Recommending Story-first games

[TranscendentThots]

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.

Ah, the classic love triangle. Basically the vertebre that make up the the backbone of the Bulletproof Harem experiment.

Making the MC a confidant of some sort was a bit of a hack. Perhaps it would be better to focus on solving for 4 people. (Two couples who somehow can only be together if the third wheels in their throples are able to join in?) Once we solve for a stable 4-way, the 4-ways can act as "hubs" linking throples without the need for the MC to act as a supernode.

Would the MC be a Comet, then? If the MC were a Comet, would there even be any need for a harem-specific narrative structure at all? What's the difference between a harem game, and a game where you control a Comet passing through the lives of a bunch of throples? Or even couples or single people?

Was it as simple as "just make the MC an actual fucking rock star," all along?

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.

Wise words. A one-size-fits-all formula is probably misguided as anything other than a conceptual tool. But I keep trying because, once established, formulas tend to work, dammit! They work well enough that even an average writer with a decent soundtrack can make television that's at least vaguely watchable. I want to elevate harem tropes to that level: vaguely entertaining.

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.

I mean... For collect-a-thons, It sort of has to be either full character studies deeply interlocking in ways that only the MC can untangle, or else outright Pokemon. There isn't a middle ground. You don't design Pokemon with good writing, though. You design it with less writing.

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.

Once again, I've managed to accidently skip over the "who is this even for" phase of pre-production without even realizing I was doing it. Be smarter than me, folks. Be like the rest of this thread!

Oh, wait. You are.

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.

See, this is what I'm talking about! Why are all the Hallmark Christmas Specials about indecisive snowflakes who stumble through life until they get the dude by default, when they could be about clever sexy cool bad bitches who overcome all manner of obstacles and challengers to get the dude? You could be crying and cheering at the same scene!

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).

Honestly? I'm just trying to build a better trope. I like big dumb escapist fantasy. I like collecting all the girls. And this is difficult for me to admit, but some part of me probably likes objectifying fictional women, as long as it's only happening in entertainment and it's properly labeled so people who aren't into it can avoid it.

If marketability wasn't a concern, I'd probably shoot for equal opportunity sexploitation where the men are as slutty as the women and the women are as horny as the men. (But dang it, straight men are just so fucking thin-skinned, these days, and they're both the biggest spenders and the demographic whose fantasies I can intuitively understand the appeal of.)

But I can't just bury my head in the sand and pretend that harem tropes are fine the way they are. I've noticed the flaws in the standard harem trope, and now I can't unsee them. We can do better. In fact, sooner or later, someone will. Society's already changed, and porn, even for straight cis white dudebros, somehow needs to catch up.

Whoever gets there first is going to have a game-changing hit on their hands.

 

[desmosome]

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.

This will be a long one.

I've had this exact sentiment a while back. I always try to challenge my viewpoints and address any logical inconsistencies that might arise, and I try to understand opposing ideas.

I'm a huge fan of NTR and female moral degeneration (corruption). These are clearly tropes if there ever was one. When I gauge my enjoyment of these stories, it's not always in the lens of what makes a good, or well written, story. Of course, the disparity in the quality of the writing, scenario set up, the corruption progression, and the gameplay could be pretty massive across the different games, but they are all generally predictable stories that only appeal to the darker senses.

It's been a while since I've started to base my overall assessment of a game largely by what the dev intended and whether they achieved their goals in a satisfactory manner. Obviously, I also base it on some more objective criteria like English proficiency, dialogue writing, gameplay system if it exists, art direction, sex scene quality, and sound/music integration.

For story-first games, I am reading it much more critically as I might a novel. For legit gameplay games, I am looking at it much closer to a normal game. For romance games, I'm looking for genuine and believable relationship dynamics. For fetish games, I give more weight to how well it satisfies the fetish.

Anyways, classic Japanese style NTR, with all its tropes can be very good for the fans of this genre as long as it has a good set up and progression. I rate such games highly because it does what it was meant to do. That's where I ran into some cognitive dissonance.

If I am affording this leniency on realism for one tropey genre, why do I find it hard to do the same for Harem games and assess it based on the the merits of whatever a Harem fan (to whom the dev designed the story for) might value in such a game?

I've thought about it a lot, and as my participation in the earlier harem discussion shows, I'm of the opinion that the harem that fans of this tag want is mostly incompatible with what we might consider story-first or "well-written" in this thread. Thus, the logical conclusion I arrive at is that harem is just a fetish. Harem games are fetish games. Whether it be rapey power fantasy, Good Guy(tm) wish fulfillment, or anime-esque weeb stuff, that is the fetish. Assessing these on their literary merit would be a bit unfair. If it fundamentally detracts from the experience, you are not the target audience and it would be unfair to rate it poorly just based on the harem tropes. I wouldn't go to some hyper-femdom based game to say that it's unrealistic or whatever, right?

That might seem to tie up my journey of self reflection in a neat bow, but there is one problem. I can't really say that I am not a harem fan or that I hate the tag itself. As a lover of corruption, I actually enjoy the exploitative harems where the dude corrupts the girls around him. I can enjoy the anime weeb stuff occasionally (light hearted stuff can heal the soul after too much dark shit lol). Even the dreaded Good Guy(tm) wish fulfillment can be silly fun sometimes.

What I actually detest in what I consider to be shitty harems is the propensity to pander EXTREMELY hard. The type of writing that is not very subtly stroking the players balls to make a self-inserter feel better about their lives or something. Where every line is just about showing how amazing this MC is. Where every dialogue is about how godly the MC is. Where every scenario is set up to let the MC save some damsels. Is this supposed to be a core aspect of harems? Am I not worthy of the harem tag if I hate this stuff? Do I have the right to review harem games? Is it ok to rate it badly when it's so on-the-nose and pandering? I don't know... Oh well.

I just want to end with this one last thing. Whatever endorsement I might give to the harem genre, I can't really extend it to the hardcore fans of that genre. Ugh... some of the most toxic shitheads I've ever seen. They honestly think their tag supercedes everything else and that a game that has a harem tag must abide by their 10 commandments. It's been a while since I've seen the 10 commandments in that one thread, but it goes something like this.

1. No NTR or any "NTRish" situations, even if optional.
2. LIs shouldn't be slut/whores (prostitutes, strippers, camgirls, etc.).
3. Under no circumstances can you mention or show a LI banging another dude (past, present, or future).
4. Actually, Extend that to ALL females in the game.
5. No lesbian/bi shit.
6. - 10. ... so on and so fourth

 

[TranscendentThots]

What I actually detest in what I consider to be shitty harems is the propensity to pander EXTREMELY hard. The type of writing that is not very subtly stroking the players balls to make a self-inserter feel better about their lives or something. Where every line is just about showing how amazing this MC is. Where every dialogue is about how godly the MC is. Where every scenario is set up to let the MC save some damsels. Is this supposed to be a core aspect of harems? Am I not worthy of the harem tag if I hate this stuff? Do I have the right to review harem games? Is it ok to rate it badly when it's so on-the-nose and pandering? I don't know... Oh well.

I actually like well-written Isekai, with or without harem elements? Though my bar for "well-written" tends to be pretty low:

If the MC does smart things that help others, I can handle LIs falling for them. Or at least initiating a one-night stand with them.

Baggage surrounding other potential lovers in the LI's life, the LI having unspoken needs the MC can't meet, the LI's spoken needs being readily obtainable from NPCs back in town, my own culture's attitudes towards polygamy or the vaguely medieval fantasy world's attitudes towards sex and/or relationships can all languish off-camera, vaguely defined, so long as the MC actually did something heroic.

In real life, firefighters get laid.

But it honestly never occurred to me that mentioning those other eligible bachelors in the LI's lives, or even leveraging them for plot points, would be off the table.

But, no, apparently if you take friggin' No Game No Life or Tenchi Muyo and strip all the fantastical elements out of it and set it in the real world, so the otherwise unremarkable blank-slate self-insert character is literally useless in all situations, not just the situations that involve picking a girl to settle down with, somehow the numbers go up!

What is this fandom?

I just want to end with this one last thing. Whatever endorsement I might give to the harem genre, I can't really extend it to the hardcore fans of that genre. Ugh... some of the most toxic shitheads I've ever seen. They honestly think their tag supercedes everything else and that a game that has a harem tag must abide by their 10 commandments. It's been a while since I've seen the 10 commandments in that one thread, but it goes something like this.

This one? (Direct image link so you can avoid further exposure to the thread.)

1. No NTR or any "NTRish" situations, even if optional.
2. LIs shouldn't be slut/whores (prostitutes, strippers, camgirls, etc.).
3. Under no circumstances can you mention or show a LI banging another dude (past, present, or future).
4. Actually, Extend that to ALL females in the game.
5. No lesbian/bi shit.
6. - 10. ... so on and so fourth

Okay, I can sort of understand the target demographic being super jealous and insecure? I can't relate to it, but I can understand how it works, and maybe even appreciate how one role of harem stories might to provide a catharsis from that jealousy.

But no lesbian/bi shit?

WTF!?

What's the point of seducing every woman in a half-mile radius if you don't stack them up in a big pile and then fuck the pile!?

 

[desmosome]

Your formatting is fucked, but it wasn't that particular commandment. Maybe there was more than 1. But you get the idea. Whatever the specifics are, it's the thought process behind it that is the issue. If a game gets a harem tag (and even when it doesn't, sometimes lol), they feel like the game now belongs to them. The devs that don't share the same limited view of harem are "shady" and those games are "fake harems." Lol.

As for the lesbian/bi thing, yea, it's a very big thing for many of them. A few are ok with it, but predominantly, sexual relations among the girls are still betraying the MC or something. It might be ok if they do it in front of the MC to please him and he joins in.

 

[jufot]

I hesitate to interrupt this genuinely fascinating deconstruction of the harem genre, but if I may interject for a second, I'd like to recommend Race of Life.

The overview on the game page sounded sleazy, but I'm glad I gave it a chance.

You play as Jake. Jake is an asshole. His ex-wife Allison is full of righteous fury because he is an asshole who had an affair. You can lean into the asshole she knows you to be, or you can be repentant and seek a more peaceful co-parenting relationship for your 6-year-old daughter, Lily.

Jake's life is fairly small. He's a physics lecturer working on his PhD. He hangs out with Cooper, a loyal best friend and an overgrown manchild. They share a love of cars, both betting on and participating in underground races. The fallout from his affair being fresh, Jake is unwilling to pursue a new relationship, sticking mostly to casual encounters. Unlike most games, the attention he receives from women doesn't feel unearned. He's a smooth talker, and his looks and bad boy persona are effortlessly attractive. His suitors range from students with crushes, to more age appropriate neighbours and coworkers. The latter especially are well-written and not at all dumb. They know he's trouble, and not in a cutesy romcom kind of way, but they are drawn to him anyway.

The writing is concise, witty and feels true to life. There is a scene I really enjoyed where Jake and Allison discuss the downfall of their marriage. They talk about the years where their connection eroded and how they missed so many chances to correct course. The affair might have been the final nail in the coffin, but the marriage died by a thousand papercuts. For his part, Jake admits he was a bad husband, and a selfish bastard, but commits to at least becoming the best father he can be. It's a much more nuanced examination of a relationship than the black & white way affairs are usually treated in real life, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it.

So, against that backdrop, what's the story about? Briefly, something bad happens to Lily, and Jake and Allison need to quickly raise a lot of money for her treatment. The situation is further complicated by a suspicious figure from their mutual past, who might be connected to Lily's incident. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll leave it at that. You should give it a shot if any of this sounds interesting

 

[TranscendentThots]

Your formatting is fucked, but it wasn't that particular commandment. Maybe there was more than 1. But you get the idea. Whatever the specifics are, it's the thought process behind it that is the issue. If a game gets a harem tag (and even when it doesn't, sometimes lol), they feel like the game now belongs to them. The devs that don't share the same limited view of harem are "shady" and those games are "fake harems." Lol.

Fixed! Thank you.

As for the lesbian/bi thing, yea, it's a very big thing for many of them. A few are ok with it, but predominantly, sexual relations among the girls are still betraying the MC or something. It might be ok if they do it in front of the MC to please him and he joins in.

Hmph.

Kinda makes me want to do one where...

A male MC gets summoned to save a world where lesbian sex is super forbidden by the very church that summoned him to defeat the Demon King.​

​

Women are attracted to him because he's heroic and flock to him because he's the Chosen One, but he also has a perverse streak. He whispers to them about lesbian sex because he loves watching them struggle with the forbidden desire and ultimately succumb to it.​

​

Once they realize they want more out of life than just cock, following him on his adventure kind of makes sense, since the church will just reject them or try to purge the sin from them, and anyway there's a ton of pussy following him around.​

​

But the MC is also ruthlessly pragmatic about exploiting the world's game-like systems, so it isn't long before he's min-maxxed everybody in the group into gaining XP alongside him, from the actual female adventurers to the random townies who tagged along because they felt ostracized. He's also breaking church dogma right and left in order to do it. (Turns out dogma and math don't always play nicely together.)​

​

By the time they pull up on the Demon King's territory, the MC's leading an army of women, some of whom don't even have any forbidden desires, they just saw a bunch of women roving the countryside with the Chosen One leading the charge and wanted to help out. The Church bands together with the Demon King to try put a stop to it. Even women the MC has never met are starting to talk about equal rights, and that kind of talk is dangerous. They need to put a stop to this before it's too late. But the MC and his Best Girls mop the floor with the combined armies using every dirty trick in the book about the world's magic system that they rewrote on the way here.​

​

The Anime Pope, just after being defeated: "How could you!? The prophecy said if we let you have as many women as you want, you would deliver the world from evil!"​

​

MC: "That's what I'm doing." (slice!)​

​

Cut to MC years or even centuries later, thriving in the utopian society he helped create.​

​

Basically, all you have to do is make the chauvinist authoritarian the one trying to take the MC's waifus away, and assume that female characters can do and can want anything that the male characters can, and the rest pretty much writes itself. Cope and seethe, sexists. My harem's bigger than yours.

 

[desmosome]

I hesitate to interrupt this genuinely fascinating deconstruction of the harem genre, but if I may interject for a second, I'd like to recommend Race of Life.

The overview on the game page sounded sleazy, but I'm glad I gave it a chance.

You play as Jake. Jake is an asshole. His ex-wife Allison is full of righteous fury because he is an asshole who had an affair. You can lean into the asshole she knows you to be, or you can be repentant and seek a more peaceful co-parenting relationship for your 6-year-old daughter, Lily.

Jake's life is fairly small. He's a physics lecturer working on his PhD. He hangs out with Cooper, a loyal best friend and an overgrown manchild. They share a love of cars, both betting on and participating in underground races. The fallout from his affair being fresh, Jake is unwilling to pursue a new relationship, sticking mostly to casual encounters. Unlike most games, the attention he receives from women doesn't feel unearned. He's a smooth talker, and his looks and bad boy persona are effortlessly attractive. His suitors range from students with crushes, to more age appropriate neighbours and coworkers. The latter especially are well-written and not at all dumb. They know he's trouble, and not in a cutesy romcom kind of way, but they are drawn to him anyway.

The writing is concise, witty and feels true to life. There is a scene I really enjoyed where Jake and Allison discuss the downfall of their marriage. They talk about the years where their connection eroded and how they missed so many chances to correct course. The affair might have been the final nail in the coffin, but the marriage died by a thousand papercuts. For his part, Jake admits he was a bad husband, and a selfish bastard, but commits to at least becoming the best father he can be. It's a much more nuanced examination of a relationship than the black & white way affairs are usually treated in real life, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it.

So, against that backdrop, what's the story about? Briefly, something bad happens to Lily, and Jake and Allison need to quickly raise a lot of money for her treatment. The situation is further complicated by a suspicious figure from their mutual past, who might be connected to Lily's incident. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll leave it at that. You should give it a shot if any of this sounds interesting

You're late to the party, my friend. We talked about this game back on page 84-85. It's not a perfect representation of a story-first game, as there are some stark tonal shifts into porny territory, but the divorced parents plot line you highlighted was absolutely sublime. It has a lot of nuance.

 

[jufot]

You're late to the party, my friend. We talked about this game back on page 84.

Huh, indeed I am. For those of you using a non-default posts per page setting (this thread has 23 pages for me) here are some direct links.

Yes, the whole bar scene with Natalya was ridiculous, and there is merit to your argument that the game lacks focus. Personally, I'd cut anything with the neighbour and the horny student. So far, they add nothing beyond sex appeal. That said, I'm generally in agreement with this comment. Bits of the story are teetering on the edge of porny, without crossing the line for me (yet?)

I don't agree that Jake is stringing V along, though. She is not his girlfriend. He's clearly not interested in anything serious, but she pushes him anyway. The car park scene especially reads as V trying to seduce Jake into commitment, with sexual acts she's not actually comfortable with. It felt really desperate and off-putting.

Still, it's a very promising start. It's the first game that made me root for the angry ex and wish for a reconciliation route

 

[boobsrcool]

I'd like to mention a game that published recently by Jeevant with the author being BuuPlays and it seems like it has an amazing potential for a great story!
The audio feedback for scenes is extremely well made and fitting. The story however is a bit rushed but overall I'd recommend it since by first release it shows potential.

The game in question: https://f95zone.to/threads/nephilim-v0-1-buuplays.143045/

seconding the recommendation this has a great start

 

[ename144]

Would the MC be a Comet, then? If the MC were a Comet, would there even be any need for a harem-specific narrative structure at all? What's the difference between a harem game, and a game where you control a Comet passing through the lives of a bunch of throples? Or even couples or single people?

I think the difference is that the harem is supposed to be a single unit, not a collection of disparate clusters that occasionally see each other. Everyone needs to be orbiting the same barycenter - generally the MC.

Was it as simple as "just make the MC an actual fucking rock star," all along?

Ironic, given that Become a Rockstar is famously harem averse.

I mean... For collect-a-thons, It sort of has to be either full character studies deeply interlocking in ways that only the MC can untangle, or else outright Pokemon. There isn't a middle ground. You don't design Pokemon with good writing, though. You design it with less writing.

That's true for actual Pokemon, sure, but its core gameplay loop is a lot less reliant on text than a VN. In this context I think writing is important because the LIs need to be well-presented enough that getting them to join a harem feels like an accomplishment, while still being believable when it happens. They can't be carbon copies of each other, and at least a few of them should be the sort of person disinclined towards polyamory. That will ultimately come down to writing.

Honestly? I'm just trying to build a better trope. I like big dumb escapist fantasy. I like collecting all the girls. And this is difficult for me to admit, but some part of me probably likes objectifying fictional women, as long as it's only happening in entertainment and it's properly labeled so people who aren't into it can avoid it.

If marketability wasn't a concern, I'd probably shoot for equal opportunity sexploitation where the men are as slutty as the women and the women are as horny as the men. (But dang it, straight men are just so fucking thin-skinned, these days, and they're both the biggest spenders and the demographic whose fantasies I can intuitively understand the appeal of.)

But I can't just bury my head in the sand and pretend that harem tropes are fine the way they are. I've noticed the flaws in the standard harem trope, and now I can't unsee them. We can do better. In fact, sooner or later, someone will. Society's already changed, and porn, even for straight cis white dudebros, somehow needs to catch up.

Whoever gets there first is going to have a game-changing hit on their hands.

I appreciate the goal, but as the saying goes: tropes are tools. They can be very useful if you know when and how to apply them, but some tools are simply more flexible than others. It wouldn't surprise me if harems tropes are more like, say, soldering flux than a hammer.

But if you really want to make harems more accessible, I think it's going to come down to some level of hybridization. You need to broaden the usefulness of harems as a tool. You could try deconstructing classic harem tropes to see what makes them tick, then put them back in unusual ways: maybe look at an MC who wants to leave a harem for some reason, or examine what happens to a harem after the original MC dies? Switch things around and tell the tale from the point of view of a 'LI' caught between the formation of two incompatible harems? Something like that would probably be a good way to learn what's really important to you in a harem game, but odds are it would be the AVN equivalent of an arthouse film.

Alternatively, you could try using harems in a more mainstream way. Maybe you could start the MC in a small harem and use harem members in place of stock AVN roles like the goofball sidekick, or the mentor figure, or the misunderstood girlfriend who seemingly betrays you at start the game but we eventually learn wasn't so bad? Obviously you'd need to craft a story that didn't rely on the MC being a virgin at the start, but that's not impossible. Or maybe revisit the classic incest trope: the MC was forced to leave his harem years ago, but now he can finally go back and try to reunite with them (or meet some new side LIs along the way)?

Basically, play around with the format and see if you can find anything that resonates with both you and a larger audience. In any case, I don't think you want to look for *a* formula that can be sprinkled on any harem game to make it good, you want to find *a* good approach that makes use of harems in a multifaceted way. If you get it right, it will be a good launching point for further efforts (and if you get it wrong it's still a good learning experience). You don't need to crack The Grand Unified Harem Theory in one fell swoop.

This will be a long one.

I've had this exact sentiment a while back. I always try to challenge my viewpoints and address any logical inconsistencies that might arise, and I try to understand opposing ideas.

I'm a huge fan of NTR and female moral degeneration (corruption). These are clearly tropes if there ever was one. When I gauge my enjoyment of these stories, it's not always in the lens of what makes a good, or well written, story. Of course, the disparity in the quality of the writing, scenario set up, the corruption progression, and the gameplay could be pretty massive across the different games, but they are all generally predictable stories that only appeal to the darker senses.

It's been a while since I've started to base my overall assessment of a game largely by what the dev intended and whether they achieved their goals in a satisfactory manner. Obviously, I also base it on some more objective criteria like English proficiency, dialogue writing, gameplay system if it exists, art direction, sex scene quality, and sound/music integration.

For story-first games, I am reading it much more critically as I might a novel. For legit gameplay games, I am looking at it much closer to a normal game. For romance games, I'm looking for genuine and believable relationship dynamics. For fetish games, I give more weight to how well it satisfies the fetish.

Anyways, classic Japanese style NTR, with all its tropes can be very good for the fans of this genre as long as it has a good set up and progression. I rate such games highly because it does what it was meant to do. That's where I ran into some cognitive dissonance.

If I am affording this leniency on realism for one tropey genre, why do I find it hard to do the same for Harem games and assess it based on the the merits of whatever a Harem fan (to whom the dev designed the story for) might value in such a game?

I've thought about it a lot, and as my participation in the earlier harem discussion shows, I'm of the opinion that the harem that fans of this tag want is mostly incompatible with what we might consider story-first or "well-written" in this thread. Thus, the logical conclusion I arrive at is that harem is just a fetish. Harem games are fetish games. Whether it be rapey power fantasy, Good Guy(tm) wish fulfillment, or anime-esque weeb stuff, that is the fetish. Assessing these on their literary merit would be a bit unfair. If it fundamentally detracts from the experience, you are not the target audience and it would be unfair to rate it poorly just based on the harem tropes. I wouldn't go to some hyper-femdom based game to say that it's unrealistic or whatever, right?

That might seem to tie up my journey of self reflection in a neat bow, but there is one problem. I can't really say that I am not a harem fan or that I hate the tag itself. As a lover of corruption, I actually enjoy the exploitative harems where the dude corrupts the girls around him. I can enjoy the anime weeb stuff occasionally (light hearted stuff can heal the soul after too much dark shit lol). Even the dreaded Good Guy(tm) wish fulfillment can be silly fun sometimes.

What I actually detest in what I consider to be shitty harems is the propensity to pander EXTREMELY hard. The type of writing that is not very subtly stroking the players balls to make a self-inserter feel better about their lives or something. Where every line is just about showing how amazing this MC is. Where every dialogue is about how godly the MC is. Where every scenario is set up to let the MC save some damsels. Is this supposed to be a core aspect of harems? Am I not worthy of the harem tag if I hate this stuff? Do I have the right to review harem games? Is it ok to rate it badly when it's so on-the-nose and pandering? I don't know... Oh well.

I just want to end with this one last thing. Whatever endorsement I might give to the harem genre, I can't really extend it to the hardcore fans of that genre. Ugh... some of the most toxic shitheads I've ever seen. They honestly think their tag supercedes everything else and that a game that has a harem tag must abide by their 10 commandments. It's been a while since I've seen the 10 commandments in that one thread, but it goes something like this.

1. No NTR or any "NTRish" situations, even if optional.
2. LIs shouldn't be slut/whores (prostitutes, strippers, camgirls, etc.).
3. Under no circumstances can you mention or show a LI banging another dude (past, present, or future).
4. Actually, Extend that to ALL females in the game.
5. No lesbian/bi shit.
6. - 10. ... so on and so fourth

Heh, I know well that question of what standards are appropriate to judge a game. All critiques are ultimately subjective, but I try to track my enjoyment of the game separately from how well I think it's accomplishing the goals it seems to be aiming for. Even that can get confusing though, as the last update for The Unbroken demonstrated.

Huh, indeed I am. For those of you using a non-default posts per page setting (this thread has 23 pages for me) here are some direct links.

Yes, the whole bar scene with Natalya was ridiculous, and there is merit to your argument that the game lacks focus. Personally, I'd cut anything with the neighbour and the horny student. So far, they add nothing beyond sex appeal. That said, I'm generally in agreement with this comment. Bits of the story are teetering on the edge of porny, without crossing the line for me (yet?)

I don't agree that Jake is stringing V along, though. She is not his girlfriend. He's clearly not interested in anything serious, but she pushes him anyway. The car park scene especially reads as V trying to seduce Jake into commitment, with sexual acts she's not actually comfortable with. It felt really desperate and off-putting.

Still, it's a very promising start. It's the first game that made me root for the angry ex and wish for a reconciliation route

I generally liked Race of Life; I loved Allison and the ways the MC can approach her, the setup is solid and the rest of the cast seem likeable (though the horny student is a bit cringy). But I'm still a little nervous. As much as I'm invested in saving Lily, it's hard not to worry that's going to overshadow the rest of the game; threatening the life of a cute kid is crazy high stakes, and it's no certainty the game will have the room it needs to woo all these girls in the wake of that. The proposed plan to treat Lily is completely bananas, too, from the extreme cost to the explanation for what will happen, none of it fits the tone of the rest of the game.

That, and the phone system is a serious pain in the ass.

As far as stringing Veronica along, I think it depends on what you mean. The MC has made it clear he doesn't want a relationship; if Veronica gets hurt yearning for something more, that is ultimately on her. Still, the MC is well aware Veronica wants more, and it doesn't take a genius to see the writing on the wall. Even if he doesn't love her, if he cares about her as a fellow human he should probably address this problem head on rather than try to talk around it while still sleeping with her.

Obviously this will depend on how the player treats V, but IMHO most of the options do feel like the MC's taking advantage of her feelings.

 

[jufot]

I try to track my enjoyment of the game separately from how well I think it's accomplishing the goals it seems to be aiming for. Even that can get confusing though, as the last update for The Unbroken demonstrated.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? I have many qualms with The Unbroken and I'm curious if there's overlap.

 

[ename144]

Could you elaborate on this a bit? I have many qualms with The Unbroken and I'm curious if there's overlap.

Well, I elaborated at length on the latest part already. But basically it comes down to not having enough feedback.

We're told the MC's infamous reputation as a lady's man is valid (if misleading), but we're always allowed to turn down offers for sex. At first I thought that meant the MC's outlook had hit a turning point at the start of the game and it would be up to us to either embrace or reject this outlook. As we learned more of the MC's backstory (and as no one ever seemed to acknowledge any change in the MC's attitude if I stopped sleeping around), I assumed it was more that the MC deliberately sought out shallow relationships and one-night-stands as a way to avoid intimacy.

But now Part 5 gives us Kana's big sex scene, and it's 100% about raw sex, completely devoid of emotion despite previous indications that Kana wanted a certain level of intimacy in her lovers. Even spending the night with her afterwards is portrayed as going another round rather than any sort of affection/introspection. So what's going on? Did Kana just need a good shag and the MC finally wore her down? Did I misread her desire for intimacy and this was just about a certain level of trust? Did the game want to subvert expectations with Kana and assumed the scene would automatically come across as emotional as well as sexy (despite all evidence to the contrary)? Is the game simply trying to keep paths for all the girls open and not really thinking about the possible implications of Kana agreeing to be another notch on the MC's bedpost?

I'm just not sure anymore, and it's really starting to hurt my enjoyment of the game, especially when combined with the very slow pace of the plot.

 

[TranscendentThots]

But if you really want to make harems more accessible, I think it's going to come down to some level of hybridization. You need to broaden the usefulness of harems as a tool. You could try deconstructing classic harem tropes to see what makes them tick, then put them back in unusual ways: maybe look at an MC who wants to leave a harem for some reason, or examine what happens to a harem after the original MC dies? Switch things around and tell the tale from the point of view of a 'LI' caught between the formation of two incompatible harems? Something like that would probably be a good way to learn what's really important to you in a harem game, but odds are it would be the AVN equivalent of an arthouse film.

Deconstructing the relationship dynamics honestly isn't as interesting to me as changing the overall vibe or tone somehow. Even if it's just little one-off lines checking up on them here and there and maybe a big sweeping gesture every now and then.

Alternatively, you could try using harems in a more mainstream way. Maybe you could start the MC in a small harem and use harem members in place of stock AVN roles like the goofball sidekick, or the mentor figure, or the misunderstood girlfriend who seemingly betrays you at start the game but we eventually learn wasn't so bad? Obviously you'd need to craft a story that didn't rely on the MC being a virgin at the start, but that's not impossible. Or maybe revisit the classic incest trope: the MC was forced to leave his harem years ago, but now he can finally go back and try to reunite with them (or meet some new side LIs along the way)?

Hmmm... in that case, do you suppose I could maybe get feedback on something? It's

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, and therefore I hate it, but it sort of does more or less that. It's an Isekai that's one part Konosuba, one part Log Horizon, and one part mascdom BDSM so ethical that I think I may have forgotten to actually say that the guy ever cums? You can skip the scene in the muffin shop because it's not funny as funny as I thought it was and it goes basically nowhere, but I think most of the rest of it holds up, unless you're allergic to the core premise that it's basically

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but with

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and the MC is

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The writing is super condensed because of the CHYOA format, but at least that means it's a relatively short read.

 

[camube]

Well, I elaborated at length on the latest part already.

I seconded ename's thought. STWA Unbroken is an enjoyable game to read, but that's all.

Characters behave inconsistently to their previous characterizations, and there's not that much "change" coming from other people whether you control MC to act one way or a different way.

One thing for sure though, STWA is a good project manager because on top of already finishing one game and creating this one and the update schedule being consistent, STWA also knows how to cut and trim down the first game to reach an ending.

So players ended up with a complete product, even if it's "just alright". And "just alright" is a high bar in AVN genre because many renpy games are either illogical or dropped.

There's a place for game creators like STWA in the space because they can consistently create while knowing when and where to cut and when to "cater".

This update, and the character ename is referring to, it's mostly "catering" to AVN players, not as much to the story-first players. But STWA or any devs do need money to continue development since creating game takes real time.

So if nothing else, STWA is a competent releaser.

 

[jufot]

Is the game simply trying to keep paths for all the girls open and not really thinking about the possible implications of Kana agreeing to be another notch on the MC's bedpost?

This is it, I think. The dev's previous game, The Author, ended with a literal "pick your favourite girl" screen which told me that nothing in the story mattered, and the dev didn't care about coherence or consistency.

The Unbroken is very much in the same vein. Everyone has a backstory, but it's just fluff. Ultimately, it all comes down to whether you want to fuck a particular girl or not. It doesn't matter if that conflicts with her character, lived experience, or your previous choices. The story only serves as a delivery mechanism for sex scenes, which aren't very notable either.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Why the hell did this topic turn into a harem discussion topic? - e: and why the hell does the : + o emoji look like Munch's Scream? looks more like absolute terror than surprise

According to wikipedia, Eek is an emoji created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The agonized face has become one of the most iconic representations of the concept of creeping realization that TranscendentThots has hijacked a thread in Western art.

Anyway, a harem strongly slants a story to power fantasy. It's not incompatible with some story focus but it requires extra work in the setting or character department. Consider as example the few harem games on this list: Sorcerer, Terminus Reach and Defending Lydia Collier.

I appreciate the titles.

My amateur "opinion is free" thoughts below. I'd just roll with the main demands of the audience, so no TMI expositions or "other people's sex" for a straight male audience or unannounced futa or secret FM scenes for a lesbian audience. These are "canonical harem" premises that I think work for a potentially entertaining story and some story focus, colour-coded from (borderline) believable to unrealistic or parody.

That can't have been easy to say. I respect you for saying it anyway.

Spoiler: Settings

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I actually really appreciate the color-coded list. Thank you!

(BTW guys I started reading that thing I linked to and I regret everything. None of the jokes land, half the shit I didn't even set up properly because the story I was spoofing was fresh in my mind when I wrote it, the MC just comes across as abrasive and controlling, and perhaps worst of all, I failed to adequately telegraph two of the three LI's kinks before the MC called them on 'em. 3 out of 10; would not recommend my own writing again.)

In fact, I think we need something redder than red to describe my writing. So here it is in infrared:

7- Hyper-condensed microfiction based on animes you haven't watched and characters I didn't reference other than in the liner notes, featuring cartoonishly incompetent characters doing stupid bullshit while basically shouting their kinks at the tops of their lungs. Otherwise, basically 5, but with stat sheets. If you sit through enough sex scenes, you might see a LI or NPC do something cool.

 

[Griffihn]

My experience is that a large number of men who play these games want themselves to be different than what women (or at least this one) want. A frequent complaint about my games is that the MCs are "weak" even though I explicitly write them as what I consider to be strong, often overly so.

After more than a decade of having that conversation over and over again with each game I release, I've come to the conclusion that some (most?) men want to be seen as action movie heroes (physically strong fighters). At the same time, some (most?) women don't care about that. We want our men to be emotionally strong and able to support us through our insecurities and struggles.

Of course, there are a lot more men than women playing these games. So, if you're doing this for financial reasons, you're better off making your MCs be what men want.

Tlaero

HAHAHA! sorry, couldn't help myself on that one. hell no! what most men want isn't an action hero but a man. not a teenager, not a child and definitely not a snowflake. a man. someone who knows what he wants and will do what's necessary to get it. think eternum: the guy gets punched and goes full korean (aka shuts up and takes it like a champ... multiple times...). you show that to an asian, they'll say it's the right thing to do. you show that to europeans, they'll be split 50-50 (mostly west vs east, pacifists vs cultures that have known nothing but war for over 3k years). show that to muslims, they'll call you insane for even daring such blasphemy (men are not allowed to be portrayed as weak). it's just how it goes. the issue with "what's necessary" is that it's as subjective of a concept as perfection is. that's why you can't properly capture it. you don't have to look like a walking tank to beat the ever living shit out of someone that disrespects you. you don't have to be casanova to woo a woman way out of your league. you don't have to be GI Joe to go scorched earth when someone hurts you or yours. you don't have to be Don Corleone to inspire or impose respect in all around you. all you have to be is a man. not a chad, the terminator or superman. just an actual man. are you going to get your ass handed to you when attempting any fight with more than 2 opponents? YES! is it still expected of you to at least try? most definitely! i think i've spent something like 2 years debating this with my teachers and it has been a topic of discussion with over half of the study participants for my PhD. got a PhD in psychology, human behavioral pattern analysis. the baseline for "being a man" is quite simple to understand. what varies from person to person is where the limit is. how far should they go when their patience/endurance line is crossed? how far or near is that line? if it's too far, they're a punching bag. if it's too near, they're short-tempered. neither of those is viewed in a good light, no matter the culture or civilization. and since where that line and the limit should be is subjective, you'll never get it right. but it will shut a lot of people up if you stick to said baseline. provider (food, money, security, home), fighter, mountain (mentally, not really physically), lover, care-giver. the last term means so many things from a psychological standpoint. taking care of children, caring for your family's needs (food, attention, love, security, etc), caring for the sick or wounded, caring for your wife's needs, caring for the mental well-being and growth of your family (which implies so many things). and those are just to name a few. also, those are things you'll see a man do for his family, actively or passively and very rarely for "outsiders". most men are one way with their wife and children and a completely different way with everyone outside of the family unit. showing all of that in a story is a monumental task. this is the reason for which "pleasing an international crowd" is heavily advised against.
before you say that i'm blowing smoke, i'll give you a very simple, real example. a song of ice and fire (game of thrones, for those that didn't read the books) is a very good story, if you're in the US. pretty much the entire western world and almost all westernized cultures love it. but in eastern europe, it's "meh" at best. seriously, the original sleeping beauty and it's follow-up, the golden haired children, are actually better fantasies. go on the afrikan continent and they'll say something akin to "we have better children's stories". same for most of asia. it's a matter of historical heritage and cultural traditional values.

i guess what i tried to say with that wall of text is this: pick a target audience and stick with it! stop trying to please everybody!

 

[jufot]

What a terrible day to be literate...

 

[TranscendentThots]

I don't get it? It was very easy to write. Did you think the second sentence or the third was hard to write?

The idea that harem tropes are what they are and don't need fixing, just better execution. It's a mature take on a contentious topic, that's all.

I'll have to check that out. Is it the Bulletproof concept?

No, no,

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The Bulletproof concept is just an overly long mansplaination of a sort of hookup-based outline? DiU is just straight-up old writing of mine on CHYOA. (Which is sort of like Wattpad but for bite-sized erotic interactive fiction. The upside of CHOYA is its open-ended format and generous engagement model encourages new writers to create. The downside is it's a website full of easily-encouraged new writers' creations.)

Seriously, I wrote this like seven months ago. How does it look this much worse to me now!? My taste can't have improved that quickly.

 

[Impenitent]

HAHAHA! sorry, couldn't help myself on that one. hell no! what most men want isn't an action hero but a man. not a teenager, not a child and definitely not a snowflake. a man. someone who knows what he wants and will do what's necessary to get it. think eternum: the guy gets punched and goes full korean (aka shuts up and takes it like a champ... multiple times...). you show that to an asian, they'll say it's the right thing to do. you show that to europeans, they'll be split 50-50 (mostly west vs east, pacifists vs cultures that have known nothing but war for over 3k years). show that to muslims, they'll call you insane for even daring such blasphemy (men are not allowed to be portrayed as weak). it's just how it goes. the issue with "what's necessary" is that it's as subjective of a concept as perfection is. that's why you can't properly capture it. you don't have to look like a walking tank to beat the ever living shit out of someone that disrespects you. you don't have to be casanova to woo a woman way out of your league. you don't have to be GI Joe to go scorched earth when someone hurts you or yours. you don't have to be Don Corleone to inspire or impose respect in all around you. all you have to be is a man. not a chad, the terminator or superman. just an actual man. are you going to get your ass handed to you when attempting any fight with more than 2 opponents? YES! is it still expected of you to at least try? most definitely! i think i've spent something like 2 years debating this with my teachers and it has been a topic of discussion with over half of the study participants for my PhD. got a PhD in psychology, human behavioral pattern analysis. the baseline for "being a man" is quite simple to understand. what varies from person to person is where the limit is. how far should they go when their patience/endurance line is crossed? how far or near is that line? if it's too far, they're a punching bag. if it's too near, they're short-tempered. neither of those is viewed in a good light, no matter the culture or civilization. and since where that line and the limit should be is subjective, you'll never get it right. but it will shut a lot of people up if you stick to said baseline. provider (food, money, security, home), fighter, mountain (mentally, not really physically), lover, care-giver. the last term means so many things from a psychological standpoint. taking care of children, caring for your family's needs (food, attention, love, security, etc), caring for the sick or wounded, caring for your wife's needs, caring for the mental well-being and growth of your family (which implies so many things). and those are just to name a few. also, those are things you'll see a man do for his family, actively or passively and very rarely for "outsiders". most men are one way with their wife and children and a completely different way with everyone outside of the family unit. showing all of that in a story is a monumental task. this is the reason for which "pleasing an international crowd" is heavily advised against.
before you say that i'm blowing smoke, i'll give you a very simple, real example. a song of ice and fire (game of thrones, for those that didn't read the books) is a very good story, if you're in the US. pretty much the entire western world and almost all westernized cultures love it. but in eastern europe, it's "meh" at best. seriously, the original sleeping beauty and it's follow-up, the golden haired children, are actually better fantasies. go on the afrikan continent and they'll say something akin to "we have better children's stories". same for most of asia. it's a matter of historical heritage and cultural traditional values.

i guess what i tried to say with that wall of text is this: pick a target audience and stick with it! stop trying to please everybody!

When you argue a point made by another person, you should address that person respectfully. Otherwise you risk trading the credibility of your entire message for the momentary satisfaction derived from communicating your disdain. In this case, I knew from the first line of your response that I wasn't going to take seriously anything that you said.

Further, while your reference to yourself as an expert on an anonymous website is not very persuasive at all, I nonetheless would expect someone with a PhD to use basic capitalization and punctuation rules while providing some level of organization to what is essentially an unreadable wall of text.

Respectfully.