What are good H-Rpg mechanics and essentials?

nulnil

Member
May 18, 2021
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A fundamental thing about making an adult game is eroticism, but it goes further than that. You could very easily make a normal game that contains some porn... Which is fine... But it's nothing special. It will only be good if you can make a good game on it's own.
This depends on how the porn is used. By this definition, Karryn's Prison is a 'bad game' because it does not stand on it's own without the porn.. because said porn is an integral part of the gameplay. 'Bad porn' in games is where it absolutely has no effect on the game, and only serves as bait for the player to chase after. Keep in mind the player's relationship with the game, they want to be there to have fun.
 
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Restia985

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Jan 14, 2018
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Seems the concept is a bit over the place for now. Neverthless, just in order to save you some time, just give up checking on game maker. Most of it's active community is reduced to the official forum; thus it's a really endogamic one. Getting advice from the usuals there is hard most of the times. This is the testimony of someone who started his dev steps there. Ideally I would recommend you Unity which, unlike what popular opinion says, it's far better suited for 2D projects than any of its direct competition. Good luck.
Oh? So you’d suggest unity over RPG maker too?
 

Restia985

Member
Jan 14, 2018
116
26
For the love of god add a clear quest log. Unless the game is groundbreaking in other aspects, the lack of directions really kills my motivation to continue playing.
Haha, yeah. That’s definitely something we plan on adding. We want quality of life stuff to be the best of the best because we have all played those types of rpgs
 

Nunu312

Smut Peddler
Game Developer
Jul 25, 2018
647
1,671
I have a question.

You do mention that you have a budget and a team. And you want this to be the best of the best (where reasonably achievable).

Particularly with the move into unity, this seems like quite the large project. Even if this is relatively short it will probably be in the high 5 to low 7 figures to make at least.

If you did all the writing and coding yourself that could come down a lot, but all of that will be replaced with thousands of hours of work. The development will likely last years.

Presumably you aren't doing this for the money, so this is then a passion project. The question is, do you have the passion to see this all through?

With what you've shown thus far in this thread, it isn't really looking like it, but that is just because your keeping your cards close to your chest.

Similarly a warning is not to overscope. Having the means and the budget to keep adding new things doesn't hold a candle to what can be achieved with a smaller, tighter scope. That's what made the original starwars good, a lower budget so they couldn't go full spectacle. Instead they used it where necessary to make their points... the prequel trilogy, more style, less substance.
 
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Nunu312

Smut Peddler
Game Developer
Jul 25, 2018
647
1,671
> big budget.

> RPG maker MV, MZ

Just, why?
Decent art.

I could sink 50k on a junior artist for a year and I guarantee you that would pay off.

Of course the overhead of having enough work for them to do, project managing and quality control is another question and a good reason not to just throw artists at things.
 

kintarodev

Member
Game Developer
Oct 9, 2022
111
96
Oh? So you’d suggest unity over RPG maker too?
Yep totally. Most issues that you can face through the development of your game can be answered by a quick search in Google/YT and these days also in chatGPT (maybe for this one you need already some knowledge to be able to ask for the RIGHT QUESTION and to be able to tell when chatGPT is asnwering just bullshit...).

When it's about 2D projects, potential-wise (the more things you can do the more you learn) Unity falls second to none. And for beginners you have plenty of tutorial series in YT about how to make 2D rpg systems without spending a cent in the Asset Store.
 
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Restia985

Member
Jan 14, 2018
116
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I have a question.

You do mention that you have a budget and a team. And you want this to be the best of the best (where reasonably achievable).

Particularly with the move into unity, this seems like quite the large project. Even if this is relatively short it will probably be in the high 5 to low 7 figures to make at least.

If you did all the writing and coding yourself that could come down a lot, but all of that will be replaced with thousands of hours of work. The development will likely last years.

Presumably you aren't doing this for the money, so this is then a passion project. The question is, do you have the passion to see this all through?

With what you've shown thus far in this thread, it isn't really looking like it, but that is just because your keeping your cards close to your chest.

Similarly a warning is not to overscope. Having the means and the budget to keep adding new things doesn't hold a candle to what can be achieved with a smaller, tighter scope. That's what made the original starwars good, a lower budget so they couldn't go full spectacle. Instead they used it where necessary to make their points... the prequel trilogy, more style, less substance.
We planned on making and polishing the main story and world before even starting working on the game itself just to already have something to base the work off of. I would be the main coder/writer but we do have a few more people for writing and coding that are personal friends outside of the team (they are willing to help if they get paid which they would). And lastly artists aren’t something I am thinking of atm. I was going to worry about that after we began working on the actual game.

I am just trying to determine if RPGM would be the best engine for it or not but from what I am gathering here it seems probably not
 

Nunu312

Smut Peddler
Game Developer
Jul 25, 2018
647
1,671
We planned on making and polishing the main story and world before even starting working on the game itself just to already have something to base the work off of. I would be the main coder/writer but we do have a few more people for writing and coding that are personal friends outside of the team (they are willing to help if they get paid which they would). And lastly artists aren’t something I am thinking of atm. I was going to worry about that after we began working on the actual game.

I am just trying to determine if RPGM would be the best engine for it or not but from what I am gathering here it seems probably not
RPGMaker is looked down upon quite heavily. In general this is because the easier a tool is to use, the easier it is for people who are bad at making games to make terrible games.

This reputation creates a stigma around the concept of new games and turns people off. There will be a vocal minority who do not even look at your game because they have played too many shitty rpgmaker games.

At the end of the day it is just a tool and it ships with a variety of basic mechanics. It is possible to use it very successfully and there are no shortage of successes using it right now. Demon deals springs to mind.

For an open world exploration focused game what rpgmaker brings to the table is very fitting. The ability to walk around an actual environment is a huge plus for your mechanics as you can reward that wandering and hide things. In other games it is a strict, massive negative. There are several other large downsides as well, but...

Making those mechanics in unity will take you hundreds of hours at least. Development past that will also be harder as you wrestle with 3rd party plugins trying to build from scratch. The end quality of unity is undeniably higher, but depending on what you want to do it will be orders of magnitude more work. That being said, it may be that what you want to do isn't even possible in rpgmaker.

At the end of the day, RPG maker will have you something to show in weeks, unity in months if that.

Also don't neglect your art. Sexy art can make a game... mediocre art doesn't ruin it... but if you've got money, art is where I'd put it.
 
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Restia985

Member
Jan 14, 2018
116
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RPGMaker is looked down upon quite heavily. In general this is because the easier a tool is to use, the easier it is for people who are bad at making games to make terrible games.

This reputation creates a stigma around the concept of new games and turns people off. There will be a vocal minority who do not even look at your game because they have played too many shitty rpgmaker games.

At the end of the day it is just a tool and it ships with a variety of basic mechanics. It is possible to use it very successfully and there are no shortage of successes using it right now. Demon deals springs to mind.

For an open world exploration focused game what rpgmaker brings to the table is very fitting. The ability to walk around an actual environment is a huge plus for your mechanics as you can reward that wandering and hide things. In other games it is a strict, massive negative. There are several other large downsides as well, but...

Making those mechanics in unity will take you hundreds of hours at least. Development past that will also be harder as you wrestle with 3rd party plugins trying to build from scratch. The end quality of unity is undeniably higher, but depending on what you want to do it will be orders of magnitude more work. That being said, it may be that what you want to do isn't even possible in rpgmaker.

At the end of the day, RPG maker will have you something to show in weeks, unity in months if that.

Also don't neglect your art. Sexy art can make a game... mediocre art doesn't ruin it... but if you've got money, art is where I'd put it.
No, I am sure it’s definitely possible. I am not thinking of extremely ambitious mechanics or anything. Thank you for the insight. We might just use RPGM for this title and if it is received well we might move on to make things on another engine or continue using it. Either way it shouldn’t hurt to learn how to use Renpy or unity.
 
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Good artwork will bring people to the dance. A good story will keep people until the lights are turned off in the building.
 

nulnil

Member
May 18, 2021
466
347
Good artwork will bring people to the dance. A good story will keep people until the lights are turned off in the building.
Gotta disagree though, gameplay can bring in tons of players in too. Even more so given the fact most games here see gameplay as work rather than something fun.

That being said, most VN's here are equivalent to a run-on porn skit.
 

Nunu312

Smut Peddler
Game Developer
Jul 25, 2018
647
1,671
Gotta disagree though, gameplay can bring in tons of players in too. Even more so given the fact most games here see gameplay as work rather than something fun.

That being said, most VN's here are equivalent to a run-on porn skit.
Most people just don't have the coding and design chops to make good gameplay. And bad gameplay does significantly detract from the experience (hence the rpgmaker hate).

Even then, for you to actually have gameplay that is worth it, you will need to spend a fair chunk of time building it.

You aren't wrong in any way, but the value proposition for including anything more than rudimentary choice systems is pretty low as a general statement.
 

Warthief

Member
Game Developer
Sep 11, 2020
197
105
If this your 1st project, your plans for this project are very big and that could cause you many problems in develoment,
and if the game will not work you will be wasting months if not years on a game no one will play so my advice before you start making this huge project start with smaller one or two other project to test your team skills and also gain some fans before you dive in this big project, but if you feel confident in your team skills and you have experiance you can start with this project.

I started with my dream project, I can say it failed because I did many amateurs mistakes like (opend sand box with no quest log, usless systems like night and day cycle and npc day routine that made the map feel empty, hard mini game that people don't want in H games....) and many other things that made people drop the game without seeing many of the contents I made.

Overall I hope for you and your team good luck in your project.
 
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M$hot

Member
May 28, 2017
238
365
I think there's overlap in the complaints you see for RPGM, HTML, QSP or other sandbox titles. It sucks to hit dead ends (Like adding a club to the minimap and then getting a prompt 'coming in future update') and just generally to feel you're wasting time. Grind is vaguely tied in with that. I don't mind working for something, but then the working itself has to be somewhat rewarding, not something I want to get over asap.
And that's why I won't even touch RPGM games, I've tried quite a few, even the highly rated ones, and I just hate walking between locations if there's nothing to be found on the path. That feels more like padding than gameplay. And if you're delaying me from seeing an erotic scene, it best be for a better reason than 'you have to arrow keys your way to the other side of town'. Don't need instant gratification, I don't expect a widow to go from cup of coffee to anal in a minute. But when the anal IS on the table, then having to spend extra time just walking over? That doesn't feel rewarding or fun.

Anyway, just my 2 cents, Unity makes more sense to me. And I think if you do make your first title on RPGM to 'see the feedback' I imagine the loudest feedback will relate to 'why RPGM though?' and assuming it's otherwise a great game, missing stars in reviews are probably going to be linked to 'unneeded grind/so much walking'.

That said, while I've played a lot of games here, what you are looking to develop isn't exactly my niche, so what I just predicted to happen is more based on what I've generally seen across F95, not specifically in the genre you seem to plan to take part in.

Whatever direction you take though, it seems you will be investing a lot of time and money and mental energy, which I admire. So I can't do anything but wish the very best for your project! It doesn't look like it's for me, but I'm but 1 person of millions so please don't take my hesitancy to heart.
 
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Restia985

Member
Jan 14, 2018
116
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If this your 1st project, your plans for this project are very big and that could cause you many problems in develoment,
and if the game will not work you will be wasting months if not years on a game no one will play so my advice before you start making this huge project start with smaller one or two other project to test your team skills and also gain some fans before you dive in this big project, but if you feel confident in your team skills and you have experiance you can start with this project.

I started with my dream project, I can say it failed because I did many amateurs mistakes like (opend sand box with no quest log, usless systems like night and day cycle and npc day routine that made the map feel empty, hard mini game that people don't want in H games....) and many other things that made people drop the game without seeing many of the contents I made.

Overall I hope for you and your team good luck in your project.
The original plan was to make this big project our first official game. But having discussed it over with the rest we have decided to release one or two games first to test ourselves and see if we have the right ideas for ‘fun’! One will be in RPGM and we are debating over using RENPY on the other one just to see if it’s liked as well. Either way that’s still a good bit in the future. Thank you for your reply :)
 
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Restia985

Member
Jan 14, 2018
116
26
I think there's overlap in the complaints you see for RPGM, HTML, QSP or other sandbox titles. It sucks to hit dead ends (Like adding a club to the minimap and then getting a prompt 'coming in future update') and just generally to feel you're wasting time. Grind is vaguely tied in with that. I don't mind working for something, but then the working itself has to be somewhat rewarding, not something I want to get over asap.
And that's why I won't even touch RPGM games, I've tried quite a few, even the highly rated ones, and I just hate walking between locations if there's nothing to be found on the path. That feels more like padding than gameplay. And if you're delaying me from seeing an erotic scene, it best be for a better reason than 'you have to arrow keys your way to the other side of town'. Don't need instant gratification, I don't expect a widow to go from cup of coffee to anal in a minute. But when the anal IS on the table, then having to spend extra time just walking over? That doesn't feel rewarding or fun.

Anyway, just my 2 cents, Unity makes more sense to me. And I think if you do make your first title on RPGM to 'see the feedback' I imagine the loudest feedback will relate to 'why RPGM though?' and assuming it's otherwise a great game, missing stars in reviews are probably going to be linked to 'unneeded grind/so much walking'.

That said, while I've played a lot of games here, what you are looking to develop isn't exactly my niche, so what I just predicted to happen is more based on what I've generally seen across F95, not specifically in the genre you seem to plan to take part in.

Whatever direction you take though, it seems you will be investing a lot of time and money and mental energy, which I admire. So I can't do anything but wish the very best for your project! It doesn't look like it's for me, but I'm but 1 person of millions so please don't take my hesitancy to heart.
Thank you for the advice! We think we have good ideas to make anything we decide on as entertaining as possible. Hopefully our confidence turns out to be true lol. Anyways, since these are passion projects we are enjoying ourselves along the way more than hoping for HUGE financial success. It would just be nice to have
 
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Jun 25, 2018
301
409
Gotta disagree though, gameplay can bring in tons of players in too. Even more so given the fact most games here see gameplay as work rather than something fun.

That being said, most VN's here are equivalent to a run-on porn skit.
Art, Writing and Gameplay are all important but without the first two what is the reason for the gameplay? You can have great gameplay and that'll hook some people for a period of time but if the artwork is not fapable, or the story doesn't hook people to want to progress, gameplay becomes a moot point.
 

nulnil

Member
May 18, 2021
466
347
Art, Writing and Gameplay are all important but without the first two what is the reason for the gameplay? You can have great gameplay and that'll hook some people for a period of time but if the artwork is not fapable, or the story doesn't hook people to want to progress, gameplay becomes a moot point.
For any game that isn't a VN, gameplay is going to come first. The story and art just exist to compliment it. Art is indeed a much more important aspect for adult games, but a good story is no guarantee of quality. If a game had an utter 0/10 story that wasn't intrusive to the gameplay, people would progress through it if it had good gameplay.