I mean I agree with most of what you wrote but you kind of left out the most important part, it has some of the best graphics among H games. This includes the way he does fully animated scenes instead of just a bunch of stills and choppy skipping animation shit like many games do.One thing Ripples has (and other top tier games here have) are:
All the good games have most of the above, and strengths in some fields will allow weaknesses in other fields to be forgiven, but strengths in all fields is the ultimate aim.
- Very good English. It pays big time to have someone with great English skills proofread and edit every written word in the game. It's simply not good enough to get the message across, it needs to be concise enough not lose the reader in a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but descriptive enough so that the emotion of every scene is conveyed.
- Very good humor. Every culture has their own humor, so you can't nail this for every reader, but humor that has people laughing out loud for real makes a huge difference in a game.
- Good characterisations. Players love it when the different girls come across like... different girls! And a little bit of depth to each character goes a very long way.
- Emotive facial features. The graphics don't have to be top notch, I mean compare Ripples early days to Ripples now, the graphics have significantly improved, but what hasn't changed is the girls facial expressions told you everything! When a girl looks like she's brainless, readers lose interest real soon.
- An intriguing plot. Something that keeps players wanting more, that keeps them talking between the episodes, is a huge draw card. It doesn't need Mission Impossible II twists and turns, it just needs to be enough that we care what happens next.
- Fun sex scenes. I can't vouch for everyone else, but watching some faceless dude ploughing some random woman can get boring. The banter/interaction between the characters while they are fucking is just as much a draw card as the fucking.
I looked up this 'Unlimited Pleasure' game after I saw the posts above (as others have said, I had never even heard of it before.) The first thing that jumps out at me is the art looks super dated, it looks just like the art in Mythic Manor. The second thing was, I absolutely hate 'ridiculous watermelon-sized tits that would dislocate the bitch's spine in real life' and the game appears to be full of that. So it's an instant no for me.
People will make a big part of their decision (interested or not) based on seeing a few screenshots when they first look up your game, and their continued engagement will be heavily influenced by whether the art inside the game is compelling. So the graphics are insanely important.