Recommending Story-first games

[Tlaero]

So, am i an alpha dude because i decided to intervene or am i a wimp for failing to beat all 3 of them down?=)

You were trying to help someone who needed help. In my book, that makes you a hero.

Tlaero

 

[Tlaero]

You know... I've been treating "harem" and "polyamory" almost as synonyms, all this time, at least in the context of a harem porn game with a partial or full orgy as the "endgame" sex scene. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe they're totally different things.

I read your writeup, and I think it's clever. I do believe, though, that the "Harems" in VNs are about one MC having multiple LIs at the same time while the LIs know about each other but are totally faithful to the MC.

Tlaero

 

[jufot]

You know... I've been treating "harem" and "polyamory" almost as synonyms, all this time, at least in the context of a harem porn game with a partial or full orgy as the "endgame" sex scene. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe they're totally different things.

This reminded me of the rarest of all AVNs, Give Me A Sun. It's a fairly story-driven game with a female MC who is in a poly (read: not harem) relationship with two girls. She also has a father and three mothers (nothing incestuous). Suffice it to say, it's not a very traditional society The game has its weak points (I won't spoil anything) but it could be a source of inspiration.

 

[jorge321]

Just wanted to suggest a recommendation of a game to watch. Came out a couple months ago so there isn't a significant amount of content, but what is there is well done so far.

https://f95zone.to/threads/leaving-dna-partone-impious-monk.122582/

MC has an actual personality, insecurities, and backstory. The other characters have their own lives and logic seems well established in the world. Really appreciate how the author adds little details that flesh out the other characters.

One moment that stuck with me is when a side character is talking with the family of a victim about a case. When the detective's name is mentioned the person on the phone asks if it's Armenian and after the detective confirms, then they add in a tidbit on how they had visited Yerevan (capital of Armenia) the previous year and thought it was beautiful. Stuff like that is literally two pieces of dialogue that adds nothing to the plot of the story, BUT it is how people actually converse. It fleshes out conversations and better aligns the VN with the simple details that are essential to good novels.

 

[TranscendentThots]

poly (read: not harem) relationship

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you at least spoil what the difference is.

 

[jufot]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you at least spoil what the difference is.

Harem: The LIs are in a one-way exclusive relationship with MC, but not with each other or with anyone else.
Poly: People are in relationships with multiple others, optionally with some overlap.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Stuff like that is literally two pieces of dialogue that adds nothing to the plot of the story, BUT it is how people actually converse.

Each sentence should do at least one of three things: Ask or answer the Dramatic Question, establish or reinforce character, or drive the plot.

Ideally, it should do more than one of those things.

This is especially true in ADV-style Visual Novels, where each single line forces the player to pause while it takes up the entire screen.

I would argue that in your example, those tidbits are actually doing a lot of work. They're giving at least a token nod to the detective's heritage, which I'm guessing isn't the focus of the story, but it's the sort of detail that can fade into the background if you're not careful. It gives a small amount of character development to the family member (well-travelled; appreciates aesthetics; not racist.) And it may even be helping the plot by establishing this particular family member's whereabouts during that year, I'm not sure.

In fact, in a crime story, any one of these extraneous details could help rule out or finger this family member as a suspect (or at least a red herring for the audience) when the detective starts to put together a profile of the killer.

But the fact that the lines flowed so naturally that they read like an attempt at "detail for realism's sake" is honestly pretty impressive. That's good craftsmanship.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Harem: The LIs are in a one-way exclusive relationship with MC, but not with each other or with anyone else.
Poly: People are in relationships with multiple others, optionally with some overlap.

Huh.

I just had to look up the tag definition. You're right.

Harem [1 person being courted by at least 3 others, all engaging in consensual sex simultaneously.]

(I actually didn't realize that the MC being courted by 2 LIs wasn't enough to 'count." My model still works, but it's food for thought.)

But note that the tag definition does not specify exclusivity. In fact, depending on what is meant by "simultaneously," you could argue that LIs fucking other LIs are supported by the text of the tag definition. And it's literally impossible to have an orgy scene without LIs wanting to bang other LIs, and orgy scenes are arguably the most pronographic thing you can do with a harem cast. Right?

Of course, putting even one male character into the harem will trigger the usual snowflakes. But by this point, you already know that comes with the territory. I find it hard to believe that these guys would complain about there being too many lesbian sex scenes along the way to their MFFFFFFF climax.

But, who knows? Maybe I'm the one who's out of touch with the majority of harem genre enjoyers in this community. In which case, it could be only a matter of time before I discover that it was a Cursed Problem all along.

In any case, you've convinced me that, while there may be some overlap on the venn diagram between harem and poly, the Bulletproof Harem doesn't actually deliver a mainstream harem experience. It's technically more of a poly story about a series of interconnected mini-harems, which draw together for a superficially harem-genre-like orgy ending.

Maybe it was a Cursed Problem all along, and I stumbled into a solution that sacrifices one of the core pillars of the harem genre in order to deliver on the promise of good writing.

Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is to try it out and see if the tag sticks and the masses like it.

 

[TranscendentThots]

This tag definition is quite bad... otherwise, there wouldn't be any difference between harem and group sex or an orgy... A harem is an institution that has continuity and is not just an event like an orgy. Of course, they can define their tags as they want, but since "harem" was taken, we lack a tag for a real harem. And also... since there's no tag for polyamory, any "harem" of four or more is a harem according to the official definitions... And there's no threesome... There's a vacuum in there...

The intent of the tag is to distinguish between games that are "definitely in the harem genre" and "definitely outside the harem genre" using concrete terms that can be easily verified by looking at the game's content.

I think they left out threesomes because a "harem storyline" of 3 people is usually called a "love triangle," and it's so ubiquitous in love stories that they may have just assumed it was too general to warrant a tag.

I hope they finish the new tag system one of these days.

 

[desmosome]

Each sentence should do at least one of three things: Ask or answer the Dramatic Question, establish or reinforce character, or drive the plot.

Ideally, it should do more than one of those things.

This is especially true in ADV-style Visual Novels, where each single line forces the player to pause while it takes up the entire screen.

I would argue that in your example, those tidbits are actually doing a lot of work. They're giving at least a token nod to the detective's heritage, which I'm guessing isn't the focus of the story, but it's the sort of detail that can fade into the background if you're not careful. It gives a small amount of character development to the family member (well-travelled; appreciates aesthetics; not racist.) And it may even be helping the plot by establishing this particular family member's whereabouts during that year, I'm not sure.

In fact, in a crime story, any one of these extraneous details could help rule out or finger this family member as a suspect (or at least a red herring for the audience) when the detective starts to put together a profile of the killer.

But the fact that the lines flowed so naturally that they read like an attempt at "detail for realism's sake" is honestly pretty impressive. That's good craftsmanship.

And real compelling writing achieves all this through subtext. Telling us something without explicitly saying it.

Take the final scene of Better Call Saul. Subtext are in colors.

Ummm, obviously don't read ahead if you haven't watched BB/BCS.

Spoiler

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There are very few lines spoken in this 5 minutes of screen time, but it's packed with so much meaning. This is all possible because the context for the scene was expertly laid out throughout the whole show. We know the extremely complex motivations and conflicting desires and values of these characters. We know their relationship dynamic and all the ups and downs. And based on the courtroom scene just prior, Kim would also understand Jimmy kind of did it for her too. For her approval and for her safety (absorbing the Howard incident into his own sentencing and painting her as remorseful to the court).

This is subtext. Reading between the lines of what the characters are saying and what they actually mean and feel. This engages the audience and lets them become emotionally attached to the characters.

Taking another example from BB/BCS, look at Walter's dialogues about Gray Matter and his interactions with Gretchen and her husband. Walter could say something about leaving Gray Matter, but what he really means is that they screwed him over, and what what the audience will get out of it is that Walter's narcissism and ego has no limits.

 

[TranscendentThots]

And real compelling writing achieves all this through subtext. Telling us something without explicitly saying it.

Quite right. If you're on that level, saying things is just something you do in your Outline before you can figure out a clever way to not say them.

Don't get me wrong, I personally am an absolute hack, both as a writer and as a reader, since most subtext I read goes right over my head.

But somehow, I doubt the whole game was setting up context for these two throwaway lines during a phone call. I could be wrong. I haven't played it.

 

[TranscendentThots]

B.t.w., I was commenting before reading your file. Quite interesting. Where can I find your Romance Novel Protagonist Daisy Chain? Have you shared it already?

No, it's in an unrelated design document that I didn't make public and ended up mostly paraphrasing in the Bulletproof Harem one.

If you meant the lesbian tentacles story that I wrote using the RNPDC, that's on the back-burner for now. I came up with the concept, wrote a couple of chapters in ebook format, then the computer died and I stupidly hadn't backed up the login data so I lost access to the account for a while.

I have it back now, but I now want to make it a visual novel. But because I'm not experienced at Visual Novels and I would need to design and rig the tentacle monsters in Blender, I've decided to make some other games first to get some experience before I seriously try to follow through with that one.

It's a big project. Wiser to start small.

 

[EndlessNights]

The player can not tell the LIs who to date, because in-universe, that's not their call to make, and they know it. Likewise, the player would not get the option to treat the LIs like shit, because the MC already has their own goals and a personality, and that's not what the MC would do. There's no evil route, and there's no "you fucked up" route, at least not when it comes to relationships. I suppose that's potentially a form of Ludonarrative Dissonance, but I feel it's justified here. Not least of which because this iteration of the design is meant to be the simplest possible form of it, and this keeps it reasonably self-correcting.

I wonder if it might be best to handle the matchmaking part in the intro. Show how the MC initially meets the other characters, gradually learns their stories, and then dispenses sage love advice/encouragement at appropriate moments (which perhaps could be boiled down into something as anodyne and cliched as "Follow your heart" and "You should tell her how you feel"). That way, he or she is basically just letting each of the LIs do their own thing with a little push and not really getting deeply involved at that point. This should still be enough to adequately establish the mentor-disciple type of relationship between the MC and the other characters that you've described in the outline as well as introduce all the important pairs. It won't feel like the player failed a quest when things don't work out as hoped, and with the MC less involved he or she won't seem like they're just incompetent at giving relationship advice.

Do you anticipate allowing players to choose to reject LIs? That's actually a feature harem gamers tend to appreciate, but with all the characters connected the way they are I'm not sure how it would work in practice here. You'll have to take care to avoid creating that one really unpopular but completely unavoidable character that could end up sinking the ship.

 

[EndlessNights]

But I think it will work better if everyone is of the same gender or if it's really mixed. And the MC seems to be the matron figure you described in the novels you've mentioned -- like a mentor. Of course, you may don't wanna do it for commercial reasons, but look how strange it will be if the game starts as a group of lesbians chasing one another, and then comes the male mentor pacifying all conflicts.

I agree with this. If the MC is a lesbian woman herself and is at least a little older than the other characters, it just makes more sense that she'd be readily integrated into their social circle and quickly accepted as a source of advice and guidance by the group. It would feel quite convenient and contrived to have a male MC stumble upon all these bisexual female characters one after another who just happen to all currently be in love with other women. (That's not to say that there haven't been even more unlikely plots in AVNs before).

 

[TranscendentThots]

I don't really have a strong counter-argument to any of this, other than to note that all fiction contains some level of contrivance, and the difference between good fiction and bad fiction is that good fiction makes us wonder what those contrivances are until we have already fallen in love (in one way or another) with the characters. The Bulletproof Harem is a framework, not a surefire solution. If that sounds like a cop-out, that's because it is. Perhaps it was hubris on my part to call it "Bulletproof" in the first place.

Maybe it was a mistake to try and bridge this gap between harem tropes and good writing structurally. Maybe I should have just written a college boy coming-of-age story and just really played it smart layering on the tropes. Shown the MC being a stand-up guy while life shits on him for it. Meanwhile, the LIs post thirst traps and say they wish they could meet someone like him.

Did you know that millennials have already adopted compersion, as a concept? And the youngest of them are 22 right now, so even that's a bit old-fashioned. Being a DIK was based on Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. From the 1980's! That shit is fucking out of date! Is your lesbian MC's worldview somehow too conservative? The answer may surprise you.

But I'm not here to defend my thesis. Instead, it's time for me to hand you folks the wheel. I encourage each and every one of you to Outline, Draft, or maybe even Release a game that leverages the Bulletproof Harem. Use placeholder artwork, if you want. Just prove your spin on the concept.

I absolutely love the creative energy in this thread! I can tell you want to run with it in different directions. And I encourage you all 1000% to use it to write the stories I never could.

 

[desmosome]

I don't really have a strong counter-argument to any of this, other than to note that all fiction contains some level of contrivance, and the difference between good fiction and bad fiction is that good fiction makes us wonder what those contrivances are until we have already fallen in love (in one way or another) with the characters. The Bulletproof Harem is a framework, not a surefire solution. If that sounds like a cop-out, well, that's because it is. Perhaps it was hubris on my part to call it "Bulletproof" in the first place.

Maybe it was a mistake to try and bridge this gap between harem tropes and good writing structurally. Maybe I should have just written a college boy coming-of-age story and just really played it smart layering on the tropes. Shown the MC being a stand-up guy while life shits on him for it. Meanwhile, the LIs post thirst traps and say they wish they could meet someone like him.

Did you know that millennials have already adopted compersion, as a concept? And the youngest of them are 22 right now, so even that's a bit old-fashioned. Being a DIK was based on Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. From the 1980's! That shit is fucking out of date! Is your lesbian MC's worldview somehow too conservative? The answer may surprise you.

But I'm not here to defend my thesis. Instead, it's time for me to hand you guys the wheel. I encourage each and every one of you to Outline, Draft, or maybe even Release a game that leverages the Bulletproof Harem. Use placeholder artwork, if you want. Just prove your spin on the concept.

I absolutely love the creative energy in this thread! I can tell you want to run with it in different directions. And I encourage you all 1000% to use it to write the stories I never would.

We like to read and critique, but most of us ain't writing shit.

There are some devs around, but they are obviously busy with their own games heh.

 

[TranscendentThots]

We like to read and critique, but most of us ain't writing shit.

There are some devs around, but they are obviously busy with their own games heh.

Coward.

 

[desmosome]

Coward.

Well if I had to write a harem story, I wouldn't make the harem the focal point of the story. It would be layered in the background of some other core plot. And truthfully, I don't particularly see a path to harem that wouldn't be pandering or cliche, especially in a contemporary setting without power dynamics at play.

I've had some thoughts that a story set in ancient China/Korea where you are a lesser prince vying for the throne could be interesting with the harem politics playing a part in the story.

 

[TranscendentThots]

If it were a mixed group and the MC a magic futa djinn (and I mean a real futa and not a transsexual woman) it would be awesome. And I'm not trolling. I swear hehe.

BTW, are you a fan of djinn stories, in general? A while ago, I started hacking away at a (non-sexual) globetrotting djinn adventure story. The high concept is an alternate history Earth, torn apart by mass-produced djinn lamps. Now, lamps containing different types and power levels of wish-granting Nature Spirits are literally strewn across the ground on battlefields from The Wish Wars, while the countryside is pockmarked with bubbles of unreality in which someone wished to change the laws of physics. Anyone can walk up to a random lamp on the ground and claim it. The hard part is making wishes that won't backfire, and dealing with other lamp-wielders.

It came to my mind a character figured in the second season of True Blood called Maryann who was a maenad and could make anyone enter into an ecstatic frenzy and have sex with each other. I didn't even like this season too much, and Maryann was a villain in the end, but I think if someone could take this idea and make her not exactly good but not evil, leading people into sex not by magic but by some wise words or anything that wouldn't seem forceful, it would make an interesting story.

Much like Love Potions, Mind Control, and Aphrodisiacs, I'm afraid there's no way to make this device non-rapey. The person either already wants to have sex, at which point they will even if you don't use the power on them, or else they don't, until this power is used on them, at which point you've just roofied them with magic and so they're incapable of consent.

The closest thing to a benevolent version of this would be something like Cupid's Arrow, except instead of being a mythological explanation for why people suddenly fall in love, instead, its only power is to compel people to confess love that they already feel.

But somehow, I think that's not what you were going for.

Sometimes the right move, as a writer, is to just write the self-indulgent rape fantasy, get it out of your system, and find out if it was worth it after the fact when you see the mirror it holds up to you.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Well if I had to write a harem story, I wouldn't make the harem the focal point of the story. It would be layered in the background of some other core plot. And truthfully, I don't particularly see a path to harem that wouldn't be pandering or cliche, especially in a contemporary setting without power dynamics at play.

I've had some thoughts that a story set in ancient China/Korea where you are a lesser prince vying for the throne could be interesting with the harem politics playing a part in the story.

Your call. It didn't occur to me, but you're right, the simplest way to solve for realism is to just literally write about an actual historical harem.