What do people still see in BB (and clones)?

[215303j]

Apparently BB still has a large following. Even now, there are new games which clone the models and try to reboot the story.

I used to like BB as well, I think it was quite revolutionary when it came out. Great renders, mild NTR, incest, etc. Even though I hated Max even more than Eric, I still played the game quite a bit back in the day. In my opinion, BB does have it's place in the porn game hall of fame (if such a thing existed) but.....

In my opinion, since BB came and died, many games have emerged which are better in all respects than BB. Better, more interesting story, deeper characters, even better looking models and renders. Not to mention the grind and the engine....

Frankly even the setup of a creepy young MC guy with a milf mom and two sisters is for me (almost) enough to skip a new game completely. Although there are admittedly also some games which do happen to have that setup which do manage to be interesting.

So, what's your opinion?

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Frankly even the setup of a creepy young MC guy with a milf mom and two sisters is for me (almost) enough to skip a new game completely.

That's kind of the answer right there. It's not for you, while for some people that's exactly what they want from a game. Different strokes for different folks. I don't even remember if BB was one of the incest games I played, they all kind of blend together for me after a while. Especially all the lame ones with tons of grind, I think BB was one of those.

 

[polywog]

 

[nillamello]

I think you've probably worded your question in a way that people may become defensive of their preferences... So I wouldn't be surprised to see less than useful answers.

For my part, I like various elements of big brother but not the whole. It has a lot of intricacy that many games lack even today (skills that improve with use, random elements, character interactions that don't involve the player).

Where it falls apart for me is the endless sandbox, which is simply my own preference shining through (and wierd for me to say since I make a game literally revolving around the premise of being endless. Quick plug, check out the initial release of Rewind.), and the repetition with zero payoff other than a new image to repeat.

I think that what really answers the question is simple familiarity. Why do people love fighting games, even though they've barely really changed in two decades other than character models and art styles? Why do we value retro remasters and spiritual successors of popular older games? Enough people played big brother (and were introduced to this community through it) that it became a genre that other makers replicated and players gravitate to because they know what to expect.

 

[Chameleo]

BB stands out to me because of Eric, but in a good way. I don't like NTR, but BB did it right imo. I hate when someone can steal my girlfriend, but in BB the mother only found herself a boyfriend. Ofc, he was an antagonist, he wanted to have every girl in the family. You couldn't prevent him fucking the mom at all times, but you could prevent him to do things with other girls (even though there wasn't much content with other girls and him). It's shame that there aren't many games where you have an antagonist you need to get rid of. After you got rid of him, it was pretty much the same as any other incest game, but still better in some ways. For example many incest games makes the mom secretly lust for the MC, but in this game he needs to make her fall in love with him (or with his dick). And I like sandbox games more, becouse you need to actually play and make some effort for the "reward". If I wanted fast fap, I can watch porn.

 

[polywog]

BB stands out to me becouse of Eric, but in a good way. I don't like NTR, but BB did it right imo. I hate when someone can steal my girlfriend, but in BB the mother only found herself a boyfriend. Ofc, he was an antagonist, he wanted to have every girl in the family. You couldn't prevent him fucking the mom at all times, but you could prevent him to do things with other girls (even though there wasn't much content with other girls and him). It's shame that there aren't many games where you have an antagonist you need to get rid of. After you got rid of him, it was pretty much the same as any other incest game, but still better in some ways. For example many incest games makes the mom secretly lust for the MC, but in this game he needs to make her fall in love with him (or with his dick). And I like sandbox games more, becouse you need to actually play and make some effort for the "reward". If I wanted fast fap, I can watch porn.

Eric was the hero. The MC was the one doing "wrong" trying to incest with his own family. Eric could have sex with any consenting adult he wanted to. I'm surprised that so many people didn't pick up on the fact that they were playing the bad guy. Sending Max off to military school was the right thing to do.

 

[riktor]

never played it, don't intend to given the general comments about it. not a fan of sandbox grindfests.

 

[Chameleo]

Eric was the hero. The MC was the one doing "wrong" trying to incest with his own family. Eric could have sex with any consenting adult he wanted to. I'm surprised that so many people didn't pick up on the fact that they were playing the bad guy. Sending Max off to military school was the right thing to do.

But Max would be sent to military school anyway, even if he wasn't doing anything bad. I'm not saying that any of them was better than the other, but Eric wasn't the hero. He was manipulating everyone with his money, blackmailing Max etc. Even his attitude was antagonistic, when he told Max something like: "I'm gonna fuck every single one of them and you can't do shit about that."

 

[Chameleo]

never played it, don't intend to given the general comments about it. not a fan of grindfests.

I don't know, many people are complaining, that the game is endless grind, but I don't feel it is. I know many games much more grindy than BB. In my opinion, BB had just enough grind to still be enjoyable. The only thing I didn't like was, that I had to wait for something to happen... not to do anything, but to wait... Like "Come and talk to me on friday at 10 p.m.", but it was monday...

 

[polywog]

But Max would be sent to military school anyway, even if he wasn't doing anything bad.

Max did bad things as soon as he got out of bed in the morning. Max being good was never an option, he was 100% rotten to the core. Buying your sister cigarettes just so you can blackmail her, interfering with your sister's education, so she'll have to resort to doing porn on your perverted hidden cam site... who does that kind of things? Bad people, that who.

Don't try to justify your actions by saying life isn't fair. It's not against the law to give a woman a job, or to buy a girl underwear, that isn't manipulation, it's kindness, girls like that sort of thing . Having money isn't a crime. Torturing your sister with insects when you know she's deathly afraid of them, you need help Max. Boot camp would teach you discipline.
You weren't helping Ann pay the bills, and providing for her daughters, you were stealing from her left and right.
Alice got lung cancer, just so you could look at her bewbs, are you proud of yourself?

 

[Chameleo]

Max did bad things as soon as he got out of bed in the morning. Max being good was never an option, he was 100% rotten to the core. Buying your sister cigarettes just so you can blackmail her, interfering with your sister's education, so she'll have to resort to doing porn on your perverted hidden cam site... who does that kind of things? Bad people, that who.

Don't try to justify your actions by saying life isn't fair. It's not against the law to give a woman a job, or to buy a girl underwear, that isn't manipulation, it's kindness, girls like that sort of thing . Having money isn't a crime. Torturing your sister with insects when you know she's deathly afraid of them, you need help Max. Boot camp would teach you discipline.
You weren't helping Ann pay the bills, and providing for her daughters, you were stealing from her left and right.
Alice got lung cancer, just so you could look at her bewbs, are you proud of yourself?

Again, I never said, that Max is good, I just said, that Eric is bad. There just wasn't any nice and good male character in the game.

 

[polywog]

Again, I never said, that Max is good, I just said, that Eric is bad. There just wasn't any nice and good male character in the game.

 

[215303j]

I agree with polywog regarding Eric.
Although nearly everybody hated him, he was a pretty unique character in a porn game.

Still, because most people hated Eric, that can't be the reason why BB is still popular. It's not as if people replay BB over and over again to get rid of Eric as fast as possible and without cheating...

 

[nillamello]

Idunno, had there been a side game focused on various ways to remove Eric, I'd probably play that.

 

[crugh2112]

Lisa

 

[polywog]

If Alice was really afraid of spiders, why did she spend so much time in the back yard?

 

[Benn Swagger]

BB & Darksilver defo not pioneer in incez genre, but the game have the best graphic quality and plot structure at release. I was away in 2017 for awhile, so I don't participate in the Eric's war between DS, Pro-Eric fans & Anti-Eric fans. In 2016~2017, compare those games with others shitty incez games, it's like heaven & hell. Now in 2020, many Incez games have higher quality, although the shitty one still appears here & there, but BB is like the bare minimum incez game for me. Big Brothers now have been restart by Dark Silver in Glamour, the Male MC path, and it's still offer high quality standard for me.

BB's is like an old grocery product in supermarket that will never fail you, although there's many who bested & surpass them. I guarantee, each one of you have a product that you know it's not the best, but you can't ever part with them and keep buying them. Whether it's a candy, an instant noodle or junk food. Hell, McDonald taste like shit if compare to another new fast food franchise, but people still coming back to them.

I really love the story building and the level of intimacy between MC & the girls, something that many incez games missed a lot. Yes, Max is a psycho lunatic, but it's the McGuffin of an Incez games, especially a harem games. People just bitching about Max, but if I'm asking people, "give me one MC of the other incez-harem game that aren't lunatic psycho pervert" ... they hardly find one.

Freeloading Family (not really incez games, step-cest) is one of many porn games that the MC less psycho, but he were supported by the real vixen step sister of him who act like an innocent women but actually a lunatic herself. In these kind of genre, there always the need of "Moral Breaking" characters. It can be the MC or their wingman. A Devil or Succubus's counselor, a psycho sister or mother or friend.

TL;DR ... in the past, I'm so proud with myself of judging other people games, thought I'm the best & the wise. But after a couple years, I've stopped reviewing games because I think it's not fair for the developers, just because my preference aren't the same vision with them. Although it's not applicable to the real shitty & low quality games, they are just pure shite.

 

[woody554]

BB was a promising BEGINNING of a game in a genre that's been done for decades in VNs before, they're just all in japanese. it had a shitbag serial quitter dev who never even wanted to make the game but obviously the money was good.

the reason it still lives on is that it got a lot of things right, even if it also failed in other maddening ways. none of the english clones get those things right and almost never make it past the third update without the dev going A.W.O.L., so we keep hoping someone finally made even a half-assed try at making something similar.

some ways the clones fail:
-game gives no feedback on progress. you never know if you're stuck in a bugged loop or doing the wrong thing.
-slut characters. means the dev doesn't get it.
-throwaway sex. doesn't get it.
-makes game easy. you guessed it, didn't get it.
-doesn't understand sandbox means you need freedom of choice and freedom of questing.
-absurd models. I get everybody can't be an art major, but jesus fucking christ some characters look stupid.
-characters lack personality.
-mistake mc's stupidity for an accidental choice. it's deliberate. or at least should be. winner mc's are the worst.
-show pussy early and often. stop doing that.
-make the mom a pushover. instead you should make her resist every step of the way.
-and the worst: dev gets a new gaming rig from donations, stops working and never comes back. 99% of games.

some major ways BB fails:
-never adjusted the obviously fucked up probabilities for some events. resulting in ridiculous grind. I feel like he never played it through himself. such a tiny thing to fix and the fucker didn't give a fuck.
-too much repetition. would it kill you to write 5 slightly different dialogues IF you're gonna force the player click through the same images every day for 400 days? most freeroamers share this fault. it's not necessary you know? when you stop reading the text you're in a carpal-tunnel-syndrome simulator.
-lisa is retarded. seriously, there's no way she's playing with a full deck. not naive, but full retard. compare to lily from where your heart is, stupid but endearing. knows how dicks work because not retarded. a million times better. never go full retard.
-lazy rendering. took months to make like 5 pic scenes. stock assets, mediocre renders. obviously he wasn't even working on it anymore.
-stupid dialog. this one I don't want to blame too much, he prolly did what his english allowed. and we know there are so many worse ones. I could still see there was mostly an idea behind the text, he just couldn't express it in a foreign language. I'm curious of how BB read in russian? did it work?
-boring sex scenes. it was like they were done by a gay guy. no spark. no anticipation. he didn't know how to build up sex even though he knew how to tease. I don't get how that's even possible?
-some scenes didn't have any use for the game. like it didn't matter what you did in the clothes store AT ALL. or the the blowjob you got after alice came back from clubbing. huge opportunities missed. criminal laziness.

some things BB did better than others:
-the way the skills gave you feedback on % and green or red was a great idea. you aways knew you were making progress.
-BB always kept teasing you. did you notice the characters almost never randomly showed pussy? it was always angled so that you couldn't quite see it. that's the correct way. hint, tease, don't give up the smut for free.
-the characters didn't just flip over and let you fuck them. even the 'sluts' alice and aunt kira made you jump through a ton of hoops to get there. you may have hated the the grind, but when you finally got through it made so much more impact. too bad the reward scene was a 5 pic soulless in-n-out thing with zero emotion.
-the characters stayed in character. mom was unrelenting at being opposed to sex. which made it a challenge. alice was unrelenting at being a bitch. max and lisa were retarded to give the power relations the proper hierarchy. worked great especially between max & mom. less so with lisa. mom was ten times out of max's league, and max was a selfish teenage pervert. but mom was stuck with loving her son, no matter how she threatened with military school and whatnot. emotionally distant yet bound by motherly love.

the unlikeliest of heros taking on a great impossible challenge to conquer: your mom. textbook stuff. this is the kind of thing I mean when I say I could see the dev was going at something. it pains me to see when people don't understand why max was written like a creep. you don't make frodo a 6 feet muscle worshipper, you hire elijah wood and make him look even scrawnier than normally.

was BB the greatest thing ever? no. a 6/10 at best. and aborted games don't count anyway. but the rest are so much worse, with the three exceptions of man of the house, snow daze and summertime saga.

it's ridiculous when people claim the genre is too crowded when there's like 5 finished games. slonique doesn't count.

shit this got longer than I thought? guess I had some BB survivor trauma to air out.

 

[crugh2112]

BB was a promising BEGINNING of a game in a genre that's been done for decades in VNs before, they're just all in japanese. it had a shitbag serial quitter dev who never even wanted to make the game but obviously the money was good.

the reason it still lives on is that it got a lot of things right, even if it also failed in other maddening ways. none of the english clones get those things right and almost never make it past the third update without the dev going A.W.O.L., so we keep hoping someone finally made even a half-assed try at making something similar.

some ways the clones fail:
-game gives no feedback on progress. you never know if you're stuck in a bugged loop or doing the wrong thing.
-slut characters. means the dev doesn't get it.
-throwaway sex. doesn't get it.
-makes game easy. you guessed it, didn't get it.
-doesn't understand sandbox means you need freedom of choice and freedom of questing.
-absurd models. I get everybody can't be an art major, but jesus fucking christ some characters look stupid.
-characters lack personality.
-mistake mc's stupidity for an accidental choice. it's deliberate. or at least should be. winner mc's are the worst.
-show pussy early and often. stop doing that.
-make the mom a pushover. instead you should make her resist every step of the way.
-and the worst: dev gets a new gaming rig from donations, stops working and never comes back. 99% of games.

some major ways BB fails:
-never adjusted the obviously fucked up probabilities for some events. resulting in ridiculous grind. I feel like he never played it through himself. such a tiny thing to fix and the fucker didn't give a fuck.
-too much repetition. would it kill you to write 5 slightly different dialogues IF you're gonna force the player click through the same images every day for 400 days? most freeroamers share this fault. it's not necessary you know? when you stop reading the text you're in a carpal-tunnel-syndrome simulator.
-lisa is retarded. seriously, there's no way she's playing with a full deck. not naive, but full retard. compare to lily from where your heart is, stupid but endearing. knows how dicks work because not retarded. a million times better. never go full retard.
-lazy rendering. took months to make like 5 pic scenes. stock assets, mediocre renders. obviously he wasn't even working on it anymore.
-stupid dialog. this one I don't want to blame too much, he prolly did what his english allowed. and we know there are so many worse ones. I could still see there was mostly an idea behind the text, he just couldn't express it in a foreign language. I'm curious of how BB read in russian? did it work?
-boring sex scenes. it was like they were done by a gay guy. no spark. no anticipation. he didn't know how to build up sex even though he knew how to tease. I don't get how that's even possible?
-some scenes didn't have any use for the game. like it didn't matter what you did in the clothes store AT ALL. or the the blowjob you got after alice came back from clubbing. huge opportunities missed. criminal laziness.

some things BB did better than others:
-the way the skills gave you feedback on % and green or red was a great idea. you aways knew you were making progress.
-BB always kept teasing you. did you notice the characters almost never randomly showed pussy? it was always angled so that you couldn't quite see it. that's the correct way. hint, tease, don't give up the smut for free.
-the characters didn't just flip over and let you fuck them. even the 'sluts' alice and aunt kira made you jump through a ton of hoops to get there. you may have hated the the grind, but when you finally got through it made so much more impact. too bad the reward scene was a 5 pic soulless in-n-out thing with zero emotion.
-the characters stayed in character. mom was unrelenting at being opposed to sex. which made it a challenge. alice was unrelenting at being a bitch. max and lisa were retarded to give the power relations the proper hierarchy. worked great especially between max & mom. less so with lisa. mom was ten times out of max's league, and max was a selfish teenage pervert. but mom was stuck with loving her son, no matter how she threatened with military school and whatnot. emotionally distant yet bound by motherly love.

the unlikeliest of heros taking on a great impossible challenge to conquer: your mom. textbook stuff. this is the kind of thing I mean when I say I could see the dev was going at something. it pains me to see when people don't understand why max was written like a creep. you don't make frodo a 6 feet muscle worshipper, you hire elijah wood and make him look even scrawnier than normally.

was BB the greatest thing ever? no. a 6/10 at best. and aborted games don't count anyway. but the rest are so much worse, with the three exceptions of man of the house, snow daze and summertime saga.

it's ridiculous when people claim the genre is too crowded when there's like 5 finished games. slonique doesn't count.

shit this got longer than I thought? guess I had some BB survivor trauma to air out.

It's OK Woody, we are here for you.

 

[Paranormal erection]

While most has been said I think a lot of people are alone in these projects and at some point, they become way too big bite for them, while it is kinda easy to code or do renders (for adult games, not in general) it is time-consuming, not only processing power. And when you quit ur job to be a full-time dev, you just want to keep the money flow going, since it isn't just a hobby anymore aaaaand here you hit the wall - you have no idea how to continue at some point, starting to do stupid stuff, more grind so the player will spend more time in ur game etc., you make ur story even more retarded. In BB case Eric was the boner killer, without cheats it was almost impossible to pass him if he wants money. There were a lot of quests but none was finished to an endpoint or with some decent final. The whole game felt like a huuuuge demo for me.