The Who, Why and How of Porn Game Stories

[DeadPotato]

I believe a good porn game story comes from good character writing, and the player's ability to relate to them. A lot of games out there suffer from this problem: It's hard to relate to the characters. It's hard to care about the characters at all. The sex scenes feels hollow and empty.

I'm gonna try to elaborate on ways on how to fix this.

Basically, the characters or character (since a lot of porn game stories are usually told from a single perceptive) has to be relatable in some way. The player doesn't have to fully aware of that character's personality or motivation or backstory, but he/she has to be at least able to understand the feelings and motivation of the character in the moment.

Why did I say that the player doesn't have to know everything right away? It's because it's easy to lose a player's attention if too much exposition is given. Too little exposition, they don't have a reason to care. Too much exposition, and you risk losing their interest.

The player only needs to know, what he/she needs to know for that particular moment/scene. This creates a touch point where the player can begin to understand and relate to that character.

The character's behavior has to be consistent as well, they have to have a reason (told or not told) to do/say what they are doing/saying. Inconsistent character behavior makes relating to the character hard, as you would expect it to be. If the player is able to predict a character's actions by judging their previous actions and behavior, then you have succeeded. Of course, this isn't an ironclad rule, it's just a best practice.

An Example Premise - 'The player plays a male transfer student to a new school. Then over the course of a year, he gets to fuck all of the hottest girls in that school.'

Now then, a by-the-books porn game story would make the main character an absolute CHAD, he is attractive, has a huge dick, maybe rich, charismatic, confident, etc. All the girls are hot, sexy and unique. He fucks the shit out of them and has the best harem ever.

Indeed, this is a typical porn game story. It's serviceable for what it is, a game that's meant to be fapped to. If it gets your rocks off, good enough right? Some would say otherwise.

I think that premise is a little hollow and lacks 3 things. Who, Why, How.
Who: Who is the player character?
The player character's charismatic, confident appearance is an act, on the inside he's unsure of himself, fragile and easily hurt. Something happened to him a long time ago, he was bullied for his social awkwardness by his peers. Now that he's in this new school, nobody knows him. WAIT, the bullies are here in this school as well, but they don't remember him at all.

Why: Why did the fucking happen?
He wants to prove to himself that he can be popular if he tries to be, he wants to feel good about himself.
He also wants to get revenge on his bullies, by essentially stealing away their girlfriends.

How: How (and what) led to the fucking.
To successfully steal their girlfriends, he must first get close to them. Afterwards, he needs to formulate a different attack plan for each girl, so no 2 conquests are the same. Then he has to struggle to get to each one (at the same time, he has to avoid attracting the bullies's attention to himself), then succeed after some trials and difficulty. It should never be too easy.

I believe with these 3 questions answered, the premise has improved.

The main character is not likable at all, but he has a reason to do what he does and most importantly, YOU UNDERSTAND why he does what he does. Now with the extra layer of character, motivation and conflict on top of the initial premise, it's a game that's meant to be fapped to, and is a revenge story as well.

You can try to answer the 3 questions to my example premise as well. You will most definitely come to a different premise, but still has the same core idea.

A hard to believe scenario/story premise can be made 'believable' if the participating character's motivations are made clear to the reader/player.

Welp, it's just my opinion anyway... What do you guys think?

TL;DR: Your players should be able to relate themselves or understand your game's main character/insert character's motivations. Have them act consistently. If you can't answer the who, why and how of your porn game story, perhaps you should write more, elaborate more.

 

[polywog]

In game x, you live on the 28th floor of an apartment building, and you have a telescope. From your balcony you can see into thousands of other people's apartments in two buildings near yours. It's a powerful telescope, and it records video too.
You keep a journal of your observations, mapping out a grid of the apartments and marking the day of the week, and time when you catch the residents in the act.
There are no words in the story, all of the action is played out visually. You can of course try and guess what they are saying, as you watch them go about their routines.
You can choose the content that you want to see. The gay orgy every sunday night in 27G, The various monogamous couples speckles across the grid, watch the cam-girls doing their shows, the solo action of the singles, the topless sunbaters, and so on.
There's always something happening, any time of day.
Once you've discover the apartment, and marked it on your map, you computer can reposition the telescope with a single click.

You don't need backstory on every character in the game, it's more fun to let the player figure it out or make it up as they go along. Sure they will make mistakes, "OMG she's a call girl, I thought she was married" missed her swiping his credit card did you?
Each month the game dev moves new occupants into the available apartments, and you have to figure out their story for yourself.

 

[anne O'nymous]

If the player is able to predict a character's actions by judging their previous actions and behavior, then you have succeeded.

You failed more than you succeeded in this case, because the characters are nothing more than an empty shell.
They have enough personality to have consistent reactions, but like it's just the surface with nothing behind, they quickly become predictable and the game lost all interest.

An effectively strong character building will surprise us anytime, while making us think that, yes, it's clearly him/her. The thought we will have should be, "I should have knew it", and not just, "I knew it".
It's this element of surprise surviving through all the game, this personality so deep that every time we discover a little something new, that keep the interest alive along the whole game.

YOU UNDERSTAND why he does what he does.

Yeah, because he's a fucking bully who was just too young yet to express it despite his social awkwardness.
An effective revenge story wouldn't have him chase the girls, it would make him build his reputation (by example) until they offer themselves to him without the need to ask. It's then that his bullies would feel humiliated, not just by the MC stealing girls they don't really care about anyway.
They are bullies, therefore they are beta males who just speak loudly enough to hide their total insecurity. They already have the habit to loose their girls to guys more alpha than them. But loosing them to a guy who did absolutely nothing... This is revenge, this is breaking them.

Giving a past and a motive to a character isn't enough. This building must also be believable (according to the universe the character live in) and correspond to the story you'll tell.
The characters of Halfway house (to change my examples for once), all have a strong and deep building. But they would be totally uninteresting characters in Freeloading Family, simply because they don't correspond to the story.

If you can't answer the who, why and how of your porn game story, perhaps you should write more, elaborate more.

The problem is that each author here can answer those three questions.

Who's the MC ?
A 19yo teenager still wondering what he'll do in life and awkward as fuck. He live a life totally boring until now and nothing happened that worth to spend more that two seconds talking about it.

Why the MC will chase the girls ?
Because a succubus crossed his path and asked him to do so. For once something interesting happen in his life, it's obvious that he will accept the deal. Anyway she said that he can go after his family members, which his great since it's the only girls he know, except girl who's his friend since 1st grade, but like she's as awkward as him, none of them never did a single move.

How the MC will do it ?
With the help of the magic power that the succubus gave him. It's something that raise lust in the mind of people and will make them crave for his now enlarged dick.

And voilà. I gave you the premise of more or less twenty games that started this year... None of them are a good enough game, none of them have an effective story, and none of them effectively have characters consistent despite the three questions being answered.



It doesn't mean that you are wrong, answering those three questions is a must have. But by itself it mean nothing.
Those three questions must be answered for every single characters in the game.
There's also questions regarding the story itself :

• What will be the story ?
• What will be the universe in which it will be told ?
• How and why will it start ?
• What will be its main key points ?
• How will it end ?

And once all the answer are found, they still have to be changed until they all form something coherent.

But still, having a strongly built story with strongly built characters, that form a coherent ensemble isn't enough.
You still have to put yourself in the shoes of all those characters, to think like them, in order to make them act and react accordingly to this building.
You still have to project yourself in the universe you created, to ensure that it stay coherent. By example, a game like Reluctant Archon have gods, orcs, vampire and a lot of magic. But it's not a problem, the MC is far to be the only one to have power, and even if he avoided them most of his life and would have be glad to stay like this, he totally know this.
The universe is different of ours, but totally coherent. Way more that all those games where there's apparently only one succubus and she's able to give magical power, in a universe where even the possibility to move an object from 1 cm after three days of concentration is pure fiction.

 

[DeadPotato]

In game x, you live on the 28th floor of an apartment building, and you have a telescope. From your balcony you can see into thousands of other people's apartments in two buildings near yours. It's a powerful telescope, and it records video too.
You keep a journal of your observations, mapping out a grid of the apartments and marking the day of the week, and time when you catch the residents in the act.
There are no words in the story, all of the action is played out visually. You can of course try and guess what they are saying, as you watch them go about their routines.
You can choose the content that you want to see. The gay orgy every sunday night in 27G, The various monogamous couples speckles across the grid, watch the cam-girls doing their shows, the solo action of the singles, the topless sunbaters, and so on.
There's always something happening, any time of day.
Once you've discover the apartment, and marked it on your map, you computer can reposition the telescope with a single click.

You don't need backstory on every character in the game, it's more fun to let the player figure it out or make it up as they go along. Sure they will make mistakes, "OMG she's a call girl, I thought she was married" missed her swiping his credit card did you?
Each month the game dev moves new occupants into the available apartments, and you have to figure out their story for yourself.

View attachment 434487

That's true. Sometimes it is better to let the players figure it out or make it up as they go along.

Then again, a premise like that doesn't have any active interaction with any other characters, since the player character is essentially an observer from afar. It might be the best way to handle the player's characterization, for this case.

Also, that game idea sounds like a lot of fun.

 

[DeadPotato]

You failed more than you succeeded in this case, because the characters are nothing more than an empty shell.
They have enough personality to have consistent reactions, but like it's just the surface with nothing behind, they quickly become predictable and the game lost all interest.

An effectively strong character building will surprise us anytime, while making us think that, yes, it's clearly him/her. The thought we will have should be, "I should have knew it", and not just, "I knew it".
It's this element of surprise surviving through all the game, this personality so deep that every time we discover a little something new, that keep the interest alive along the whole game.




Yeah, because he's a fucking bully who was just too young yet to express it despite his social awkwardness.
An effective revenge story wouldn't have him chase the girls, it would make him build his reputation (by example) until they offer themselves to him without the need to ask. It's then that his bullies would feel humiliated, not just by the MC stealing girls they don't really care about anyway.
They are bullies, therefore they are beta males who just speak loudly enough to hide their total insecurity. They already have the habit to loose their girls to guys more alpha than them. But loosing them to a guy who did absolutely nothing... This is revenge, this is breaking them.

Giving a past and a motive to a character isn't enough. This building must also be believable (according to the universe the character live in) and correspond to the story you'll tell.
The characters of Halfway house (to change my examples for once), all have a strong and deep building. But they would be totally uninteresting characters in Freeloading Family, simply because they don't correspond to the story.





The problem is that each author here can answer those three questions.

Who's the MC ?
A 19yo teenager still wondering what he'll do in life and awkward as fuck. He live a life totally boring until now and nothing happened that worth to spend more that two seconds talking about it.

Why the MC will chase the girls ?
Because a succubus crossed his path and asked him to do so. For once something interesting happen in his life, it's obvious that he will accept the deal. Anyway she said that he can go after his family members, which his great since it's the only girls he know, except girl who's his friend since 1st grade, but like she's as awkward as him, none of them never did a single move.

How the MC will do it ?
With the help of the magic power that the succubus gave him. It's something that raise lust in the mind of people and will make them crave for his now enlarged dick.

And voilà. I gave you the premise of more or less twenty games that started this year... None of them are a good enough game, none of them have an effective story, and none of them effectively have characters consistent despite the three questions being answered.



It doesn't mean that you are wrong, answering those three questions is a must have. But by itself it mean nothing.
Those three questions must be answered for every single characters in the game.
There's also questions regarding the story itself :

• What will be the story ?
• What will be the universe in which it will be told ?
• How and why will it start ?
• What will be its main key points ?
• How will it end ?

And once all the answer are found, they still have to be changed until they all form something coherent.

But still, having a strongly built story with strongly built characters, that form a coherent ensemble isn't enough.
You still have to put yourself in the shoes of all those characters, to think like them, in order to make them act and react accordingly to this building.
You still have to project yourself in the universe you created, to ensure that it stay coherent. By example, a game like Reluctant Archon have gods, orcs, vampire and a lot of magic. But it's not a problem, the MC is far to be the only one to have power, and even if he avoided them most of his life and would have be glad to stay like this, he totally know this.
The universe is different of ours, but totally coherent. Way more that all those games where there's apparently only one succubus and she's able to give magical power, in a universe where even the possibility to move an object from 1 cm after three days of concentration is pure fiction.

Maybe I should've worded some parts better/differently. You said it better than I can ever hope to do, I still need a lot of practice on the whole 'writing' thing.

It has been interesting learning experience. Thanks.
In the end, the key to writing a good porn game story is to write a good story after all.

 

[DeadPotato]

What I tried (and perhaps failed) to convey in my post is why most of time, sex scenes and situations often feel unsatisfying because they don't have enough character writing to make the players care. Sex scenes happens because sex happens and sex is all that is needed when the truth is sex is only supposed to be part of the story, you're supposed to have some sort of build up to it. Otherwise it is just meaningless action (not that there's anything wrong with it).

 

[HFM]

The thing with writing a good story is not as easy as it seems, yes you can dissect a story into different elements that make it good but in the end it all depends out of person who will write it.
Bad writer will still produce a bad story even if he would follow many rules that make it good.

Creating a good story is hard and creating it with erotica is even harder, "erotica" as another story element is just not that easy to do, especially when too much people care more about nice pictures or acts, rather then what lead to it and how it progressed.

 

[DeadPotato]

especially when too much people care more about nice pictures or acts, rather then what lead to it and how it progressed.

This is one of the reasons why I find it hard to get into all the 'popular' and 'good' games that people recommend to me. I don't necessary mind that they put more effort into the visuals and stuff, but not enough focus or attention or care is given to the writing.

 

[HFM]

The absolute worst for me was the typical "-hi -hi! -lets fuck! -okay!" dialogue without any type of context or story, it's overused so much.
Characters, characters story, characters interactions, story progression and logical aspect of everything always make a story better, and if it comes to erotica i've always liked when it is slowly builded up over time rather than having everything from the beginning - this way if a character has a backstory and you are going thru some stuff yourself to finally receive a sex scene with
a character it makes it way better.
But like others have said already it also depends out of scenario/story and gameplay if its a game.

I saw you are working on your game, gonna look forward to it!

 

[DeadPotato]

The absolute worst for me was the typical "-hi -hi! -lets fuck! -okay!" dialogue without any type of context or story, it's overused so much.

...Did we just became friends? It's literally the only reason that I would drop a game.

I saw you are working on your game, gonna look forward to it!

Thanks! The game is still in it's early stages of development, but I've finished plotting out the entire storyline (it's the 1st thing I did). A mountain of work to do afterwards.

 

[thecardinal]

How to make a good porn game: don't make a bad one.

 

[DeadPotato]

How to make a good porn game: don't make a bad one.

That's some galaxy brain tier advice there.