See title. I'm working on a new game - my first one, in fact. Without spoiling too much: Visual Novel, 2DCG (I have a pretty amazing artist, I think) somewhat """realistic""" medieval fantasy setting, extremely choice-oriented.
Although I am quite experienced from other mediums in both storytelling and programming I was thinking that I could use a "market analysis" of sorts.
I have played a lot of porn games, and obviously have my own ideas about what stupid things I hate that every game pulls, but I was wondering how much they matched with the average person's. The question is both about "story tropes" and "technical tropes" (minigames, narration flow, etc).
I'll name a few I don't like, to start:
- oversized tits (I like big tits, but too much is too much) and comically large penis (so many MCs have dicks bigger than their arms)
- useless skimpy armor (man, you need to choose between showing skin and protection)
- no consequences for cheating, ever (girls NEVER give a shit about you banging a whole harem, I think it becomes that much more immersive if you have to convince them)
- virgin whore (girl who is introduced as a "slut" conveniently becomes shy and grows a hymen back as soon as you fuck: turns out, the rumors were entirely fabricated, and there was no fire to this smoke; the only girl allowed not to be a virgin is the "quirky sexually liberated chick", but that's a different archetype). I like virgins as much as the next guy, but like everything, it doesn't work if you shove it everywhere. Japanese games are especially guilty of this one, but plenty of westerners do it too.
- the dev having a relatable character (or worse, the MC) parrot the dev's (often, but not always, liberal) political/social opinions as a total non sequitur or worse, as a way to impress a girl (because that totally works).
While I'm at it, here's another question: I kind of want my game to have many endings, at many different points of the game with the content not even remotely distributed evenly between the various routes. There may be some that cut you short right in the prologue, and some that last all the way for hours of gameplay. Do you lot think this would this become annoying? Maybe it could be mitigated by adding an autosave/warning system.
I'm afraid you're setting yourself some traps, especially for a novice porn dev.
1. Realism overboard: realism is a tool for you to tell a convincing story. When applied too generously, however, you make your goal of creating erotic situations harder to achieve. There's a reason why characters have big tits, big cocks, skimpy armors etc' in the media, and that is because it's fucking hot. I don't mean to tell you to portray all your girls as medieval bimbos, but as in everything else in life, balance is key. If you're going to present an average body girl wearing modest cloths your goal of having the player wanting to bone her will become much harder.
2. Consequences for cheating: again, hyper realism can kill you here as well. We have jealous spouses in real life, do we need jealous spouses in fantasy as well?
3. Choices. A very tough question. A question I've been pondering myself for months now. Remember that if different choices mean different content that's content the player will not see. Think about spending hours of work on scenes many of your players will not see unless they: A. Replay or B. Use a mod to view them in the gallery.
My current approach to choices is that they should be "morality" or "role" based, i.e. allow the player to do the "bad" thing or the "good" thing which will lead to similar but not identical scenes, allowing you to ensure that an optimal amount of your work is seen by the players.
As a player, I hate, hate hate to choose between two girls I like. And no, saving and reloading is making me work when I should be having fun. As a developer I never force my players to choose between two girls.
Lastly, on the topic of choices, I personally hate blind choices. "Give her the Red rose or the Blue rose?" How the fuck would I know? Giving the players uninformed choices is not giving them choices at all.
4. Different endings: again, you're risking investing a lot of your work into content players not will see.
To summarize: realism is a powerful tool for erotica, it helps the player suspend their disbelief at what they see. In excessive quantities, however, it can make your game dull. Also: choices are very tempting, but remember that every time the players chose Blue, he missed the content in Red so you had better decide how much effort you are going to invest into making Blue and Red different.
Here are some of my most hated recurring themes: - Ticklist Fetish games - If you want to explore a certain kink/tag/fetish try to be consistent with that instead of having a throwaway scene just because it happened to take your fancy for that particular scene for that particular character and never bring it up again.
- Rape to rehabilitate - or otherwise using rape or coerced sex to convert someone to your side or make them do something you need them to do.
- Talk three times = sex - I really don't like it when the PC doesn't have to put any effort in to make people like them. But on the flip-side - Keep giving gifts and do favours until the love points = sex time - just because you're useful to someone doesn't mean they'll have sex with you. If anything it should make the recipient uncomfortable to have you simping for them so aggressively.
- PC sexuals - as long as the player controls the character every sexually compatible being (and sometimes non-compatible) will be okay with having sex with them. Well written characters should have preferences, and the PC should be able to not make the cut if they don't meet those expectations.
- Cheating for me, but not for thee - games that forbid non-player characters from having sex with characters other than the PC, but the PC can have sex with anyone. Mostly relevant to harem games, but it bothers me when everone have to be absolutely comitted to the PC but the PC isn't comitted to anyone. It feels so beta and insecure. Either you're in an open relationship, or you aren't.
- Non-taboo taboos - if you are exploring something in your porn game that is societally a well-established taboo (unless you have explicitly stated otherwise in your in-universe lore) then there should be hesitance on both parties before engaging in it (unless either is a psychopath).
1- Stolen valor - When the MC recive all that he could hever want and more for no reason, or when Mc is thanked for something the player didn't do (or, worst, want), it's just make me sick. Like, it's one thing if MC is royalty and he have bootlickers, but it's an other thing when the MC is a nobody and is treated as an isekai's protagoniste.
2- Half-hearted taboo break - Incest, but your not blood related (or just half); slave, but you treat it as an equal; rape, but she actually like it. WTF, just commit a bit.
3- Diluted story - For this one I think of : Giant gardians and... an other one that I cannot find!!! it's nice to have drasticly different path, but it's nicer for the story to progress.
4- Semi-annual+ update - Don't wait to long to update the game or I can't remember shit and lose interrest in the story.
Ok maybe that isn't fair, but most visual novels would be better with a linear story where the protagonist isn't some self insert. Alot of the time, it feels like your choices don't matter in VN's because choice A and B both take you to the same destination.
If it makes sense to have an early happy ending, then it should be fine to have one. Maybe it will feel weird if one branch is a short story and another is War and Peace but it won't make me think a game is terrible.
I don't know how realistic you want your medieval fantasy setting to be, but you called it a "somewhat """realistic""" medieval fantasy" so I'm first giving some common medieval tropes I hate.
Castles with bare stone walls everywhere. Of course there was some variation but at the very very least a lord's living quarters would have the interior walls treated with plaster or whitewash and decorated with woodwork, wall paintings, tapestries or all of these. Outside walls could be bare stone but even these could be treated with harl, roughcast or even painted.
Everything's lit by "medieval" torches. Fiction overuses torches by a lot. Typical indoor lighting came from rush lights or candles made of tallow or bee wax and oil lamps in some regions. Outside lighting was provided by lanterns but streetlights weren't really a thing. People did use torches in the Middle Ages but not for ambient exterior lighting and they didn't look like the fantasy stereotype at all, they
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Everyone wears brown crappy clothes. Medieval clothes were actually pretty bright except for the poorest of the poor and for some clergy and religious orders. The cloths were usually of a uniform colour but a piece of clothing could use more than one fabric and expensive clothes were often lined with expensive materials.
Everyone and everything is covered in mud or even crap and nobody washes. Really a movie trope because film set designers are latent shit throwing monkeys, but occasionally seen in games especially the grimdark type. Obviously streets and roads weren't super clean but people did try to keep them relatively clean and you could see that paved streets were in fact paved and not covered in inches of shit. People usually washed daily and bathed or had a thorough scrub down a few times in a week because people in general like to feel clean. Royals would often receive guests while bathing. Many cities had public bath houses where also a lot of prostitution took place. Seems the myth appeals a lot to people with like a fetish for ick horror. Also a lot of Afrocentrists think that no Europeans ever washed for centuries, that this is a totally idiotic view goes without saying.
Lots of medieval witch burnings. The first witch trials of the European witch craze indeed took place in the late medieval period but they were then still very rare. The peak of the witch craze was around 1600. There was a lot of regional variation in the number of witch trials and witch executions, the majority of executions were in the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland. The gender of supposed witches also varied, most of the people executed for witchcraft were women, but in some regions people executed as witches were overwhelmingly male. The usual form of execution for witchcraft was hanging, beheading was also common. A lot of the burnings were done after execution when the victim was already dead. The total of victims is estimated at 30000 to 50000, the old "estimate" of nine million that you see on the web is total horseshit. But accused witches could also die in jail or could be lynched but this was rare, a lot of statistics don't include these. Beware when you research this topic cause there's a shitton of crap about this online and in pulp books.
Torture fetish paradise. Attacking this trope runs into a number of problems, one is that we use "torture" with a wider meaning now and another is that it's liked and spread by horny people who get really really angry when they're shown wrong. The word "torture" was used for torment in a legal procedure to extract a confession, but forms of torment were also used in some forms of execution or to force a plea in English law. Legal torture was the result of legal reforms in the twelfth century when continental laws were modelled on Roman law. There were rules of procedure, so there had to be a certain level of evidence before torture was possible and the torture was also regulated, but it probably differed how strictly the latter rules were enforced. The most common forms of torture were strappado, the victim was actually suspended unlike in average strappado bondage and often with weights or swinging, and beatings, this was often combined with strappado. Other common methods were the rack, crushing instruments like the boot or thumbscrew, the horse of course and hot objects. "Torture pears", or as they're actually "pears of anguish", didn't exist and modern ones are hoaxes like the iron maiden and the chastity belt. This is also a subject where a lot of sites, amateur books, "authentic" dungeon rides (that got all their instruments of torture from somewhere else and showcase hoax objects as authentic) and even museums push crap.
Right of first night. It's a stupid old myth with absolutely no evidence that Hollywood still pushes sometimes.
Some of these tropes can make sense in a fantasy setting, some of them could cater to a specific fetish and some of them would be pretty stupid in any setting. So it's a matter of how realistic you want it to be.
For porn game tropes, well what MissFortune said applies, but here's my list. I guess a lot isn't relevant to your game.
Bad Endings - its a waste of my time and makes me even more pissed if it was a "stupid bad ending. Something out of retardvil. Especially when it goes "against" the story they have set up.
Chasing love points -- Basically games where you have to earn love points which means you have to do all the chasing and grinding. I like a game thats like give and take, you still got to do some work, but girls actually show an interest in you too. Its not just one sided. Easist way I seen this accomplished in many games is just giving girls a "level". So you get events where they come to you. So yeeh, I hate doing all the chasing.
Beta MC or the Choir boy - Unless its planned to be part of the character Development (for his growth). I basically get frustrated when the MC acts like a beta or a choir boy and will refuse sex, or even seeing a girl naked even if shes offered to show. And most of the time, they always carry on about their political morals, or how they respect wahmen as a soy boy.
The second part to this, is the MC "always" apologizing, especially when its not his fault. Makes me want to reach into my screen and slap him. These always ten to the be the betas. But its even more frustating seeing it happen to an alpha who just broke character for no reason.
Oversized Boobs - Someone mentioned it before but I can whole heartly agree. Big boobs is fine, but when oversized it becomes a turn off. There really should be a limit. You may get away with this if you have somehting like transformation in your game, which would explain breast growth. Otherwise its just not natural.
Pre existing relation, like starting with a girlfriend - Someone also mentioned this and it reminded me I also hate it. I just hating starting with a pre established girl we know nothing about and she gets in the way of meeting others. I like to see the MC developed relations. Seeing him meet people and start his story. I cant think of the perfect words to describe this. I also dont like this in manga/anime, as I like to see how things started, how everyone came together.
Missing scenes cause you didnt choose the "correct" answer - Choices should be about different results, reactions or paths./routes . But missing scenes or breaking a route cause you didnt select the correct awnser really is just dumb. Degrades the game for me. Makes you feel like your missing the bonus ecchi content. Might as well make it a no choice VN if thats what your going to do.
Only given options to choose from Ass and boobs -- Seriously, Legs are the dark horse.
Okay, I can get behind all except the first and last. I feel like "Bad Ends" are frustrating only because they usually amount to a screen that says "and then everyone dies" and then back to the menu, and maybe you didn't save.
On the "missing scenes"... well, would it make sense to have a scene with a girl you chose not to pursue?
I don't know about trope, but things that I hate on VN games:
- Narrating what's already on the screen. Like, why the fuck did you waste all those effort and resource to render or draw those amazing scene and you're just gonna repeat it again with text...
- Dialogs that not really a conversation between real peoples... like who talks like that?
- Every girls talks the same ... this is like a narrator tells you a personality of each girls, but when they talks, they all come from one personality.
- Every clothes that the girls wear is made up of the material of yoga pants.
- Did I say dialogs that didn't feel like a conversation between real peoples? Yeah I hate those!
I'm afraid you're setting yourself some traps, especially for a novice porn dev.
1. Realism overboard: realism is a tool for you to tell a convincing story. When applied too generously, however, you make your goal of creating erotic situations harder to achieve. There's a reason why characters have big tits, big cocks, skimpy armors etc' in the media, and that is because it's fucking hot. I don't mean to tell you to portray all your girls as medieval bimbos, but as in everything else in life, balance is key. If you're going to present an average body girl wearing modest cloths your goal of having the player wanting to bone her will become much harder.
2. Consequences for cheating: again, hyper realism can kill you here as well. We have jealous spouses in real life, do we need jealous spouses in fantasy as well?
3. Choices. A very tough question. A question I've been pondering myself for months now. Remember that if different choices mean different content that's content the player will not see. Think about spending hours of work on scenes many of your players will not see unless they: A. Replay or B. Use a mod to view them in the gallery.
My current approach to choices is that they should be "morality" or "role" based, i.e. allow the player to do the "bad" thing or the "good" thing which will lead to similar but not identical scenes, allowing you to ensure that an optimal amount of your work is seen by the players.
As a player, I hate, hate hate to choose between two girls I like. And no, saving and reloading is making me work when I should be having fun. As a developer I never force my players to choose between two girls.
Lastly, on the topic of choices, I personally hate blind choices. "Give her the Red rose or the Blue rose?" How the fuck would I know? Giving the players uninformed choices is not giving them choices at all.
4. Different endings: again, you're risking investing a lot of your work into content players not will see.
To summarize: realism is a powerful tool for erotica, it helps the player suspend their disbelief at what they see. In excessive quantities, however, it can make your game dull. Also: choices are very tempting, but remember that every time the players chose Blue, he missed the content in Red so you had better decide how much effort you are going to invest into making Blue and Red different.
Number 1 is a misunderstanding - I put it between a lot of quotes because I meant it very loosely. Mostly, I just dislike some utterly unrealistic tropes commonly associated with medieval fantasy (especially porn-related).
Number 2&3: To clarify, I mean just that they won't immediately accept you building a harem. If you pursue the harem way, your character will have to put the effort to convince them. Obviously, as you said -- realism is a tool, so we can bend reality just enough to make it all work out in the end. And yes, I DESPISE blind choices as well. I try to work in a logic whenever possible.
Number 3&4: Well, I personally don't mind that. If it does happen. Like, if someone made a game like the one I am trying to make, in which every path is "interesting" and not just a slightly altered version of the other, I'd be down with replaying.
And yes, the thing about "similar scenes" is something I already considered.
Here are some of my most hated recurring themes: - Ticklist Fetish games - If you want to explore a certain kink/tag/fetish try to be consistent with that instead of having a throwaway scene just because it happened to take your fancy for that particular scene for that particular character and never bring it up again.
- Rape to rehabilitate - or otherwise using rape or coerced sex to convert someone to your side or make them do something you need them to do.
- Talk three times = sex - I really don't like it when the PC doesn't have to put any effort in to make people like them. But on the flip-side - Keep giving gifts and do favours until the love points = sex time - just because you're useful to someone doesn't mean they'll have sex with you. If anything it should make the recipient uncomfortable to have you simping for them so aggressively.
- PC sexuals - as long as the player controls the character every sexually compatible being (and sometimes non-compatible) will be okay with having sex with them. Well written characters should have preferences, and the PC should be able to not make the cut if they don't meet those expectations.
- Cheating for me, but not for thee - games that forbid non-player characters from having sex with characters other than the PC, but the PC can have sex with anyone. Mostly relevant to harem games, but it bothers me when everone have to be absolutely comitted to the PC but the PC isn't comitted to anyone. It feels so beta and insecure. Either you're in an open relationship, or you aren't.
- Non-taboo taboos - if you are exploring something in your porn game that is societally a well-established taboo (unless you have explicitly stated otherwise in your in-universe lore) then there should be hesitance on both parties before engaging in it (unless either is a psychopath).
1- Stolen valor - When the MC recive all that he could hever want and more for no reason, or when Mc is thanked for something the player didn't do (or, worst, want), it's just make me sick. Like, it's one thing if MC is royalty and he have bootlickers, but it's an other thing when the MC is a nobody and is treated as an isekai's protagoniste.
2- Half-hearted taboo break - Incest, but your not blood related (or just half); slave, but you treat it as an equal; rape, but she actually like it. WTF, just commit a bit.
3- Diluted story - For this one I think of : Giant gardians and... an other one that I cannot find!!! it's nice to have drasticly different path, but it's nicer for the story to progress.
4- Semi-annual+ update - Don't wait to long to update the game or I can't remember shit and lose interrest in the story.
Hm... well, the first two I agree with. Third one depends what you mean, I don't know the game you mentioned. Fourth... well, I just hope it doesn't get to that.
For 3-Diluted story, I mean to make so many path that none of have significant progress update to update. To reuse Giant Gardian as an exemple, it as more then a dozen LI each with their on unique event and adventure sharing only world event from path to path. It's sur make for a good final product, but for people following the game live it's not wort actively following it (in my opinion).
Kind of like 4- Semi-annual+ update, it's not so much a thing I hate then a critic I have.
Speaking of VN's, the thing I hate most about them is the minigames. Instead of fully exploring gameplay, the developer just half-asses QTE's and then slaps on the "combat" tag.
Besides the shallow-ness, why? What's the point of these random minigames? Is the narrative too poor (actually, that's probably the case), the porn too scarce, or is it something else?
Huge 3d dicks, of which 95% of the time cause an uncanny valley effect. A lot of DAZ artists are too lazy to learn how to use and correctly size the default state of the 3D dicks for Genesis; because they're too big, so their in game renders look fucking stupid.
Need money?
Whore out your girls.
Where do girls without any whoring experiance find man to pay for them sex?
Dont know.
Why arent they arrested for whoring?
Dont know.
Why isnt a pimp reqruiting them?
Dont know.
Instead of the thousent of other ways you can make money of your girls.
Whoring it threated as simple, safe and fast way to make money.
When it shoud be anything but simple and safe.
Huge 3d dicks, of which 95% of the time cause an uncanny valley effect. A lot of DAZ artists are too lazy to learn how to use and correctly size the default state of the 3D dicks for Genesis; because they're too big, so their in game renders look fucking stupid.
For 3-Diluted story, I mean to make so many path that none of have significant progress update to update. To reuse Giant Gardian as an exemple, it as more then a dozen LI each with their on unique event and adventure sharing only world event from path to path. It's sur make for a good final product, but for people following the game live it's not wort actively following it (in my opinion).
Kind of like 4- Semi-annual+ update, it's not so much a thing I hate then a critic I have.
Hm... well, I honestly can't say for sure how I will structure updates yet, but it does sound like something I suffer from. Well, let's hope it doesn't get to that.
But yes, more than legitimate criticism.
Speaking of VN's, the thing I hate most about them is the minigames. Instead of fully exploring gameplay, the developer just half-asses QTE's and then slaps on the "combat" tag.
Besides the shallow-ness, why? What's the point of these random minigames? Is the narrative too poor (actually, that's probably the case), the porn too scarce, or is it something else?
Honestly, I'll add minigames to my game. It's just... it makes it feel more like a game and less like an illustrated smut book, I think.
But I totally agree that most of the minigames - the way they are generally made - are a pain in the ass. For example, Four Elements Trainer suffers a bit from this: they are just in the way of the plot. In FET they are varied enough that it doesn't get too annoying, but it would be better if they also mattered. The main reason they don't, IMO, is that they are just an obstacle to clear in order to proceed. You must win, or else you are stuck here.
To address this and make the minigames a bit more intersting, I'm trying to "work them in" the plot. They aren't random, and defeat isn't just met with Game Over, but rather an alternative path (which may be long-term branching or just small dialogue adjustments, depending on the stakes in that minigame). Specifically, I had in mind a rhytm-ish minigame and some kind of mini RPG combat system, both invoked in specific situations related to the plotline.
Anyway, considering I already added a built-in cheat menu, I see no reason not to also add a way to "cheat your way out of minigames" for those that dislike them as a concept. I think that is ultimately what can satisfy both people that like and dislike minigames.
Need money?
Whore out your girls.
Where do girls without any whoring experiance find man to pay for them sex?
Dont know.
Why arent they arrested for whoring?
Dont know.
Why isnt a pimp reqruiting them?
Dont know.
Instead of the thousent of other ways you can make money of your girls.
Whoring it threated as simple, safe and fast way to make money.
When it shoud be anything but simple and safe.
Can't really relate because it's not a genre I've played much of, but yeah, it's a good point. I'll keep it in mind if I eventually do something like that.
I always liked skimpy armor, I put it in the category of 'intimidating / distracting while providing some protection' and as for the realism of it there are plenty of examples of people going into battle in just paint, ornamental armor, or minimal armor be it in gladiatorial combat or actual warfare. In the right context it is downright realistic.
As for what I don't like, well the illusion of choice. Dialogue options that all lead to the same end or seemingly innocuous choice that then barrels full on into a scene or route that you were not picking.
"Futanari". Artists (and just laypeople making these sorts of games/artstyles I suppose) putting penises on women. And not butch women either; women with otherwise very feminine bodies. It just looks absurd and makes me want to vomit. I see zero reason why people see it as hot, in a similar way I that don't understand how people can look at scat (i.e., literal poop) and think "yes, I should jerk off to this." Like, a woman with a penis is the 100% opposite of what a straight man (or non-straight woman) would generally like to see. And, seen from the opposite perspective, a penis on a woman is the 100% opposite of what a gay man (or straight woman) would generally like to see.
So... who on earth is this trope made for? Some sort of alien with strange anatomy? Other tropes/fetishes that make little sense to me include furry, sissy stuff, etc., but the above one is maybe bigger than those.
It is absolutely absurd that players complain about "NTR" (basically just corruption/cheating) when fetishes like those, which revolve around literally impossible and/or... let's say metaphysically dubious things, are rampant and go by without comment.
Medieval Fantasy tropes I hate:
- Projecting current society's way of life and mentality in a medieval setting. They live in houses laid out like ours, dine three times a day, including morning coffee. They bring their date to dine at the luxury restaurant and marry with a rite more or less identical to the modern Christian one, etc etc.
- Linked to the previous one: lack of any form of racism. In particular the standard "5 races" setting that's so popular (D&D and derivatives), where humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings live elbow to elbow and are expected to mix seamlessly.
- Casual use of heavy armour. People wear plate mail for travelling, going to the grocery, and even sleeping. I mean, wearing that shit was exhausting and it was insanely expensive.
- While we are at it, useless armour. Warriors suffered it because it dramatically increased their chances of surviving a fight.
- Formulaic magic: "I entered in the room and I cast a Detect Living spell to make sure nobody was hiding."
- Magic stores.
- Black and white morality. In general, people are "evil" as a way of life. Those that wake up in the morning and watch themselves in the mirror cacking about how many puppies they will kick and how much candy they're going to steal from crying orphaned babies.
- Related to the above: simplistic diplomacy. There's the Evid Overlord with his supporters that apparently follow him just because it's edgy, and the Free World that's united behind the Just King.
- Theme park geography. We have the Elven Kingdom, the Desert Kingdom, the Snowland Kingdom and the Evil Empire.
Historical medieval tropes I hate (in addition to the appliable fantasy ones)
- using real-world religion as a moral compass.
- easy coinage. Everything has a price in silver, and even farming hamlets weeks away from the nearest city have shops and expect you to pay in silver for every little thing.
VN and AVN tropes I hate
- Moping loser protagonists. I don't mean your average loser: I mean those omnipresent protagonists of the Japanese VNs of the 90s/early 2000s. Those that talked for dozens of screens how much they were sore losers that no girl would want to date.
- And at the opposite side of the spectrum: over Alpha guys, whose dialogue most of the time exists just to show that they don't take shit from anybody and they always get what they want. And that all the chicks belong to them.
- Sex scenes where what goes on the screen isn't what's being described. If your artist didn't draw what you asked, please change the script.
- Filler text. Monologues/Dialogues that go on forever about nothing plot related, maybe one word at a time.
- Easy harems. Harems in general are overdone, but at least devs could acknowledge that the situation is awkward for the girls and they need some extra work, or special circumstances, to adapt to the idea of sharing. As it has already been said: if the LIs can't frolic around, why it's automatically expected that the MC can?
- (already covered by another comment but it bears repeating) cryptic branches: you go for a walk and you find a wallet on the walkway. If you leave it you'll end up with the blonde childhood friend, if you take it you'll end up with the redhead tsundere. How the heck I'm supposed to know it beforehand?! Bonus points if the rest of the 10000 words VN is basically identical and only the ending changes. This can be extended to all the "Guide, Dang It!" situations.
- Cardboard Anime personalities in general.
- While cartoonish female proportions are a style and not a trope, so it's just a matter of taste, I'm still put off by them.
Well, in my eyes "Magic shops" kill the magical feeling of magics, if what I'm saying makes sense. I believe that magic, the playing with Secrets that Man was not Meant to Know, should be something wondrous and mysterious in the setting.
I've nothing against the "Ye Olde Shoppe of Exotics and Memorabilia" where you can buy a stuffed alligator, an ancient Egyptian protective scarab and an ointment from the Land Beyond the Sea that will make you irresistible to women (as long as the scarab, the only thing in all the shop that has actually a practical purpose, isn't treated by the characters as some high-tech device with specific and well-documented effects and limitations).
What bothers me is the character saying "Well, I've 1200 spare gold pieces, let's go to the stall at the corner to see if I can get a +3 sword and maybe some useful potion to keep in the backpack." If you want, an economy of magic.
Well, in my eyes "Magic shops" kill the magical feeling of magics, if what I'm saying makes sense. I believe that magic, the playing with Secrets that Man was not Meant to Know, should be something wondrous and mysterious in the setting.
I've nothing against the "Ye Olde Shoppe of Exotics and Memorabilia" where you can buy a stuffed alligator, an ancient Egyptian protective scarab and an ointment from the Land Beyond the Sea that will make you irresistible to women (as long as the scarab, the only thing in all the shop that has actually a practical purpose, isn't treated by the characters as some high-tech device with specific and well-documented effects and limitations).
What bothers me is the character saying "Well, I've 1200 spare gold pieces, let's go to the stall at the corner to see if I can get a +3 sword and maybe some useful potion to keep in the backpack." If you want, an economy of magic.
That's not that weird! I think where D&D went with it has a lot to answer for here in their attempts to standardize magical effects and balance them, using gold pieces as a baseline. Part of it had to do with the developers of D&D 3e being explicitly inspired by Diablo's 'Xish Y of Zing' keyword-based magic items, because they wanted a system that could produce a lot of different items without having to try to balance unique magical effects vs their wealth by level system. Also, said wealth by level thing meant it was heavily implied that players must be able to exchange gold for magical items on a semi-regular basis in order for characters to be strong enough to face threats expected for their level, or else for the DM to just give characters whatever they needed for their builds such that they never have to trade them in.
In short, magic items became a baked-in part of character progression and stats, which was kind of a problem for worldbuilding because suddenly everyone needs their Cloak of Protection +X by Y level or else their saves are just... lower than the numbers expect them to be. There's just sadly nothing wondrous or interesting about a Cloak of Protection +2, or a +3 Glaive as a result. It is an entirely expected bump to your raw numbers, with maybe a boring +1d6 elemental damage boost tacked onto the side.
On the other hand, simulating barter systems, or pinning down a standard of 'solve for me these riddles three' needed to procure a powerful, unique item is waaay harder to design than just tying everything ever to a literal gold standard. Does that invest money with a bizarre level of importance compared to even irl currency, in any setting inspired by D&D? Yes, yes it does.
It was kind of stupid, and I agree that it's corrosive to worldbuilding unless you lean directly into the weird 'thatchpunk' pseudo-modern capitalist hellscape it creates, with its portal superhighways and magocracy, and million-gold adventurers decked out like glowing christmas trees. It's like a double whammy of magic becoming a science, and everything (including distribution of said magiscience) being implicitly free market capitalist.
Explicitly tying a character's material wealth to a character's magical power like that is pretty icky, and I don't like it either haha
That is one very ambitious project.
I wish you like.
The most things i commonly hate:
Spying while in the shower.
Doors that arent locked.
A dead father.
Choices meaning nothing.
Visual novels.
Police being stupid.
Consensual Sex.
Game over when picking the wrong dialog.
Trigger hunting.
Mind control not having any control and just being slutification.
Mothers not stabbing you to death as you rape your daughter intfront of them because you are to stupid to not just ty them up.
Basicly i just hate the whole: People dont fight back or there is zero risk to you being blatently evil.
I shoud fear the police.
I shoud be paranoide about my plan to rape an entire household and plot out every possible detail i can come up with.
Likewise i want to play a game.
If i can just fast forward to your game i will be bored.
Likewise if the only reason i can not fast forward is because i need to hunt for whatever alian logic the dev had to continue the story.
Your just making me do busy work for no reward.
Lets take a game i lust a lot.
Lab rats 2.
Something as tiny as the dialog change's on stats puts it far about the massive amount of crap f95zone has.
Just the fact the your ingame mother folds her shirt where your sister just trows her to the ground is something that stood out to me as this person accauly had a mother.
Tiny details, Contant plotting, Corrupting people without using sex(I mean sure i can use woman to turn men into loyal allies but really giving a girl several orgasm shoudnt make her willing to betray her family for me)
It is a simple case of:
I hate it when its too easy or too hard.
Too easy and i feel like i am not doing anything.
To hard and i feel the dev is just dragging the game out.
Pacing is key to any good game.
