Short games vs long but never ending in early access

[Pretentious Goblin]

Best of both worlds - have a plan for 1 or more endings. Stick to that plan until achieved. Then keep developing the game and everything from there on out is bonus content - more routes, more characters, whatever. But no one can say the game is incomplete if the player can literally play through the game from start to finish. It'd be like saying a mainstream game is incomplete because it didn't keep getting new DLC forever.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Exactly, but chances of something with no plans to end not affecting the overall quality is very low.

The best games I've played usually have multiple story arcs that slowly build into a full climax much later.

Unfortunetely this concept is lost in many neverending games that have no idea where the story climax will fit, how to build it or even if there will be one.

Also there are only so many character and sex interactions you can cram into the same story before it starts feeling repetitive and people get tired of it.

Which is why even if the perfect game could go on forever I would just get bored with it after some point and move on to something new.

I can't really disagree with any of your statements, but I also think these things aren't so much hard and fast rules as you seem to think and more like general guidelines, which are probably a good thing to stick to but not absolutely essential.

Obviously I think having a general plan and a story outline is better than not having it, but autistically sticking to some rigid vision can also stifle your creativity. I guess it depends on how good of a writer you are.

But then I'm a LOST fan and they basically made that show up as they went along. Some people hated the way they introduced new bullshit mysteries or how they paid them off (or didn't) but to me all that was kind of secondary to the character interactions. I'm kind of a characters>plot person. If you can write good characters and relationships I'm fine with your plot being kind of bullshit.

 

[Meaning Less]

But then I'm a LOST fan and they basically made that show up as they went along.

I really doubt it, sure they added some side stories here and there but I bet they planned way more than what people were led to believe.

"Lost" is probably a good example of a show that was good but could have been great if they had removed some of the filler arcs along the way.

Sometimes less is more.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

I prefer long games that can keep me busy for weeks.
However i'd rather have high quality short game, if your long game is going to end up as low-effort trash.
For newbie devs it's best to start small and slowly increase the scale as you get used to things.
And of course let's not forget that for a big project it's best to have a team.

 

[MrSilverLust]

This thread reminds me of:

“Rick and Morty”

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(Fuck, it’s been 7 years?!).

“Breaking bad” or “Bojack” , with their defined 5 seasons that told an amazing planned story in the number of seasons/episodes they wanted to.

The 8th season of “Game of Thrones” where the producers just wanted to finish the whole thing as fast as possible and should probably have a few seasons more.

“Friends” or “How I Met Your Mother”, TV shows that went on forever after their prime and should have probably ended before their 8th seasons (but they were still good during many seasons where they were clearly just making stuff up as they went).

“Community”, a TV show that I love that was cancelled twice, fired the show runner, hired him back, lost cast members, and, after all that mess, everyone (me included) is still wishing that the “six seasons and movie” thing become true.

All those marvel movies, or sequels (“Start Wars”, anyone?), or prequels, or side-character movies, that infested Hollywood because these movies cost so much money that’s safer to make “marvel movie #18” and keep it going forever, than to gamble on a new IP. And every new movie makes tons of money and everyone goes see them (not my cup of tea, personally).

The Witcher games, where they were supposed to be a trilogy. But funs wanted more and apparently a new one is in development. Will that be a good thing or not? Can you tell in advance before playing it?


So, is it good or bad that something goes on forever? Or finish after 8 seasons? Or finish after 5 seasons? Or make a sequel? Or don’t make a sequel and do something new instead? Do any of these examples are relevant in any way to porn games? Or to stories in general?


The hard part is knowing when and how to finish a story. Rushing it to an end, or going on forever past its prime it's easy. Each particular case is different, though.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

The hard part is knowing when and how to finish a story.

Actually, it's quite easy. (If you planned ahead and not just making shit up as you go that is.)
You finish your game when your mc has achieved all the goals he/she set out to achieve.

The problems usually start when devs want to stretch the game beyond those goals.
At this point, i'd say it's better to start another game with new goals instead.
Perhaps with a new mc, as well. Maybe a child of your previous mc. That sorta thing.

 

[JustXThings]

I prefer focused games. Short, long. I don't care much, but I feel there is a trend with long games being dragged on. I also prefer stories which happen to have tons of sex instead of relationship simulators. Sometimes it feels the unique aim of some games is the player having the opportunity to "fall in love" with a 3D character.

But considering the industry... I think that people overestimate the money most developers make with these games on final release. We get limited content, and IMO also worse quality, because of the subscription model but in the end, developers that are somewhat relying on the subscription money want to keep it flowing. And Patrons seem to be OK with the content being dragged on if they keep paying for it.

 

[JustXThings]

I really doubt it, sure they added some side stories here and there but I bet they planned way more than what people were led to believe.

"Lost" is probably a good example of a show that was good but could have been great if they had removed some of the filler arcs along the way.

Sometimes less is more.

Gosh I remember those endless talks in the office with colleagues about the show. I kind of dropped it fast since I "felt" it was not going anywhere but I tend to drop everything super fast and then come back if it turns out I made a mistake and it was worth waiting.

I think the writers of "Lost" wanted to be edgy and somewhat "special", but got figured out pretty soon and started making all kind of shit in between to differentiate from another "they are all dead" story. Funnily, each individual story and how the island relationships were re-shaping the characters was the best part of the show. Additionally, story-telling wise it was amazing.

I enjoyed "The Leftovers" more (Lindelof). It had a similar character depth while being shorter and more focused. But to be fair if I wouldn't have binge watched it, I'd probably have dropped it as well at some point since I was getting bored around mid-end, which would have been a shame considering its very satisfying ending.

 

[kiren04]

Yesterday when I scroll over the old game for updates and find more and more games abandoned like High life, A.O.A, New coral city, come inside, man best friend, lord of imagination, high rise climb, and many more. I stop scrolling for the old page. further, I scroll more games being tagged Abandoned. I m really surprised and sad this good game hangs halfway like this. I know the Developer in high pressure to make this game on time and the request they got from some fans sometimes is insane. Some of the Developer is sick or have a family problem. I pray other developers will pass the torch if they give up halfway. Short yes and give a fresh idea story. let the female lead or become mc. If the male lead lets him be successful or no college stuff. let the mom, son, father, or daughter story rest. too many stories regarding this family tie and getting bored with the same story sometimes.

 

[FAXz]

A really interesting discussion we got here. Thank you all

I have two points about this topic:

1) About length and that nobody can't figure out when the story has to end: the story itself must be complete before all development stuff has started. I believe this is the problem of ppl who don't understand narrative structure. Also, as a software engineer, I am against never-ending games because software is harder to maintain due to a lot of legacy code. And AFAIK most devs are not professional software engineers and have no idea how to deal with technical debt.

2) I fully agree with the point "start small and earn to build bigger". And one of the reasons why devs don't do that is because they are milking their patrons. Looks like they are not interested in better/bigger games, they just making money and as long as we support it nothing will change.

 

[woody554]

I don't understand people's fury over "never ending games". As long as you get pussy in regular intervals, what do you care if the game ends or not? What is it that people yearn for? The closing titles? If the sex is hot and the intervals are good the game can go on forever, for all I care.

I both 100% agree and disagree with this. I agree because of course it's all true and I don't understand the fury either. but of course it's also a genre thing. some stories are made to have no ending, some others desperately need one.

most stories NEED an ending. a good way to see the difference is to compare japanese (non-animated) tv-series to american ones.

american ones almost NEVER have an ending because they keep the series going based on ratings. so when the ratings are good there will always be another season and you can't resolve or even start any meaningful stories. everything needs to preserve the status quo so nothing can ever REALLY happen.

that's why Lost sucked ass, nothing EVER happened. it was just basic gilligan's island with worse episodes (gilligan episodes had endings, lost episodes had empty tease for future which was never resolved). that's why every series trying to copy its mystical wind-up strategy failed. once people got cheated ONE TIME they learned. and there were oh so many big budget series trying and they all flopped the second audience smelled it wasn't going anywhere. stories must go somewhere or they're not stories.

but then when the ratings DO drop in the west, the series is axed abruptly. nothing is resolved. everyone feels cheated for watching years of it and it went nowhere. there's no money-shot.

in japan though most drama series have a set length, 8 or 12 episodes. it's decided before filming and there's not gonna be a second season. and what this changes is you can have actual meaningful stories. things can be allowed to change. even the lowest tier shit drama is like game of thrones, central chaacters can and are routinely killed. and there's no 'john snow is brought back to life' loopholes with these, what's dead stays dead.

in japan lovers can actually get each other too instead of teasing it forever. or leading man is killed and his heart is transplanted into the leading lady so she can live on. massive drama, massive emotion. can never be done in hollywood because there might be second season if people watch the first.

and these japanese stories with clear and potent endings are simply far better, even in their cheapest versions. endings simply make everything better, even and especially the middle parts.

***

that said, coen brothers movies never have endings and they're amazing. but they're the coen brothers and we're not. many want to do the same but it never works. at best we are the bold and the beautiful writers, and that's not great.

then again, we're hardly aiming very high with our smut and getting that new pussy or scene mostly outweights any of our pathetic attempts at stories. I think there's even a good reason to say that in the sex genre story should ALWAYS serve the sex, the kinks, not the other way around.

every time people try to put their 'original story' first it just distracts and people start skipping dialogue because they can't stop thinking about the next sex thing. the lizard brain takes over and it becomes impossible to focus on anything not working towards the kink. the mob story needs to at least hint at fucking the mom or it can't hold the interest.

once the pussy is implied lizard brain is awake. and once awake the lizard brain needs to be engaged by any story, because it'll ALWAYS win the focus over more evolved parts of brain. it's hardwired to ignore irrelevant mob plots. its ONE JOB is to override. the cortex might be all impressed by the sherlock holmes chain of deduction and locked room puzzle, but the second pussy is shown lizard brain shuts cortex off. that's the main problem with combining story and porn.

 

[Chalker]

If you have the resources to make big game, make big game.
If you don't have the resources to make big game, make small game.

 

[haksaw]

every time people try to put their 'original story' first it just distracts and people start skipping dialogue because they can't stop thinking about the next sex thing

That only happens with high sexual content games. If you know there will be like 5 hours of text till next scene there is no point in skipping, might as well skip the whole game entirely and watch scenes in gallery.

 

[DuniX]

I don't understand people's fury over "never ending games". As long as you get pussy in regular intervals, what do you care if the game ends or not? What is it that people yearn for? The closing titles? If the sex is hot and the intervals are good the game can go on forever, for all I care.

If the quality drops in later updates or developer perpetually increases the time between updates, I get the frustration but that doesn't have anything to do with the length of the game.

A "Novel" is supposed to stand on its "Writing" with things like "Plot" and "Characters" and "Arcs".
If you make that meaningless then all you will have is the Porn.

This is fine if the game is just a "humble porn dispenser", I have no problem with those games.
But most "AVNs" consider themselves more than that, and as such they need to stand and be judged by their writing.

And for that "Novels" require Endings or at the very least properly concluded arcs.
Even for Series with multiple volumes or episodes each volume/episode has to have their own conclusion.
You can't just have a bunch of nothing happening for long periods of time.
Even for things like Soap Operas they still have multiple Plot Threads that eventually get concluded.

 

[Deleted member 5732714]

A "Novel" is supposed to stand on its "Writing" with things like "Plot" and "Characters" and "Arcs".
If you make that meaningless then all you will have is the Porn.

This is fine if the game is just a "humble porn dispenser", I have no problem with those games.
But most "AVNs" consider themselves more than that, and as such they need to stand and be judged by their writing.

And for that "Novels" require Endings or at the very least properly concluded arcs.
Even for Series with multiple volumes or episodes each volume/episode has to have their own conclusion.
You can't just have a bunch of nothing happening for long periods of time.
Even for things like Soap Operas they still have multiple Plot Threads that eventually get concluded.

Adult game developers act like Onlyfans creator other than game developer.
The only difference is they are not selling their own body, just using 3d models.

 

[HarveyD]

Actually, it's quite easy. (If you planned ahead and not just making shit up as you go that is.)
You finish your game when your mc has achieved all the goals he/she set out to achieve.

I think the issue with this is that a lot of Devs consider a "sex game" to be solely about sex. So the MC's goal is "put penis in hole" and that can continue for as long as you have new models to add.