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

[Dragon59]

Nude women always stand on tip-toes

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I just saw a video clip that shows Margo Robbie using the foot trope in her Barbie movie. She steps out of her heels and her feet are still in high heel mode.

 

[RogueKnightUK]

I just saw a video clip that shows Margo Robbie using the foot trope in her Barbie movie.

That's one Barbie any boy would be happy to play with...

 

[Jaike]

• Girl: "You're way better than the last guy who fucked me" or "You're way bigger than my ex-boyfriend," and of course we can't forget "You're the best I've ever had!"

Splitting these up a bit:

"Tell, don't show" sex scene
It may be an MC, a rival or any other character. The defining trait is sexual prowess. But how to make clear to the player that this character delivers the best ultra sex with every thrust? "Tell, don't show", of course! But if you, as the writer, are squeamish about writing "this character (who is totally NOT my self insert) is officially the greatest sex god of all time", you can just let their partner tell. The. Player. All. The. Time. How good this character is at sex. "You're the best I ever had!" "It's the biggest I ever had!" "Never had someone who could last so long!" Copy a couple sex sounds from your fav H game or doujin, or maybe adapt a line from your favourite fairy tale ("But daddy, what a big dick you have!") and you have it: an unforgettable sex scene.

If the character that gets fucked is cheating, it's upgraded to a
"Shout it out!" cheating scene
where the preferred line becomes "you're so much bigger/harder/better/faster/stronger than my husband/boyfriend!", that the poor player has to endure a few times before the ordeal scene is over.


Touch The Body Parts
Fire in the hole! See what you started, sexy time is about to begin. But before he can stick it in the MC has to get the lady in the mood. What better way to do that than touch her body parts. In a fixed order, because a true lady has class and how DARE you touch her left upper arm before you touched her right lower arm, you uncultured swine? If she's the forgiving type, she won't mind you try the wrong parts, but stricter ones will subtract points. And if you fail, it sometimes leads to a game over. Then it's like dismantling a bomb.

An old trope from Flash games.

Maybe try a lower arm first.

Hmm... that sounds like the classic Ayn Rand heroine. Tough as nails until a dominant, more successful man enters her life than it's all about him.

It's similar I guess, but it's more about a heroine submitting than one dominant man taking over.

Another Ayn Rand principle! You're on a roll!

I'm not, and never have been, Burt Reynolds Mustache.

 

[desmosome]

If the character that gets fucked is cheating, it's upgraded to a
"Shout it out!" cheating scene
where the preferred line becomes "you're so much bigger/harder/better/faster/stronger than my husband/boyfriend!", that the poor player has to endure a few times before the ordeal scene is over.

Keep going...

 

[Hambiguity]

On a slightly different topic - what tropes do you see often that you genuinely like, or like as a guilty pleasure, or tolerate, or dislike but acknowledge there's not much of an alternative?

 

[RogueKnightUK]

The Tsundere. Done right it can be a wonderful vessel for fun and amusement with a great payoff (let's not get into the separate issue of how rarely it is done right). But it is absolutely a massively overused trope, included out of sheer laziness for thinking of a more original character, thus the guilty pleasure.

 

[Jaike]

The Psycho Therapist
When healthcare goes mental. Psychotherapists mostly appear in two roles in porn games.

One is to "normalise" a stigmatised deviancy, usually incest of course, to the MC and their partner or partners. They'll reassure the patients that these feelings are completely normal and natural and should never be repressed because that's so dangerous! And the patients are consenting anyway! They'll tell them directly to fuck society's oppressive norms. What better way of doing that than by putting a knot in a family tree? You hope psychotherapists tell their patients different things in real life. Bonus points if they invoke Freud. Though if an Oedipus complex is in play... maybe that's why so many MCs have a dead father...

The other is more hands on, and way more plausible in real life, though it's still a pretty damn serious breach of ethics: a therapist fucking their patient. It's also more versatile, you can find male and female MCs as patients fucking their therapists and male MCs as therapists fucking their patients. Can appear in more realistic plots too, because of its greater believability.

Looking for porn game examples of the special case Psycho the Rapist, a psychotherapist raping their patient.

On a slightly different topic - what tropes do you see often that you genuinely like, or like as a guilty pleasure, or tolerate, or dislike but acknowledge there's not much of an alternative?

The Fashion Show if it's not in the damned i13 Clothing Boutique, Stealth Sex/Hidden Sex, The Other Eric are pretty much fine imo. I can tolerate the Murder Hobo and a stripped down Stairway to Heaven if it skips a few steps. I also don't care if devs call their game something half edgy.

Even the Dead Dad if it's explained or contextualised in some way and it's not just "he ded".

 

[Silvious]

On a slightly different topic - what tropes do you see often that you genuinely like, or like as a guilty pleasure, or tolerate, or dislike but acknowledge there's not much of an alternative?

Sukebon or delinquent girl
The girl who is a thug and will happily run the gang she's in. She's tough, she's strong, and more often than not in anything, she's got some sort of softness for something. Tie in with any personality trope and you get gold: tsundere sukebon? you got thug wife who's only soft around you. Moe sukebon? Girl is either a case of mistaken thugness (trying to be nice and accidentally fucking it up) or you get thug with the one weakness that turns her into a squealing little girl. Gyaru Sukebon? Dark-skinned and sexually aggressive thug girl. The list goes on and just fulfills that bad-girl shaped hole in your heart.

 

[Nobody Cares]

I so love the fact that the most popular male mc in the west is the No Life Dad, while in the east is basically the same character but twenty-thirty years younger. Like Thor and Shiva.

 

[Donjoe81]

Girl moves to a big city that brings many challenges and adventures
Dad died and you´re the only men in the house now.
MC who looks like a kid lives with his Landlady
Girl works in an Office that has no HR department.
The older Sister is always a bitch in the beginning of the game.
Bad Endings in general and bad endings that throw you back to the main menu
Using the same lame-ass DAZ models that you´ve seen in games that were popular 5 years ago.
Create a game with hours of useless garbage and 1% sex and call it slow burn. But as long as it has nice renders 5* reviews are guaranteed.
Sandbox games where you have to wander around in hopes to unlock a scene.
Virgin turns in to a slut in seconds
VN´s that offers you options but gives you the same outcome

 

[ZoneTan20]

Since we're talking about video game-design decisions like porn locked behind game overs and in-game mechanics being tropes, then I personally hate pixellated censorship in porn games. Fuck that one man lol.

 

[Nobody Cares]

Sex as punishment! Why in the world would I want the hot anime girl to fight off the tentacles?

 

[Joshy92]

Some things I consider bad tropes in visual novels is

1 - forced sex scenes (God I hate that)

2 - forced girlfriend (I also hate that except for in one game)

3 - Love interests making out or having sex with each other with no choice from the player

4 - Storys that are really kinetic but don't have the tag because there is one choice in the whole game (screw kinetic games)

5 - Creepy unlikeable mc who only thinks of sex

7 - annoying sandbox where you have to go somewhere at like 6:30 pm to get one small scene.

 

[Nobody Cares]

Some things I consider bad tropes in visual novels is

1 - forced sex scenes (God I hate that)

2 - forced girlfriend (I also hate that except for in one game)

3 - Love interests making out or having sex with each other with no choice from the player

4 - Storys that are really kinetic but don't have the tag because there is one choice in the whole game (screw kinetic games)

5 - Creepy unlikeable mc who only thinks of sex

7 - annoying sandbox where you have to go somewhere at like 6:30 pm to get one small scene.

... and 6?

 

[Joshy92]

... and 6?

Damn I never realized I put the wrong number lol
There are only six things I don't really like

 

[Someone]

Characters and fetishes are more a thing of personal interests. I'm not gonna play a gay game no matter how good it is. And neither consider male on male a "bad trope" cause i'm straight. But i will consider "gay" futa and male or futa on futa.
For me is more a matter of gameplay elements.
-Redundant daily actions
Seriously, why a dev would think that forcing the player to do the same freaking thing every ingame day can be in any shape or form interesting and/or entertaining? It can be partially made interesting if the daily action is tied to the progression with a girl. Like player goes to the gym to raise strenght, meet hottie of the gym, everytime he goes to the gym something more sexual happen with gym hottie.

-Stamina/food/daily necessities
Kind of the same of the redundant actions. Also these parameters are usually very badly implemented. Have anyone ever seen someone collapse from exhaustion for going from their bedroom to the kitchen in real life? People dying of starvation for not eating for half a day?

-Time limits
So not only that piece of fuck of the dev decided to force you to autistically repeat boring actions over and over. Let's put a time limit too, both to the game completion, and the ingame days. Just to make sure that your MC have only the time to say "hi" to one of the girls before running to the kitchen and avoid starvation for not eating for 2 ingame hours or having his bladder explode for not having taken a piss for the 15th time during the day.
So much fUUuuuuUUUn!!!!

-Years of nothing
This is more a matter of a game being still in developement when released on their patreon or this site. Maybe in their mind they see in the completed version of the game the player being able to speefuck all the girls in 20 minutes. But in developement the first fuck can be after 5 years of updates. Please take this into account. Don't let us waiting a decade to fuck the first girl. My suggestion is to always implement an "easy" fuck. An old friend, a random girl that already have a crush on the player. So at least the player have something to do while waiting 20 years before the full route of another girl is completed.

-Dream sequences
The pathetic and cheap attempt to patch the "years of nothing" problem. Let the player "dream" to finally being able to fuck the girls.

I think this cover my personal major nuisances.

edit:
Actually there is at least another thing worth addressing. This is mostly about hentai games with a female protagonist: the "slut bad ending". One of the main offenders is OneOne1. I'm playing a freaking porn game! Why i'm punished for having the heroine being fucked? I should get rewards for the dicks she ride. Also the "rapelock", still with OneOne1 as one notable example of it. There is basically no way to see any sexual scene until the heroine isn't defeated and/or raped.

 

[sinkind]

*Just to prolong this tread's life a little*

There are mostly two times of bullies:
1) at femdom\maledom games where it's what game is about.
2) the ones in school\college setting where there is only one role for them in 95% of games - get in a fight with MC and beat him, so bully's girlfriend and several other girls around would see how MC just get stomped and thought "man, that's a fine dating material!"
And then bully either get's bored and leaves or he's chased off by hot teacher, that's can be very last time you see him, in some cases you will have a chance to swing on him later in the game but that's about it.
No teaching mc that he need to overcome his fears, stand his ground, not that some times violence is the only right answer, nothing like that.
Devs are basically go like: "Well, my MC is a ? (18) y.o. virgin wimp with a dick a size of an arm with no girls and only one fat\nerdy friend, but people on youtube tell that every story must have antagonist. So it's either bully Chad MC'Shithead or a teacher. Since i want teacher to be hot dommy milf guess i'll go with a bully..."
I say: no certain type of character is better then badly done certain type of character.

P.S. yeah, weak one and i don't really care about it that much. Just the first not over-used trope i came up with for the post.

 

[Nobody Cares]

2) the ones in school\college setting where there is only one role for them in 95% of games - get in a fight with MC and beat him, so bully's girlfriend and several other girls around would see how MC just get stomped and thought "man, that's a fine dating material!"
And then bully either get's bored and leaves or he's chased off by hot teacher, that's can be very last time you see him, in some cases you will have a chance to swing on him later in the game but that's about it.
No teaching mc that he need to overcome his fears, stand his ground, not that some times violence is the only right answer, nothing like that.

I'm taking notes here

 

[Jaike]

There are two types of black men in adult games:

Neither of these two characters will be the protagonist.

Type 1: Token Black Friend this guy is your drinking buddy, and best friend. He generally will have little or no sexual role at all unless you choose to toss a slut his way. The dude may even be gay, but not for you. He is NOT a threat to you at all. He will have some profound wisdom, and be the best buddy a man could ask for. This guy will take a bullet for you. A true friend to the end. A woman has never had a token black male friend in any game I'm aware of. So you are going to be a male protagonist and a strong male protagonist. This dude is your wingman. Generally, the token black friend will be wicked smart. He may be a doctor, or businessman, a rather charming fellow that never breaks the law.

Type 2: Black Bull Bully Um... Do you remember that token black friend? This guy is the opposite of him. He is going to be bigger and may kick your weak male protagonist's ass. A strong male protagonist rarely encounters one of these fellows and is capable of getting the best of him. This guy exists to bully you. Then he will fuck your wife or girlfriend. And that's not enough for him. He will fuck your mom, your sister, and your teacher. If you are a Sissy Femboi he may even fuck you. If you are a female protagonist this is the only type of black guy you may ever encounter. This fella grew up on the wrong side of the streets and has a criminal record. Probably a drug dealer or pimp.

These are the 2 types of black males in all adult games. Sometimes the black male character can go either way depending on character interactions, but no 3rd path is known to exist for the black male. Neither will ever have a normal penis size or a small penis. It's the myth of the big black cock, always gonna be 12+ inches.

I can think of 3 more types:

Black Idiot Friend
The idiot friend, but back in black. Similar to the Token Black Friend, but more likely to score, through the idiocy of perseverance if nothing else. A pretty flexible trope. He may actually be pretty intelligent, like the mentor type of Token Black Friend, but a bit of a rebel or a horny idiot, like Darryl in Superhuman, a complete virgin Token Black Friend if his idiocy turns potential mates off, or a total Black Bull Bully, like that guy from the notorious New Earth. Most likely to speak (something similar to) informal black American English, or whatever a dev from eastern Europe or southeast Asia can make of that.

Black M2F Transformation Victim
Likely the most versatile type of black man but not for long in porn games. It easily combines with all kinds of characters. There's the MC getting feminised in Desire Guardians, and probably in that dev's new game too. Then there are those weird and terrible real-porn HTML games where the MC feminises all male threats or targets, so that affects black friends (Token or Idiot) and Black Bull Bullies alike. An incredibly powerful trope that even BBCs must bend the knee to and submit.

Black male MC
Already mentioned above. A true rarity though.

*Just to prolong this tread's life a little*

There are mostly two times of bullies:
1) at femdom\maledom games where it's what game is about.
2) the ones in school\college setting where there is only one role for them in 95% of games - get in a fight with MC and beat him, so bully's girlfriend and several other girls around would see how MC just get stomped and thought "man, that's a fine dating material!"
And then bully either get's bored and leaves or he's chased off by hot teacher, that's can be very last time you see him, in some cases you will have a chance to swing on him later in the game but that's about it.
No teaching mc that he need to overcome his fears, stand his ground, not that some times violence is the only right answer, nothing like that.
Devs are basically go like: "Well, my MC is a ? (18) y.o. virgin wimp with a dick a size of an arm with no girls and only one fat\nerdy friend, but people on youtube tell that every story must have antagonist. So it's either bully Chad MC'Shithead or a teacher. Since i want teacher to be hot dommy milf guess i'll go with a bully..."
I say: no certain type of character is better then badly done certain type of character.

P.S. yeah, weak one and i don't really care about it that much. Just the first not over-used trope i came up with for the post.

There's also the netorare antagonist bully like the Black Bull Bully and the my-LI-is-my-bully.

 

[Artemissu]

Every male who's not the MC is a vile, uncontrollable raging beast of a rapist scumbag pig who cannot keep it in his pants for nothing in this universe and will rape any girl that strikes their fancy at the first given opportunity. Like, the moment a girl turns around a corner and no one but a guy or a few guys are around, "YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD BE RAVAGED"

It's even a miracle society in H-games do not collapse somehow with their astronomically high rape rates