Thoughts on Current Trends in Incest Game/Content Development

[Conviction07]

Well naturally I mean that if you are going to use a different era then the story should reflect that era.
Just saying that many of the incests creators are limiting themselves and thus things are stale and will pretty much always have that feeling of staleness since it will always deal with a modern point of view.
If someone took their incest to a historical setting, would it be a historical VN with incest in it rather then Incest in a historical setting ? maybe but I don't necessarily see the problem with that if you tell a interesting story. Same with if taking the audience to a new setting, pretty sure they won't mind it if you do it properly.

The problem I have with historical settings is I'm not sure how many developers could convincingly write dialogue appropriate to the time period. I mean, most of them are already struggling to pull off adequate contemporary dialogue. I'm not sure how I'd feel playing a game set in ancient Rome, and reading a line where the MC greets his friend with a "what's up, bro?"

 

[Nizzz]

The problem I have with historical settings is I'm not sure how many developers could convincingly write dialogue appropriate to the time period. I mean, most of them are already struggling to pull off adequate contemporary dialogue. I'm not sure how I'd feel playing a game set in ancient Rome, and reading a line where the MC greets his friend with a "what's up, bro?"

More like "what is down bro"

** In engrish **

 

[DarthSeduction]

The problem I have with historical settings is I'm not sure how many developers could convincingly write dialogue appropriate to the time period. I mean, most of them are already struggling to pull off adequate contemporary dialogue. I'm not sure how I'd feel playing a game set in ancient Rome, and reading a line where the MC greets his friend with a "what's up, bro?"

I mean... if the tone was right for it...

That said, I don't really share that fear. Unless we are writing the game in Latin we aren't going to be getting any time period for rome's speech correctly. Reduce the slang, and use pretentious sounding words, which I already do from time to time anyway, and you'll be fine.

Honestly though, fantasy games do just fine, I don't ever feel like I'm being pulled out of Long Live the Princess by the dialogue. Though Belle acting as a player insert does make me chuckle from time to time.

 

[Jashmyne]

The problem I have with historical settings is I'm not sure how many developers could convincingly write dialogue appropriate to the time period. I mean, most of them are already struggling to pull off adequate contemporary dialogue. I'm not sure how I'd feel playing a game set in ancient Rome, and reading a line where the MC greets his friend with a "what's up, bro?"

Well taking ancient Rome as an example, you have to look at TV-series like Spartacus if you want proper dialogue suitable for the time period(maybe not the curse words tho) and the way they speak from what I have been told is correct for the period and it is very jarring to hear, I can't imagine seeing it in written form makes it even easier. But then take series like Rome which is more modern in it's language, is very much more pleasing to listen to and yet the dialogue fits with the period so it is a fine line.

 

[Ataios]

I generally like incest games but there are some thing I dislike about most of them. These are:

- Too few mom-daughter games. I personally prefer mom-daughter content to all other incestuous constellations, but there are very few games that provide mother-daughter relationships and those which do, are now mostly abandoned.

- In mom-son games the main problem in my opinion are the protagonists. Why play as teenage virgins? And why in the nine hells make him smaller than his mom? Make the motherfucker a badass instead. Just look at the protagonists of regular games for inspiration. A character like Duke Nukem would be the perfect protagonist for a mom-son game.

- Why do so many incest games use the same boring archetypes? Doting mom, bitchy elder sister, stupid younger sister? Wasn't good the first time and isn't good now.

 

[Jashmyne]

- In mom-son games the main problem in my opinion are the protagonists. Why play as teenage virgins? And why in the nine hells make him smaller than his mom? Make the motherfucker a badass instead. Just look at the protagonists of regular games for inspiration. A character like Duke Nukem would be the perfect protagonist for a mom-son game.

Not an expert by any means but I'm guessing it's a male fantasy of their mom being their first.
As a woman I'm assuming this is the case since most of the games are made by males.
Don't think this applies to everyone naturally but the majority might.

 

[gamersglory]

• My first issue, and this is a big one, because it is something most games try to ignore (because it is easier that way), is that, just because two family members are in an incestuous relationship, doesn't mean they fall out of their original familial relationship. And if they do so, it can hardly be called incest, because, if suddenly a sister starts seeing his brother as boyfriend, and the brother sees her as his girlfriend, and all their interactions only reflect that relationship, where is the incest? Because their true relationships matter no more from the player's perspective. Also, a mother could never be her son's girlfriend/wife/lover - that's just stupid. But that doesn't stop her from having sexual attraction towards her son. The point I'm trying to make is that a good incest story must be able to portray both the original relationship and the sexual attraction and possible conflicts between the two. And also, when the mother just shouts, "Oh my son! Oh my baby boy! bla bla bla" while having sex with her son, that doesn't count. She needs to show that through her interaction with his son. Sex between mother and son is certainly going to be different from normal sex between a couple. I've rarely seen a game pull that off. And it seems that Patreon's policy has exacerbated this situation - it's hard to portray a character faithfully when she could be either your mother or your landlady

OK while we don't do this or try not to I can see why a lot of Incest devs and Adult Devs in general do this is the inpatients that a good number of patreons have when you try to flesh out a story you may not get sex scenes for a while. There are people that will drop you if you don't have some sort of sexual content by the third update. So getting a very good plot and development goes out the window a lot. Things get rushed to cater to the patreons. We don't do this but that is the impression I get from other games as they start with a story then see patreons not pick up so they skip over background and content

 

[anne O'nymous]

• My first issue, and this is a big one, because it is something most games try to ignore (because it is easier that way), is that, just because two family members are in an incestuous relationship, doesn't mean they fall out of their original familial relationship. And if they do so, it can hardly be called incest, because, if suddenly a sister starts seeing his brother as boyfriend, and the brother sees her as his girlfriend, and all their interactions only reflect that relationship, where is the incest?

Er, reading this, I fear what you can have wrote after it. It really looks like you don't know what incest mean and see it as a simple sexual practice like can be watersport or foot fetishism. But the fact is that incest is absolutely not a sexual thing and even less a fetish ; only an external witness see it as fetish, not the people living it.

There's two kind of incestuous relationships.
Firstly, incest as a way of life. Sex is a natural thing, and as long as both partners are consenting, who's the partner doesn't care. But it's not a bestial relationship, nor a "slut-like" one. This kind of people are in fact less slutty and rarely have sex for sex. They feel love for their partner, whatever it's motherly/fatherly love or fraternal one.
Like they are open minded and don't see relationship as a good enough reason to not have sex, then they have sex. But still, they don't have sex because they are related, they have sex because they love each other and want to also share this. So, for them, they're in a relationship with someone who's both a related and a loved person.
It's the kind of situation that occur the more often in games, but in real life it's the less present form of incestuous relationship.

Secondly, there's incest because of love. Two related persons start to do more and more things together, just because it "feel better" to do it together than with someone else. And the more thing they do, the more they start acting like a couple, holding hands, kissing on the lips (but generally not french kisses). Seen from the outside, they are a legit couple, but at this time for them it's still something confuse. They are related, they know it, but it feel so good being with the other, it's like if (s)he was more a lover than a related.
Then, come the day when they stop being confused. They understand that, non, it's not "like if (s)he was more a lover", (s)he IS a lover. At this moment, they give in to their love fr each other and start having sex.
It's the relationship generally depicted in games, and also the case happening the more often in real life.

There's a third possibility, incest as pure lusty thing. They have sex between related just for the sex. But this case is even more than an exception. Not only it need that the two of them give in their lust at the exact same time and don't care about the fact that they are related, but also it's generally a one time thing. Never again the context will be correct for them to want to give in their lust at the same time, with the effective possibility to do it.
It can happen to teenagers, but if it last more than a (small) period/phase (holidays by example), then it fall back to the first case. They gave to their lust at first, then continued because they feel a little more than the love they feel for a related.

So, no, there's absolutely nothing wrong in the fact to pass from "sister" to "girlfriend", it's more the opposite. And, no, it doesn't mean that it's no more incest. They don't stop to be related just because they now see the other as a lover. It's just that the stop to care about the fact that it's incest, and it's natural, it's how it works in life.

• [...] I don't understand why so many games need to copy the same/similar formula, while there are so many other possibilities. [...]
• The main character who is often a male character always seems to take the first initiative, why's that? [...]

The answer is the same for both : Lack of creativity and desire to earn as much as the one who made the hit that use this setting/story.

• Although incest is a genre in itself, [...]

It shouldn't. Or, more precisely, it's a "top genre" like "science fiction", "historical stories", and other. You can have Sci-fi polar, Sci-fi romance, etc. And you can have incest BDSM, incest rape, incest romance, etc. Once again because incest is a fetish for the player/reader, not for the characters in the story.

all other genres of adult stories such as pregnancy, triangle love, cheating, rape, homosexuality could be introduced into incest.

You should have played few incest games to say this.

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as only one purpose, the MC need to knock up his sister-in-law and nieces. If I remember correctly

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have a pregnancy ending. The same game also figure a love triangle and, depending of the route followed, the situation can be seen as cheating by the mother.

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is full of incestuous lesbianism, have femdom and dominant routes and have a love triangle with someone that isn't part of the family. The last update of

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let figure that there will be lesbianism, due to a love triangle between relatives, and probably also pregnancy. It also let figure that it will possibly have femdom.

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have some femdom scenes and one of the character can be turned into a totally submissive pet. Haven't played

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after the daughter returned home, so I can't effectively say, but in the first part Elena was clearly intended to become part of a love triangle with the MC and his daughter.
And they are just examples.

For example I haven't found a game where a father and daughter/ brother and sister have a child together

Like there's almost no "none incest" games where there's effectively a child, whatever at the start or at the end of the story.

No games showed a mother falling for both of her sons or two brothers falling for their sisters.

In

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, the MC can fall for both her son and her daughter. The fact is that NTR is a very hot topic, and that too many people would see the MC having to share with his brother as NTR and go full rage because of this. So, yes, there's few games picturing this. But here I found you hypocritical. All incest games with a harem route figure a MC falling for every single girls in his family... It's not because it's a male with many females, and not the a female with many males that you want to see, that it don't count.

Another thing, "these violent delights have violent ends" - show me a good incest story that ends in tragedy, which seems to be the most likely outcome of incest.

Two things here. Firstly the game is the already named

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. You want to cry and hate yourself because of the end due to your poor decisions ? Play it.
Secondly, I fall back to what I said at start, you don't seem to know what incest mean. Really few incestuous relationship end in tragedy. They love each other more deeply and more truly than way too many none incestuous couples. Even in the case of incest as a way of life, they don't have sex for pleasure, but because they really want it and really mean it.
That's also the reason why there's no cheating in incest games, because there's (almost) no in real life incestuous relationship. It doesn't mean that they are more faithful, just that they tend to be both more open minded and more deeply in love with each other.

 

[Only4You]

Er, reading this, I fear what you can have wrote after it. It really looks like you don't know what incest mean and see it as a simple sexual practice like can be watersport or foot fetishism. But the fact is that incest is absolutely not a sexual thing and even less a fetish ; only an external witness see it as fetish, not the people living it.

I never claimed that incest was a fetish to people who live it, or at least it need not be the case. What I was trying to say is that it was sure to introduce some conflicts within the person, assuming they already did not feel that way, or if it wasn't a Taboo to begin with. And I wanted the games to portray this conflict.Obviously, Aegon Targaryen's romantic relationship with his sisters wouldn't make for a good incest story. Because it's natural for Targaryens to marry their relatives, so there is nothing Taboo about it. It would turn out to be vanilla romance. See my replies to "DarthSeduction"'s posts for details on what I actually meant by conflicts.

Additionally I can give an example. I am a Muslim and it is allowed in our religion to marry our cousins. Yet, our cultural setting, which is Indian subcontinental, dictates that we treat our cousins as siblings, actually we simply call them brothers/sisters despite not being directly related. That is why there are very few marriages in our country among cousins, although our religion allows it. Now, think of two possible scenarios. In one, I fall for a younger cousin who calls me "big brother", as she starts to grow up. I also thought of her as my sister, and start to hate myself for having those feelings for her, and yet I cannot deny them. Also, my family wouldn't allow for such a relationship, despite it conforming to our religion. Scenario 2: I am betrothed to one of my cousins from childhood, and we grow up together knowing that we would marry each other. We do usual romantic stuff and date like normal couple. Which scenario do you think would serve as a better plot-line for an incest story?

So, no, there's absolutely nothing wrong in the fact to pass from "sister" to "girlfriend", it's more the opposite. And, no, it doesn't mean that it's no more incest. They don't stop to be related just because they now see the other as a lover. It's just that the stop to care about the fact that it's incest, and it's natural, it's how it works in life.

It could, just like Jaime Lannister sees her sees his sister as both his family and lover, and okay with both sides of his relationship. It is also partly because of the fact that they have always felt about each other that way. But then again, it doesn't make for a good incest story, because again we end up with a vanilla love affair. If anything, it could be an ending to an incest story, where the lovers end up overcoming there inhibitions. But, at least in my opinion, it doesn't work well as the content of the story.
Even after winning internal conflicts, there could be social conflicts, which could serve as a plot-line for an incest story. But, in my opinion, when the conflicts end, the incest theme loses its force.
One thing I would like to point out is that incest is by no means natural. Because evolution itself is acting against it, and it is engraved in our biology. In no way you could call a mother having sex with her son natural, and if they did so, they most probably wouldn't try to justify it as natural, unless they were mental patients. They would probably come up with other ways of justifying their actions, like "our relationship goes beyond the natural love between mother and son, bla bla". That's why you see people stirring up movements to legalize gay marriages, but not marriages between siblings. And, I believe, even almost all the people who enjoy an incest story, wouldn't even think of being in such a relationship in real life. Just like you can kill dozens of innocent people in GTA Vice City without necessarily being homicidal, nor does it mean that you think it's perfectly normal to beat strangers to death at broad daylight in the middle of the street.

It shouldn't. Or, more precisely, it's a "top genre" like "science fiction", "historical stories", and other. You can have Sci-fi polar, Sci-fi romance, etc.

Umm, maybe not a top genre, but for the most part, agreed.

You should have played few incest games to say this.

I have played most of the games you have mentioned, like "I love daddy", "Sisterly Lust", and "My Legacy". And yes, there are quite a lot of games that include fetishes. My last point is a weak one, that's why I mentioned it last. But if you read on, my main complaint is that, the developers seem to hold back a little, because they tend think that the inclusion of incest is extreme enough for a plot-line and the reader/player would not be able to handle any more.

But here I found you hypocritical. All incest games with a harem route figure a MC falling for every single girls in his family... It's not because it's a male with many females, and not the a female with many males that you want to see, that it don't count.

I don't see how I'm being hypocritical. I just mentioned that polyamory goes both ways, something that games tend to ignore. And, in case you were wondering, I am a dude, and it certainly makes me jealous if my girl flirts with someone else. But still, I mentioned this type of polyamory, just to make things even. Obviously I see myriads of MFF scenes in games, whereas MMF are rare to the point of non-existent.

Two things here. Firstly the game is the already named

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. You want to cry and hate yourself because of the end due to your poor decisions ? Play it.

Again, already played "I love daddy". It's not a serious game, it doesn't try to portray any realistic consequences of Incest. And certainly not the most well-written adult game out there. I want games to take incest seriously and show the real emotional and social consequences of such relationships, at least to some extent.

Secondly, I fall back to what I said at start, you don't seem to know what incest mean. Really few incestuous relationship end in tragedy. They love each other more deeply and more truly than way too many none incestuous couples. Even in the case of incest as a way of life, they don't have sex for pleasure, but because they really want it and really mean it.
That's also the reason why there's no cheating in incest games, because there's (almost) no in real life incestuous relationship. It doesn't mean that they are more faithful, just that they tend to be both more open minded and more deeply in love with each other.

Again, you misinterpret my message. I never said that incestuous relations are tenuous,or the partners rarely faithful. Maybe, by "tragedy" you understood break-up or cheating, but that is not what I meant. What I meant is that an incestuous relationship is very unlikely to succeed in a realistic social setting. Do you think it is possible for a mother to to date his son in the open. Don't you think that the mother would most likely be found and sent to some sort of asylum or the son to some sort of correctional facility. I don't know what a "real-life incest" could entail, because I certainly haven't known one. I'm not claiming that tragedy is the only possible consequence. I'm just asking the writers to think about them more seriously.

I don't know of any tragic endings from incest stories, so I'm going to give examples from other socially unacceptable/Taboo stories. The qoute "These violent delights have violent ends ", is from Romeo and Juliet. Even though their relationship was not Taboo, it was frowned upon by their family and society, and in the end, it resulted in a tragedy. Another example can be "Troy" where Helen, a woman married to a Greek king falls for the young prince of Troy, Paris. And their love affair ultimately leads to the destruction of Troy. I am not asking for such extreme tragedy in incest games. I am just pointing out a possible ending that is mostly being overlooked.

 

[Only4You]

OK while we don't do this or try not to I can see why a lot of Incest devs and Adult Devs in general do this is the inpatients that a good number of patreons have when you try to flesh out a story you may not get sex scenes for a while. There are people that will drop you if you don't have some sort of sexual content by the third update. So getting a very good plot and development goes out the window a lot. Things get rushed to cater to the patreons. We don't do this but that is the impression I get from other games as they start with a story then see patreons not pick up so they skip over background and content

Hmm... The bitter truth. If you want to make incest look realistic, it needs to progress slowly and organically. Unless some kind of shock precipitates such sexual attraction. But, Dating My Daughter seemed to do more the pretty well with its slow burn, but I wouldn't put it as a role model, because, the story, although not bad, certainly doesn't compare to more realistic games. DMD focuses more on sexual tension rather than story. Recently, I played "Haley's Story" where the both the story and build up seemed natural and realistic to me.

 

[gamersglory]

Hmm... The bitter truth. If you want to make incest look realistic, it needs to progress slowly and organically. Unless some kind of shock precipitates such sexual attraction. But, Dating My Daughter seemed to do more the pretty well with its slow burn, but I wouldn't put it as a role model, because, the story, although not bad, certainly doesn't compare to more realistic games. DMD focuses more on sexual tension rather than story. Recently, I played "Haley's Story" where the both the story and build up seemed natural and realistic to me.

Glad you like Haley's story. It's what we are going for is organic

 

[Only4You]

Glad you like Haley's story.

To say that I liked it would be an understatement. I absolutely LOVED it. Very good job with the story and character design.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I also thought of her as my sister, and start to hate myself for having those feelings for her, and yet I cannot deny them.

It's a purely moral, and in your particular case I would even say "personal moral", problem. I mean, when there's nothing legally preventing it, why should you hate yourself because of the person you love, except because yourself think that you shouldn't have fell in love ?

Should I hate myself if I fall in love with a married woman ? Should I hate myself if I fall in love with a woman 30 years younger than me (due to my age, she's legal but also younger than my youngest child) ? Should I hate myself if I fall in love with a woman who don't share my religion ?
These three example have in common to be neither illegal nor taboo, but still morally hard to accept. Just like is incest in countries where it's legal, or at least no illegal (hi, Italy).
So what ? Should I really hate myself if this happen to me one day ? I know that the answer will be "no", this despite the fact that I effectively find it immoral to steal the heart of a married person, and don't saw as "this right" to be with someone way too younger than you. But what I also know is that if I fall in love, it's not because I wanted it. So, as long as it's not illegal I wouldn't care at all. And if it's illegal, then I would only care about the legal aspect, trying to keep it a secret.

And it's exactly the same for people in an incestuous relationship. There's conflict only when it's a one way love. Once both expressed explicitly their feelings, there's no more conflict ; at least not different ones than in any relationship.

Which scenario do you think would serve as a better plot-line for an incest story?

Both and none. I mean, each time you tried to make it something special, different than another relationship. But that's not what happen in real life. You fall in love of your relative exactly the same way you fall in love with anyone else, and there's absolutely no difference between your incestuous love and any other love. In fact, even the overused thrill of taboo isn't this much a thing most of the time.

But then again, it doesn't make for a good incest story, because again we end up with a vanilla love affair.

Still it's 99,99% of the effective cases of incestuous relations. And I don't see why it couldn't make a good incest story. There's good games about vanilla love affair that aren't even incestuous.

Even after winning internal conflicts, there could be social conflicts, which could serve as a plot-line for an incest story. But, in my opinion, when the conflicts end, the incest theme loses its force.

They still are related, it change absolutely nothing. There's a game (I don't remember its name) where incest is a tradition in the family, and the only purpose of the game is not to win the love of your relative, but more to choose which one will be the first you'll bang. It's not a bad game, nor a game where incest lost its force.

One thing I would like to point out is that incest is by no means natural. Because evolution itself is acting against it, and it is engraved in our biology.

This is totally and absolutely wrong.

• It was stated, around two decades ago, that there was a gene preventing incest between near relatives, then many studies proved that it's wrong ;
• Even while it effectively tend to trigger recessive genes, it was proved that it also tend to purify the genome when incest is a norm and not an exception. Studies even demonstrated that, in some parts of India and Pakistan, it led to a increase in fertility, enough to over compensate the juvenile mortality generated by the consanguinity ;
• While not being the norm and leading to avoidance mechanisms, whatever social (monkeys by example) or biological (prairie dogs by example), in some species, incest is relatively frequent in the nature, and humans didn't evolved differently ;
• Even in the English royalty, who is a deeply consanguineous family, and also a family with knew recessive genes, it didn't led to the expected degeneration. Same with the now extinguished Pharaohs dynasties, where degeneration was the exception. This despite the fact that they married between siblings, while the English royalty never goes nearer that first degree cousins.

In no way you could call a mother having sex with her son natural, and if they did so, they most probably wouldn't try to justify it as natural, unless they were mental patients.

And here come again your moral problem with incest. You don't want games that effectively depict incest, you want games that depict your own vision of incest.

That's why you see people stirring up movements to legalize gay marriages, but not marriages between siblings.

No. The reason why you have one and not the other is because incest is legal in more than half of the world, while homosexuality is still too often seen as something not just immoral, but demoniac ; and was still classified as decease less than three decades ago. So, acquiring the right to marry each other is a victory for homosexual, while incestuous people are fine the way they are and generally don't marry, even in countries where it's perfectly legal as long as they don't have children.

And, I believe, even almost all the people who enjoy an incest story, wouldn't even think of being in such a relationship in real life.

I'm sure that the majority of them don't effectively have a problem with this. They don't see it as a thing because they don't feel this kind of love for their relatives, but it doesn't mean that, hypothetically speaking, they see it as a total impossibility.

Again, already played "I love daddy". It's not a serious game, it doesn't try to portray any realistic consequences of Incest. And certainly not the most well-written adult game out there.

I agree to say that it could have been better written, but you're wrong for the realistic parts. The way this game depicted incest is right according to real life, and wrong only according to your own view over incest.

Maybe, by "tragedy" you understood break-up or cheating, but that is not what I meant.

No, I understood you right, just addressing another points you raised at the place it filled the best.

What I meant is that an incestuous relationship is very unlikely to succeed in a realistic social setting.

According to what exactly ?
What tell you that the married couple living next door aren't two siblings that move there, telling everyone that they are married to hide the fact that they share the same family name ? The answer is simple : Nothing.
The fact is that there's absolutely no reason for an incestuous relationship to not succeed as long as they are both effectively consenting and that incest is legal in the country ; so, like I said above, in around half of the world.

Do you think it is possible for a mother to to date his son in the open.

Yes, I even knew too of this couple during my life. It was a little strange at first, because it's not something you see all days, but that's all.

Don't you think that the mother would most likely be found and sent to some sort of asylum or the son to some sort of correctional facility.

Once again, in half of the world it's sending her to an asylum or a correctional facility that would be the illegal action.

I don't know what a "real-life incest" could entail, because I certainly haven't known one. I'm not claiming that tragedy is the only possible consequence. I'm just asking the writers to think about them more seriously.

So, you're asking to authors to think about something that is globally unlikely to happen, because you don't want to change your own moral point of view on the question. Well, why not ?

 

[Only4You]

It's a purely moral, and in your particular case I would even say "personal moral", problem. I mean, when there's nothing legally preventing it, why should you hate yourself because of the person you love, except because yourself think that you shouldn't have fell in love ?

The morality of the situation was never my point. You don't feel sexually attracted to your younger sister just because it is morally wrong, that comes naturally. You don't ogle strangers for moral reasons, not your sister. And that was not my point. I just wanted to show one example where the incest actively comes into play in a romantic story and doesn't stand on the sideline.

You fall in love of your relative exactly the same way you fall in love with anyone else, and there's absolutely no difference between your incestuous love and any other love.

Maybe so, but an incest story is not just a romantic story. If that were so, you could just add a tag "sister" or "mother" to your lover and call it incest story. Actually, that's what has happened to most games due to Patreon's restrictive policy. You know a person is your mother just because the game tells you so, or just because you live together. That doesn't add any depth to the character. DarthSeduction explained it more specificly:

However, when it comes to the past, contextual feelings, etc, this actually bleeds into another of your points, the one about the characters not being proactive. Both stem from the same place. These characters aren't fleshed out. They don't have a past. There are no memories of childhood. As I said in my initial post, game designers don't make characters, they make archetypes. As a result, they can't do anything themselves that isn't thrust upon them by the writer. They don't have unique thoughts or experiences to draw from, just reactive personality quirks.

There's good games about vanilla love affair that aren't even incestuous.

Again, not my point. Actually most of the adult games out there that have good storylines, aren't incestuous. But I am talking about good incest games, not good romantic games.

There's a game (I don't remember its name) where incest is a tradition in the family, and the only purpose of the game is not to win the love of your relative, but more to choose which one will be the first you'll bang.

Maybe you are talking about "A new home". In this game there is some conflict in the first stage, but later that goes away. But even then, there are interactions with family members that create the mood of incest to some extent. I wouldn't call it the best incest game out there, although not the worst.

While not being the norm and leading to avoidance mechanisms, whatever social (monkeys by example) or biological (prairie dogs by example), in some species, incest is relatively frequent in the nature, and humans didn't evolved differently

Please give your reference. I want to know, why so many different cultures simultaneously developed prohibitions against incest, if it's not somehow biological. And even if it isn't, it must be part of our common social behavior. Just to be clear, by incest I mostly mean near realation incest like with siblings or parents, not with cousins. As I mentioned, I already know that all Muslims are open about marrying their cousins.

You don't want games that effectively depict incest, you want games that depict your own vision of incest.

Maybe, I'm a little biased towards certain views. That's why I mentioned in the beginning of the post that I am stating my own opinions. But I am always open to suggestions. If you think an incest game could work without actively emphasizing the relationship via either conflict or interaction, explain how it could be different from a vanilla romantic story, assuming of course there is something special about incest stories to begin with, other than merely the parties involved in the relationship.

No. The reason why you have one and not the other is because incest is legal in more than half of the world, while homosexuality is still too often seen as something not just immoral, but demoniac ; and was still classified as decease less than three decades ago.

"Incest is legal in half the world" - what kind of incest are you talking about. As far as I know, it could only be incest among cousins. Because according to Wikipedia most countries explicitly prohibit near relation incest by law. And even where there is no law, like in (India) it's just implied because of the strong social forces like religion acting against it.

I'm sure that the majority of them don't effectively have a problem with this. They don't see it as a thing because they don't feel this kind of love for their relatives, but it doesn't mean that, hypothetically speaking, they see it as a total impossibility.

So, you're implying that most of them would see banging their mom/sister/father a possibility? Again, talking about near relation incest. And again, not the point I am trying to make. The point being, do you think most people find incest natural in a realistic setting?

Once again, in half of the world it's sending her to an asylum or a correctional facility that would be the illegal action.

Again, give reference. How is it half the world would simply accept incest? The question of legality is irrelevant, as I'm trying to point out how they would be ostracized and frowned upon.

So, you're asking to authors to think about something that is globally unlikely to happen, because you don't want to change your own moral point of view on the question. Well, why not ?

It never had to do anything with my own point of view, but rather the point of view of the society. And as far as I understand, in the societal setting portrayed in the games, people do not simply embrace incest. Near relation incests maybe acceptable in some corner of the world (maybe some countries in Africa?) but certainly those games do not take place in Africa, but rather in societies where everyone openly detests incest.

Throughout your post you seemed to imply that I was questioning the morality of incestuous relationships, whereas, in fact how I feel about incest is totally irrelevant. I'm not a part of the game. If anything, what matters is how our society would view incest. I just want the stories of the incest games to first be realistic in details given its social setting and secondly have features that would make it stand out from a vanilla romantic game. And these features should not merely be the relationship ("Father", "Mother", "Sister', "Brother") tag assigned to the person. I explained it here:

This is the sort of conflict I'm talking about. Even though nothing may change on the outside, your relationship would certainly transform into something different, interactions would get new meaning. Although you may hide it from the world you won't be able to hide it from yourself. However, most incest games don't address that. They just portray it as if there is no tension going on at all.
No, I don't think they do, and even if they do, they do so in some superficial and cliche manner. For example, "Oh no, I cannot think about my daughter that way!", or "I cannot do this, you're my son." bla bla. What do these words even mean, without any touch of context or background. And when they get over that inhibition, as if they forget what their relation used to be completely. How, do their new found sexual attraction nullify all their memories as a family? Or is the fact that a daughter is having sex with his father change the fact that he is still her father and she his daughter. I think they would be constantly reminded of their relationship as a father and daughter every time they do something sexual. What a game may try to do, is that it may add new meanings to their memories, implying that, they have always felt attracted to each other. Or maybe, it may show that sexual love is just another addition to the affection they have for each other. I need to be able to empathize with them, see thinks from their perspective, understand what they are feeling.

And as to why I think incest themed game should be different, I qoute something DarthSeduction said -

Incest being taboo is a large part of why it's a kink in the first place. If there was nothing wrong with it people wouldn't be as likely to obsess over it.

This is even more true for someone using the future. You kinda need to justify a setting like that. Now, if you were telling some cyberpunk story, or an epic space opera and wanted to include incest as one of the elements of the larger narrative, then you could do that, but it wouldn't be "an incest game" it would be a space opera with incest, or a cyberpunk game with incest.

The main point being, when incest is your main theme, it should stay in focus. A song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) is a great story/novel, yet no one calls it an incest story, incest is just a small and almost insignificant part of it. On the other hand, if you want to tell an incest story, you must show how incest made it special. Simply portraying a romantic story just doesn't cut it. And I believe conflicts and interactions are best tools to portray such setting. But if you have other plot tools in mind I'm open to suggestions.

And please don't diverge from the main discussion, criticizing specific examples I've given.

 

[anne O'nymous]

The morality of the situation was never my point. You don't feel sexually attracted to your younger sister just because it is morally wrong, that comes naturally.

I know that my English skills aren't marvelous, but I'm pretty sure that what I wrote clearly can't be so misinterpreted. The moral issue isn't that you fall in love, but that you hate yourself for this.

Maybe so, but an incest story is not just a romantic story. If that were so, you could just add a tag "sister" or "mother" to your lover and call it incest story. Actually, that's what has happened to most games due to Patreon's restrictive policy. You know a person is your mother just because the game tells you so, or just because you live together.

And yet, despite this and the writing consequence of such methods, many people effectively see them as incest stories. It should make you think about the lack of effective difference between a love story and an incestuous love story, even in a game.

Maybe you are talking about "A new home". In this game there is some conflict in the first stage, but later that goes away. But even then, there are interactions with family members that create the mood of incest to some extent. I wouldn't call it the best incest game out there, although not the worst.

Yes, it was

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. So, thanks to agree that you where wrong and that the incest theme don't necessarily loose its force when the conflicts disappear.

Please give your reference.

Don't you know how to google a thing ? Giving you my references will not help you much, unless you also practice French as third language.

I want to know, why so many different cultures simultaneously developed prohibitions against incest, if it's not somehow biological.

Two words : The Bible.
No need to thanks me, it was an easy one, incest only started to be banned at the rise of Christianity.

If you think an incest game could work without actively emphasizing the relationship via either conflict or interaction, explain how it could be different from a vanilla romantic story, assuming of course there is something special about incest stories to begin with, other than merely the parties involved in the relationship.

Are you kidding ? You openly ignored the answer I already gave to this in my previous message !

"Incest is legal in half the world" - what kind of incest are you talking about. As far as I know, it could only be incest among cousins. Because according to Wikipedia most countries explicitly prohibit near relation incest by law.

Really ? Alright, let's see what

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as to say :
incest (whatever the degree of relationship) is legal in Ivory Coast, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Estonia, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.
marriage (not intercourse) is illegal in : China, Macau, Philippines, Thailand and Turkey.
It's neither legal nor illegal in India.
It's illegal in Germany if it's vaginal sex (since the definition of incest is vaginal intercourse between relatives).
Legal by law in Russia, while they may no marry.
And (always my favorite), illegal in Italy, only if it provokes a public scandal.

In the end, over the 49 countries that have an entry in the page (for a total of 193 countries), 23 see incest as legal. Among the 26 other countries, some limit the illegality to directly related persons (so cousins and/or half-siblings can have sex).

So, you're implying that most of them would see banging their mom/sister/father a possibility? Again, talking about near relation incest. And again, not the point I am trying to make. The point being, do you think most people find incest natural in a realistic setting?

I said that they probably don't see it as an impossibility if the situation wasn't "I don't love my parents/sibling/child this way". Which is different. And, contrarily to what you now say, it was your point :

And, I believe, even almost all the people who enjoy an incest story, wouldn't even think of being in such a relationship in real life.

The question of legality is irrelevant, as I'm trying to point out how they would be ostracized and frowned upon.

No, the question of legality is relevant since sending someone in jail or an asylum, isn't an innocent act ; and it's also fairly different to being ostracized and frowned upon.
Assume your thoughts. You can't express almost hate (seriously, asylum ?) against your imaginary incestuous mother, then fallback to a disliking when you're pointed out.

Near relation incests maybe acceptable in some corner of the world (maybe some countries in Africa?) but certainly those games do not take place in Africa, but rather in societies where everyone openly detests incest.

Being insulting will lead you nowhere.
Take laws legalizing incest in France, Belgium and Luxembourg by example. They all come from the penal code "wrote by" Napoleon in 1810. If incest was effectively seen as detestable, the law would have been reverted once Belgium and Luxembourg would have been independent again, and once monarchy was restored in France. It also could have been revoked at anytime during the now more than two centuries that followed.
So, unless you live in the USA, please, don't consider these countries as less valuables than yours, especially when your words smell racism.

Throughout your post you seemed to imply that I was questioning the morality of incestuous relationships, whereas, in fact how I feel about incest is totally irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant since it's in every single word you use as argument. Perhaps that it wasn't your intent, but it's what your messages ended to be. All your saying regarding incest and incest in games, are biased by your own moral views regarding the subject.
According to you, people must "detest" it, people performing it must be sent to "asylum", and it can only be seen as acceptable "in some corner of the world (maybe some countries in Africa?)". And I can continue the list, your disgust for incest seeps in all your saying.

I just want the stories of the incest games to first be realistic in details given its social setting and secondly have features that would make it stand out from a vanilla romantic game. And these features should not merely be the relationship ("Father", "Mother", "Sister', "Brother") tag assigned to the person.

This while voluntarily rejecting social settings that don't agree to your own point of view regarding incest ; even if they are a reality in a vast part of the world (since you don't like "around half of"). Sorry, but it's not because a game don't feel realistic according to your moral and thoughts concerning the world and people living in it, that it's an unrealistic game for people who don't share your medieval moral and blindness of the modern world reality.

On the other hand, if you want to tell an incest story, you must show how incest made it special.

The most know incest story is Oedipus... and the special thing come at the very end of it. Please, play again.

And please don't diverge from the main discussion, criticizing specific examples I've given.

Kidding again ? "I give examples to explain my thoughts, but please, don't use them to explain me where my thoughts are wrong" :/ Wow...

EOT, you're far to be serious in your desire to change things according to the effective reality.

 

[Only4You]

EOT, you're far to be serious in your desire to change things according to the effective reality.

Okay, I think this argument has gone far enough. By this post, I only wanted to express my own opinions, and listen to others' opinions rather than battling them to try to prove in anyway that mine were superior. And I think I have got my point across in the discussions above, one should be able to understand it if they tried to do so from an objective point of view. Since, you have started to attack me personally and questioned my moral views, I am going to be a gentleman and end it here. I have not personally insulted you or your moral standpoint so far, and I don't want to do so unintentionally by continuing this discussion any further.

One final note though - I have nothing against incest. If I had, I wouldn't be in an adult forum asking for better incest games, nor would I have played dozens of incest games and explicitly stated that I liked them (see my original post). In the discussion above I only tried to mention how I believe the greater society views incest, just to urge the developers to add a touch of reality to incest stories, and it was only one of several points I tried to make. Convincing anybody whether incest is good or bad or should be considered moral or immoral was never my intention. But you seemed to take that as the gist of my post and attacked me personally. If you are hurt by how my own sense of reality goes against your personal beliefs then I apologize for that. I respect everyone's own personal views even when they don't match mine.

 

[Only4You]

Another thing:

Near relation incests maybe acceptable in some corner of the world (maybe some countries in Africa?) but certainly those games do not take place in Africa, but rather in societies where everyone openly detests incest.

Being insulting will lead you nowhere.
Take laws legalizing incest in France, Belgium and Luxembourg by example. They all come from the penal code "wrote by" Napoleon in 1810. If incest was effectively seen as detestable, the law would have been reverted once Belgium and Luxembourg would have been independent again, and once monarchy was restored in France. It also could have been revoked at anytime during the now more than two centuries that followed.
So, unless you live in the USA, please, don't consider these countries as less valuables than yours, especially when your words smell racism.

I was not trying to insult any country, nor was I being racist. I meant that very literally because as far as I know near relation incest like mother and son is only accepted in some small tribes of Africa, pardon me if my information is wrong. I myself come from a south Asian country that is often a victim of racism rather than the victimizer. So, I wouldn't even think of being arrogant of my own race or origin. So, I wanted to clarify on that point in case someone misinterprets my message.

 

[Iramis]

I don't have anything all that meaningful to add to the discussion except that maybe game developers and maybe some people in this thread should branch out and read some forums like r/incest or r/incest_relationships. For the game developers, I think they can really benefit from reading through the top posts/stories in r/incest. Most are just porn, many are fake (most users believe that 90% of them are) but even the 10% has a lot of content (you can find the whole spectrum of different types of relationships if you are looking for examples). And some are so good you want to believe them even if they're fake. Many users write stories with a lot of personal flair, and they add small details of their lives which give them a lot of personality and realism, which many games lack. Or just go to literotica or something to read pure fictional stories. Main point being if you're going to be writing a story about incest (or anything else) the least you can do is read what other people have already written before about the subject, do some research, it's not that hard, it's free and does not take as much time (comparatively). Although I understand that most game developers are trying to make money and not tell good incest stories which is why they follow the example of the most successful games and just make more of the same because that's what most people want, just some fapping material with not that much effort required to invest in them because as soon as you get away from 'Generic' to something different you're going to lose followers because however great your story is it's going to alienate someone and developers don't want that.

 

[Only4You]

Many users write stories with a lot of personal flair, and they add small details of their lives which give them a lot of personality and realism, which many games lack.

I love this idea, actually I've even thought of it myself. What better way to bring realism in your story than actually grounding it in real-life happenings. Not that you need to copy the whole thing. If you take hints from real life and embellish them with literary ornaments you can certainly come up with a masterpiece.

Or just go to literotica or something to read pure fictional stories. Main point being if you're going to be writing a story about incest (or anything else) the least you can do is read what other people have already written before about the subject, do some research, it's not that hard, it's free and does not take as much time (comparatively).

Totally agree. Even the best writers spend a lot of time reading, getting inspired by other great writers. And I'm certain that even the writing skills of some hobbyists can match that of the best games in these forums. And even if it isn't, it could never hurt to get more ideas. And as you have pointed out, it doesn't take a lot of effort.

Although I understand that most game developers are trying to make money and not tell good incest stories which is why they follow the example of the most successful games and just make more of the same because that's what most people want, just some fapping material with not that much effort required to invest in them because as soon as you get away from 'Generic' to something different you're going to lose followers because however great your story is it's going to alienate someone and developers don't want that.

Bitter truth. But I still see developers who are trying to innovate by going against the flow and doing something new, while also maintaining the quality of their work. However, very few of them are working with incest, maybe because of the notoriety of incest stories having shitty storylines and being of low quality, and just by adding an incest tag to your game would result in it making the same first impression to the people frustrated with such garbage. And also, there is the issue with Patreon's restrictions. Recently, I played Haley's story, just when I started to feel like, maybe I wouldn't find a incest game with good realistic storyline and character design in the foreseeable future, and it greatly surprised me. The game is almost perfect in terms of story, dialogue, narrative and character depth. Although it doesn't have an incest tag yet (no sex), I believe it would soon have one.

 

[Iramis]

But I still see developers who are trying to innovate by going against the flow and doing something new, while also maintaining the quality of their work. However, very few of them are working with incest, maybe because of the notoriety of incest stories having shitty storylines and being of low quality, and just by adding an incest tag to your game would result in it making the same first impression to the people frustrated with such garbage. And also, there is the issue with Patreon's restrictions.

Yeah, there are a lot more hurdles to cross if you're making an incest game which is different from the norm (like some people really hate female MCs, many people will start crying NTR if there is even one more positive male character involved aside from MC like even his own father having sex with his mother, etc), and the whole patreon issue, so it just might not be worth it to experiment with something different and invest time and resources into a game which may not get successful.

Recently, I played Haley's story, just when I started to feel like, maybe I wouldn't find a incest game with good realistic storyline and character design in the foreseeable future, and it greatly surprised me. The game is almost perfect in terms of story, dialogue, narrative and character depth. Although it doesn't have an incest tag yet (no sex), I believe it would soon have one.

I'll definitely give Haley's story a try. I agree with most of your points in the thread so I'll probably enjoy it.