What trope are you tired of seeing in adult games?

[Adabelitoo]

I've been quietly reading and t's funny for me how people contradicts themselves even in the same post. Some people don't want realism in a game but they say they're tired of unrealistic measures. Some people say that they're working on their first game and not doing X fetish because is easy, as if they had any experience doing a game and knowing what's easy and what isn't. Some people wants realism and character development but they don't want to read too much in between sex scenes and some of them even demand sex every 2-3 scenes. Some people wants realism and fucking your whole family, together in the same game.

The thing about tropes and cliches is that, if they are well or at least decently implemented, they'll work every single time and most time people won't even notice it while enjoying it, it's only when it's poorly applied that it becomes "a thing". I'm sure that if we start thinking about all the action movies we saw or pay attention to the next one, we could identify all the tropes in it, but the fights will still be good, the effects will still be flashy and we will enjoy it anyway. I woulnd't do any difference with porn games.

 

[Vhaerun]

The thing about tropes and cliches is that, if they are well or at least decently implemented, they'll work every single time and most time people won't even notice it while enjoying it, it's only when it's poorly applied that it becomes "a thing".

I think that's a very valid point, and in general is quite true. To have a commonly used trope or cliche be decently implemented, I believe it hinges 100% on the writing. Any trope can be explained away with really good writing, whether in prose or pose.

 

[desmosome]

With characters like Lisa Lisa, Trish Una, Holly Joestar and Mariah? Count me in.

I wouldn't mind a MILF hunter Kakyoin's Bizarre Adventure.

 

[tanstaafl]

After re-reading this thread, I felt the need to point out that, while the tropes listed here are quite overused and often pretty damn annoying, tropes exist for a reason. They worked at one point and can work again in the future if used correctly. As has been pointed out many times, most of the games in this genre are not made by people with any developed writing skill nor any great skill in development or modeling, so the odds of a well-crafted story with a compelling plot and next level animations are fairly low. But they do happen. Sometimes someone comes along that has the determination and patience to do it right.

Here's a bit of advice from one developer (not of adult games) and one time lit major to potential future developers.

1. Know your audience. Stick to that and don't try to water down your original intention to make more people happy.
2. If you plan on incorporating a trope or feature you've seen in multiple games before because you like it, that's fine, but try to put a unique spin on it at least. Don't just throw out your favorite thing from Milfy City and expect people to say "Oh neat!", because we've seen everything from that game a thousand times in other games at this point.
3. Outline your story, then write it as a story. It doesn't have to be well written, but it should make sense. THEN make the script of the game. It helps. Also, here are a ton of free storyboarding sites on the web. Use them.
4. When you write something, put it aside for a few days then reread it. It's amazing how many flaws you can find when you look at something you wrote when it isn't fresh in your mind. The reason for this is as you write a story that is fresh in your mind your brain connects concepts and thoughts on its own, creating the illusion that what you wrote down is a cohesive story and makes sense. Coming back to it later when it isn't fresh will bring these gaps to light.

Hmm. I didn't really mean for this to turn into a writing lesson, but I guess it got away from me. Oh well, hope this helps someone.

 

[Tau_Iota]

With characters like Lisa Lisa, Trish Una, Holly Joestar and Mariah? Count me in.

And we could continue with common tropes with that as well implying and definitely rewriting the story as well saying Lisa Lisa is Joseph's stepmom-landlady-roommate lmao

 

[Ferghus]

While I agree that tropes aren't necessarily bad on their own, and if done well, can stand out above the mass-produced low effort garbage, I feel like it's still worth discussing what tropes are overused and why people dislike them. The reality is that even good writers aren't masters of all tropes. It might be too much to ask a new developer to create something amazing on their first try. If OP wants to try their hand in fresher fields, I say let them. Less competition for the OP, and more variety for the rest of us.

 

[MrLakes1579]

There's a variety of ways. Exceptionally charismatic MC, mind control of course, unusual circumstances such as post-apocalyptic or dependence upon the MC for basic necessities of life, open minded family, trauma or dramatic event making such an occurrence more plausible, and so forth. The biggest challenge for an MC in a harem scenario(after putting one together, of course) is "maintenance"(managing jealousy, meeting the needs of each member, perhaps covering the expenses of the lifestyle, etc.).

This answer is why I prefer poly harems. It starts to veer too close into what I refer to as "creepy cult leader territory" If the parties involved are in love with both your character and each other it smooths things out, limits needed "maintenance"

 

[Mogulul]

Big pp

 

[woody554]

I don't hate the idea of grinding, but most of the games are confusing unless I read a guide or walkthrough. People on f95 mostly want to have fun, not spend 24/7 grinding.

I just wanted to pick on this to make a general comment on grinding: I don't think the problem with grinding is the grind, but the lack of feedback from game. almost everything we play here is WIP, terribly bugged and filled with unintended mistakes. so when we get stuck in the grind, we 99% of the time don't know if we're progressing or a) stuck in a loop bug never to break free, b) making wrong choices that are stopping us from progressing, c) have not yet reached a hidden counter variable (but it's not known if thats 6 reps, 60 reps or 600 reps away), or d) the content just isn't there yet, coming in some future update.

if we KNEW and could trust the situation was always case C, not yet reaching counter, we could take a lot of grinding because we'd know we're going somewhere. but of course we can never know because it's literally impossible ('halting problem') to guarantee infinite looping doesn't happen. so that's not a solution, and it can't ever be fixed by 'trying to code it better'. it's theoretically impossible, so stop thinking this is the way to treat infinite looping.

but if the game instead gave us SOME feedback, however small, that we're going where dev meant us to go, we could stand a LOT of grind. a visible increase of a stat, but ALSO a goal you're getting to. increasing stat alone isn't enough, like everybody who's played foothills of the mountains knows. instead you need a stopping point, like 'next event unlocks when this stat gets HERE' type of thing. like a filling 'love meter' a lot of games used to have but is now almost extinct. 'once this heart pic fills up, you unlock next thing'. that sort of thing.

the game could still be exactly the same under the hood, but there would be an end to the suffering always visible. light at the end of the tunnel. hope. and you'd know after, say 23 repetition of putting a spider in your sister's bed, that you've maxed out that and 600 spiders more is not gonna change anything. you can even still have the RNG left if you like (instead of visible 1 out of 23 counter boringly ticking 1 count per event) by sometimes adding 3 counts per event or 11, so you'd keep the tension of not knowing but still prevent extreme grind frustration.

and if we'd have that in a grind game, a lot of the problem would evaporate. in the end it's basic usability theory we've known for 30 years or so, the UI must give feedback or people will go mad in less than seconds. grind is not the main problem, it's the lack of progress feedback. new dialogue, new pics, rising love meter etc etc, there's an infinite number of ways to communicate "you're not stuck, hang on there, you're still making progress". but you MUST show progress or the user feels the program is frozen and playing forward achieves nothing. that is what makes players rage quit, not the length of the grind per se.

 

[Adabelitoo]

I just wanted to pick on this to make a general comment on grinding: I don't think the problem with grinding is the grind, but the lack of feedback from game. almost everything we play here is WIP, terribly bugged and filled with unintended mistakes. so when we get stuck in the grind, we 99% of the time don't know if we're progressing or a) stuck in a loop bug never to break free, b) making wrong choices that are stopping us from progressing, c) have not yet reached a hidden counter variable (but it's not known if thats 6 reps, 60 reps or 600 reps away), or d) the content just isn't there yet, coming in some future update.

if we KNEW and could trust the situation was always case C, not yet reaching counter, we could take a lot of grinding because we'd know we're going somewhere. but of course we can never know because it's literally impossible ('halting problem') to guarantee infinite looping doesn't happen. so that's not a solution, and it can't ever be fixed by 'trying to code it better'. it's theoretically impossible, so stop thinking this is the way to treat infinite looping.

but if the game instead gave us SOME feedback, however small, that we're going where dev meant us to go, we could stand a LOT of grind. a visible increase of a stat, but ALSO a goal you're getting to. increasing stat alone isn't enough, like everybody who's played foothills of the mountains knows. instead you need a stopping point, like 'next event unlocks when this stat gets HERE' type of thing. like a filling 'love meter' a lot of games used to have but is now almost extinct. 'once this heart pic fills up, you unlock next thing'. that sort of thing.

the game could still be exactly the same under the hood, but there would be an end to the suffering always visible. light at the end of the tunnel. hope. and you'd know after, say 23 repetition of putting a spider in your sister's bed, that you've maxed out that and 600 spiders more is not gonna change anything. you can even still have the RNG left if you like (instead of visible 1 out of 23 counter boringly ticking 1 count per event) by sometimes adding 3 counts per event or 11, so you'd keep the tension of not knowing but still prevent extreme grind frustration.

and if we'd have that in a grind game, a lot of the problem would evaporate. in the end it's basic usability theory we've known for 30 years or so, the UI must give feedback or people will go mad in less than seconds. grind is not the main problem, it's the lack of progress feedback. new dialogue, new pics, rising love meter etc etc, there's an infinite number of ways to communicate "you're not stuck, hang on there, you're still making progress". but you MUST show progress or the user feels the program is frozen and playing forward achieves nothing. that is what makes players rage quit, not the length of the grind per se.

I agree with this. It's more about a bad/poorly designed game than doesn't even bothers on showing a WIP anywhere on screen than a problem of the grinding itself.

 

[Istreakilaz]

I don't think the problem with grinding is the grind, but the lack of feedback from game. almost everything we play here is WIP, terribly bugged and filled with unintended mistakes. so when we get stuck in the grind, we 99% of the time don't know if we're progressing or a) stuck in a loop bug never to break free, b) making wrong choices that are stopping us from progressing, c) have not yet reached a hidden counter variable (but it's not known if thats 6 reps, 60 reps or 600 reps away), or d) the content just isn't there yet, coming in some future update.

It's funny because how this comment can tie in to the sudden influx of the NPC games as of recent. Generally it's true, but i think the overuse of this non-feedback giving grinding annoyance has somehow gave rise to a thirst of games with absolutely no progress. You start at 100%, with everything unlocked. And that also is veering towards becoming a trope in of itself now...

 

[AncestralGroove]

Cheating and power struggle

 

[CristianG123]

I'm sick of all the porn games that take place in a highschool/collage setting, it's like, come on people, the world is such a big place (and if you add fantasy elements then it's exponentially bigger), why limit yourself to school?

 

[Mogulul]

Honestly tho, I think something which you see a lot even in the top tier games is a character just going overdramatic over some rather weird stuff. Obviously this only happens in story games with emotional elements and not the "dick-in, dick-out 20 minute adventure". If you want your characters being really sad or angry over something, you have to build it up from the beginning of the story, otherwise it can partially ruin the experience of some really good games. Imo you can compare the dramatic and sad scenes from Acting Lessons, which are perfectly build up throughout the game, to the rather weird ones in Being A DIK (don't get me wrong, Being a DIK is a fantastic game and probably my favourite even (which also lies in AL being so heartbreaking) and the son-father emotional scenes in Being a DIK are really touching, but it just fits the game more in its happy style). This problem probably comes from the huge amount of bad Teen Romances, with the MC's and side characters apparently being unable to communicate over trivial things.

 

[Ferghus]

After seeing "Boobsocks" for maybe the 5th time in 24 hours, I feel the need to mention: Please don't dress girls like that. It looks absolutely ridiculous. I'm all for skimpy, impractical clothes, but a regular ass t-shirt or plain one-piece dress tucking itself under the breast like a pair of vacuum-sealed fresh mozzarella looks stupid. Like we all know how modern clothes look on a person. We can easily google how modern clothes look on a person. Even bodystockings, leather gimpsuits, and whatever fetish outfit you can think of doesn't look like that. It's uncanny as hell, stop that!

 

[Achelexus]

Bad animations.

IMO well drawn single static images are infinitely sexier than poorly detailed animations.

 

[おい！]

Midget MC, normally in incest games the 16 - 18 year old MC is shorter or the same height than his mum and aunt or even older sister.

 

[silversurfer1]

One quick sex scene with an unimportant (sometimes very unimportant) character at the start of the game so you can check some fetish/tag boxes and then months and months of updates without getting anything with the main characters.

 

[Issone1]

parents are kill

 

[wyldstrykr]

probaby not a trope
1.adult game is also a game. make the game part fun. libra heart, parade buster, the angry bird game that i forgot the title of. that one game that you control the dungeon where you put traps on the warrior/mage girl. etc. that way if the game is kinda grindy, players dont mind it.
2. as a visual novel or a reading heavy game, make reading fun. you dont want reader/player to read a few/several lines then switch to discord or youtube or social media or f95 because of boredom. imo good eXample of this is making lovers, friends to lover and common route of grisaia.
3. if people will say "FULL CG please", then your not doing it right.

i wont say about ntr,mind break, vanilla becuase its devs/people have different fetish. same can be said with male/female proportion. some like girl as flat as male and some like girls that her tits is larger than her rest of the body combined.

me who didnt even read/play 5% of whats in the forum