Story or freedom?

[GreenLizy]

In an adult game is more important the story or the freedom of choice in your opinion? I mean, do you mind the setting and how that sex scene has arrived, or you just mind the sex scene with the dialogues, drawings with a little bit of story

 

[Akamari]

Both are very important. I don't care about a sex scene if what leads to it is crap. Story defines why would you get there, freedom of choice gives gameplay and player agency.

 

[hameleona]

Why do you think they are opposites?

 

[RanliLabz]

Both are necessary for a good adult game.

The story is vital. You can get millions of random sex scenes anywhere on the net - drawn, cgi and real - the advantage of an adult game is the setting and framing of that within an immersive experience. However, without choices it's not a game either... there are plenty of adult movies and adult comics around, many with better production values and ease of use.

 

[Darkmetal]

This is an interesting topic. The most common complaint in kinetic novel threads is the lack of choice. At the same time, however, people are often unwilling to pay the price of choice - which is to lose a chunk of content - and will bitch about that endlessly.

"Well my female protag refused to be blackmailed and now I don't get any H-scenes!!! whahwhahwah!!!" Well duh! If you made the choice to resist the blackmail, then you are obviously not going to get any of the blackmail sex scenes. Then there will be demands for a walkthrough (and/or a save with everything unlocked) - if one just want to see stuff and will pick whatever to get it, that's not really a vote for player agency, is it?

People forget that adult game developers aren't Bethsheda or CDprojektRed who can give equal content to a myriad of different directions. Those who tried often see it go completely off the rails and can't finish their game.

One, IMO, very good example of a good balance between tight story and choices that have impact on how events proceed would be Depraved Awakening and the game's rating reflect that, but not everyone can (or should) make that type of game.

I'll abstain from casting a vote. At the end of the day, devs should make the game they want, with the vision of how will it go (be it with many choices or few) already mapped out in their heads and not cater too much to "demands."

 

[polywog]

There are several different types of adult games. Some have stories some don't.

 

[Nottravis]

Both are necessary for a good adult game.

The story is vital. You can get millions of random sex scenes anywhere on the net - drawn, cgi and real - the advantage of an adult game is the setting and framing of that within an immersive experience. However, without choices it's not a game either... there are plenty of adult movies and adult comics around, many with better production values and ease of use.

This. Totes this.

 

[Ataios]

Story if you want to create the best possible game for a small audience. Freedom if you want to create an acceptable game for an audience as large as possible.

When talking about freedom in porn games, we are not talking about GTA or Fallout kind of freedom. In most cases it is the freedom to chose what kind of fetishes you like, e.g. whether you want a romance, a BDSM or a harem path. By giving players many choices, you appeal to a larger audience. Let players chose the MC's gender and the audience almost doubles. Let them chose his or her sexual orientation and it doubles again. Give your audience a larger number of potential partners and it increases tremendously: bustly milfs, model shaped young girls, dominant/submissive partners etc. Of course by offering choices you limit the amount of detail you give to each option, thus limiting your story. With maximum amount of choice you reach the maximum number of people. Many people will like your game, but in most cases it wont be their absolute favorite.

If a have certain story in mind and want to tell that story in detail, you can't offer that much choice, because, after all, you want to tell that story. You will tell that story perfectly, but this of course limits the number of people who will like your game, regardless of objective quality. If you tell a perfect romantic story, you want appeal to people who like harem games. If tell a perfect lesbian story, there wont be many straight women in your audience. If the MC's primary love interest is an anorexic model, people like curvy women wont play your game. No matter how good you are at telling your story. Those who like exactly that kind of content that appears in your story, will love your game.

 

[j4yj4m]

I'd say that really depends on the type of game you want to make and how you see your game. Either as some kind of "porn replacement" or as a "game/novel replacement". There are quite a few good games out there which are very light on the story side but provide great H content without that much context at the command of the user (like for example The Twist, Harem Hotel, Holiday Island, etc.) and in that case freedom of choice is certainly more important.

Generally I'd agree that both are necessary but depending on the concept there are many possibilities. It's more important that the whole concept is really fitting and that everything makes sense. I personally prefer story driven games but I don't mind the other if it's done well.

 

[frap]

Well, it's already been said:

Why do you think they are opposites?

Both are necessary for a good adult game.

The story is vital. You can get millions of random sex scenes anywhere on the net - drawn, cgi and real - the advantage of an adult game is the setting and framing of that within an immersive experience. However, without choices it's not a game either... there are plenty of adult movies and adult comics around, many with better production values and ease of use.

Both are very important. I don't care about a sex scene if what leads to it is crap. Story defines why would you get there, freedom of choice gives gameplay and player agency.

This. Totes this.

My .02 pesos: ¿Por qué no los dos?

Without story, choice is meaningless - unless it's an arcade game and your choice is go left, right, up or down... Without choice it's not really a game. I have nothing against kinetic novels, but they aren't games in the same sense as visual novels with choices. (Not really sure where the split between kinetic novels == no choices and visual novels == choose your own adventure style came from, but whatevs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

 

[anne O'nymous]

Like other implied above, why not both, and both ?

 

[whiskeyrose]

This is going to be probably an unpopular opinion, but I am almost immediately turned off by linear games. Very often I'll take a look at a new game thread and if the walkthrough has something like "choose this for so and so's path, or choose this for other person's path" I wont download the game.

That's just me though.

 

[jamdan]

This is going to be probably an unpopular opinion, but I am almost immediately turned off by linear games. Very often I'll take a look at a new game thread and if the walkthrough has something like "choose this for so and so's path, or choose this for other person's path" I wont download the game.

That's just me though.

Thats not really a linear game though. You made a choice as to what path to take, thats not linear. There might not be many choices/branching on the path when you take it, but you still chose to take it. A lot of games get abandoned because they became too complex, like Shadows over Manston. Most games are a lot more linear than you might think, they have to be so they can be made by solo devs or small teams. Look at Melody for example, it has several paths so the game itself isn't linear but once you are on those paths they dont branch much (if at all). Even bigger games like Being A DIK is pretty linear (so far), you can do everything in 1 playthough probably (as far as not missing content with the girls)

 

[Adabelitoo]

I really don't see why not both, but if I had to pick one I would say story

The reason is that I believe that every dev has a story to tell and I want to hear it. I DON'T want the dev to try to please me or the rest of the audience because even if he tries, 90% of the times won't work anyway. I want to hear what he has to tell and if I like it I will stick to it no matter the genres, and if I don't like it I will look for others devs with others stories.

Before joining F95 I hated bestiality and futa and know I can enjoy it without too much problems (depends on each game of course) so please dev, go ahead and do your thing, I dare you to win me, I want you to win me.

 

[whiskeyrose]

Thats not really a linear game though. You made a choice as to what path to take, thats not linear. There might not be many choices/branching on the path when you take it, but you still chose to take it. A lot of games get abandoned because they became too complex, like Shadows over Manston. Most games are a lot more linear than you might think, they have to be so they can be made by solo devs or small teams. Look at Melody for example, it has several paths so the game itself isn't linear but once you are on those paths they dont branch much (if at all). Even bigger games like Being A DIK is pretty linear (so far), you can do everything in 1 playthough probably (as far as not missing content with the girls)

I think I mean linear in the sense of a traditional Visual Novel. Where the game chugs along and occasionally stops for you to make a (usually binary) choice. Everyone's different, but for me I'm playing lewd games purely for the sex appeal within a game aspect. Writing in games, especially that literature-heavy model, is almost never good.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I think I mean linear in the sense of a traditional Visual Novel. Where the game chugs along and occasionally stops for you to make a (usually binary) choice. Everyone's different, but for me I'm playing lewd games purely for the sex appeal within a game aspect.

Then there's almost no games that please you. Like jamdan implied, almost all games with a story is linear ; even games like Big Brother or The Tyrant, by example, are in fact linear according to your definition. They have multiple "romances" that you can pursue at the same time, but each one is just a straight line to their end, where you can only advance, and where the simple fact to interact with a character make you do a step forward on the story. This despite the feeling of freedom gave by the game mechanism.
As for the games that aren't linear, they don't really have a story telling. A game like Super Powered is none linear, but three years after its start, the story is still limited to the introduction, everything else is just scenes description.
You need to search on the side of games like Sakura Dungeon to find games that aren't linear and still have an effective story. Yet, there's only one story, and it will advance automatically, the player have (almost) no saying in its progression.
In fact, the only game so far that have an effective (good and strong) story, while not being linear according to your definition, is Heavy Five. While the main and side stories advance more or less automatically, there's many points in the game where the decision made by the player will also completely change them, and can potentially even send the player back.

Writing in games, especially that literature-heavy model, is almost never good.

I disagree. There's a lot of bad writers, yes, but there's also really good ones, and some that are simply amazing. And now that people like Philly opened the way, there's, globally, a new game with a promising writing every two month ; for a scene like the adult entertainment one, so a scene where the stories traditionally don't matter, its a high ratio.
This said, it's also partly a mater of taste. But the effectively great writers can't be denied their quality, even when you dislike their way to write the story or the genre they chose.

 

[Oshitari Azumi]

Personally, I love both but I believe too much of either can make a game not as fun for me. Too much story could mean that the game progresses in a linear and obvious fashion, and that can hurt any game whose developer(s) spend time to create the world the players will find themselves in. However, if there's too much freedom then I may see that as the developer tossing it in as a sort of "Explore this world while I make more content". I don't mind that, but what I do mind is there being freedom with little actual work because the developer uses that freedom of exploration as an excuse.

Personally, I love freedom especially in adult games, but I also feel that if both exist in a game, there needs to be a balance between the two along with decent sex scenes in both quantity and quality to accommodate it.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Both are necessary for a good adult game.

The story is vital. You can get millions of random sex scenes anywhere on the net - drawn, cgi and real - the advantage of an adult game is the setting and framing of that within an immersive experience. However, without choices it's not a game either... there are plenty of adult movies and adult comics around, many with better production values and ease of use.

I was going to make an in-depth comment but this summed it up better than I was going to. I'm going to abstain from voting because of this; both are equally important.

 

[vir_cotto]

There is no game without the story. If I want mindless porn, I'll check millions of sites that offer the porn.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

There is no game without the story. If I want mindless porn, I'll check millions of sites that offer the porn.

But at the same time, there is no game without choice, without choice it becomes purely a kinetic novel. You need a story to keep you involved and choices to move it forward.