Question: What do you look for in a Adult Visual novel ?

[Nichiren]

So pretty much what is in the title, what do you look for? what makes it interesting to you? what do you feel is missing rightnow?

We would love to hear from you and your answers might help guide the direction of our upcoming project.

Thanks!

Nichiren Games Team

 

[Jethro Hatfield]

A rounded well written compelling story. One where I am not simply skipping through the text just to see all of the images.

Storytelling is just as much of an art as those skilled hands working with DAZ or Honey Select, or any other image making program.

Pictures can only tell one part of a story. But its up to the actual Authors to tell the rest.

I myself am working on a game to help counter the lack of a great story.

 

[Nichiren]

A rounded well written compelling story. One where I am not simply skipping through the text just to see all of the images.

Storytelling is just as much of an art as those skilled hands working with DAZ or Honey Select, or any other image making program.

Pictures can only tell one part of a story. But its up to the actual Authors to tell the rest.

I myself am working on a game to help counter the lack of a great story.

We feel the same way Jethro! its one of the reasons we wanted to work on this project. My wife is actually the writer on the team and she has a lot of experience writing erotic stories, it will be her job to make it compelling on my side i'm the interactive guy its my job to make sure you don't have to endlessly grind days for money and arbitrary stat points

 

[Jethro Hatfield]

Im sending you a DM message.

 

[Lockheart]

I like humor and character depth. ^.^

 

[Tshaw17]

Hi,
Good question. Here's my answer:
- Story : well written, a good plot. It can be classical plot. As long as it's well written it's ok. I also really like when there are different paths you can choose from.
- Character depth: really important for me. A few examples of very well written characters : Anna (Anna's exciting affection), Jessica O'Neill or gina and jessy from Big City's Pleasure.
- Good 3dcg renderings (animated or not I don't care)
- Fetishes : not too many of them. keep it to 2-3 "main" fetishes related to the story.

Good luck with your project

 

[Hooli Gali Marinzo]

A story with good pacing and is immersive. Characters that look good design wise.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

There's a lot of things that personally irk me about all of the adult visual novels I've played (I've played around 10+) on this site. I'll list em below.

1. Show don't tell. Granted this is hard to do when renders are so expensive to make, but I feel like most devs aren't using each render to the fullest. Use colors, camera angles, and use your characters, they're your actors damnit!
2. Don't spoon feed information. Yeah I can see she's sad, you don't need to tell me she's sad. I know she's happy because she's smiling, don't tell me she's happy. I know she's not actually angry, don't tell me she's not actually angry!
3. Cut out the exposition. This one kinda annoys me. I don't want to hear two people retell events from the past for the readers sake. Instead, hint at it through dialogue and renders. Two people have a troubled history? Show them going out of their way to keep away from one another. No "I hate her because...", that's boring.
4. When it comes to the story, give me 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10. Let me figure out 4, 6, and 8 on my own. That is, leave a bit of mystery to the story, don't tell me everything. An omniscient narrator makes everything boring.
5. Have conflict in your story, or better yet, have conflict in every scene in your story. It doesn't have to be a fight between two characters, it can be internal conflicts or a conflict of desires. Why should I waste my time reading about the MC eating cereal on a saturday morning? It's not enjoyable for anyone.
6. Keep it simple stupid. The best stories are ones simple enough for the dumbest Joe to understand but deep enough for hardcore literature critics to dissect. In this case, the ones who come for the fap and the ones who come for the story should both enjoy it. This can be achieved by hiding information from the audience in the renders and the dialogue. This way, you only say what is essential to the story, but the others interested in more from the story can play investigator for more depth into the characters, themes, and the world.
7. Know what you want to say and the themes you want to explore ahead of time. We are writing fiction here, not history books. Don't give me a robotic retelling of shit that happened. You created this world and no god is impartial.
8. If any, only present the player with only interesting choices. Your choices should make the player go "Oh fuck, I want to choose all of them! Which one do I try first?", not "Which one does the walkthrough tell me to pick?"

This list should feel impossible to fulfill. I should know, I'm trying my hand at development right now. But should you succeed, know that if no one appreciates it, at the very least Mimir will enjoy your story .

 

[Nichiren]

Ahah nice list

not sure we will hit all of those on our first attempt but one thing for sure is 8 is a big focus for us our goal is to have interesting choices that progress forward and dosent make you want to reload for making a wrong choice. (some people will do that anyway im sure). we want to stay away from the "ah you need to wait till tuesday 3pm to progress the story, go grind money till then" kind of play. Making sure there is always something interesting to do will be a big focus point in our long term project.

but for now we want to get a small teaser story / game out quickly and drum up interest in the community. unfortunatly without support and interest from players it will slow down production alot.

 

[DoomedForever]

Like it's been said, a compelling story with interesting characters that doesn't make me want to spam Tab. This might sound against the point of a "porn game" but I prefer it when the adult content happens naturally, side by side with the main plot, instead of the plot being a vehicle that solely serves to propel the adult scenes. Not that there is anything wrong with the adult content being the plot, I just enjoy the game more when there is a good story being told, making the characters feel more human and developed, in turn making the adult content feel more real and rewarding.

It's like the ol' "Serious relationship vs casual hookup" debate. A casual hookup is fun and leaves you satisfied in the moment like most games with good fap material renders and a porn plot, but a good, long-term relationship with someone you care about is more rewarding and engaging, like a game that tells a good story which so happens to containt porn in it.

 

[woody554]

gimme landlady erotica or gimme death.

that said, I like any attempt at telling a story. I'm not too fussy with its technical execution. if the writer is interested in the story it usually comes out interesting. if he's only doing it because he thinks OTHERS like it, that rarely works.

 

[Nichiren]

Thanks for sharing your opinions this will help us see if we are on the right track and what we should priorities in the next couple of weeks.

as a thanks here is one of our first alpha renders of Emi our main character. enjoy.

 

[Hadley]

Believable Story, believable Characters and good writing.

There are too many Games with ridiculous plotlines and all girls being crazy nymphomaniacs.

 

[MLBnoob]

1. If its a romance game, it better be deep just like what Radiant got right, everyone cared for the mother of MC's three daughters that its almost a common comment "I cried when I heard the mother of the daughter's died" or "This game hit me on the feels".

2. Write a consistent and believable character, I played Sunshine Love but instead of being enjoyable it just made me feel angry with the main characters. Also follow Palmer's example, the story is shit only thing decent are the girls.

3. A story that won't make it a fuckfest or make you want to hit your head againt the wall, what I mean is believable and compelling as others above said. No stupid cliches like: seeing a guy's penis and then after a short time get fucked by said penis UNLESS its an established relationship like MC has a girlfriend/wife.

4. Also if you add NTR whether it be optional or the only thing, you better put it in the tags. Also many people including me don't like sharing the Love Interests with other men. Just check Summer with Mia thread, unavoidable sharing because of "story" honestly if Inceton wasn't established he'd be losing patrons, he just justify it because he has a strong patreon following. But its common that NTR only games eventually become an NTR avoidable game because of lack of support or no growth in the support, its actually pathetic of them.

5. If your game has no NTR to begin with do not pander to the NTR crowd, you'll only get backlash.

6. Also be patient if you don't get much support right away. If a significant amount of time passes and it remains so then I suggest you check what went wrong, and if need be put it onhold and make a different game.

7. If you could, make your game have its own identity. People don't want a Milfy City clone, a Big Brother clone, Dating my Daughter clone or be clones of other popular games.

 

[Droid Productions]

7. If you could, make your game have its own identity. People don't want a Milfy City clone, a Big Brother clone, Dating my Daughter clone or be clones of other popular games.

I would say a lot of the points are tactical, but this last one is strategic; if OP is just starting out, this should be the first question asked and answered. What is the *voice* of your game? How would someone describe your game to a friend?

The first reason is for you; this is your passion product, you're doing this because you really want to spend thousands of hours working on it, and unlike a corporate environment there's no suit forcing you to make a game due to market research. Take the time to find the soul, because you're going to be spending a lot of time with it.

The other is for the game. While reusing the same models, the same plot, the same themes, as a popular game can help kickstart an audience, you'll forever be living in the shadow of that game. It won't have it's own identity, and people are less likely to support a me-too product.

Of course, the flipside of that is that you stand a much higher chance of making something nobody wants. But that's always the risk of innovation

 

[Knight of Solace]

I don't know if I can give any more insight than the other posters on this thread; I don't have a list or anything that helpful, but I enjoy a good visual novel like I enjoy a good book. I like a story where I can take my time and stop every once and while to just admire the world and its characters. Conflict is the heart of every adventure, but constant action and tension can really wear me down. This is a personal answer, and not necessarily great development advice. There are wildly successful visual novels that I couldn't get into because their pace was so bombastic. Action -> Sex -> Sexy Action -> Sex -> Sexy Conversation -> Sex and so on. The story was great, the renders were beautiful, the animation was smooth - but I couldn't immerse myself in it because I felt like it was leaving me behind!

 

[grave_merc]

gimme landlady erotica or gimme death.

Oh buddy, do I have something for you haha

But seriously I just finished an early access version of my game with a landlady theme. It's called Become Alpha, maybe it'd be sth your alley?

And as for the main question - story, story, story. That's always the foundation.

 

[Nichiren]

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback, Even with 20 years of AAA dev under our belts this is our first foray into indie visual novels or games of this nature so your input has really helped us re-prioritize where we are going with this. hopefully we will release a small demo / intro in a couple of weeks for our Patron's followed by a release to all and get some more feedback / support.

Story is really going to be our top priority and choices that will truly affect characters and direction. we are fully aware that this will slow down development because of all the extra content but its important for us to put out a quality game.

I cant talk about it much right now as we are still writing the first draft but to answer some of the comments above:

"compelling story with interesting characters"
This is always going to be hard because everyone has different opinions on what make for compelling story or characters, but we hope that following the life of Emi will make for an interesting time for everyone. You will be following Emi through the major events of her adult life from her first day at college to her late 30's.

"If its a romance game..."
This will not be a standard romance / make them love you game, it's hard to explain right now, there will be romance and there may be NTR when the story is moved in that direction but none of it is forced and all of it will be player driven choice.

"What is the *voice* of your game? "
This is a good one and your right the first part is yes this is a passion project but also about making a cool game that people will enjoy. for sure with everyone using artwork from the same locations, tools, etc there will be similarities in ascetic, personally we will work hard to restructure, re work, and even model from scratch some elements. but its really in the story and how it plays out that we want our voice to shine.

"gimme landlady erotica or gimme death. "
Haha sorry no landlady specifically but there will be a landlord in there somewhere but its not the focus of the game in anyway.

well this is all i can really share at this point.

 

[Kiroshi]

Well i joined Your patreon with hope that You can make something more playable than typical "fuck/fuck/cum" games . Good Luck . I personally enjoy story and deepth of characters most , don`t care about graphics style , give me good story and good cast , that all I want

 

[Nichiren]

Well i joined Your patreon with hope that You can make something more playable than typical "fuck/fuck/cum" games . Good Luck . I personally enjoy story and deepth of characters most , don`t care about graphics style , give me good story and good cast , that all I want

Thanks Kiroshi it means a lot!