Recommending Story-first games

[jufot]

The list is just Jufot's. He puts his conditions and evaluate games according to what he considers best. We don't neccesarily agree with some of his constraints and that's why we keep bringing up games like the ones you mention, that maybe will never make it to the list but we find interesting enough in terms of story. So if you think they have a somewhat deep story and focus on those story elements on top of the porny aspects, we trust you on that. Surely other regulars will feel interested enough to try them out even if they don't quality to be listed in the OP,

Exactly. This thread is more than a year old and there are so many games that have been recommended that just don't appeal to my tastes, so they don't go on the list. That doesn't mean they are not good, or that they don't have a good story. If you feel like a game is "story-first" even though it doesn't fit my criteria, you should feel free to share it. It's why the thread itself is a lot more valuable than the OP

 

[realjitter]

shota/loli .... Would be pretty swell if those kind of games don't make the list here . Those kind of games, even if they can make you laugh/cry/whatever, are still biggest piles of shit.

 

[TranscendentThots]

(that's about 7 days of 24/7 rendering for those keeping track at home)

Just rent uptime on a render-farm. Or... is that why you have no ping?

 

[TranscendentThots]

shota/loli .... Would be pretty swell if those kind of games don't make the list here . Those kind of games, even if they can make you laugh/cry/whatever, are still biggest piles of shit.

Pretty sure those are against the site rules.

 

[Hildegardt]

The premise, preview pics, and shota/loli might turn off most people here, but if you give it a chance, it might actually make you think about your own life.

shota/loli .... Would be pretty swell if those kind of games don't make the list here . Those kind of games, even if they can make you laugh/cry/whatever, are still biggest piles of shit.

TBH loli/shota games, where the story is actually good/immersive/etc. shouldn't ever be and probably couldn't ever be fap material. It's similar to the incest discussion we had some time ago, where some of us concluded that fetishized incest fulfills a fundamentally different role to incest as a pure plot device.
The only thing creepier than a loli/shota game, is a loli/shota game you're supposed to play with a raised pinky.

I think the game "Desert Stalker" perfectly encapsulates our discussions over the last weeks/months. An incest harem game that tries really hard, by putting some lore behind the kinks (similarly to the actual historical harems mentioned ITT) and by referencing oldschool RPG stories and mechanics.
It tries so hard to build a gritty, dystopian, post-apocalyptic world with grey morals and shock value. But every time anything bad happens, it's just so obviously somebody's fetish. Every story heavy section is just smoke and mirror, because every single plot point only establishes the PC as the undisputed Gigachad more and more and every tough choice is only tough in the sense that you wouldn't openly talk about fapping to the outcome.
From the very first scene it was clear that the PC has the thickest chad-armor, which gets extended to every single MC really. Unnamed characters can get gruesomely gored and/or raped, though. It's pure self-indulgence.

 

[TranscendentThots]

I think what's missing the most in AVNs are characters who just aren't interested in the MC for whatever reason and never will be.

I think what's missing in First-Person Shooters are fully fleshed-out buildings the player can enter, where there aren't any enemy combatants.

Surely, women exist in these settings that aren't attracted to the MC. But the game doesn't focus on them. They fade into the background with all the nameless, faceless NPCs that never appear on-screen and have, at most, one or two lines of dialogue while a generic crowd of people bustles past. Because why on Earth would a developer spend a lot of time and effort designing a character, from aesthetics to motivations to backstory to dialogue and choices, whose only purpose is to blandly avert the core expectations of the genre?

Actually... It would kinda work in an NTR game. It would probably land pretty hard, actually. Hell, make that the twist! You jump through all these hoops for these LIs all throughout the whole game, and you never get any of them!

But outside of that context, when I really put my Developer Hat all the way on, it's like you're asking me for dead air.

Realism in video games is generally only beneficial when it serves the design goals of the game.

Sorry. I'm not trying to be offensive, just pithy. It suddenly clicked in my brain why this is a bad idea, and I've discovered that my feelings about it are actually stronger than I expected.

Anyway, if Milfy City released its final update tomorrow, and it capped off all the unfinished routes with "sorry I was just being polite I'm not that into you," I suspect you'd find it funny, but not especially well-written. Clearly execution matters to you. And devs like me surely can't deliver on that if we can't even figure out what it brings to the table in the first place.

I suppose the takeaway is, thank goodness devs like Mortze exist. Not all of us can do what Mortze does.

 

[desmosome]

TBH loli/shota games, where the story is actually good/immersive/etc. shouldn't ever be and probably couldn't ever be fap material. It's similar to the incest discussion we had some time ago, where some of us concluded that fetishized incest fulfills a fundamentally different role to incest as a pure plot device.
The only thing creepier than a loli/shota game, is a loli/shota game you're supposed to play with a raised pinky.

I think the game "Desert Stalker" perfectly encapsulates our discussions over the last weeks/months. An incest harem game that tries really hard, by putting some lore behind the kinks (similarly to the actual historical harems mentioned ITT) and by referencing oldschool RPG stories and mechanics.
It tries so hard to build a gritty, dystopian, post-apocalyptic world with grey morals and shock value. But every time anything bad happens, it's just so obviously somebody's fetish. Every story heavy section is just smoke and mirror, because every single plot point only establishes the PC as the undisputed Gigachad more and more and every tough choice is only tough in the sense that you wouldn't openly talk about fapping to the outcome.
From the very first scene it was clear that the PC has the thickest chad-armor, which gets extended to every single MC really. Unnamed characters can get gruesomely gored and/or raped, though. It's pure self-indulgence.

I get what your saying. Doubly so for loli because it's almost invariably written with a certain slant. Shota can vary on the intent but obviously still has the fundamental issue that adults can somehow get seduced by a child.

Spoiler: Twisted Memories

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About Desert Stalker real quick. It's a great story... that is 100% power fantasy. I don't think there was any doubt about that.

 

[EndlessNights]

Where the Heart Is forces you to play a gigolo, even if you don't want that initially. Because the story is wired in such a way that gameplay becomes boring when you are faithful and true to one love interest. I found that this is a very uncomfortable form of railroading and I found the drama surrounding the inheritance artificial as a result. Is it really good storytelling when you fall victim to a golddigger because it's the only way to be entertained? I'd argue a successful golddigger character has to catch you off guard, that's the nature of it.

I didn't feel that way personally. I get the boring criticism because WTHI has filler scenes where not a lot is going on, but it didn't get to the point where I thought the MC needed to cheat in order to spice things up. My understanding is there are or at least can be negative consequences for cheating/sleeping around. If the game truly wanted to railroad cheating, why have any consequences at all?

I actually preferred to view Monica, Katie, Jenna, Elaine, and Bella as basically family rather than LIs to be pursued. There are no blood relationships involved or implied, but that's the dynamic that made the most sense to me apart from Bella tending to come on rather strongly at times (hrm, that could be suspicious). OK, Katie does as well. So Elaine and Bella didn't really fit the classic gold digger archetype in my playthrough -- they were more like family members potentially scheming and maneuvering to steal the family fortune -- but if you're romancing them they might seem more that way. I found the storyline compelling because of the conflict between the MC's memories of how he was treated growing up and the competing versions of reality provided by Elaine and Bella.

I'd like to bring ename144 into this if he's around because he knows WTHI backwards and forwards, way better than I do with my single playthrough. At the end of the day, is the MC just a gigolo or is there some substance to my robust riposte?

 

[kotte]

Because why on Earth would a developer spend a lot of time and effort designing a character, from aesthetics to motivations to backstory to dialogue and choices, whose only purpose is to blandly avert the core expectations of the genre?
...
Hell, make that the twist! You jump through all these hoops for these LIs all throughout the whole game, and you never get any of them!

This reminds me of a submarine hunt game that a friend built, way back when we were both working in the defence industry.
He insisted on making it realistic, which meant that you could actually play the game for hours and hours without finding a sub, because, quite realistically, most of the time there were no submarine there...

Needless to say, that game didn't make him rich.

 

[EndlessNights]

Surely, women exist in these settings that aren't attracted to the MC. But the game doesn't focus on them. They fade into the background with all the nameless, faceless NPCs that never appear on-screen and have, at most, one or two lines of dialogue while a generic crowd of people bustles past. Because why on Earth would a developer spend a lot of time and effort designing a character, from aesthetics to motivations to backstory to dialogue and choices, whose only purpose is to blandly avert the core expectations of the genre?

I think it depends on what you want from a VN. I'm interested in stories that cover every facet of the human experience, not just romance and sex. I'm interested in what happens when there isn't a spark and when characters don't connect. I want to see the dynamics of friendship, rivalry, and enmity explored in addition to love.

The comparison to a shooter with a lot of buildings without enemies is interesting. The thing is a shooter with a lot of empty buildings isn't just a shooter any more...it's an exploration game as well, and it could be interesting in its own right. What's going on with all these buildings and is there anything to be found in them? You'd end up with something more like Myst than Doom.

 

[jufot]

Surely, women exist in these settings that aren't attracted to the MC. But the game doesn't focus on them. They fade into the background with all the nameless, faceless NPCs that never appear on-screen and have, at most, one or two lines of dialogue while a generic crowd of people bustles past. Because why on Earth would a developer spend a lot of time and effort designing a character, from aesthetics to motivations to backstory to dialogue and choices, whose only purpose is to blandly avert the core expectations of the genre?

I couldn't disagree more. Because I'm not the MC. I'm the player who gets to experience everything the game has to offer, whether MC is involved in it or not. There is beauty in that, and it's why insisting on self-inserts one can live vicariously through is a very limiting constraint to put on VNs. I'm not saying you should develop all of your NPCs to the level of detail as your LIs, but just because a character isn't attracted to the MC doesn't mean they can't be vital to a story.

 

[desmosome]

I think it depends on what you want from a VN. I'm interested in stories that cover every facet of the human experience, not just romance and sex. I'm interested in what happens when there isn't a spark and when characters don't connect. I want to see the dynamics of friendship, rivalry, and enmity explored in addition to love.

The comparison to a shooter with a lot of buildings without enemies is interesting. The thing is a shooter with a lot of empty buildings isn't just a shooter any more...it's an exploration game as well, and it could be interesting in its own right. What's going on with all these buildings and is there anything to be found in them? You'd end up with something more like Myst than Doom.

Yup, you don't actually need all females to be a romantic interest. It's definitely swimming against the current, but grounded stories that are not driven by tags is already fighting an uphill battle.

Just to contextualize this notion, let's use Corporate Culture. Although it's very likely that Elsa will be romanceable at some point, she could just as easily remain a friend and mentor in the story (and that would probably be a route in any case). Her impact on the story wouldn't be any less, and she would remain the stand out character for a lot of people.

Another example would be Vincent from Mad World. I mean, yea... he's a dude, but he pretty much steals the show in every scene. AVNs don't have to be constantly setting up the porn payoff. And those are precisely the ones that would fit the story-first moniker.

 

[Jaike]

About loli and shota, I think the last few mentions implied a story of an adult getting with and, let's be blunt, fucking someone under 16, and that's clear noncey territory. But what do you feel about two teens under 18 with an age difference of 3 or 4 years? That could also get that tag. In theory an adult woman dressing like a loli could maybe get the loli tag too, not sure how an adult man should dress to qualify as a shota though.

 

[jufot]

Another example would be Vincent from Mad World.

Mad World is a good example. It has a sex scene involving an LI and a non-MC dude and it fits perfectly, given MC's choices and the state of the story at that point.

But what do you feel about two teens under 18 with an age difference of 3 or 4 years?

I think that's the age range where each year counts a lot so it depends on the exact numbers. 15 and 18? Sure, happens all the time. 16 and 12? Too creepy for comfort.

 

[Raife]

Oh no... the _big_ thing I missed while on walkabout is that _Price of Power_ is headed in a harem-y direction !

Terrible! I'll keep playing it for the creative storytelling, but I'm going on strike if my joke several months ago that the MC might claim that he needs to 'sleep with many other women to save humanity from the plague' turns into a plot point.

Is it too much to hope that the harem device creates realistic tension and pain for Maria, if the MC moves in that direction? I'll answer my own question: it probably is.

 

[jufot]

Oh no... the _big_ thing I missed while on walkabout is that _Price of Power_ [...]

Indeed. I'm worried PoP's days among my favourites are numbered :/

 

[noping123]

Oh no... the _big_ thing I missed while on walkabout is that _Price of Power_ is headed in a harem-y direction !

Terrible! I'll keep playing it for the creative storytelling, but I'm going on strike if my joke several months ago that the MC might claim that he needs to 'sleep with many other women to save humanity from the plague' turns into a plot point.

Is it too much to hope that the harem device creates realistic tension and pain for Maria, if the MC moves in that direction? I'll answer my own question: it probably is.

So what you're saying is you have the power to curse games by making idle jokes....


Anyone have any suggestions for targets?

 

[bacienvu88]

Oh no... the _big_ thing I missed while on walkabout is that _Price of Power_ is headed in a harem-y direction !

Terrible! I'll keep playing it for the creative storytelling, but I'm going on strike if my joke several months ago that the MC might claim that he needs to 'sleep with many other women to save humanity from the plague' turns into a plot point.

Is it too much to hope that the harem device creates realistic tension and pain for Maria, if the MC moves in that direction? I'll answer my own question: it probably is.

Spoiler

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[bacienvu88]

Another example would be Vincent from Mad World. I mean, yea... he's a dude, but he pretty much steals the show in every scene.

There is one scene where Vincent most definitely do not steal the show. The one where his magic fails and he falls unconsious and Fiona has to rescue him

 

[jufot]

Alpha Omega's new chapter is

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See previous discussion starting here.