What makes the top played, liked and rated games on this site more appealing than others? What makes people care and donate more to those that are often critiqued- especially games that are female protagonist games.
What would you say differs the Good, great and ugly games?
- Thread starter bcsjkdfjksh
- Start date
Difficult question...
One thing I know for sure: games that do well on Patreon or who get a lot of posts on F95Zone (and are thereby in the Trending Games list) are not all great games. Or even good games.
Other games which I consider really really good are somehow not performing well on Patreon.
In my opinion, and excellent VN needs the following:
1) Interesting premise (no young guy with a huge dick living with his mom and two sisters please, although there are some exceptions to this rule)
2) Good story writing
3) Good renders
But having all of the above is still no guarantee for Patreon success.
One thing I know for sure: games that do well on Patreon or who get a lot of posts on F95Zone (and are thereby in the Trending Games list) are not all great games. Or even good games.
Other games which I consider really really good are somehow not performing well on Patreon.
In my opinion, and excellent VN needs the following:
1) Interesting premise (no young guy with a huge dick living with his mom and two sisters please, although there are some exceptions to this rule)
2) Good story writing
3) Good renders
But having all of the above is still no guarantee for Patreon success.
- Sep 28, 2018
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A lot of it is luck, a ton of good games dont get nearly the attention they deserve while some pretty poor games get tons of support.
and I think its a story vs porn divide too, most people who play these games I would assume play for porn content, so story based games need to really have a great story to get support (like DeLuca) while some porn based games have an easier time if their renders/sex scenes are good.
and I think its a story vs porn divide too, most people who play these games I would assume play for porn content, so story based games need to really have a great story to get support (like DeLuca) while some porn based games have an easier time if their renders/sex scenes are good.
- Jun 24, 2018
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For me, an "ugly game" is a game that once you play it and then you check the dev's patreon account, you can totally notice that the dev put more effort in setting his patreon account than in the game itself
A decent game is when you play the game and nothing is out of place. The player won't find annoying and obvious bugs, the story won't be stupid as hell and the images won't look cheap, the player will read the dialogues and see the image and notice a relationship between them, the characters won't be dumb as hell. You wil notice that the dev actually cares about what he did. Then, a "good game" for me is when I like that decent game.
And last, a "great game" for me is when you can watch that good game mentioned before and notice how much extra effort the dev puts in his game. To begin with: The images aren't good, they are great. The characters won't exist for the only purpose to have another hole to fuck later, the characters won't exist just because you needed someone to fill a place in the story, the characters will exist because the player will love them and they won't be able to imagine that game without those characters. Then anyone will notice custom things that nobody asked but the dev did it anyway and the final product looks great, for example: music, custom gui, custom interface, sound effect, transitions, real animations, etc. Also other things that people usually want but most dev doesn't bother like a WT, a gallery and decisions that actually have an impact in the future or at least a mention about it.
Now, what makes a game succesfull on Patreon? I have no idea. Life is so unfair in that regard. I see some big games that for me are in the "ugly" class getting way more money and support than devs with one or more games in the "great" or "decent" class. I want to use this moment to say that
A decent game is when you play the game and nothing is out of place. The player won't find annoying and obvious bugs, the story won't be stupid as hell and the images won't look cheap, the player will read the dialogues and see the image and notice a relationship between them, the characters won't be dumb as hell. You wil notice that the dev actually cares about what he did. Then, a "good game" for me is when I like that decent game.
And last, a "great game" for me is when you can watch that good game mentioned before and notice how much extra effort the dev puts in his game. To begin with: The images aren't good, they are great. The characters won't exist for the only purpose to have another hole to fuck later, the characters won't exist just because you needed someone to fill a place in the story, the characters will exist because the player will love them and they won't be able to imagine that game without those characters. Then anyone will notice custom things that nobody asked but the dev did it anyway and the final product looks great, for example: music, custom gui, custom interface, sound effect, transitions, real animations, etc. Also other things that people usually want but most dev doesn't bother like a WT, a gallery and decisions that actually have an impact in the future or at least a mention about it.
Now, what makes a game succesfull on Patreon? I have no idea. Life is so unfair in that regard. I see some big games that for me are in the "ugly" class getting way more money and support than devs with one or more games in the "great" or "decent" class. I want to use this moment to say that
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is a great dev and deserves waaay more recognition (not just money) like really, I barely see someone else mentioning his games. Please if you don't know who he is, take a look at his games.
- Jun 10, 2018
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For me - and that's a personal opinion - it's at first the "art". By that I do not mean that the render/pictures must have awesome, jawdropping quality, but a good composition. I've seen some games with awesome visual quality that are not well composed (wrong light, objects clipping into each other, weird poses, completely deplaced assets, etc.), that's usually a sign of a lazy dev and that continues most of the time in the story. On the other hand, well composed render, that might not look visually stunning, but everything fits well together, usually hints at a good story, the dev might just not have the best hardware for rendering, or has no talent for painting, or whatever.
Of course there are games that where build by a team, in which render/images and story are made by different people. That's where story becomes more important in my opinion.
A good story for me doesn't have to be realistic, or logic, it must be well written and kinda believable. If you have a smart character, that does stupid things without a reason, it's not believable, if you have a stupid character that does stupid things, it is believable.
The last point for me is uniqueness!
Thialf mentioned the young guy with huge dick and mom/sis incest trope, and yes, that's not unique and I tend to shy away from that, but if the story is unique enough to stand out and make things different, then I'll have a look, even if the premise seems to be the same.
Of course there are games that where build by a team, in which render/images and story are made by different people. That's where story becomes more important in my opinion.
A good story for me doesn't have to be realistic, or logic, it must be well written and kinda believable. If you have a smart character, that does stupid things without a reason, it's not believable, if you have a stupid character that does stupid things, it is believable.
The last point for me is uniqueness!
Thialf mentioned the young guy with huge dick and mom/sis incest trope, and yes, that's not unique and I tend to shy away from that, but if the story is unique enough to stand out and make things different, then I'll have a look, even if the premise seems to be the same.
- May 19, 2017
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Games are replayable. You make choices, and things are different each time you play. Players play again and again trying to get the best score.
Visual Novels are not replayable. You watch the story once, and it's done, you already know how it ends.
To make a financially successful Visual Novel, takes a week or two to write a story and render a few thousand images, but you can't just upload the whole thing all at once or your customers will be like "I already played that one" and they move on to the next VN of the week.
You have to just give them enough to get them high, and cut them off until next month. Each month you give them another dose, and before you know it they're addicts. As long as she's still a virgin, they'll keep paying to try and get in her pants, but once she's used goods, the fans will drop. You can milk a little longer by implying that there might be anal in a future update, but that doesn't always work. Some devs have tried the keep her a virgin, but have her bring friends home for a sleep-over route, where you can have sex with her friends, and that can buy you some more time, but eventually she she has to spread her legs and it's all over.
"It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase"
Visual Novels are not replayable. You watch the story once, and it's done, you already know how it ends.
To make a financially successful Visual Novel, takes a week or two to write a story and render a few thousand images, but you can't just upload the whole thing all at once or your customers will be like "I already played that one" and they move on to the next VN of the week.
You have to just give them enough to get them high, and cut them off until next month. Each month you give them another dose, and before you know it they're addicts. As long as she's still a virgin, they'll keep paying to try and get in her pants, but once she's used goods, the fans will drop. You can milk a little longer by implying that there might be anal in a future update, but that doesn't always work. Some devs have tried the keep her a virgin, but have her bring friends home for a sleep-over route, where you can have sex with her friends, and that can buy you some more time, but eventually she she has to spread her legs and it's all over.
"It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase"
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- Aug 6, 2019
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Some visual novels may be more replayable than many games, especially if they contain interesting branching. Free roam in most adult games doesn't mean there's more content in the game that a player can discover. Porn games contain a limited number of events as well as visual novels.
In some adult games, certain events are mutually exclusive, but in most games one playthrough is enough to see all the content.
- Jun 10, 2017
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It all depend of what you mean by "good", because there's good games that are bad, and bad games that are good.
If by "good" you mean "great", then it's the quality of every parts of the game that make it great. A good writing. Characters with a deep, consistent personality, and that act/talk accordingly to this personality. A strong and consistent story. CG of quality, and so on.
But if by "good" you mean enjoyable, then it's something totally different. It's a question of personal taste, and "stupid" games with cheap CG and incoherent story can still be really enjoyable.
If by "good" you mean "great", then it's the quality of every parts of the game that make it great. A good writing. Characters with a deep, consistent personality, and that act/talk accordingly to this personality. A strong and consistent story. CG of quality, and so on.
But if by "good" you mean enjoyable, then it's something totally different. It's a question of personal taste, and "stupid" games with cheap CG and incoherent story can still be really enjoyable.
- Oct 3, 2017
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From what i can tell:
Conquest, Domination, Ease of play.
Conquest:
90% of the games are about getting multiple girls to have sex with you.
We as gamers/humanity thrive on overcomming challange's and claiming our rewards.
The thrill of breaking away her resistance, getting her to want to have sex with us and to give it so eagerly that our mere thouch makes her orgasm.
Same reason hentai is populair.
There is the sweet feeling of victory when your efforts to whoo her pay off.
Where simply having her devalue's her.
Domination:
Having many girls worshiping your dick is great for the selfesteem.
Unlike real life in the games most girls become compleet submissive and subserviant to the cock's will.
They want nothing more then to get fucked and will do anything to get fucked.
Aka it is a freaking power trip to know you are that good in bed that they will do anything to get laid by you.
Ease of play:
We seek a challange to overcome.
We do not seek a random trigger somewhere in the 30 hour story to get to the rest of the story.
The good games tent to be linear stories with branching path's(aka no gameplay but still influencing aka control)
Or require easy mini games that will alow to to feel like we won and get our reward.
Or has an easy to understand interface and clear action and consiquences.
Basicly the game can be won with one hand and zero brian power.
While normal games can get away with dark souls, etc.
Porn games are porn first.
Meaning we dont want to do the same level 50 times over because we keep losing.
The short version is:
Effort vs reward.
Aka time spend vs what we get for it.
- Dec 12, 2018
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- May 19, 2017
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a good development team. artists doing art, coders coding, graphics girl making buttons and UI, voice actors voicing, render farm rendering, things happen fast.
coder trying to learn how to daz, talking in a high pitch voice to sound like a girl, working all by himself, it's gonna take a lot longer
- Nov 25, 2017
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Conquest: Wrong, most of the players don't want any challenge at all, but rather that the game has their fetishes and type of girls, in fact girls in most games are easy to get without challenge, and let's not talk about the rivals, a good rival would be something unique and that says a lot, if there is a rival he has to be the worst type of scum, only so that the MC scummy acts seems a bit better.
Domination: Mostly correct, most players prefer to boost selfsteem that way.
Ease of play: Absolutely wrong, in fact it can't be more wrong, this one is just your personal likings. Many people actually enjoy having to think and games that don't focus on porn. In the hentai community there are two types of games, the nukige which if porn first then the rest and the h games, which is first gameplay then porn.
Nukige's are mostly used for easy and fast profits, the bigger games are, almost all, h games, good examples of companies that follow that model are Alicesoft, Eushully...
However because we don't have a "mature market" here, most games follow the nukige style and focus on sex, but the more we advance, the more diverse type of games that try to do something else, something different and where porn isn't the main focus but a part of the game, integrated on it.
As far as I can tell, the appeal tends to come from a combination of the author's own status, how well the game they make resonates with a certain audience, and the ability of that campaign to maintain a relationship with its audience.
Aside from a general sense that completely unoriginal and poorly executed games that have terrible graphics don't tend to do well, there's otherwise no clear connection (one way or another!) between a game's overall perceived quality and its level of success. Games with weirdo premises and janky or no graphics can do well, whereas games that 'make the player cry' can fail financially.
The important thing to realize is that it's more a question of audience than quality anyway, what audiences consider to be a game's level of quality differs, and that there is no clearly defined objective standard of quality for a porn game. Some people want to play classical womens' romance novels but with pictures of (furry) futas or (white) lesbians banging each other, and the degree to which games deliver that determines whether they think the game is good or not. Some people want a detailed depiction of control or bondage and are cool with letting graphics slip a bit. And some, like me, want a game with at least a semblance of gameplay and at least moderately unique graphics to involve the main character creampieing a menagerie of his blood relatives and knocking them all up by the end of the game. None of those metrics of quality is wrong.
The only real way to be wrong about the quality of a game is either to be spouting clear bullshit about your game just to try to make more sales, or to claim that somebody else's measure of quality for a porn game is wrong just because you prefer something different. The person who argues either of those positions is clearly biased and should not be listened to.
Aside from a general sense that completely unoriginal and poorly executed games that have terrible graphics don't tend to do well, there's otherwise no clear connection (one way or another!) between a game's overall perceived quality and its level of success. Games with weirdo premises and janky or no graphics can do well, whereas games that 'make the player cry' can fail financially.
The important thing to realize is that it's more a question of audience than quality anyway, what audiences consider to be a game's level of quality differs, and that there is no clearly defined objective standard of quality for a porn game. Some people want to play classical womens' romance novels but with pictures of (furry) futas or (white) lesbians banging each other, and the degree to which games deliver that determines whether they think the game is good or not. Some people want a detailed depiction of control or bondage and are cool with letting graphics slip a bit. And some, like me, want a game with at least a semblance of gameplay and at least moderately unique graphics to involve the main character creampieing a menagerie of his blood relatives and knocking them all up by the end of the game. None of those metrics of quality is wrong.
The only real way to be wrong about the quality of a game is either to be spouting clear bullshit about your game just to try to make more sales, or to claim that somebody else's measure of quality for a porn game is wrong just because you prefer something different. The person who argues either of those positions is clearly biased and should not be listened to.
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- Jul 7, 2017
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if there are sex scenes, it damn well better be ANIMATED!
still images of sex? no thanks.
still images of sex? no thanks.
- Oct 3, 2017
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I think you misunderstand what i meant with challange.
Most games the player still has to conquer the girl into having sex with him.
It isnt the gameplay the needs to be challanging.
Just that you(outside of slave games) need to conquer the girl.
If you start with her already being your sex slave then we lose the feeling of victory.
Of winning and gaining rewards.
Games need to give you that feeling of rewards for your efforts.
Again mistunderstanding.
People want challanging gameplay in terms of:
If i do this then i get that.
What we dont want is having 15 blow jobs before getting a titty job or having to look all across the map for a trigger to unlock the next scene.
There is difference between a challange and just wasting our time.
- May 19, 2017
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No doubt click-fuck games are popular with some people, but not everyone is looking for the virtual girl that they can rape at will. Some players are definitely in it for the game (challenge) and the sexy is just gravy. Some people even play these games with their partner. Some people look at these games as "educational" they want to learn how to get girls, and rubbing her left shoulder doesn't get you in her pants IRL, so it's not realistic in that type of game.
If you're walking through the woods, and a bikini bandit attacks, trying to take your stuff... she's asking for it, you have a right to defend yourself. making her pass out, choking on your dick is self defense... she was trying to kill you!
In a different type of game, that might be totally inappropriate.
Good games have to engage the player, give them a reason, or a good excuse to spend hours playing. You wouldn't go to every football game, but if it's a team from your university, it's party time. If your team loses, and the cheerleaders pity fuck you, it's not the same as when you win. Effort = reward the cheerleaders are not prostitutes that you can just click on. They fuck you because the game was exciting, and made them wet, and the sex is consensual, because they wanted to have sex.
- Nov 25, 2017
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Rather than misunderstanding what you are saying you just worded it wrong, it is totally different a challenging game rather than a no excessive grind game, that isn't even related to "challenging" and that you need to follow the story to get the girl rather than have it already done since the start.
But the bad use of words give it a different meaning, a challenging game is one in which to accomplish your objective you can be defeated, fail, make mistakes... which is absolutely different to a "gradual development with no grind" which is your true meaning.
What would be an example of a challenging game? kichikuou rance, a game that events happen on time, characters can be raped or die thanks to the enemy actions, where you have to rescue people and prepare for bigger battles.
Another example would be any game with avoidable NTR, not optional, rather than you have to be careful of other characters so that they don't get the girl you wanna conquer or that they are aiming at your wife and you have to defend her.
Those are challenging games, when you have to actively fight something off so that nothing bad happens.
Let me copy paste the last part of my message "However because we don't have a "mature market" here, most games follow the nukige style and focus on sex, but the more we advance, the more diverse type of games that try to do something else, something different and where porn isn't the main focus but a part of the game, integrated on it."
I meant that at the start we mostly had nukiges with next to zero story, with time we are developing more and give games that can be called that, and I didn't say that everyone was into point and click, rather than we are developing towards more complex games the more we advance.
Games that I had in mind while writing that are like black garden, xxxivilization... basically games that want to offer gameplay on top of the sex.
- May 19, 2017
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I wasn't arguing against what you said, I was in agreement on there being different types of games, but in regards to your follow up, I have to disagree. There are some very good story based adult games that date back 30 years, it's not something that's new. Dating simulators have likewise been around forever. Even NTR games predate the internet... Bowser was fucking Mario's girlfriend, way back when.
Moving forward, in light of recent events like patreon and others imposing rules, and the social justice movements behind them, things are changing. My point was that devs can't expect to profit off the old gratuitous non-con lolis that you're so fond of. This is the era of consenting landlady games. The strong, successful businesswoman, property owner, who dominates the sappy young male, in compliance with the new rules of feminist dominated society, and other games in rebellion to it.
We have to adapt to survive, and learn to work within the system, while at the same time still pissing them off.
Challenging the player, like we challenge ourselves in making these games.
On the original discussion/question, is very different what makes a good/great/ugly game than why some games are successful and why others are not.
Patreon/economical/high player base success goes in hand of marketing. (how well dev market it and how people talk about it, nevertheless if is a nice game to play or a bugfest)
NSFW Game quality goes broadly on story/art/gameplay. And there is so much different types of games (from Meet'n'fuck to sexy platformers with sex scenes to VNs with different types of gameplay) that trying to find the clues to good game design is hard or impossible.
Myself I'm just trying to make the game I'd like to play.
Unless dev have a lot of money/unflinching team, worring about success is a good path to fail/abandon the game some months after release.
Patreon/economical/high player base success goes in hand of marketing. (how well dev market it and how people talk about it, nevertheless if is a nice game to play or a bugfest)
NSFW Game quality goes broadly on story/art/gameplay. And there is so much different types of games (from Meet'n'fuck to sexy platformers with sex scenes to VNs with different types of gameplay) that trying to find the clues to good game design is hard or impossible.
Myself I'm just trying to make the game I'd like to play.
Unless dev have a lot of money/unflinching team, worring about success is a good path to fail/abandon the game some months after release.