As you know, jufot, I'm in the minority on this. But what you may not know is that I prefer it to having no idea what's going on. For you see, I don't always play the whole game in one sitting. In other words, (breaks down into a complicated series of subtle character interactions and interpretive dance.)
I tend to agree: if it comes down to it, I'd rather endure a little blunt force exposition than have to constantly reread/replay the intro to keep up with the plot (or worse, have to sift through a maze of confusing implications and allusions). But there's definitely an art to dialog that delivers the needed plot points while still sounding like a conversation.
As you know, it's yet another reason why I, overly verbose internet critic ename144, wouldn't want to actually write one of these games.
On an entirely different note, having read through the recent harem discussion, I might as well toss out my thoughts on the topic as well. I rarely like harem games; I'm a lot more interested in the intimacy (emotional and physical) than the kinks when I play these games, and I think it's hard to sustain a high level of intimacy as the harem expands. Sure, in theory the MC can have very strong feelings for all the harem members (and they for each other), but by definition the MC would never be able to stop everything and help any one LI because "everything" includes the rest of the harem. Prioritizing one LI in that way would short-circuit the whole thing.
Instead a harem becomes a balancing act of trying to give everyone their necessary support without starving anyone for attention. That's not bad or anything, but it's a very different feeling, at least for me. At a certain point, I usually feel like everyone would be better off breaking up into smaller, more manageable groups and making the most of it rather than trying to shoot the moon. At that point my interest wanes. The only polyamory path I've been able to genuinely buy into thus far is the Maya/Josy throuple in BaDIK. It think it's because the game did a good job making me care about each girl individually, then caring about them as a couple, then illustrating why trying to remain merely friends with them would be at least as unstable as trying to join the relationship. But that's the smallest group you can get and I think it would be exponentially difficult to scale it up farther.
Having said all that, I'm not sure my concerns have any bearing on whether you can have a "well written" harem game. I think the problem here isn't quality but subject matter; harems just aren't my cup of tea. I can analyze them the same way I would analyze, say, a horror game, but the appeal is going to be largely lost on me because I don't really enjoy the genre.
I think the key to a well written harem game is to figure out what you want out of the harem - steamy sex, complex relationship dynamics, gotta-catch-em-all achievement, what have you - and then structure the game to support and explore that aspect of the harem. If you want to focus on the achievement, be sure to make the process of adding each girl to the harem interesting and unique. If you want to focus on the intra-harem relationships, focus on how the needs of one LI bring others closer or force them apart. Now it's true that there are a number of different (and sometimes mutually exclusive) takes on the polyamorous group concept that tend to get lumped under the banner of 'harem,' but that's why I think you need to pick one of them and stick focus on it; trying to please everyone will invariably disappoint all.
To use your Bulletproof Harem template as an example, I think it would work well for a game focusing on intra-harem dynamics because it's all about trying to align the needs of the group. But it would be a poor starting point for a game that wanted to make assembling the harem feel like an achievement, because you'd effectively be reusing the same tools (giving advice and comfort) over and over again.
That's the way I see it, anyway. I understand your concern about how to make the scenario/LIs/MC/etc "believable" while in the harem, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Figure out why you want a harem then work to make the characters and situations fit that goal. That might limit your available options in some cases, but that's okay. After all, if you wanted to write an epic space opera, you wouldn't want the cast to have a "realistic" proportion of indecisive and psychologically-vulnerable bystanders. No, you're going to want a unrealistic helping of larger-than-life archetypes who can take bold stands against highly symbolic adversaries. Just so harem games will tend to involve open-minded people in unusually intimate circumstances because that's where harems would realistically form. You can certainly make exceptions, but they should be rare and handled on a case by case basis (rather than using the standard tropes of the genre).
