VN Survey POLL : What is it that you look for in a VN? Let's make the perfect VN.

[AcroLust]

I'm just crowd sourcing right now, let's make the perfect vn. What is it that you look for in a VN?

Are you more into the story line like Free Loading Family?
Or are you more in the player interaction type (missions, quests, puzzles) or grindy type VNs like Treasure of Nadia?

Does open world / room exploration and UI interaction impact your view on the game?
What is your preferred engine type and why? (renpy?)

So basically what is it that drives you to play an actual game and love it.

 

[sexypeanut]

What I look in a VN: horny fun!

I rather have some player agency (interaction and decision-making) than simply click to proceed with the story. After all, I'm here to play a porn GAME, not just porn with some game-y features. VNs are pretty story-driven, so having a good story is, for me, an important asset - this includes interesting characters and developments.
Absolutely despise grinding. I've grown out of MMOs and daily missions or having to collect/kill X of something are stupid. I love to advance in a game by completing well-made quests
UI interaction is important. A custom but user-friendly UI helps a lot with immersion and gameplay-bility. Music is also important!

Ren'Py is perfect for VNs: it's lightweight and direct to the point. Unity also works, but I guess it's harder to code.

 

[Mando Logica]

I would say that it depends on the mood of the player. Sometimes, player wants a quick and interesting game to play with, other time the player would like to play a game has depth in its storyline.

Personally, I prefer depth in storyline, but I have to admit that at some time, I want to play a nice interesting game without concering much about the story. So storyline, puzzle, open world...etc all depend on what you need right now to make your mood better. We are playing games to enjoy our time, right?

Talking about game engines, each serves kind of games. I enjoy RPGM if i would like to play open world and explore it, the simulation of a figure moving gives the impression that I am the one who is moving there. I enjoy Renpy when I care more about storyline.

 

[Draxo]

For me, I'd say my tastes align with some of the more popular games here. Most of them have very good visuals, coupled with good storylines and rewarding sex scenes.

A few that come to mind are AOA academy, baDIK, Dreams of Desire, Primal Instinct (though its been abandoned), City of Broken Dreamers, Acting Lessons (baDIK's predecessor). CollegeKings looks promising and SpaceCorps has an amazing storyline and humor factor. Deliverance has both a good storyline as well as pretty top tier renders. Some other mid tier games are SisterlyLust and WhereTheHeartIs.

A few big no's for me would be sandbox games, as well as puzzles. Minigames and stuff are fine as long as theyre not too much of a hassle, though that can be pretty subjective. For reference I can get by Ataegina's combat system, and LongLiveThePrincess has a pretty interactive puzzle mechanic that meshes very well with the storyline.

For game engines, i mostly only like Ren'Py just for how fast and responsive it is, as well as how light it feels to run on my laptop. Some unity games lag slightly and just feel clunky overall. For me RPGM takes away the "story" aspect too, as it feels like im just walking around finding cutscenes and stuff. I guess that can be said for sandbox games in general but RPGM even more so. But im sure theres a market for other engines if there are developers still using them.

In terms of kinks and stuff i'd say the vast majority of people either like harem games, or games with 1 specific love interest. But again, im sure there's a market for any type of kink.

Hope that somewhat helps!

 

[SomeGuyWithNoImagination]

Personally, I don't play VNs to get off. I play for the story and characters, and what makes a great game to me are the story, world building, characters, and writing/pacing.

I'm also pretty put off when I see a game is open-world since I often find that they are quite weak in one or more of the above. Furthermore, I just hate when I come back to a game and have literally no idea what to do to progress the story. Of open-world games that I really do like, I often think that they'll probably play just as well, or better, if they were rewritten to have a more "on rails" story.

When it comes to missions, quests, puzzles, etc, I'm fine with simple things that either skippable, don't get in the way of the story, or are legitimately fun, but get very annoyed if I feel that they're getting in the way of progression for little or no reason.

When it comes to engine, RenPy is my top pick. It's purpose built for VNs, is quite light, is easy to write for (especially for beginners), and has nearly universal compatibility, running basically anywhere on anything.

Now here's what I like in a game.

• Engaging Storyline: I love getting so engaged into a storyline that I forget time and play for several hours without a second thought.
• Character Depth: I find that to truly have the above, you need to have great characters, and a great character is one that the player can get attached to. One of my favorite methods for this is by giving the character a history behind why they act the way they do. Of course they don't have to spill their guts within the first five minutes of first meeting them, but you should learn more about them as you build a relationship with them. Great examples of this are Bella from Summer's Gone and Luna from The Deluca Family.
• "Busy" Renders: One thing I really have a soft spot for are renders that feel real. Seeing real plants rather that just a flat dirt or grass texture, background characters, and a messy room, desk, etc, really add to a render even though it often comes at the expense of render time.

 

[Adabelitoo]

I don't look for anything when I pick a game. The first filter I have when I see a game is the cover in Latest Update, if that doesn't call my attention then it's game over. Then I check the overview and the previews, I don't mind if it's a fuck fest or has almost no sexual content, if it's a drama or an absurd game, as long as everything "works" together, I'm in to try it.

Then I don't look for anything inside the game, I just want the dev to buy me as a player with whatever he wants and has to offer. I hate when devs try hard to please the players because usually players don't even know what they want. Just do your game the way you want it and let me decide if I want to play it or not, that's the thing I look for.

 

[Trapitalism101]

Memorable characters. It doesn't matter if you have 100 girls in a harem if they aren't people.

 

[rk-47]

wouldnt really be a vn is there were tons of challenges, puzzles and side activities that would be more of a sandbox
so excluding that i would say h scenes

 

[Adabelitoo]

wouldnt really be a vn is there were tons of challenges, puzzles and side activities that would be more of a sandbox
so excluding that i would say h scenes

Having puzzles/games doesn't make a game less VN. Play MilfyCummy. It's short but it's a good example for that.

 

[rk-47]

Having puzzles/games doesn't make a game less VN. Play MilfyCummy. It's short but it's a good example for that.

Usually VNs are just that, novels that are in visual form with characters and their dialogue, all in a completely linear fashion
sure you can have minigames and such but it would have to be presented in a way that doesnt break linearity like BADiK where mc can play games o his phone which can improves skills for tests during the story. Also you cant go from girl to girl at any time which non linear sandbox games allow you to do

 

[hakarlman]

If I had to vote based on the current poll. I'd go with C first and foremost. It's a porn game, there has to be TONS of porn in it. If there's no porn in it, no one will give a shit about the story line. The first thing a lot of players do is go looking through the images folder of your game, if they see barely any porn in it, they will delete your game without even trying it. I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I'll literally go through the images folder, and if I don't see enough porn, DELETE DELETE DELETE, don't waste my time with all that fucking text from a pointless story line that doesn't lead to actual porn. However, here's the counter argument to my argument: A WIFE AND MOTHER ... People actually pay that guy to make renders of people watching a non-porn movie in a movie theater, LOL WTF, and there's NOTHIGN sexual going on.

Here's how I'd change the poll, since I find it problematic:

Story Line
a) Story Line - Long, drawn out, highly detailed and descriptive; novel
b) Story Line - Basic, lightly detailed, yet effective
Challenges, missions, puzzles
c) Puzzles
d) Puzzles that are sexual in nature
e) Missions/Objectives
f) Missions/Objectives that are sexual in nature
g) Challenges
h) Challenges that are sexual in nature with sexual stuff as reward
i) Instead of (a), go with (b), then with time saved, create large quantities of Hentai Scenes
j) Don't create 28 different fucking renders of a character looking at a flower pot from different angles if there is nothing sexual going on. Don't create a render of the character PLAYING a guitar unless they're in the fucking nude and a dildo is in their ass, and their face is covered in cum. Don't make renders of a guy mowing his lawn while there is NOTHING sexual going on in the scene, WHY? WHY would anyone do that for a porn game?
Meh, just the naked part

Then make it multiple choice.

I'd pick: (B) - (F) - (H) - (I) - (J)

 

[StapleComm]

If I had to vote based on the current poll. I'd go with C first and foremost. It's a porn game, there has to be TONS of porn in it. If there's no porn in it, no one will give a shit about the story line. The first thing a lot of players do is go looking through the images folder of your game, if they see barely any porn in it, they will delete your game without even trying it. I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I'll literally go through the images folder, and if I don't see enough porn, DELETE DELETE DELETE, don't waste my time with all that fucking text from a pointless story line that doesn't lead to actual porn. However, here's the counter argument to my argument: A WIFE AND MOTHER ... People actually pay that guy to make renders of people watching a non-porn movie in a movie theater, LOL WTF, and there's NOTHIGN sexual going on.

Point taken, but... look at the name of the poll. VNs. Not all VNs are about porn, so your rant is a bit misplaced.

 

[StapleComm]

For me one of the most important things are characters. And by that I also mean main character. Seriously, in most VNs main character is either a fucking doormat or some sort of cool guy that acts like he's hot shit and constantly thinks about fucking every cute girl he knows. So it's always one of the two extremes

 

[hakarlman]

Point taken, but... look at the name of the poll. VNs. Not all VNs are about porn, so your rant is a bit misplaced.

Wrong. This is a website for sharing porn games.

 

[StapleComm]

Wrong. This is a website for sharing porn games.

We are not talking about the website, we are talking about the poll itself. It doesn't say anything about the game being a porn game

 

[hakarlman]

We are not talking about the website, we are talking about the poll itself. It doesn't say anything about the game being a porn game

I'm not trying to be a contrarian or anything, but let's read the poll maker's original post. He's literally citing porn games as examples.

Are you more into the story line like Free Loading Family?

He's citing a porn game as an example.

Or are you more in the player interaction type (missions, quests, puzzles) or grindy type VNs like Treasure of Nadia?

He cites another porn game as an example.

Hehe, I'm not normally not this meticulous, but I was taking a break from a meticulous activity. This was a fun distraction.

 

[StapleComm]

I'm not trying to be a contrarian or anything, but let's read the poll maker's original post. He's literally citing porn games as examples.



He's citing a porn game as an example.



He cites another porn game as an example.

Hehe, I'm not normally not this meticulous, but I was taking a break from a meticulous activity. This was a fun distraction.

You do you, bud

 

[Trapitalism101]

You do you, bud

I agree with your general line of thinking the past few points. A really good visual novel should first and foremost be well written. Porn or no, well developed characters we care about become more meaningful to be invested in then just a literary set of holes to nut in. I have stopped reading H novels that have a poorly made story ad great visuals, but have kept up with ones that have alright visuals but well done writing.

 

[StapleComm]

I agree with your general line of thinking the past few points. A really good visual novel should first and foremost be well written. Porn or no, well developed characters we care about become more meaningful to be invested in then just a literary set of holes to nut in. I have stopped reading H novels that have a poorly made story ad great visuals, but have kept up with ones that have alright visuals but well done writing.

Thank you.
And yeah, VNs should have good writing. I think it doesn't even matter if it's mostly just porn, because if you can't read it because it's badly written, and you just skip to view scenes, then what's the point of it being the game. At this point it could just be a CG collection, that's being sold on dlsite sometimes.

 

[Carrera]

My biggest pet peeve with VNs is walls of text. I DO NOT MIND READING, what I do mind is huge walls of text all at once. Give me a paragraph, then clear it and give me another. Luckily this isn't a real big deal but the ones that do this make me want to punch my monitor. And I have a touch screen so you can see where this is going.

I like stories, I honestly don't care if it's well written or not. As long as the author tries, and it's easy to tell when the author tries cause you can see it in the depth of the story.
Grammar isn't even a big deal cause I know not everyone speaks the same languages and not everyone is a fucking english major in college. Personally I like reading stories where the people talk like they would in real life, and while the grammar nazis will be quick to point out proper grammar I'd bet a years salary they talk like backwoods cousin fuckers in real life.

What I dislike is when people shoehorn porn into a game. If you think you need porn to make your game better then your game is shit, period. Like AAA game devs that add in multiplayer after the fact, or pvp. All they're doing is making the game worse and trying to make a minority happy. Either build your game from the ground up to support these features, or don't add them at all.

If you put sex in your game do so from the beginning not because you think the sex will make the game sell better (figuratively or otherwise) but because it adds something to the game from the beginning.