse for developer realized that they weren't going to land in that magical realm of a million dollars a year of sweet, sweet Patreon money that they'd give up, let it die and toss it into the dump heap with the hundreds of other F95 shovelware in the electronic toxic landfill where the sad majority of games here end up sooner rather than later.

You had forgotten about it, or so you thought, but now... there it is. On the front page. Again. With another new update. It's been, what, six months since the developer even so much as last posted anything on F95 and yet... there it is. Curious, you open the page and check the changelog:

"0.02 - fixxid typoes and grammer"


View attachment 1117179

And then, as suddenly as it appeared it retreats back into the cesspool of abandonment for months on end again. No new features have been added, no hair pulling bugs fixed. Maybe they did something cosmetic, or changed a text files, or added another pointless "story element" to the incomprehensible mess that already read like two pounds of fridge magnets shot out of a kitchen blender.

This game comes in exactly two varieties: Crypt Keeper and ZOMBIE CASH COW and the only real difference between the two is the size of their Patreon donations.

The Crypt Keeper has maybe two or three people still donating, mostly because they signed up so long ago that they've honestly forgotten about it and just don't notice the money drip coming off their credit card. In other words, it's funded by people who don't even realize or remember that they're funding it. Likewise, the only reason the developer still works on it is that every now and then they wake up on the floor of their trailer, fumble around the empty whiskey bottles and used syringes as they try to get to the door where their landlord is pounding on the ripped metal screen of the door and they think "Shit... I should work on that game some more."

The ZOMBIE CASH COW, on the other hand, is the game that every F95 developer dreams of creating. It's the game that is functional enough to keep lots of people throwing money at it, even though all the real work that was ever going to be done was already done long, long ago and all they're doing now is padding out meaningless, hollow updates devoid of any real new content just to prove to their whales that they're still working on it. Games like this as most recognized for making a lot of money, reaching 90% to completion within the first six months and then not even making another 2% of progress to that finish line for the next twenty fucking years. The developers for the game will spend approximately fifty times more time and effort into defending their product with alt accounts than they will doing any actual work on it, then go back to mattress filled with money, push the empty pizza boxes off the top, snort a few more lines and call it a day - again. Updates to these games only arrive whenever their dealer shows up asking where the fuck their money is.

The vast majority of games, and developers do not fit this criteria. Many developers are hard working, underpaid starving artists. Unfortunately, some do fit your criteria. Back in the day years ago as you say... If you were a game developer there was much less competition. You could get away with a lot more, and put a lot less work into a game to get that financial backing up.

There is at least one "

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" out there that comes to my mind making money off of

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. For newer motivated developer with not so much support seeing a guy like gumdrop still raking in significant money can be infuriating.

Imagine you work thousands of hours on something over the past year or sometimes even longer. You make nickles and dimes in comparison to a guy like gumdrop. There are many more out there just like you... Lots of starving devs out there with almost no backers.

Then you look at a guy like gumdrop who releases a piano simulator still making bank.

The market is not always fair. Life is not fair. You can do everything right, and still lose.

People wonder why so many games are abandoned?

There is a great number of reasons (get sick, depression, real life changes, suicide, mental health issues, drug addiction ect ect. Devs are people with problems just like anyone else. Non devs do not realize the sacrifices that go into development) , but #1 on that list of why games are abandoned is that developer did not get enough support. Yet at the same time all of the support in the world won't guarantee a game will not be abandoned, but every dollar donated does improve the odds.

 

[GNVE]

The vast majority of games, and developers do not fit this criteria. Many developers are hard working, underpaid starving artists. Unfortunately, some do fit your criteria. Back in the day years ago as you say... If you were a game developer there was much less competition. You could get away with a lot more, and put a lot less work into a game to get that financial backing up.

There is at least one "

You must be registered to see the links

" out there that comes to my mind making money off of

You must be registered to see the links

. For newer motivated developer with not so much support seeing a guy like gumdrop still raking in significant money can be infuriating.

Imagine you work thousands of hours on something over the past year or sometimes even longer. You make nickles and dimes in comparison to a guy like gumdrop. There are many more out there just like you... Lots of starving devs out there with almost no backers.

Then you look at a guy like gumdrop who releases a piano simulator still making bank.

The market is not always fair. Life is not fair. You can do everything right, and still lose.

People wonder why so many games are abandoned?

There is a great number of reasons (get sick, depression, real life changes, suicide, mental health issues, drug addiction ect ect. Devs are people with problems just like anyone else. Non devs do not realize the sacrifices that go into development) , but #1 on that list of why games are abandoned is that developer did not get enough support. Yet at the same time all of the support in the world won't guarantee a game will not be abandoned, but every dollar donated does improve the odds.

Thanks for this post. Had wanted to write something similar but never got around to it. I think a lot of developers work themselves to death in the beginning. Making an unsustainable 80+ hours a week. Because it is their passion and because they found moderate success and feel the weight of all of those patrons on their shoulders. After N updates they burn-out and need to slow down or sink into depression. Many creators probably set unrealistic update schedules by updating monthly because they have seen a lot of other creators do it as well (who also crashed and burned). It seems all creators who are doing this for a longer time have update schedules that are more once per two - three months.
I think some people do not understand that making a game takes a lot of time. Years in fact. Whether you are a lone dev, small team or giant dev studio.

 

[Quaszog55]

And having sex with another man involved runs too great of a risk of them touching, and that'd be gay too right?...

... I'd say, the one thing a developer would need to deal with if they went this route, is most likely said character has to be very likeable.

Damn, i have to call my Ex and their Mom. If they don't become Nuns there won't be any hetero left to populate the planet! I understand but cannot relate. I met enough women who would demand to be double teamed if I and my BFF(s) were around. However, sharing with someone that is not likeable or attractive is difficult.

Problem is: Projection.
If a main character (even a female) is an unrelatable looser and their male-buddy a despicable jerk, the viewer may project themselves on any other character in scene (even the 'camera guy'). Having a 'Jerk' in an MMF or MFF scene means you may (subconsciously) project yourself on the poor chick that gets it up the ass while screaming bloody tears. Once that happens your immersion and satisfaction may be ruined. You may therefore (again, subconsciously) rather project on the 'Angry Bitch' Friend, at least evocates dominance.

heres my take on this

The Man With A Thousand Faces

Jolly good sir. I forgot about that one. In the spirit of the all-you-can -eat buffet, that our escapist dream fuel machine aims to deliver us and the fact, that most devs an writers don't know what they are doing. Having a game with a Man of Principles would require to plan your game ahead and identify target audience.

Some games: Teacher's Pet (Girls from dysfunctional families and female Teachers), Proud Father (Divorced mothers and all their legal daughters). or Ecchi Sensei (Every female in walking distance, except Ogawa Sensei ), have a theme, that saves the MC from being THAT GUY by an inch.

There is a great number of reasons (get sick, depression, real life changes, suicide, mental health issues, drug addiction ect ect. Devs are people with problems just like anyone else. Non devs do not realize the sacrifices that go into development) , but #1 on that list of why games are abandoned is that developer did not get enough support. Yet at the same time all of the support in the world won't guarantee a game will not be abandoned, but every dollar donated does improve the odds.

A good reminder. Gumdrop seems to have made an update. didn't look into it so far. Piano lessons?

I think some people do not understand that making a game takes a lot of time. Years in fact. Whether you are a lone dev, small team or giant dev studio.

Given, that real life tends to interfere *cough*. Salami development and release as on patreon is bound to be difficult to retain. A programming bug may sabotage a software for months (I dare you to keep coding new modules, if some global method call keeps screwing you over). Dare say, this is what keeps BlueCat_Ecchi Sensei from having a stable update schedule.
Lesser problems like developer death and a day job are poppy-cock compared to the ingrained development tasks. In addition, most of us are amateurs until we (self-)worked in the industry for a few years.

 

[lazymunchlax]

Damn, i have to call my Ex and their Mom. If they don't become Nuns there won't be any hetero left to populate the planet! I understand but cannot relate. I met enough women who would demand to be double teamed if I and my BFF(s) were around. However, sharing with someone that is not likeable or attractive is difficult.

Problem is: Projection.
If a main character (even a female) is an unrelatable loser and their male-buddy a despicable jerk, the viewer may project themselves on any other character in scene (even the 'camera guy'). Having a 'Jerk' in an MMF or MFF scene means you may (subconsciously) project yourself on the poor chick that gets it up the ass while screaming bloody tears. Once that happens your immersion and satisfaction may be ruined. You may therefore (again, subconsciously) rather project on the 'Angry Bitch' Friend, at least evocates dominance.

Just to confirm, I was being very sarcastic with my post, I hope that was understood. (The age old joke "Its not gay if they dont touch")

I think the overall problem is fairly simple, and I think Projection factors in. Take Porn as a standard, some guys only watch MF or MFF porn, because they project themselves onto the guy and dont want to "Share". People like me, watch porn because it's hot and can watch more kinds of porn than what we're actually interested in doing, because we see it as OTHER people having sex, rather than imagining it as ourselves.

I'd say, offer a Straight man who is anti MMF a MFF experience, and he'll likely say yes. Make his girlfriend a Bisexual, and give the risk that she might favor a girl over him, and the number of guys open to MFF might drop. I'd bet part of it is not wanting to "Share" and the other is simply not wanting to take the risk that you "Lose" them. IE, Cucking yourself by agreeing to it, she enjoys it and things escalate.

 

[yihman1]

Pseudo Sandbox

Not really a pure sandbox game. It's like 90-95% Visual Novel and only 5-10% Sandbox. Basically, you will play it like a visual novel, and then instead of a menu for something you may get some arrows to move around in first person then open a door to the next scene ending "Free roam". It's like they take a visual novel, then they code up an empty sandbox that would fit that VN, and cram it in there. Then it's right back to VN again. It may also have other sandbox elements like a phone. A good example of a game like this would be "Being a Dik"

Pseudo Visual Novel

The mirror opposite of the Pseudo Sandbox. It's 90% Sandbox and 10% Visual Novel. A game like "Fashion Business" Comes to mind. They got plenty of VN like scenes and tons of renders, but you are going to have to grind the shit out of it.

 

[GNVE]

Pseudo Sandbox

Not really a pure sandbox game. It's like 90-95% Visual Novel and only 5-10% Sandbox. Basically, you will play it like a visual novel, and then instead of a menu for something you may get some arrows to move around in first person then open a door to the next scene ending "Free roam". It's like they take a visual novel, then they code up an empty sandbox that would fit that VN, and cram it in there. Then it's right back to VN again. It may also have other sandbox elements like a phone. A good example of a game like this would be "Being a Dik"

Pseudo Visual Novel

The mirror opposite of the Pseudo Sandbox. It's 90% Sandbox and 10% Visual Novel. A game like "Fashion Business" Comes to mind. They got plenty of VN like scenes and tons of renders, but you are going to have to grind the shit out of it.

tbh sandbox does not have to mean grind. But I agree a lot of games would work better as a full VN rather than as an empty sandbox. It usually just doesn't make sense in a game.

 

[Carrera]

THE DEAD GAME THAT WILL NOT DIE

"That is not dead which Patreon fools still fund/
And with strange aeons they dream that even dead games may be done."
​

You first saw it here years ago, five, six, maybe even a decade or more. Overly ambitious, as with all such games, and horribly implemented. The graphics were horrible. The gameplay buggy as fuck. 90% of the advertised features weren't even on the drawing board let alone in the game. The spelling and grammar looked like it was machine translated by a drunken Scottsman trying to read Russian while tripping on LSD. Everything about this game was terrible and you knew that within one month, once that hack excuse for developer realized that they weren't going to land in that magical realm of a million dollars a year of sweet, sweet Patreon money that they'd give up, let it die and toss it into the dump heap with the hundreds of other F95 shovelware in the electronic toxic landfill where the sad majority of games here end up sooner rather than later.

You had forgotten about it, or so you thought, but now... there it is. On the front page. Again. With another new update. It's been, what, six months since the developer even so much as last posted anything on F95 and yet... there it is. Curious, you open the page and check the changelog:

"0.02 - fixxid typoes and grammer"


View attachment 1117179

And then, as suddenly as it appeared it retreats back into the cesspool of abandonment for months on end again. No new features have been added, no hair pulling bugs fixed. Maybe they did something cosmetic, or changed a text files, or added another pointless "story element" to the incomprehensible mess that already read like two pounds of fridge magnets shot out of a kitchen blender.

This game comes in exactly two varieties: Crypt Keeper and ZOMBIE CASH COW and the only real difference between the two is the size of their Patreon donations.

The Crypt Keeper has maybe two or three people still donating, mostly because they signed up so long ago that they've honestly forgotten about it and just don't notice the money drip coming off their credit card. In other words, it's funded by people who don't even realize or remember that they're funding it. Likewise, the only reason the developer still works on it is that every now and then they wake up on the floor of their trailer, fumble around the empty whiskey bottles and used syringes as they try to get to the door where their landlord is pounding on the ripped metal screen of the door and they think "Shit... I should work on that game some more."

The ZOMBIE CASH COW, on the other hand, is the game that every F95 developer dreams of creating. It's the game that is functional enough to keep lots of people throwing money at it, even though all the real work that was ever going to be done was already done long, long ago and all they're doing now is padding out meaningless, hollow updates devoid of any real new content just to prove to their whales that they're still working on it. Games like this as most recognized for making a lot of money, reaching 90% to completion within the first six months and then not even making another 2% of progress to that finish line for the next twenty fucking years. The developers for the game will spend approximately fifty times more time and effort into defending their product with alt accounts than they will doing any actual work on it, then go back to mattress filled with money, push the empty pizza boxes off the top, snort a few more lines and call it a day - again. Updates to these games only arrive whenever their dealer shows up asking where the fuck their money is.

The zombie cash cow describes way to many games on here,,, and the devs know it, the people know it, but they just keep throwing money at it.

 

[yihman1]

Murder Hobo

A very common trope found in the RPGM genre. The protagonist is basically a homeless person. They may start out with a home, but quickly abandon that for much of the rest of the game to go on their murderous expedition. They will wander around the land searching far and wide for people to murder and take their gold and earn "Experience" from. They will wander into people's homes in search of food, money, or other items. They look through every cupboard and will crack open vases to see if anything of value is inside. They live in a land where people will ignore the murder hobo stealing from them as to not suffer their murderous wrath. Sometimes the murder hobo starts out small by killing rats or some other animals as well. There is no stopping the murder hobo. They may target other races of humanoids as well such as goblins, or orcs. They have no problem marching right into the orc kingdom and killing the king orc either.

 

[Norman Knight]

Murder Hobo

A very common trope found in the RPGM genre. The protagonist is basically a homeless person. They may start out with a home, but quickly abandon that for much of the rest of the game to go on their murderous expedition. They will wander around the land searching far and wide for people to murder and take their gold and earn "Experience" from. They will wander into people's homes in search of food, money, or other items. They look through every cupboard and will crack open vases to see if anything of value is inside. They live in a land where people will ignore the murder hobo stealing from them as to not suffer their murderous wrath. Sometimes the murder hobo starts out small by killing rats or some other animals as well. There is no stopping the murder hobo. They may target other races of humanoids as well such as goblins, or orcs. They have no problem marching right into the orc kingdom and killing the king orc either.

Hah, true enough, although to be fair that is a common trait of western RPG games, I remember playing Baldurs gate or divinity, and most of the time you where killing people, or looking for someone to kill, and of course, stealing all of their possessions, sometimes from the chest they conveniently keep full of things and the tables of their homes, or more commonly, from their cold corpses.

Peasants Quest and A Struggle With Sin are excellent examples of this trope

 

[desmosome]

Hah, true enough, although to be fair that is a common trait of western RPG games, I remember playing Baldurs gate or divinity, and most of the time you where killing people, or looking for someone to kill, and of course, stealing all of their possessions, sometimes from the chest they conveniently keep full of things and the tables of their homes, or more commonly, from their cold corpses.

Peasants Quest and A Struggle With Sin are excellent examples of this trope

It's a term originating from tabletop games for the same reasons.

 

[Deleted member 1370694]

Murder Hobo

A very common trope found in the RPGM genre. The protagonist is basically a homeless person. They may start out with a home, but quickly abandon that for much of the rest of the game to go on their murderous expedition. They will wander around the land searching far and wide for people to murder and take their gold and earn "Experience" from. They will wander into people's homes in search of food, money, or other items. They look through every cupboard and will crack open vases to see if anything of value is inside. They live in a land where people will ignore the murder hobo stealing from them as to not suffer their murderous wrath. Sometimes the murder hobo starts out small by killing rats or some other animals as well. There is no stopping the murder hobo. They may target other races of humanoids as well such as goblins, or orcs. They have no problem marching right into the orc kingdom and killing the king orc either.

And then there are the ones that try to be clever and throw their weapons away when a goblin attacks them, they get slaugthered and a game over screen appears (it's actually a censorship, because your corpse getting eaten by the goblin).

 

[dmmt]

this thread is out-fkn-standing!!

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Spent All His Points on Luck

There's a certain type of male MC I've come to resent in some of the games I play, especially Akabur-inspired ones - the MC is a freaking moron who constantly gets himself into trouble by making irrational decisions. He's such an puerile cunt that even when you're given dialogue options, they're all stupid. I had to stop playing Four Elements Trainer some time into Book 3 because of it, I couldn't stand the MC anymore. I guess juvenile, horny characters can be funny, but not when you're mentally screaming at your protagonist for derailing the plot by not acting like a sensible human being for a few seconds.

 

[yihman1]

Beauty and the Beast

Its when they take a woman who is a total babe and have her give some action to a male that is nowhere near as attractive as her. Obese guy, ugly guy, grandpa, nerd, homeless guy ect... Not so much the 23-year-old underwear model guy.

Way back I thought this was off-putting and made no sense to me. I was foolish enough to think "Nobody wants to see that ugly bastard with this beauty!" Couldn't be more wrong. Here is my reasoning for this:

The "contrast" You stick a 10 female with a 10 male yea... they are both hot, but who cares. Just two hot people... You stick a 10 female with a 2 male... Hold up, she looks way hotter all of a sudden by comparison. She is even more in the spotlight now and looks even more beautiful.

Players come in all shapes and sizes. I'm guessing if you are playing a bunch of adult games you are probably not looking like Brad Pitt... Just the facts... I'm sure the big fat guy, or the old man is relatable to some more players. Its good they get some action too.

Also, people tend to like to root for the underdog. When Chad Thundercock lays some more pipe... Yea dude whatever big deal saw it a million times... It happens. Grandpa getting some booty... There you go that is something to root for!

 

[arcaos]

Where has this thread been hiding?! I definitely needed this in my life. I tried to make sure these weren't redundant with what's already here, but I'm sure they might be:

That Girl is Total Whale-Bait
A character whose sex scenes always seem to involve a very specific fetish and nothing else. She might have a very specific name and appearance, and exists in a dimension parallel to the rest of the characters and the story. Her fetish scenes also seem to lack a certain bit of passion, almost as if she was added at the request of a wealthy patron and not due to the developer's creativity. In sandbox games, she's often unlocked through a:

Quest For Bluer Balls
A variant of the Russian Sandbox where even if a sandbox itself is pretty reasonably designed, for some reason a specific quest or character is unlocked through absurd means. They'll send you to Mordor and back, but only if you grind 2000 fun bucks and are in a specific location at 1:00PM on Sundays. And then after all your trouble, you unlock 3-4 renders. Completionists will hate you.

The Frankenstein's Monster
An absolute corpse of a game that is completely resurrected by a hard-working team of modders. The Dev will stagger onwards without acknowledging the flaws, but the modders will continue the Sisyphean task of making the game playable after every update.

 

[yihman1]

The Unfuckable Milf

It usually happens when a game gets a shiny new "Completed" tag. Sometimes there is that Milf that you have seen time and time again in the game. She is usually the mother of the main female love interest.

There will be plenty of women for you to have your choice of and get down and dirty with. There is always that one Milf you really want to smash...

You keep downloading update after update in the hopes that one day this will be the Milf update... You fucked every other female worth fucking in the game. You want that Milf... but alas it is not meant to be. It gets the completed tag minus any action with that Milf

As seen in:

Life with Mary & Haley's Story

 

[arcaos]

The Religious/Conservative Villain

Need to create a threat for the protagonist without in any way implying they are a sexual rival and thereby invoking the dreaded n-word? Make them an archetypal religious conservative. They're appalled by your sinful acts and wouldn't dare try to do anything remotely sexual. They firmly believe in no sex until marriage and then only through a bedsheet for the purposes of procreation, after it's approved by their pastor. You'll probably end up doing something really dirty just under their nose or doing it openly as an act of defiance. They're not actually a threat and generally behave like cuck, but doesn't your MC feel like a cool guy for defying them?

UNLESS.....

If the religious conservative is a woman, her path will depend entirely on how attractive she is. If she's got some hots to her, the MC will find a way to corrupt her and turn her to the 'good' side. Chances are she'll be a total ice queen until she has her first orgasm, then after she'll become the most depraved character. Bonus points if she also suddenly goes full Bi. If she's an ugly old hag, then she'll remain the same ineffectual cuck that the male version would be but with just a hint of "Get out of my room, MOOOOM! Porn games are too a hobby!!!!!"

 

[PTSdev]

Let's talk about HTML games:
1. It is mandatory to click through the same repeating events over and over and over again. You might especially enjoy a dream sequence with a great GIF in 240p. Some events even are randomized, which means you get to see at least two different GIFs while you mindlessly scroll down to start the next day.
2. Open world means that you have to "walk" through the game. So you want to go to school? Bedroom -> Hallway -> Downstairs -> Entrance -> Road -> Park -> School Entrance. Every. Fucking. Time.
3. If there is a time system, it has to be as restrictive as possible. Event x only is possibly at y o'clock on day z if you have the hidden special item and at least 300 points in a stat that is only raisable by repeating a mundane thing 1200 times. Don't miss out, because otherwise you have to endure a whole week of clicking away dream sequences.
4. There have to be at least 3 locations which serve no purpose at all.
5. It is totally acceptable if a woman suddenly looks like another person in a sex scene.
6. If there is femdom, it naturally comes with sissification / hypno GIFs. Once you've seen a GIF like this, your character immediately grows breasts. The character's transformation is visualized by badly drawn MS Paint art.

And finally:
The HTML brothel / RPG / management life simulation.
You think dwarf fortress is difficult? Try playing "Brothel Life Simulator Harem Quest 0.488", which has been in development for 8 years. There are 409 character traits, 39 playable races, 23 genders and at least three lines of dialogue that make sense.

Sorry if some of these have already been posted, I only read the last few pages of this thread.

 

[Carrera]

Giant cock is magically addictive
all white men have small cocks
all black men have monstrous cocks
close family are easily influenced into incest
adults actually see children as competition

All I can think of right now, the rest others have probably thunk of already anyway.

 

[yihman1]

No Cocks Are Normal or Average

There are generally 3 types of cocks in a porn game.

Type 1: A "Big Cock": What you would expect to see on a male porn star. This is the "Norm". An 8-10 incher.

Type 2: A "Huge Cock": 12 inches plus, monstrous cock.

Type 3: A "Pathetic Cock": If you are not at least 8 inches then you are like 2-3 inches with a micropenis to be humiliated.

Cocks in the 4-7 inch range are virtually nonexistent, but 99% of men have one in that range.