Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

Forgot to say: Rise of the White Flower has the best curses!

By the Emperor's holy balls!
By Elara's tits!

 

[Jaike]

I always recall a game I found in the old Lagoon forum (sadly I can't remember its title) in which the goal for your MC was to start your typical 3-way relationship with your gym's manager (a married MILF) and a young and spicy masseuse you met there... only to find out that you were actually their victim as they just wanted to steal all the money you just got from an insurance policy, with the alleged cucked husband being the mastermind of the gang. Just after supposedly getting the game's best possible ending, you got badly beaten up and your MC eventually admitted that he should have known better and never engaged in all the absurdly risky things he did to get those women, as that kind of thing never happens in real life.

That could've been The Physio or The Gym.

and thanks for "vittles". It's fascinating and wouldn't have occured to me

Only knew about that because of the Victual Brothers.

Spoiler: info dump

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Speaking of Otome games, it would be great to play a game with a good rendition of a close (non-sexual, non-LI) male-female friendship. There are some decent renditions of straight male-male friendships... although these tend to be of the slightly annoying 'wingman' variety... but strong female-male friendships are a rarity in games.

It so happens that my best friend (other than my wife) is a woman. She is also a crucial professional ally -- without her, her husband, and my wife, I would not be where I am today. This woman... let's call her 'Katie'... joined our company as my opposite number in a different geography, and we established an immediate, deep intellectual sympathy. It's funny, nearly a decade in retrospect, but my wife was initially slightly jealous, until she saw us together and realized that the nature of our relationship was entirely non-sexual... just rooted in deep sympathy and respect. This turned into something like an alliance... she worked for me, then I worked for her... together, we just couldn't fail. We still haven't.

It would be great to read a good depiction of a tight, non-sexual, male-female friendship in one of these games.

That's an interesting perspective and thanks for sharing your story. Certainly can't think of anything that has that. I think I remember a game where a male protagonist had a healthy platonic relationship with an ex and that's it. So non-sexual instead of never sexual. Of course the market for adult games doesn't really support devs who want to make something like that.

I'm curious why you'd compare that to otome though. Many otome aren't very sexy games, but their plots are normally romantic or sexual, even haremlike.

Jaike is demonstrating her intellectual hinterland again... always a pleasant development, despite her excessive modesty about it.

Ha, I'm about as modest as Trump, so not really, but unlike the Donald I like to keep it in check a little and stick to stuff I kinda know.

 

[Raife]

That's an interesting perspective and thanks for sharing your story. Certainly can't think of anything that has that. I think I remember a game where a male protagonist had a healthy platonic relationship with an ex and that's it. So non-sexual instead of never sexual. Of course the market for adult games doesn't really support devs who want to make something like that.

I'm curious why you'd compare that to otome though. Many otome aren't very sexy games, but their plots are normally romantic or sexual, even haremlike.

Sorry, my otome reference was a red herring! I just meant a slightly different perspective from the norm for games of this type, like otome. It was an odd sort of mental connection for me to make, but that's what it stemmed from.

As for depictions of powerful male-female friendships in games... I think that's very unexplored territory, particularly when both characters are heterosexual. For a certain type of man, particularly of a certain age, strong friendships with women can offer a sort of openness and safe emotional harbour that we find it difficult to achieve with other men. Discussing feelings of weakness or inadequacy can be more difficult, for some of us, with men than with women. That's a stupid gendered hangup, of course... but it doesn't make it less real.

That's a long way of saying that entirely platonic, extremely tight friendships between men and women do happen -- and can be rewarding and validating. It would be great to see a MC with a friendship along those lines in an erotic game, with other characters as LIs.

 

[Raife]

Ha, I'm about as modest as Trump, so not really, but unlike the Donald I like to keep it in check a little and stick to stuff I kinda know.

You certainly haven't gone around saying things like, "I have a big brain, the best brain," so I remain unpersuaded of your immodesty, at least of that magnitude.

 

[boobsrcool]

Detective Necro new update
seems to be moving more into story first category

 

[Tlaero]

As for depictions of powerful male-female friendships in games... I think that's very unexplored territory, particularly when both characters are heterosexual. For a certain type of man, particularly of a certain age, strong friendships with women can offer a sort of openness and safe emotional harbour that we find it difficult to achieve with other men. Discussing feelings of weakness or inadequacy can be more difficult, for some of us, with men than with women. That's a stupid gendered hangup, of course... but it doesn't make it less real.

That's a long way of saying that entirely platonic, extremely tight friendships between men and women do happen -- and can be rewarding and validating. It would be great to see a MC with a friendship along those lines in an erotic game, with other characters as LIs.

I think that if I hadn't melted down in the middle of Darkness Falls, I would have gotten there with Blake and Won. It was certainly the direction I was heading.

Tlaero

 

[desmosome]

That's an interesting perspective and thanks for sharing your story. Certainly can't think of anything that has that. I think I remember a game where a male protagonist had a healthy platonic relationship with an ex and that's it. So non-sexual instead of never sexual. Of course the market for adult games doesn't really support devs who want to make something like that.

When even female family members need to be banged, a non-related member of the female sex would never escape the porny attraction.

 

[Raife]

When even female family members need to be banged, a non-related member of the female sex would never escape the porny attraction.

It's funny and sad, but true. One poor dev wrote a game with an entirely platonic, strong relationship between a male MC and his (much younger) sister... and got bombarded with shitposts on this hellsite about how awful he was for 'denying the MC' an opportunity to 'bang his sister.' Sigh.

 

[bacienvu88]

It's funny and sad, but true. One poor dev wrote a game with an entirely platonic, strong relationship between a male MC and his (much younger) sister... and got bombarded with shitposts on this hellsite about how awful he was for 'denying the MC' an opportunity to 'bang his sister.' Sigh.

Become a Rock Star has the same problem with people demanding MC should 'bang his sister'.

 

[Raife]

Become a Rock Star has the same problem with people demanding MC should 'bang his sister'.

It is way too porny for jufot's list, but I find that game curious. It bored me, despite having many elements that I found appealing, such as realistic LI interactions (when they found out about each other, for example, they dumped the MC).

The main problem is the story. The stakes involved usually felt very, very low. Yeah, the MC was going a bit off piste professionally and trying to start a band, but his father and sister are super rich.

If the MC fails, there is a feather bed waiting for him. He was hardly a working class Paul McCartney scraping by in late-1950s Liverpool, or Kurt Cobain living by a thread in the depressed logging town of Aberdeen, WA... he's more like an even richer, more annoying Marcus Mumford.

 

[Hildegardt]

It is way too porny for jufot's list, but I find that game curious. It bored me, despite having many elements that I found appealing, such as realistic LI interactions (when they found out about each other, for example, they dumped the MC).

The main problem is the story. The stakes involved usually felt very, very low. Yeah, the MC was going a bit off piste professionally and trying to start a band, but his father and sister are super rich.

If the MC fails, there is a feather bed waiting for him. He was hardly a working class Paul McCartney scraping by in late-1950s Liverpool, or Kurt Cobain living by a thread in the depressed logging town of Aberdeen, WA... he's more like an even richer, more annoying Marcus Mumford.

It seems like the general AVN audience hates stakes. I just saw the perfect example in the latest updates tab:

Our mc is strong and he will keep getting stronger, while the story progress.
While the story continues further, he is increasing his harem.

Why even bother having a story with a synopsis like this? But people seem to eat this stuff up, even if they claim to prefer AVNs to regular porn and sandbox scene viewers, because they supposedly want a story. The weirdest thing about it is that people seem to get genuinely upset, whenever the stakes are stacked against the protagonist. Almost every first release has at least a few people demanding that the dev changes the whole premise of the game, because the protag didn't immediately abuse, kill or otherwise non-sexually dominate every single character.
In general it seems like the "male domination" tag isn't really for the kink, but rather for signaling safe spaces for self-inserters. If f95zone was serving its very own pumpkin spice latte, the recipe would be "harem, incest, male domination, male protagonist". The "dating sim" tag is basically useless at this point, because people complain about forced content no matter if the game is tagged or not (as if anyone got ever forced to pirate a game).

I was playing the new Occultus: DoD update (you can find it in the thread, looks like it didn't make it to the updates tab, yet) and one thing that came to my mind is that fem protag and especially lesbian games seem to do things that male protag games would never dare to do. I'm talking about things like the protag being put into unfavourable positions, having actual obstacles to overcome, LIs getting killed and showing actual struggles that aren't simply solved by the virtue of traditional gender roles.
The latest Occultus update is the perfect example. The last update ended on a cliffhanger, where the PC got attacked by a vampire. I feel like if this was a male protag game the outcome would have been predictable: I guess I'm now gonna use my new vampire powers to exact kinky revenge on everyone! But nope, you're a ghoul, let's see how you deal with that.
Of course there are also games, where putting the fem protag into unfavourable positions is just a porny trope to bypass consent. But for the games with an actual story, the fem protag tag seems to get rid of all the self-inserter related baggage that can be very restricting.
I don't understand why anyone that wants to write a story bothers with the harem tag anymore for example. It just seems to invite toxic demands.

 

[noping123]

because people complain about forced content no matter if the game is tagged or not (as if anyone got ever forced to pirate a game).

Oh man. The amount of "forced content" complaints I got on my first release... hoo boy. I eventually acquiesced on 50% of it (there were 2 instances), but the other half I remained steadfast.... I'm glad I did tbh. (And all it was, was a single sex scene with a mostly disposable character!). And my game is most definitely NOT even close to harem. (In fact, if you try to play harem? You straight up get murdered. Game over, try again!)

It's so odd. People insist on being able to fuck literally everything that moves in the game, but simultaneously demand they be the ONLY one do to so, WHILE demanding that they always be given a choice whether or not to do so.... it's fucking weird is what it is.

 

[jamdan]

It's so odd. People insist on being able to fuck literally everything that moves in the game, but simultaneously demand they be the ONLY one do to so, WHILE demanding that they always be given a choice whether or not to do so.... it's fucking weird is what it is.

People want games that revolve around the MC (aka themselves, since they're mostly self-insert types). Specifically male MC's, not so much female MC's. So they want to have their choosing of LI's, and even if they don't pick an LI, that LI still isn't allowed to do anything without MC. Because if she does, the game no longer revolves around the MC.

Some people take this to the level where even the girls in MC's harem aren't allowed to do things with each other. With him and definitely not without him.

 

[bacienvu88]

It seems like the general AVN audience hates stakes. I just saw the perfect example in the latest updates tab:

Why even bother having a story with a synopsis like this? But people seem to eat this stuff up, even if they claim to prefer AVNs to regular porn and sandbox scene viewers, because they supposedly want a story. The weirdest thing about it is that people seem to get genuinely upset, whenever the stakes are stacked against the protagonist. Almost every first release has at least a few people demanding that the dev changes the whole premise of the game, because the protag didn't immediately abuse, kill or otherwise non-sexually dominate every single character.
In general it seems like the "male domination" tag isn't really for the kink, but rather for signaling safe spaces for self-inserters. If f95zone was serving its very own pumpkin spice latte, the recipe would be "harem, incest, male domination, male protagonist". The "dating sim" tag is basically useless at this point, because people complain about forced content no matter if the game is tagged or not (as if anyone got ever forced to pirate a game).

I was playing the new Occultus: DoD update (you can find it in the thread, looks like it didn't make it to the updates tab, yet) and one thing that came to my mind is that fem protag and especially lesbian games seem to do things that male protag games would never dare to do. I'm talking about things like the protag being put into unfavourable positions, having actual obstacles to overcome, LIs getting killed and showing actual struggles that aren't simply solved by the virtue of traditional gender roles.
The latest Occultus update is the perfect example. The last update ended on a cliffhanger, where the PC got attacked by a vampire. I feel like if this was a male protag game the outcome would have been predictable: I guess I'm now gonna use my new vampire powers to exact kinky revenge on everyone! But nope, you're a ghoul, let's see how you deal with that.
Of course there are also games, where putting the fem protag into unfavourable positions is just a porny trope to bypass consent. But for the games with an actual story, the fem protag tag seems to get rid of all the self-inserter related baggage that can be very restricting.
I don't understand why anyone that wants to write a story bothers with the harem tag anymore for example. It just seems to invite toxic demands.

Fem protag games aren't immune to that sort of stuff either. See Zia where lot of people are angry because FMC went on a date with a male character (who admittedly is an idiot).

 

[bacienvu88]

Some people take this to the level where even the girls in MC's harem aren't allowed to do things with each other. With him and definitely not without him.

I remember seeing a long time ago where someone complained that an LI masturbated when the MC wasn't around.

 

[realjitter]

I wonder why no game hasn't introduced chastity belts for women yet. It would fit perfectly into harem games . It would also help out with male dom tag. I'm pretty sure people would dig it. With the MC being the keyholder for like 15-30(0) women. The girls having to beg the MC to unlock them... Of course they'd have to do a "good deed" first before the MC considers to unlock them..

 

[Raife]

But for the games with an actual story, the fem protag tag seems to get rid of all the self-inserter related baggage that can be very restricting.

Good point, I've noticed that as well. If you nudge the self-inserting (and usually male incel) crowd away from your game (via a female MC, or even a non-macho fantasy male MC like Edward in _Corporate Culture_) it seems to give the dev more freedom to pursue a meaningful story.

The trouble, as we all recognize, is that the audience for these games seems is disproportionately young, disproportionately male, and disproportionately self-inserting incels, who live in Mom's basement and eat pizza for breakfast. So a dev who goes that route will please the denizens of this thread, and please themselves -- but will leave a lot of potential money on the table.

It _might_ be possible to thread the needle: for example, Impious Monk's game has a male MC who mostly acts like a normal, well-adjusted male... rather than a horny teenager's idea of a man. But Impious is probably _still_ putting some self-inserters off.

 

[Raife]

Oh man. The amount of "forced content" complaints I got on my first release... hoo boy.

I remember that shitstorm well: it was hyperbolic, crazy and annoying to watch... and probably felt far worse from the inside. You were extremely polite -- more polite that I would have been able to manage.

How many of your actual Patrons do you think shared that view -- as opposed to the loud, aggressive, cheap sponger crowd on F95?

 

[noping123]

I remember that shitstorm well: it was hyperbolic, crazy and annoying to watch... and probably felt far worse from the inside. You were extremely polite -- more polite that I would have been able to manage.

How many of your actual Patrons do you think shared that view -- as opposed to the loud, aggressive, cheap sponger crowd on F95?

Probably none? The only real comments I've gotten from ANY patrons ever was regarding minigames. While I enjoy them, I totally understood some people not, and specifically added an opt out for those people (as well as banged my head against a wall a bit figuring out how to many everything work with them disabled.... but I'm not bitter at all!) That was the one major concession I made, but I didn't actually mind making it too much.

As far as polite goes... eh, idk. I try. I don't always succeed, but I do try!

 

[realjitter]

minigames.

Do they even do anything in the game?. I always picked the stamina one because it's the fastest Same for the beach volleyball. Seems like you can't lose no matter how hard you try.