What's good gameplay?

[Deleted member 5410619]

As others pointed out.
What separates a game from the lesser forms of entertainment is interactivity.
The playing of a game part.
Doesnt matter if i am pulling the trigger of my submachine gun or command armies in the field.
I control the outcome by my actions.
Not by following a prewritten script.


What makes good gameplay change's per person.
I seen a lot of new porn games with accauly gameplay(And i am proud that porn games are having gameplay)
But it is often in the kind of gerne i dont care for.
Like zombie shooters or walking simulators.

Porn games i have good memories off are:
Lab rats 2(expecial the modded version)
Because of how the character change's based on there stats.
From being reluctant to being so obiedent only your will matters.
And the way the drug system work.
Making change's while trying to work around the downside's.

Free cities preg-mode:
You run a city, deal with food, slave revolts, uprising, culture change, slave breeding, technological advancements.
It is all test based and i enjoy it massively simply because of how my actions effect the world.

Superpowered: It is the only game i can praise with having a good mind control system.
Empty eye's, Monotone voice, Stiff movement.
And the way the control system work is also well thought out.
From it only working for a short while before the brain wakes up to it being mostly subconsious manipulation or pre-written trigger respondses.
Just expanding on that system would be interesting.

Erakoh:
You have character stats, a nation to run, militery campaigns to wage.
You can be a lover, a fighter, a rapist.
In fact on of the most fun challange's in that game is not being a rapist.
Being good more rewarding when i can be evil.
And the story(while in need of a far better translation) is constantly tempting you to give into evil.
Making defying it more fun.

I like games like skyrim, space engineer's, stellaris, sims 4, etc.
Because i enjoy building stuff up.
I dont enjoy destroying things.
Even in stellaris destruction is more of a means to an end then the goal.
It is amusing that i am the only xenophile player in my group.

A simple example of something i would enjoy playing.
A porn game where i am the manager of a clothing store.
The clothing store is a front for the slave trade i am part of.
Having to constantly keep up apperiance that i am just an other clothing shop while keeping the slave trade going.
With things like developting connections, having food and medication so the slave's wont starve.
Being careful who i hire.

Or something as simple as being a human resource worker who needs to find out who the company can exploit and who has too much independed thinking.

Games like just an other agency would be great.
If i could accauly get my dick inside a woman.
I swear that game has the worst controls in a porn game i have seen in my life.

A simple game concept i came up with last month.
Based on backroom facials(unrelated but i think the casting couch is inferior to backroom facials but i cannot place why)

You are a reqruiter for a modeling agency.
You make some money on the side by convincing womans to be whore's instead.
The gameplay is a simple case of talking to the woman.
Finding out as much as possible and seeing how far she is willing to go.
Then convince her to be a model(minimal pay) a porn star(medium pay) or a whore(maximal pay)
And you use the money to unlock new options.
Like auto report(put thinks you learn into the victems report automaticly instead of having to do it yourself) to background searches(start with several information already unlocked) to hired kidnappers(maximal pay without having to convince her)
Special reqruitment: Meaby having a mother daughter team, sister teams or having a boyfriend.
Basicly giving you control over what kind of woman come to you.
Add stuff like sleep coffee to enable sleep sex scene's, hyposis where you can use hypnosis to hypno fuck them.
Meaby add extra stuff like a woman with 2 daughters would count as 3 whore's for pay if you use the kidnapping option.
Or using hypnosis to make them more agreeable.

The concept is a simple case of progression.
Where you start as just an other blue collar worker.
And using the money you earn to make your job a lot easier and more fun.
The gameplay loop is simple:
Woman shows up, you talk and you try to convince her to take the job.
You will never see her again after the meeting.
But the rewards of being able to buy upgrade's to make the game easier and unlock your personal fetishes is what keep players invested.

Like the sleep sex games.
They are simple but fun games.
As the thrill of not getting caught(waking up) enhance's what is a pretty standerd dick in pussy senario.

At there core games are about the player ability to effect the world.
From building space ships to corrupting mothers into betraying there daughters into becoming your devoted slave harem.
It all follows the same general rule:
You start weak and grow stronger over time.
Even something as simple as the more you hypnotize a woman the easier it becomes to hypnotize her(and this is a per woman basis, you dont get to take shortcut's just because you are very practiced) the bigger the change's you can make.
For example:
It start small.
Having her feel joy when touching her breast.
Nothing that would alarm her to wake up or would be something she is oppose too(after all everyone wants to feel joy)
As you repeatly hypotize her she becomes less and less independed minded.
To the point you can change her entire personality per sesson.
Or create a basic responds to triggers.
Like calling you master automaticly or sucking any dick she see.
Without ever thinking about it because it became as natural as breathing.
It is just something she does.
No thoughts required.
Or meaby have to find a way around issus.
She hate incest because it is wrong.
So you either convince her that incest in good.
Or convince her that having sex with her son isnt incest.
It is her teaching her son about the female body.

Games are about action and reaction.
A gun fire's a bullet, The bullet hits the target, the target takes damage.
Now you can add recoild, health bars, different bullets doing different damage.
But the core remains the same.
I pull the trigger, i hit my target and my target is hurt because of my action.
If i dont pull the trigger or miss the target, My target wont get hurt.

 

[perturbedspoon]

Dunno, do you buy Masahiro Sakurai's Risk and Reward theory? I personally don't.

 

[Sphere42]

I find the realistic responses and consequenses are a double edged sword if the player wants porn, but I guess that's just a disparity between what the player is looking for and what the game offers. The realism can also take it close to a relationship simulator and it's hard to make that feel right, probably why that's usually left out and the characters just go with whatever the player wants.

Notice how none of my examples include any kind of punishment or other detriment in the consequences, those need to be carefully tuned based on what the game is trying to accomplish. For example if you don't want to/can't present unkempt or unshaven bodies in sex scenes that's perfectly fine, but then abstract the daily grind to "morning prep" or something making it clear it's only for the social (de)buff not for actually maintaining individual features.
The consequences don't really need to be "realistic" either in the sense of adding menstruation, rashes or tearing from rough sex, or an entire pregnancy system. But if the game contains different elements or mechanics it should have an answer for how element A interacts with mechanic 2 within the fictional game world. Your ability to create fireballs doesn't really matter when you're having sex but if you're able to create a stream of water you should at least be able to clean cum etc. off of other people if not also yourself.

 

[DuniX]

But isn't all content (not just sex) novel only once?

Yes but just because a game has content doesn't mean it will necessary sell.
Sex Sells AND is Consumable so the Demand is inexhaustible.

 

[rk-47]

sandbox elements with minigame activities (think summertime saga and faerin's games) with rpg elements make a game far more engaging and not another pointless click thru game

 

[DuniX]

As a recent example on what I mean.
Is It Wrong to Repay the Debt in a Dungeon?
Is that game really better then Slay the Spire?
No. At best it could be described as an easy casual mediocre clone of Slay the Spire.
Would that survive by itself without any Sex Content? Probably not.
But you tack on some sex scenes with the mom and the daughter and brothel that is pretty much tacked on to pad things and that is enough for it to sell.

Is it really that replayable? Just two to three playthroughs at best but that is just enough for Sex Scenes to not overstay their welcome and the novelty to completely wore off.
If there was a second game or DLC character expansion would you play it? Why not?
And that is my point.

Arena Story
Is another example, if there is new DLC characters released(which I think is likely) would that sell?

 

[Yunari-chi]

Is it really that replayable? Just two to three playthroughs at best but that is just enough for Sex Scenes to not overstay their welcome and the novelty to completely wore off.
If there was a second game or DLC character expansion would you play it? Why not?

I haven't played the specific game, but do you mean the other gameplay stuff isn't enough to continue playing, it should be on par or better than slay the spire for that? Can the sex scenes be made in a way to give them more longevity, or are they destined to be boring after seen? If the sequel or a DLC included new sex scenes it should be enough, no?

If sex is the primary focus of a game, the secondary activity is inevitably going to be inferior to a game where it's been the primary focus. Unless you can dedicate a simular amount of time to it on top of the lewd stuff, and at that point it's probably going to sell better to a bigger audience if you just cut the lewd out.

 

[DuniX]

Can the sex scenes be made in a way to give them more longevity, or are they destined to be boring after seen? If the sequel or a DLC included new sex scenes it should be enough, no?

The fact that it's disposable is the feature not the problem. It's satisfying enough for the customers while maintaining the demand for more.

If sex is the primary focus of a game, the secondary activity is inevitably going to be inferior to a game where it's been the primary focus. Unless you can dedicate a simular amount of time to it on top of the lewd stuff, and at that point it's probably going to sell better to a bigger audience if you just cut the lewd out.

It's not about being primary or secondary. It's the fact that if you want to compete on the Gameplay with Slay the Spire you need to be better then it or at least do something radically different and interesting.
You would need gameplay worth of hundreds of hours to even challenge Slay the Spier's thousands of hours.
A mediocre game that can only amount to 2-4 hours isn't going to cut it. Even if you focus and bump that to 10 it still might not be enough.

It's precisely the "Winner takes All" reality of the situation is that if you cut the lewd, you can forget getting a wider audience you are likely to sell absolutely nothing since players will just not fucking care about a mediocre clone.

It's precisely adding the Porn that can make the customers care enough for a mediocre game.

 

[Yunari-chi]

It's precisely adding the Porn that can make the customers care enough for a mediocre game.

So it's not really practical for a porn game to compete on gameplay, nor should they? The point is to make the gameplay "good enough" and then elevate it with porn? This all makes the whole "I want good gameplay in my porn game" sound like a pipedream

 

[Meaning Less]

So it's not really practical for a porn game to compete on gameplay, nor should they? The point is to make the gameplay "good enough" and then elevate it with porn? This all makes the whole "I want good gameplay in my porn game" sound like a pipedream

It isn't that hard to understand:
-gameplay can enhance the porn by adding more interactivity and buildup;
-while porn can motivate horny players with lewd rewards.

They both enhance the other to create an appealing experience that horny people are more willing to give a shot.

I'm not sure about you but I'm not playing any indy game without porn unless it is exceptional, neither am I watching standalone porn without any story/gameplay unless it is exceptional. But if you pair average gameplay with average porn, now I'm motivated to play thousands of them, and that's what I do.

 

[Yunari-chi]

I'm not sure about you but I'm not playing any indy game without porn unless it is exceptional, neither am I watching standalone porn without any story/gameplay unless it is exceptional. But if you pair average gameplay with average porn, now I'm motivated to play thousands of them, and that's what I do.

Hmm yes, and tastes differs from person to person and is exactly what makes niches work. Someone doesn't care for porn that much and will play indie games which aren't considered exceptional, might even try the "bad" ones. Someone else doesn't care for the game part and watches standalone porn that's not exceptional. If you like something, you'll want more of it, and something is better than nothing, even if it's average ^^

This all is pretty encouraging, I've probably been thinking about this through my perfectionist lenses again...

 

[DuniX]

So it's not really practical for a porn game to compete on gameplay, nor should they? The point is to make the gameplay "good enough" and then elevate it with porn? This all makes the whole "I want good gameplay in my porn game" sound like a pipedream

They can compete as much as they want.
You can even say games like Universe Treasure are superior in some sense to the game it is even cloning.
There are plenty of great games from japan like the Rance series or Venus Blood that wipes the floor even against mainstream RPG series.
But my point is they can Survive much more easily and for a Indie that is much more important.

 

[Meaning Less]

Hmm yes, and tastes differs from person to person and is exactly what makes niches work. Someone doesn't care for porn that much and will play indie games which aren't considered exceptional, might even try the "bad" ones. Someone else doesn't care for the game part and watches standalone porn that's not exceptional. If you like something, you'll want more of it, and something is better than nothing, even if it's average ^^

Indeed, and those are different markets for good reason, like I said in my first post "good" is subjective to the people that enjoy that stuff...

Things like DAZ can probably be considered "good enough" when it comes to the porn game market, plenty of successful games use it, however try and find non-porn games using DAZ and you will have a lot of trouble.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Hmm yes, and tastes differs from person to person and is exactly what makes niches work. Someone doesn't care for porn that much and will play indie games which aren't considered exceptional, might even try the "bad" ones. Someone else doesn't care for the game part and watches standalone porn that's not exceptional. If you like something, you'll want more of it, and something is better than nothing, even if it's average ^^

This all is pretty encouraging, I've probably been thinking about this through my perfectionist lenses again...

I think it's time for you to learn a little thing called "Market Research."

First, make a list of the top 10 games in your genre. I'll assume you're making a porn game such as is featured on this forum. Luckily, there's a tool for ranking the games on this site by interest. Just click LATEST UPDATES at the top of this screen. I'll sort by views in this example, but it's up to you:
https://f95zone.to/sam/latest_alpha/#/cat=games/page=1/sort=views
(You can use this tool to research the popularity of things like tags and engines, too. But that's a different research topic.)

Next, look up walkthroughs and FAQs for some of the games on that shortlist of hits:

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

...etc. I found all of these links using Google BTW. Useful tool. (Until they cram fucking Bard down everybody's throats and search, in general, just stops working as a concept, I guess.)

At the moment, just casually browse through those walkthroughs, and get a feel for the scope and scale of what the player has to do to unlock everything in the game. This is the best-selling gameplay. Not neccessarily the best gameplay, but the gameplay that in one way or another, rakes in those patreon clicks. To the extent that there can be said to be a right way and a wrong way to do vidja gaems, this is as close as we can come to objectively identifying the right way.

Up until now, everything you've been doing has been mostly quantitative research. You've been looking at numbers and trying to glean general trends. Next up comes the qualitative research-- trying to get a feel for what the end-user experience of these games is like, and hopefully, how to design your experience to similar standards.

Play these games yourself, without the FAQs at first, then making notes of when you had to consult them. (Assume that, contrary to conventional wisdom, being forced to consult the FAQ is sn intended part of the experience.) Google search for other websites that have linked to these games, their patreon pages, their steam pages, and/or their F95Zone threads. (Ignore links whose URL comes from within F95Zone itself-- those are just random links on forum pages.) Watch letsplays by players who engage with the audience, and contrast their experiences with yours.

You don't have time to play ALL of these games 100% way to completion, so try to focus on specific design decisions you're trying to make. Let's say you're trying to decide where to drop the first player's choice. Or whether to include a clickable map screen. Or how hard it should be to hook up with the easiest heroine. With a little effort, you can skip around until you find the right part of the video and just watch the player's reaction to the relevant info. The timestamp tells you (roughly) how long it took the player to get there. If you have any questions, you can just watch a few minutes earlier of the video for context.

Asking us in the forums, while fine, is a bad idea, because most of the users here are going to answer as players. And as players, we're dumb. We don't know what we want, we barely know what we like, and when we do decide there's a problem, 90% of the time we will complain about the wrong thing.

Direct player feedback (when players keep saying the same thing, anyway,) is helpful, but mostly because it tells you that there is a problem. You need to use your own critical thinking and research to figure out what the problem actually is and how to fix it.

Good luck, and if you ever have any doubts as to whether your design decisions are the best ones, always remember to practice that most fundamental of gameplay tips:

Spoiler

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[Sciku]

Honestly depends, I'm picky, most the time art has a huge factor, fluid animations and all that jazz.

But if I'm looking more into gameplay, I've been enjoying some like, SpunkStock, SexNote, Monster Girl Club Bifrost, SummerTime Saga and a few others. I think a well written story and just some elements to light up my old brain makes these games enjoyable over typical "AAA" porn ones.

For example, Koikatsu is nice to look at, but gets super boring after 20 minutes, so I'm falling back into Monster Girl Club Bifrost for a few hours.

I don't know, I'm a weird mess.

 

[DuniX]

This is the best-selling gameplay. Not neccessarily the best gameplay, but the gameplay that in one way or another, rakes in those patreon clicks. To the extent that there can be said to be a right way and a wrong way to do vidja gaems, this is as close as we can come to objectively identifying the right way.

That's biased to the current trends of the industry.
It's basically a chicken or egg problem, no games with gameplay are made so no examples will be found.
You would also have to look at the proportion of games that are released in that genre or niche. You also have to look at the Demand and Opportunities in the Market.

Also what you will find with your "Market Research" is already matured projects with years of Content and Support that got popular for one reason or another.
That is not going to be an option for you when you are starting out, it would take years before you can compare to them in Content and that's already assuming you are efficient and consistent in your content generation and updates, the more likely case is your project is still going to be dead along the way.

Players have been waiting for updates and a conclusion on certain games for years. At some point they are going to get tired of waiting on new projects. I don't think this VN "Stories" where you slowly wait around and be milked model trend is going to be sustainable for much longer.
It didn't work that well for "Episodic Narrative Games" and I think they are barely working for this "Adult Industry".
I wouldn't be surprised if this entire industry will go the way of Telltale Games and suddenly collapse. God save use when they find the Unsubscribe button.

 

[TranscendentThots]

That's biased to the current trends of the industry.
It's basically a chicken or egg problem, no games with gameplay are made so no examples will be found.
You would also have to look at the proportion of games that are released in that genre or niche. You also have to look at the Demand and Opportunities in the Market.

Also what you will find with your "Market Research" is already matured projects with years of Content and Support that got popular for one reason or another.
That is not going to be an option for you when you are starting out, it would take years before you can compare to them in Content and that's already assuming you are efficient and consistent in your content generation and updates, the more likely case is your project is still going to be dead along the way.

Players have been waiting for updates and a conclusion on certain games for years. At some point they are going to get tired of waiting on new projects. I don't think this VN "Stories" where you slowly wait around and be milked model trend is going to be sustainable for much longer.
It didn't work that well for "Episodic Narrative Games" and I think they are barely working for this "Adult Industry".
I wouldn't be surprised if this entire industry will go the way of Telltale Games and suddenly collapse. God save use when they find the Unsubscribe button.

Again, this isn't a formula to make the best possible game. It's just the closest one can reasonably come to even passable advice using the information we have. If you want to make sure your game ships, focus your LATEST UPDATES search on games marked Completed. Obviously they're not going to make the whole game in one update, but maybe the first chapter or so is a reasonable target to shoot for?

Telltale collapsed due to gross negligence and flooding the market. The Adult Games market is unlikely to completely collapse, because it's an "evergreen" genre, although a contraction is possible in the future. It's not like Call of Duty or Madden where players only play one game for years on end. They chew through the new content, then look around for more.

Also, it should go without saying, but copying existing choices exactly won't work, just like copying the rest of the writing wouldn't work. People who have already played DeLuca Family don't need a carbon copy of DeLuca Family. Similar themes or genre or whatever, sure, but your game needs to stand on its own while providing both familiarity and novelty. Otherwise it has no reason to exist.

 

[cohenber101]

A lot of people in this thread sound like they wanted to play Excel Sheet, instead of play an actual gameplay.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of good hentai management game are out in the wood, I don't expect AAA tier thing from this kind of genre but it's could be more then that.

Could you imagine yourself nutted in somebody and start doing excel sheet next?

Nah, nevermind that's was too good to be true.

Old flash game like :
Meet n Fuck, Glory Hole girl, Sim Girl: DNA 2, Ganguro Girl are still fine af to this day.

In my smooth brain opinion, I think Eiyuu senki and even the interactive anime like School Days back then was balance out the contents between sex scene/gameplay just fine.

Some of those homebrew Unity on this site are legit fire sometimes, but not everyone have all the time to spend on Unity.

 

[DuniX]

Telltale collapsed due to gross negligence and flooding the market.

Hmmmm, sounds familiar.

because it's an "evergreen" genre,

"Porn" is an "evergreen" genre, Adult Visual Novels are Not if they give a bit of competition through alternative options.
Yes as long this "industry" continues to produce only VNs there is no alternative but if you look at the DLsite for the Japanese Indie market there is no reason that will always be the case.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Hmmmm, sounds familiar.

"Porn" is an "evergreen" genre, Adult Visual Novels are Not if they give a bit of competition through alternative options.
Yes as long this "industry" continues to produce only VNs there is no alternative but if you look at the DLsite for the Japanese Indie market there is no reason that will always be the case.

There are already adult action games, adult VR games, adult puzzle games, adult simulation games, adult RPG games... occasionally even the very rare adult first-person shooter!

VNs don't dominate the scene because nobody's making anything else. They're the most common games because they're easy to make and easy to sexualize. But if they're also the most popular games on this site, it must be for some other reason.

Personally, I think it's probably a combination of high approachability and low friction, but I wouldn't be surprised if marketing, theme, tone, or even luck also plays a role.