What makes a popular porn game?

[umbreon2020]

I'm a dev and really do not wanna make a visual novel, I want something that's a fun game first with porn elements instead of the other way around.
I have a vauge idea where I do some multiverse light horror shit, thoughts?
Need ideas.

 

[anne O'nymous]

To answer the title, what makes a porn game popular is... chance.

There's good games with quality CGs and good writing that are almost not noticed, as well as average games with average CGs and average writing that hit the jackpot.
There's devs who spend a lot of energy interacting with the public and have near to no public, and devs who never say a word and still have tones of fans.
There's games updated every weeks that have near to no audience, and games (of same quality) updated every now and then that generate tons of new messages each time there's an update.

And obviously the same apply to the genres and kinks/fetishes. For each popular game you've an equal game that isn't popular.

 

[Tokenugget]

Good renders, a plausible story, hawt chicks.... that's all you need. Let the commentary guide you to the rest.

 

[Xaoyu]

To answer the title, what makes a porn game popular is... chance.

There's good games with quality CGs and good writing that are almost not noticed, as well as average games with average CGs and average writing that hit the jackpot.
There's devs who spend a lot of energy interacting with the public and have near to no public, and devs who never say a word and still have tones of fans.
There's games updated every weeks that have near to no audience, and games (of same quality) updated every now and then that generate tons of new messages each time there's an update.

And obviously the same apply to the genres and kinks/fetishes. For each popular game you've an equal game that isn't popular.

a "game" with good writting is not a game unless it has good gameplay mechanic tho.

it's always nice to see that there is effort put in the writting but you don't play games just to see some fanfic.

 

[Deleted member 229118]

As mentioned before chance.

If there is one thing i learned is that people dont have standerds.
So many games are praised to high heaven despite being barely avarage.


I suggest avoiding multiverse.
Its one of the can of worms story elements that never is done well.

As for idea's plenty.

Here is a simple one:
Subconscious program.

The gameplay is about programming a mind controled person in suchs a way it will eat, sleep, drink, work, fuck, etc.
With failure leading to your drones starving themselves or walking outside naked.
The fun comes from seeing your drones carry out your commands.
Like:
6:00 Wake up, clean your room.
7:00 Go to bathroom, undress, take shower, walk to your room, wear miniskirt, wear flats.
8:00 Sit at table, if master is there give blowjob under table otherwise eat dinner.
9:00 to 12:00 Stand still in living room, Tits forward, ass backwards, Keep yourself wet for easy access, React to getting fucked by moaning.
Etc, etc, etc.

The idea is that the play need to program there drones to be usefull and keeping themselves alive.
Now add to this food cost money, rent, etc.(Just call it weekly basic expenses)
And now you need to add in how to make money of your drones.

It is a simple idea.
A pain in the asshole to make tho.

Or

Wizard school of lust:
Your adventuring days are over.
Using the money from your adventuring days you decided to open a school of magic.
But what kind of school?
Will it be little more then a secret brainwash facility?
A school of evil where demons roam and molest students.
Where only the vile and wicked thrive?
Or will you teach healing magic and encourage cooperation?
Meaby just share magical knowledge and let people decide for themselves.

The gameplay is you buying a piece of land in a small villiage to build your school.
You build rooms, hire teachers(or meaby summon mystical create's to be teachers)
Deal with the local population.
The game takes place over the course of 500 years(life extending magic for the win)
And the local villiage and your school will grow or shrink based on your actions.
Its all about what kind of school you will make and how it will effect the nation.

Or

Vampire life:
You start as a recently arived vampire in a new city.
You are going to spend the next 500 years here.
How will you live your unlife?
Will you be rich or poor?
Hunt for blood or get it via other means?
Will you encourage crime or help deal with it?
Will you create your own clan or avoid the possible competation?

The idea of vampire life is that you are a vampire.
The kind that burns in the sunlight and needs human blood daily.
You might want to make it so that if you dont stop the bleeding people will bleed out after your done feeding.
A crime infest city makes hunting easier(After all people get killed all the time) but it also makes it for more likely you end up being robbed or having to fight off criminals.
Where a law focused city makes it harder to hunt.

Going from homeless vampire to a rich powerful and influence vampire that has people who buys blood from the blood bank or has a human cattle farm.
The goal is to live your unlife and try to make the best of it.

 

[anne O'nymous]

it's always nice to see that there is effort put in the writting but you don't play games just to see some fanfic.

Please, don't talk in my name.
After near to 40 years of constant video gaming, and around 30 years of, less constant, playing porn/adult video games, good writing is the main reason that make me play a game. There's few exceptions of course, but there's not many things more boring, for me, than a porn/adult game with an average, or below, writing. This whatever its game mechanisms.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Here is a simple one:
Subconscious program.
[...]
It is a simple idea.
A pain in the asshole to make tho.

This can also be adapted to a brothel management game where you don't just decide when the girl will train, rest, or works.
The training is replaced by your choice in which clients will be presented which girl. A dominant client that want soft BDSM will be what train the girl into submission, by example.
And the girl don't just stay in her room when she rest, she'll talk with other girls that are resting. So, make the newbie rest with an aggressive bisexual, and you'll train her into sapphism. Make her rest with a sophisticated girl, and she'll learn the art of seduction through make-up. And so on.

But as you said, as simple as it can look, it's far to be something easy to turn into reality.

Wizard school of lust:
[...]
Will it be little more then a secret brainwash facility?
A school of evil where demons roam and molest students.
Where only the vile and wicked thrive?
Or will you teach healing magic and encourage cooperation?

And also, for an already build school, have you chosen it to go with the wind, or to fight against its doctrine ?
You can perfectly go to a secret brainwash facility, and teach the students how to resist brainwashing, to the evil school and teach the students how to fight back, and so on.
Plot twist, will you be strong enough to resist, or will you end brainwashed yourself, or a sex toy for the demons ?

Those pitch would make really interesting story games where all choices are meaningful.
You start as a standard teacher, then uncover the deep secret of the school. What side will you take ? Will you blend in, or will you teach the students how to resist ?
You decide to help the students, but you need to be subtle. If all the students resist to the brainwashing few months after a new teacher appear, well, no need to be Sherlock Holmes to know who's the culprit here. And also be careful, they'll probably want to brainwash you, and you need to make it looks like it's working.
And, for it to stay interesting as adult game whatever the route you'll follow, why not turning the table ? The school wanted to turn the students into sex slaves, with the help of the students you'll turn the teachers into good pets that care about the academic result as much as the sexual release of the students.

But once again, not something easy to turn into reality.

Vampire life:
[...]
Hunt for blood or get it via other means?

Pitch change: Succubus life
Will you hunt for sex, turn the village next door into you own "pantry", or will you choose few servants that will take care of all your needs ? For both the villagers and the servants, seduced volunteers or corrupted slaves ?
I already know what I would choose. Slowly building a sex cult in the village. Every villager will be happy to have sex with me, having regular sex contests in the village to decide who's worthy for my bed. Being an open minded and switch succubus, the contests will be in all categories. Sometimes I'll want a dominant male, sometimes a submissive one, sometime I'll want a female. And why not sometimes wanting a spectacle ? Being seated on a hard dick while watching a girl show me how many guys she can blow before I totally drain the said dick ?

 

[Deleted member 229118]

An other idea's:

Rapist life:
Your a rapist.
You break into places to rape people.
The gameplay is about avoid getting caught.

The idea is that every npc has a schedule you can learn.
So you know when there alone and for how long.
You need to also get tools.
Ropes, blindfolds, drug's, etc.
After all if your victem can discribe you to the police its a lot easier to find you.

The story idea i have is that the rapist moves from city to city.
You have no home, no adress, no phone.
You live off the grind.

Gameplay wise you need to steal to get anything(money is traceable after all)
Steal tools for raping, Food, medicians, etc.
Your also bad at combat so you need to ensure your victems can not fight back.
It is very much a hunting game.
Where you give the player the tools to get what he wants but wont hold his hand.
If he does something stupid like.
Rape the daughter so loudly her parents wake up and kill you.
While you shoud have thought about that dumbass.

 

[Manjusaka]

well for me the game should have nice mechanic that don't make me boring for repeating it over and over again (kind of a skill tree make difference playstyle for fighting or difference building for city simulator, i really hate those games force me to upgrade all i have to continue the process)

have some girls with variety of look(style, species, ages, relation), have porn elements of them as reward so i not too boring when playing it, focus on the girls, main character don't need to talk too much, like just a black shadow of a man

 

[coffeeaddicted]

To me a good game hides the male MC. I am not interested in how i look in the game. i want to slip into the MC and think that is i that does things. Not some dude i do not even like.
Also, fetishes. Its hard to satisfy everyone's need. There are games that are so popular and sometimes i do not get why. People get invested in the game, even though its not that great.
So its not always rational.
But i think a good game will offer different paths so everyone can find themselves in the game. Male focused and female focused. And anything in between.
But important will be that fetishes can be avoided. Not everyone likes to play all fetishes a game has.
I usually like games that have a female MC. I like to experience her downfall, he being objectified. Where she is let to a path of ugliness.
Others want to experience themselves in the game. So male focused games i think are very popular.

Even though i do not listen most of the time to music scores, i really liked the score in Light of my Life. I think if music is used it should represent the situation.
And, most importantly, updates. A dev should, in theory, communicate with their followers. Updates should be frequent. There are devs, for whatever reason, do not communicate often or not at all. I think this not desirable.

My favorite tags are prostitution, corruption, blackmail, slave, drugs, pregnancy and bdsm, violence.
So i naturally look for games that give me what i want.
I think a game like Tomie did many things right. Its quite popular.
But romance games can be that as well.

I really enjoy if a dev puts some effort in the characters. Like if a MILF is not looking like a teenager but has wrinkles but still looks stunning. I like to see nice clothing and shoes. There are not a lot of games where the dev puts lots of effort into details. Sometimes shoes get warped for some reason. Shoes are solid and do not warp.
Also, the skin. In men's fantasies women always have perfect skins and textures. But thats of course not true. So i appreciate if women look more damaged in a way. When you see their age. This applies to men as well. Depending on the outset of the story. The majority has young adults. So this will be most likely popular.
Haven't seen a game with Gilfs. Or incest games where the daughter is not just 18 but older. Maybe the fantasy does not go beyond.

This is at least what i think. But again, i am not a dev. Just an end user perspective.

 

[Laikhent]

There are some games that make success in South Korea or Japan but not in US and the other way around too. So, it's not always the game itself, but for who you are making it.
In a nutshell:
1- Know your audience (make what ppl actually want) (and what you are good at)
2- Marketing (Sometimes may be more important than the game itself. Even if you make what they want, it's useless if they don't know about it)

 

[obibobi]

There are two main things

The Draw: Now the simple answer would be good visuals, this is true but an eye catching, interesting visual works wonders. A game called College College with 5 girls standing in a row will not stand out. The controversial Milfy City has a great first page as does the game The Visit, they catch your attention.

The Hook: Good writing, that's key for making people care, make them care about the sexual adventure and even better, care about the characters. I consider a gold standard benchmark for writing is that you still care about a female character after you've slept with her and although not necessary, male characters other than the protagonist that are interesting. The bar is low but still practice on your writing, write fanfiction of something before you commit to a game.

Ironically the gameplay aspect is the least important aspect of these games, even choices aren't important, just the illusion of choice.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Ironically the gameplay aspect is the least important aspect of these games, even choices aren't important, just the illusion of choice.

To be honest, i find it quite annoying when games do not give you a choice with whom you engage in the game. For example harem games. The reason i despise them is, that i have no choice or control over the women i come along. I like to decide if i want to meet them or ignore them.
As for action choices, yes. I think they are mostly false. Makes you question why there is a choice if it leads anyway to that direction.

But the worst for me, when i started with games like these is, that there are not many dark games that explore some fetishes like prostitution. At least the way i like to see them.
Mostly games are about how women fall in love to do things that men like to do. Which gets boring at one point. Not many games explore the dislike of a female to do these things. Which is a shame. So i always view them as just porn games.

It seems that supporting sites prevent more darker games and the ones i had seen are quite bad. A tag alone does not make a great game. It sometimes gives a false impression what to expect.
A game i recently started was Tomie which has the right kind of darkness. At least to me.

But in general i wholeheartedly would agree that choices are mostly false choices to alute to the player that he is in control where in reality he is not. Which is fine. The narrative in a novella is really important to set the stage where everything happens. You need to get a feel of the story and how the character is actually feeling. You should emphasis with the character and possible have some choices even if they are not real.

What is a turn off for me, is when both actors are into it with each other. Unless its a romance. Otherwise its like a Stockholm syndrome.

 

[anne O'nymous]

God man, you gave me so many ideas with your own ideas.

Rape the daughter so loudly her parents wake up and kill you.
While you shoud have thought about that dumbass.

For those uneasy with the rape setting: A strict (christian like) boarding school for girls only.

It's a manor or something like that in border of a small town ; the late middle-age (near Renaissance) kind of manor, with many dependencies and all.
You're a boy from the small town.
At day you flirt with the girls when they come in town ; be careful of their chaperone.
At night, you go to your rendez-vous with them and have to sneak your way to the right bedroom.
Perhaps there's more than one girl by room. This can possibly open the gate to threesome if you seduced the two girls, but it will last longer and there will be two girls making noise, so greater risk to be caught ; what will you choose, the joy of the threesome, or the security of classic one on one ?
Or you'll need to wake the girl, then lead her to a place where you'll be able to have sex ; a stealth escort mission, who don't like that...

Possible bonus (for those who like that):
One of the supervisor catch you.
Positive point, when she's on duty she'll not report you, so you can make more noise (still be careful the other girls on the floor would be suspicious).
Negative point, she's the dominant kind or futa, you've to pay her silence with your body. And the more you made noise, the more she'll be selfish ; once again a hard choice, find the right balance to enjoy both your time with the girl and your time with the supervisor.

Possible plot twist:
Each week, you found an envelop at your name with money inside. The amount seem to change depending of the number of girls you had sex with.
Someone of importance at the school (why not the dean) want the girls to not be too sheltered. Many men would want a well educated girl with good manners, but few would have the patience to deal with a sexually naive and clueless girl. Worse, those who would have the patience could take advantage of this naivety and corrupt them into sex slavery.
So, this important person at the school is very happy by your doing, you teach the girls what the school isn't authorized to teach them.

Once you've understood this, it can possibly lead to challenges:
Achieve to make the very shy girl show you her naked body before the end of the week, and you'll have a bonus.
Continue until you've sex with her, a bonus for each step you make.
A good wife should help her husband to succeed by any possible means ; XXX is the smartest one, and she come from a really powerful family. She'll surely marry an man of influence... Open her to the joy of anal sex, it will avoid risk of pregnancy in her future dedication for her future husband career.
XXX grades are lowering. Penalty if you've sex with her before her grades return to a good level. When she'll ask, tell her clearly that you learned about her grades and don't want to hangout with an brainless girl.

 

[Jonboy80]

As others have said, a fair bit of luck, for one. I've seen quality projects that don't have a ton of followers. It is these that I look for as a person who continues despite a lack of fans funding the project, as opposed to projects making thousands a month that have long update cycles.

Beyond that, the dev needs to stick to their vision rather than half-assedly add things on a whim because a vocal subset of people want it. Looking at you people who demand every game be incest themed.

Gameplay-wise, do not add insane grind to pad out a lack of content. Sometimes this works but more often than not, it's poorly done. If it takes five hours of grinding to upgrade from fingering her pussy to sticking a finger in her ass, then that's poorly done. However, if it takes a couple hours of grinding to progress to more meaningful things like fighting stronger enemies to get to a new area wher you meet a new LI, it is a bit more tolerable.

 

[Deleted member 440241]

Something to set it apart. A lot of people are instantly drawn to 2D games just because 3D renders are the norm now. Interesting concepts, like Summertime Saga or Breeding Season, can grab a player base even if the core gameplay isn't developed yet. You're dealing with a heavily saturated market so any kind of uniqueness goes a long way to getting attention. Just don't set your sights too high. If you fail people aren't likely to give you a second chance.

 

[jamdan]

Most of it is dumb luck. There are games that are objectively bad that have tons of support. And games that are high quality that have next to no support.

But I think the one thing that can help those odds is a good story and interesting characters, which go hand in hand.

So if you want to make a horror themed game, do some research on horror writing. You don't need some "horror" fetish to make a horror game. Horror is about suspense and anticipation, you get that through writing. Not fetish content.

 

[lop333]

Constant updates ; P
Also appealing to specific fetishes.

 

[AlisaB]

Luck mostly. Imo most "Trending Games" on this site are mediocre at best.
Also I dont recommend going for "fun game first with porn elements instead of the other way around" - most people dont download these games for their riveting gameplay.

 

[おい！]

I'm a dev and really do not wanna make a visual novel, I want something that's a fun game first with porn elements instead of the other way around.
I have a vauge idea where I do some multiverse light horror shit, thoughts?
Need ideas.

Take you pick..............
https://f95zone.to/sam/latest_alpha/#/cat=games/page=1/prefixes=13/sort=likes