Slow buildup or insanity from the start?

[bobsson]

When you play a VN, do you prefer games that take a more mature and slow progression or games that play out in a parody universe where porn-movie plots happen all the time?

Let's say the amount of smut is the same and the amount of corruption of morals is the same, both games end up with equal amounts of harem endings and fetish scenes. Do you prefer people to be sluts that want to be objectified or do you prefer them to act like people, even if it takes a bit longer to get to the fun stuff?

 

[anne O'nymous]

It depend of the quality of the game. I don't care if everyone fuck everyone, everywhere and every time, as long as it's not an excuse to hide the emptiness of the story. In the same time there's some slow stories that are so slow and empty that you must fight to not fall asleep.

 

[W22N]

I personally like slow burns but it depends, if at the start mc is already in a relationship it'd be straight out weird to build that up.

Everything can be good if you play to it and do it right. Having everyone, family members or otherwise, fall in love desperate for your dick / getting blackmailed into it / raped isn't playing into it, and there's plenty of that already imo

 

[thecardinal]

I'm not a fan of slow burns, simply because it doesn't seem realistic in my opinion. As a player and a dev, if a game is a slow burn, we all know where it is going eventually. If the characters give in to temptation, it can go so many places. Do they date? Do they regret it? Will it happen again?

 

[DarthSeduction]

When you play a VN, do you prefer games that take a more mature and slow progression or games that play out in a parody universe where porn-movie plots happen all the time?

Let's say the amount of smut is the same and the amount of corruption of morals is the same, both games end up with equal amounts of harem endings and fetish scenes. Do you prefer people to be sluts that want to be objectified or do you prefer them to act like people, even if it takes a bit longer to get to the fun stuff?

I prefer characters who have a wide variety of stances on sex. There's value in writing each of your characters' approaches to sex and sexuality to be different. Take my current open project, for instance. The MC, a female, fucks her best friend in the opening scene. I'm not, however, going to have every relationship start with immediate fucking. There is a great deal of nuance though between the two extremes you've presented us with. For instance, DmD has probably the worst pacing and abuse of the stairway to heaven of any game, but there's also a lot of sexual content even as a part of that stairway. What matters isn't how much sex, when it starts, etc, as it is who it's with why it's with them, and how that relationship progresses.

As I always say, I'm playing porn games for the story. It doesn't matter to me whether the people in the story are reluctant to have sex or quick to have sex, what matters is that the story invests me in their reasons to have sex.

 

[Ataios]

In most cases I think the best way is somewhere in the middle, depending on the story. Ideally the story is in itself a kind of "foreplay" to build up sexual tension and plausible within the context of the setting. I don't think that there is an absolute truth as far as the ideal pacing goes. As a rule of thumb I think the more unlikely a relationship is the slower the pacing should be, but of course there are exceptions to this rule as well.

The only thing I dislike in any sort of porn game is grind (mini-games, daily job quests, etc.) unrelated to sexy stuff at all.

 

[GuyFreely]

I don't mind a good ol' fuck fest if you give me some bare minimum reasoning behind it. I don't care if it's mind control, pheromones, magic powers, whatever. Give my stupid logical brain something to latch onto no matter how silly. If you aren't going to explain it, then having every female in a game be a total slut does wear on me. Sure you can have some sluts, they exist, but sprinkle them in.

 

[caLTD]

If you have good excuse for fuck, it doesn't matter.

Look GTA5. What you see ? You see you can do lots of this which you cannot do in real life. Stealing cars, killing people, escaping police, come back life after huge explosion ? no problemo 2 clicks.

We bought it because it was good bargain. Good story, fine (if not best) environment, good mechanics.

Same in porn game. Problem is nobody was found the good way to grind. AAA class studios already solve grind reward model for many genres. We don't.

Anyway best way is put some long term story's and short term quickies. Just make them reasonable (at least for a porn game)

 

[whiskeyrose]

It sort of depends on how serious the plot of the game is. If its a legit VN about you building a serious relationship with a single (or maybe from a choice of 1-3 people) then the slow buildup feels better.

If the game has a setting or plot where you're going to be having casual sex with dozens of people at any given moment, or you have some kind of magic powers then it's better to just dive right in. I get that developers want you to feel like you're making some sort of progress as you play, but I hate that stairway to heaven progression bullshit.

Personally, if your game isn't going to be completely serious, then I personally prefer to just toss all pretenses and have it be a lewd world. Just have your characters have sexual encounters with little reason or pressure to do so, it's okay. I'm not playing the game to feel like I'm playing my life, or and resemblance of real life.

But thats just my opinion, others are different and thats okay.

 

[FranceToast]

I thought I was only a fan of the 'slow burn' approach until I started Depraved Awakenings, and realized a good author can make the 'jump right in' approach work really well, without losing any of the idea of progress and anticipation.