If you guys haven’t checked out PhillyGames and Dr.PinkCake, please do so. They’re the cream of the crop for developers of Adult VNs.
Mmm interesting you say that...
For me Philly is master at renders and DocP is great at characters/humour.
However i have to say Naughty Road and AZ for story/characters are the masters hands down. AZ's quality of renders are exceptionally good.
No argument about PhillyGames, his games are outstanding in every regard, with Pinkcake.. IDK. For me his decisions about Acting Lessons remain an example of stubborn pride, instead of actually giving people what they want. He's the Mac Walters of porn game devs for me (Mass Effect 3).
If he keeps up the quality of BaD while not managing to enrage half his customer base this time around, I might agree with your evaluation of his work, but I do wonder if using someone who has made such controversial decisions as your role model is a wise choice.
And no offense, but both Naughty Road and Az don't even have one regular sized completed game down their belt. I like both their writing and their characters, but tbh NEITHER seems to be on the level of the best devs around here so far.
While Naughty Road's writing is indeed great, his polarizing design choices always seemed weird to me. To go to such extremes in the visuals of your characters, making them look like fairly ugly caricatures in some cases, I just don't get the appeal.
And with Az's writing, I keep wondering what might make him seem above a fair number of other devs who write about similar topics and characters and do a good job and I find nothing.
Good writing, good characters, beautiful renders, but not anything I haven't seen from at least a dozen other devs here.
I'm not trying to disparage either creator, I have a lot of fun playing both their games, just trying to explain why I don't see them as "the masters."
Of course it's a matter of taste in the end, but for me devs like Ptolemy with all the games he has actually completed AND with great standards of writing and renders, that counts for more than someone who is talented, but has maybe a tenth or a fifth of a game down.
And then there are devs like CheekyGimp or Perverteer who have produced 16+ chapters, each with a good amount of content, each with good writing and handling multiple routes/characters and relationships, with all their variables, constantly work on the bugs and produce stable and enjoyable content on a routine and regular basis.
