To all my fellow devs who are brave enough -what grinds your gears?

[redknight00]

I'll have a bit of an opposing post here, if you don't mind, for this is a pet peeve of mine.

We'll all agree that sex is the main driving force in adult games. Therefore, I consider a possibility to choose with whom my character would have sex with a basic human right. It's the barest minimum in terms of gameplay and player interaction a visual novel can have.

If it's important for your story and you can't do without it, that's fine, but in my opinion the information that there is forced sexual content should either be a tag, or part of the description. This is almost always a major negative point for me as a player.

So, I disagree. These are perfectly valid questions if there are no answers present for the players beforehand.

As a player I very much agree to this, being able to choose who I fuck and who I love in the game is a big deal IMO, I don't like being forced into taking choices and while I understand in some cases it might be unavoidable to force the player in the direction the creator wants to go, but it counts as negative to me. Of course, I don't expect every to matter and branch, but in a game about sex and romance, I expect at least to be able to pick who I sex and romance.

 

[HopesGaming]

I do get that people want to focus on one girl and the immersive part that follows that.
But from the devs side, it is actually not as simple as that.

There are two ways of doing it:
1. You have to cut of content for the girls not on focus. Basically, make the other girls an empty shell while doing one girl's path 2. make a separate friendship only path.
This will be very time consuming and means the dev have to neglect content from somewhere else.

Doing option 1 is the easiest. Just make it so you can't progress with the other girls.
But what happens once an update is out that focus mainly on the girls they choose not to be with.
Then that update is basically nothing for them since they can't progress anyway.
every update there is always a large part of the player base that will not get any content from the update.

That leaves option 2.
But that require now writing a seperate script, coding and renders for a lot of new paths. And in turn, to compensate for the extra time you have to go and cut off some other elements. Maybe story sections or events etc.

Of course, there is some game style which is where this is possible. When the main focus is simply on the sex and there are tons of girls to choose from.

Overall, the best way of doing it imo, is to wait till the end of the game (or almost) and then you can go back and add extra paths that give that extra immersive feeling.

 

[DarthSeduction]

I'll have a bit of an opposing post here, if you don't mind, for this is a pet peeve of mine.

We'll all agree that sex is the main driving force in adult games. Therefore, I consider a possibility to choose with whom my character would have sex with a basic human right. It's the barest minimum in terms of gameplay and player interaction a visual novel can have.

If it's important for your story and you can't do without it, that's fine, but in my opinion the information that there is forced sexual content should either be a tag, or part of the description. This is almost always a major negative point for me as a player.

So, I disagree. These are perfectly valid questions if there are no answers present for the players beforehand.

As a player I very much agree to this, being able to choose who I fuck and who I love in the game is a big deal IMO, I don't like being forced into taking choices and while I understand in some cases it might be unavoidable to force the player in the direction the creator wants to go, but it counts as negative to me. Of course, I don't expect every to matter and branch, but in a game about sex and romance, I expect at least to be able to pick who I sex and romance.

This is what I was trying to make clear with my post before, but let me be more specific. Not all games are "Hey, here's a group of gals for you to choose from". Sometimes a story is written around a single relationship, sometimes the point of the story is how the relationships are all happening. This is where the "Not every story is meant for you" line comes into play, I guess. For instance, I quite respect Thialf, I wouldn't expect him to enjoy Seraphim Academy, because I know he's a slow burn romantic monogamist and it's the complete opposite, meanwhile, he might find he can enjoy TTWDFL assuming he stays on the romance route.

I think there's a slight hangup on the simplification end here. We devs know what we're talking about when we say these things without details. But the question is normally more like "Can I avoid content with the main love interest of the plot." In fact, people ask that about Alexis and Alexander, the twins at the center of my twincest game. And honestly, no, you can't. The plot hinges on their relationship. It doesn't have to succeed, they can never get it to launch at all, but the love between the characters is an ever present plot detail that can't be avoided simply because you don't want to love this character.

Visual Novels are games, but they're games that are capable of having a much more structured story, hence "novel"; and as such, sometimes the narrative of that story is going to force you to have content with people you may not care for. To be fair as well, if you're the type of player for whom the only appeal is the sex, maybe VN aren't for you in the first place? You might have a legitimate concern if content with the landlady is gated behind getting the little sis who you hate to help, requiring you to bang her, in a life sim, because that could likely be designed differently and still work, but with a VN, you're asking an intricate web designed to lure you to a specific set of points to become a sandbox where you get to do what you want.

 

[Akamari]

Visual Novels are games, but they're games that are capable of having a much more structured story, hence "novel"; and as such, sometimes the narrative of that story is going to force you to have content with people you may not care for. To be fair as well, if you're the type of player for whom the only appeal is the sex, maybe VN aren't for you in the first place? You might have a legitimate concern if content with the landlady is gated behind getting the little sis who you hate to help, requiring you to bang her, in a life sim, because that could likely be designed differently and still work, but with a VN, you're asking an intricate web designed to lure you to a specific set of points to become a sandbox where you get to do what you want.

If it's essential for the story to have sex with all the characters, then that's fine, there's hardly a way around it, but it should also be made clear in the first place.

When you see it's a kinetic novel it's immediately clear that there are no choices. If it doesn't say that, the implications are that the player will be able to have some kind of interactions. What's the most basic interaction one can expect in an adult VN? Saying you're over 18, choosing your name, and choosing which girls to have sex with. The first two are of course irrelevant.

I'm not asking for a VN to be sandbox at all. For me as a player having a say in the story and what happens is important (and no, I don't need to nor want to have say in where my character is every hour of a day). Some VN's offer plenty of choices, some very few. I have favourites among both, but the one thing in common is that I have control over the sexual aspect. Like I said, It's the most basic thing to expect.

 

[freedom.call]

the one thing in common is that I have control over the sexual aspect. Like I said, It's the most basic thing to expect.

I'm going to agree with you!

Thing is (this could be anecdotal evidence, dunno), when the game forces me to have sex it's almost always someone I don't want to have sex with...

That is probably the biggest annoyance for me (alongside stupid 18 year old MC born yesterday, but we endure).

 

[polywog]

Nothing grinds my gears.

Advice for you new devs: Enjoy the praise, Ignore the complaints. Don't argue with fans, It makes YOU look bad.

By nature people don't trust critics, they want to see for themselves. Any publicity, is good publicity. Controversy about your game gets people talking... gets more people to check out your game.

If someone says "this game is a clone of (insert most popular game this month)" why in the world would that upset you?
Ladies and gentlemen, having those keywords in your game thread is gold. DMD Big Bother Daughter sister incest mother
Moderators should have an understanding of search engine optimization. Delete posts that flood keywords, but people have been comparing games since the dawn of time. This game is like x meets y and has baby z. Those are legit info for search engine optimization. This game should flag similar to x and y.

Anyone who says "I don't like ____ in the game" is not a fan. Ignore them. Let them go play non___ games someplace else.
Your fans like _____, and _____ is the main reason they are YOUR fans.
If YOUR fans say I don't like ____ AND _____ that's a different story. You might want to rethink your scat, cream pie. oral sex, virgin combo. It's up to you, but don't let players tell you how to make YOUR game.

 

[danteworks]

I can preface this by reminding commenters that Op is not about banning comments but simply what grinds the gears. Personally my gears are ground when people ask me about android version without reading the text right next to the download links informing why there is no android version.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I do get that people want to focus on one girl and the immersive part that follows that.
But from the devs side, it is actually not as simple as that.

Yes. Like @DarthSeduction said, it's really difficult to do in a visual novel-like.

If you take @FFCreations ' Freeloading Family, the MC not having sex with Leah change everything to the story. With the sex, it balance the relation ; Leah fuck the sister, the sister fuck the MC, and the MC fuck Leah ; everyone is happy. Without the sex, either Leah drift apart and slowly disappear, or Leah and the MC end being in competition for the sister ; both leading to the none apparition of Leah's sister. They are two totally different stories that can't be told in parallel.
It's also something difficult to handle in incest games, like in @Perverteer 's Sisterly Lust (with the third party's incest patch). Like you have the possibility to have or not a relation with each member of the family, he will have a hard time ending the game ; not that I don't think he can do it, just that it will be a long work to do. Being the third wheel isn't easy, but imagine if it's because the MC fuck your two sisters and your mother... but not you ; apparently you're not worthy enough of his interest. Same for the mother. Not only she have to accept that her son have an incestuous relationship, but she have to deal with the fact that this relationship imply more than one of his sisters. By chance this particular mother is open minded, but still.
And it don't limit to incest, as long as you can romance more than one character in a familly, like in @CheekyGimp 's Where the Heart Is, it will be difficult. Will the mother accept that the MC have a relationship with both her daughters ? Can Katie really accept that the MC have a relationship with her sister, her mother, or worse, both but not her ? And you, Hopes... Is Cordia ready (i'm sure she is) to deal with the fact that there will be something between the MC and, both Luna and Gracie ? And Luna, how will she deal with it if the MC have a relation with her sister and her mother ? [Pretty please, would you kindly make it happen ? Since the night she caught me, I really want Cordia to be my mommy.

 

[HopesGaming]

Yes. Like @DarthSeduction said, it's really difficult to do in a visual novel-like.

If you take @FFCreations ' Freeloading Family, the MC not having sex with Leah change everything to the story. With the sex, it balance the relation ; Leah fuck the sister, the sister fuck the MC, and the MC fuck Leah ; everyone is happy. Without the sex, either Leah drift apart and slowly disappear, or Leah and the MC end being in competition for the sister ; both leading to the none apparition of Leah's sister. They are two totally different stories that can't be told in parallel.
It's also something difficult to handle in incest games, like in @Perverteer 's Sisterly Lust (with the third party's incest patch). Like you have the possibility to have or not a relation with each member of the family, he will have a hard time ending the game ; not that I don't think he can do it, just that it will be a long work to do. Being the third wheel isn't easy, but imagine if it's because the MC fuck your two sisters and your mother... but not you ; apparently you're not worthy enough of his interest. Same for the mother. Not only she have to accept that her son have an incestuous relationship, but she have to deal with the fact that this relationship imply more than one of his sisters. By chance this particular mother is open minded, but still.
And it don't limit to incest, as long as you can romance more than one character in a familly, like in @CheekyGimp 's Where the Heart Is, it will be difficult. Will the mother accept that the MC have a relationship with both her daughters ? Can Katie really accept that the MC have a relationship with her sister, her mother, or worse, both but not her ? And you, Hopes... Is Cordia ready (i'm sure she is) to deal with the fact that there will be something between the MC and, both Luna and Gracie ? And Luna, how will she deal with it if the MC have a relation with her sister and her mother ? [Pretty please, would you kindly make it happen ? Since the night she caught me, I really want Cordia to be my mommy.

Yea I do totally get your point.
In the end it is all about the style of the game and how important the sex is.

In mine, it is a bit necessary as their progression is not only about the sex but their storyline and background story.
Gracie's whole *secret* slowly gets unfolded while getting closer to her.
Of course, there are workarounds but the question is- is the extra time and effort needed worth the hassle (at this stage of the game)?
Only time will tell.
About Cordia.
Well, she is a rather mysterious one. Never really know how she will react.

On a side note, today I'm going to release a small update.
In there I added some *filler* content. There are some new cam recordings in which you can hear Wilfred and Cordia talk about different stuff. Could be fun for people that love lore stuff.

 

[polywog]

I can preface this by reminding commenters that Op is not about banning comments but simply what grinds the gears. Personally my gears are ground when people ask me about android version without reading the text right next to the download links informing why there is no android version.

It shouldn't bother you that more people want to play your game. Android OS is 82% of the mobile computing market. (18% shared by all others combined) It would be an interesting survey to see how many players curl up in bed with an android tablet to play adult games.

And don't feel bad, if you can't port the game to android, there are modders that can do it, like the back of their hand.
If a pissy little 7% of the marketshare demands an apple port... that's another story.

In 2012 I bought a big multitouch monitor, installed Android SDK and turned it into a giant tablet coffee table. My guests fight over it, and I have both a theater and a game room. Games where you touch interact with the character. Like touch the breast and it responds are crazy popular. Everything is going to phones and tablets now days.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Yea I do totally get your point.
In the end it is all about the style of the game and how important the sex is.

Exactly. Since the moment there's a real story, we players have to deal with what you authors have planned as story. And that's all, no possible complain even when sometimes we auto-advance the story of one girl.

In mine, it is a bit necessary as their progression is not only about the sex but their storyline and background story.

As I perceive it, your game fall in between Freeloading Family and Sisterly Lust. The player can skip a relationship, but not if he really want to fully enjoy your amazing story.

Gracie's whole *secret* slowly gets unfolded while getting closer to her.

Honestly, I'm more hooked by unfolding Luna's one (well, to be really honest I want to "unfold" more than her secret). Not that Gracie's secret isn't interesting, but with Luna you started it more abruptly ; we don't even completely understood that she had a secret, that we already were curious to know more.
Plus it's Luna Vs Gracie. We expect Gracie secret to be sage, eventually boring (and I'm sure that it will not really be the first and definitively not the second). But Luna... we expect nothing, we just want to know what crazy thing she did.

That's why your game stay in my first place. Not only each character have its personality and a strong background, but we react to them and we have a different expectation for each one of them.

 

[FFCreations]

When people use my game in different situations without at least checking with me or paying respects to me as a developer.

One example is YouTube videos. I love that people are making YouTube videos of the game, I fully endorse it. However, most videos link a PIRATED version of the game to ALL viewers and they don’t even credit me by linking to my Patreon or even stating that it’s made by me. Also the links and the video themselves are fully advertised, meaning they make money of my game without even crediting me.

Another example is Android ports. Once again, I love it that people make Android ports of the game, but when they use a pirated version of my game to create a port to put on THEIR website, then absolutely nothing helps me unless the players manually choose to look me up. I would appreciate if they’d at least contact me beforehand so that I’m aware or something.

 

[BeCe]

When people use my game in different situations without at least checking with me or paying respects to me as a developer.

One example is YouTube videos. I love that people are making YouTube videos of the game, I fully endorse it. However, most videos link a PIRATED version of the game to ALL viewers and they don’t even credit me by linking to my Patreon or even stating that it’s made by me. Also the links and the video themselves are fully advertised, meaning they make money of my game without even crediting me.

Another example is Android ports. Once again, I love it that people make Android ports of the game, but when they use a pirated version of my game to create a port to put on THEIR website, then absolutely nothing helps me unless the players manually choose to look me up. I would appreciate if they’d at least contact me beforehand so that I’m aware or something.

Yeah, not hard to add "Support the game dev at: xxx" on your video description. Although personally, been too scared to look up videos of my game in case I just find an hour long rant about how bad I am.

 

[polywog]

When people use my game in different situations without at least checking with me or paying respects to me as a developer.

One example is YouTube videos. I love that people are making YouTube videos of the game, I fully endorse it. However, most videos link a PIRATED version of the game to ALL viewers and they don’t even credit me by linking to my Patreon or even stating that it’s made by me. Also the links and the video themselves are fully advertised, meaning they make money of my game without even crediting me.

Another example is Android ports. Once again, I love it that people make Android ports of the game, but when they use a pirated version of my game to create a port to put on THEIR website, then absolutely nothing helps me unless the players manually choose to look me up. I would appreciate if they’d at least contact me beforehand so that I’m aware or something.

Are you saying they removed your intro, and the patreon and discord links from the start sceen?

 

[FFCreations]

Yeah, not hard to add "Support the game dev at: xxx" on your video description. Although personally, been too scared to look up videos of my game in case I just find an hour long rant about how bad I am.

Even after I’ve emailed them. Some still refuse to do it. Out of spite? I don’t know. I don’t see how it can be so difficult to add a single line of text in your description.

 

[FFCreations]

Are you saying they removed your intro, and the patreon and discord links from the start sceen?

One guy actually did, and he even had the balls to add his own logo as a intro screen and also text at the top that said it was ported by him. But he made damn sure to remove any benefit I could receive from it.

But even so, most people don’t use that. The traffic I get are from actual websites (such as Reddit and F95). So I want people to link to my Patreon wherever, it’s the least you can do.

 

[redknight00]

@DarthSeduction and @anne O'nymous I get that and don't expect every developer to that (or any), but I'm a greedy bastard and want everything. Luckily I find enough games that suit my tastes to get by, at least in that department.

In any case, that just means I get to use the same principle in a larger scale, instead of playing a game and choosing the routes I want to follow, I pick the games with routes I want to follow. Of course, it's hard to be impressed by overview and screenshots, so barely play any single route game. I fact on top of my head the only games like that I enjoyed were Kara no Shoujo and Stein;Gate, one is a detective game with porn, the other a time travel game with hints of romance and both only go so far as having a canon true ending.

Anyway, that's just me being a whiny bitch here instead of game threads.

 

[polywog]

One guy actually did, and he even had the balls to add his own logo as a intro screen and also text at the top that said it was ported by him. But he made damn sure to remove any benefit I could receive from it.

But even so, most people don’t use that. The traffic I get are from actual websites (such as Reddit and F95). So I want people to link to my Patreon wherever, it’s the least you can do.

That guy's a douche. Some pirates are idiots. They crop photos to remove copyrights, watermarks, logos, etc. thinking it makes it legit to post online, or that it gives them plausible deniability. 5% of the pirated porn out there are cropped, or flipped horizontal to make them harder to identify.

F95 lets YOU be the pirate of your stuff. When I said ask a modder to help with an android port I meant modders here, not somewhere else. You get it out there first, the way you want it.

Asking permission... Renderosity vendors will give you whole collections of assets to use in your work just for crediting them.
It's all about getting your name out there in this business. I don't know why it's so hard for some people to communicate, and collaborate.

Cross link your parteon with other developers, you both get more traffic from that.

 

[Crell]

And that leads me to a post I saw on here a couple weeks ago from a guy basically telling devs that "No one reads the story anyway", so don't put time into it. If that were true, I know I'd be done for. My writing is what keeps my patrons coming back month after month.

This is absolute horseshit. If you're only in for the pics, there's millions of sites with them. Those games are ALL about the stories they tell. Without the stories, they wouldn't be games in the first place. Just a rapid succession of pics. Dating my Daugher for example would've been a still birth without the premise and story. The art is rather basic, even terrible at times. Nobody would ever pay a single cent for just the mediocre porn. Same goes for your (awesome) work. The art is...well, average. But the characters are relatable and likeable. And the humour is great most of the time.

You either have to have great gameplay or great stories (or preferably both). The art itself is rather negligible.

 

[DarthSeduction]

When you see it's a kinetic novel it's immediately clear that there are no choices. If it doesn't say that, the implications are that the player will be able to have some kind of interactions. What's the most basic interaction one can expect in an adult VN? Saying you're over 18, choosing your name, and choosing which girls to have sex with. The first two are of course irrelevant.

You see, this is not what I was saying. And I kinda blame the early, what to call them... pioneers(?) in Western games for this. So many of them do something I consider a huge mistake. The only purpose of the game is sex, and so the only real choices they can give you are sex. Seraphim Academy is a mystery thriller set in a porn game, with a protagonist who is explicitly polyamorous and that polyamory is essential to telling the full thriller story. If you were to take the poly out of Seraphim Academy, you'd be missing most of the game, or, as Hopes said, forced to write different scripts for every possible variation of "I like this character but not that one."

Seraphim's choices will be more in line with something like Life is Strange, Telltale's many choice based series, and a little bit of those old school adventure games like kings quest (which also exists in Life is Strange if I'm honest). It isn't that you have no choices, it isn't a kinetic novel. It's just that the visual novel story you're experiencing isn't about making a choice of which girls to have sex with, it's about trying to solve the mystery and keep everyone safe.

Now, Seraphim is unique in ways I can't say, don't want to spoil it for people. You might be thinking, "But Depraved Awakening let me pick and choose." And that is an example of a mystery game that does just that, however, you'll probably note that most of the time you're not splitting off down a completely new line when you choose not to sexually interact, you just skip a scene. There are some times where you have to make a choice between one character or another in it, but mostly the story continues in a straight line with short branches off the main for sexual encounters. I'm being a little reductive here, understand the game is incredibly well written from my perspective, but the same truths Hopes alluded to and that I'm trying to talk about now are present, we devs don't have the time to create a unique story for each person who doesn't like every character.