Where are the exciting games?

[edod5]

After looking through the latest updates for the hundred times I just can't hold it in any longer, so:

What happened with the "adult game industry"? I can't even tell since when... but for the past 1-1,5 years, I can barely find any game that I find exciting. I know it's a subjective thing, but still.

Nowadays it seems like it's all about the "story"... Sorry, did I misunderstood something? I just wanted to play a little, have a boner, and you know the rest, but instead what I get is a boring-ass drama or crime, and betrayal or some other shit, like if it's some kind of Spanish drama made for 70+ yold grandmas. Just to be fair they sometimes include some adult content too so it can be called an adult game but come on! Their story might be good, BUT If I wanted to read a book I would choose that. The adult part is usually a joke. By the time I get to feel a hint of excitement the scene is over (and ofc that was the only time the characters did that in that exact pose that I preferred) and then it's about the story again.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against a good story but these are supposed to be adult games, meaning their single purpose is to get you aroused. Games where you can live your perverted fantasies out instead of being forced into some kind of shit you didn't ask for. There are so many of these games and they all build around the exact same idea that even if there is one of them that would be worth downloading it's most likely just getting lost in the sea of trash. And what's even worse is that the ppl want this. I try to keep an eye out for some games that don't follow this "basic vn" train and they are constantly criticized for what the dev is doing or "why isn't the game a vn?". It's heartbreaking. If I want to read erotic content I get much MUCH better stories online and they even give you the luxury to "customize" the looks of the characters since it's up to your imagination. So I don't get why these ppl try to reshape a used-to-be-diverse industry just because of their way of enjoying porn.

What happened with the (yes sometimes grindy) "adventure" games where there is a world where you can lose yourself in, and decisions I can make on my own without being forced (like Harem Hotel, Man of the house, Akabur games, etc)? And I didn't even mention the effort they required. For the vn-s you pretty much don't need any coding skills, considering how most of the game's visuals look, you can skip that part too, just download a free 3d program and some free/stolen assets and you are good to go. For the story, either steal and slightly rewrite someone else's game's story or any other stuff you find online. Post a v0.1 and hope if it brings in some "fans". If it didn't you can always just scrap the whole thing and try again with a new stroy since you only invested in maybe a week. This is just my idea of how I would do if I wouldn't care...

Anyway. It's getting long. All I wanted is to talk a bit about my disappointment and hopefully find others who think the same and maybe have a conversation, or share actual good games.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this way, but it's fine if disagree.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

There are about 10 games I'm following. None of them are VNs, because VNs are completely unengaging as a genre. Maybe you're excluding genres, graphical styles or game engines that do have interesting games. Anyway, since it sounds like you have a Ren'py bias and have enjoyed trainers, check this one out if you haven't, it's a banger. I have others I follow, but most are RPGM 2D or text-based, I can share those if you want.

 

[Adabelitoo]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against a good story but these are supposed to be adult games, meaning their single purpose is to get you aroused.

No, you got it all wrong.

To begin with, not only I disagree about most of the game being about story when most games here try speedrun sex as if they were speedrunning 16 stars in Mario 64, these are porn games but these are also visual novels with novels as in "story". If there is one place in porn to have or attempt to have a detailed and developed stories leading to sex scenes, that place is here.

If you want porn with a silly and rushed story, then you should be watching porn on Pornhub. If you want porn without story, then you should be watching amateur porn on not Pornhub because they deleted fucking everything Xvideos.

If it didn't you can always just scrap the whole thing and try again with a new stroy since you only invested in maybe a week.

I don't know if you have absolutely no idea of how much time and work it takes to make one of these games or if you just enjoy crappy low effort devs who spend more time setting their Patreon page than working on their game, but I wouldn't give even the slightless shit about a game done in a week.

 

[Deleted member 3917737]

Ooof

 

[Hadley]

You maybe want to give Porn a try... these Games are not for arousal lol. They are way too slow-paced to erect anything.

Adult-Games are basically like Romance-Movies where they dont cut to black during Sex.

 

[Carrera]

Maybe your idea of exciting is my idea of YAAAAAAWN.

Not everyone likes the same shit.

If you want a game that you find exciting that caters to your tastes, then make it yourself.

 

[Symbolic Reasons]

After looking through the latest updates for the hundred times I just can't hold it in any longer, so:

What happened with the "adult game industry"? I can't even tell since when... but for the past 1-1,5 years, I can barely find any game that I find exciting. I know it's a subjective thing, but still.

Nowadays it seems like it's all about the "story"... Sorry, did I misunderstood something? I just wanted to play a little, have a boner, and you know the rest, but instead what I get is a boring-ass drama or crime, and betrayal or some other shit, like if it's some kind of Spanish drama made for 70+ yold grandmas. Just to be fair they sometimes include some adult content too so it can be called an adult game but come on! Their story might be good, BUT If I wanted to read a book I would choose that. The adult part is usually a joke. By the time I get to feel a hint of excitement the scene is over (and ofc that was the only time the characters did that in that exact pose that I preferred) and then it's about the story again.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against a good story but these are supposed to be adult games, meaning their single purpose is to get you aroused. Games where you can live your perverted fantasies out instead of being forced into some kind of shit you didn't ask for. There are so many of these games and they all build around the exact same idea that even if there is one of them that would be worth downloading it's most likely just getting lost in the sea of trash. And what's even worse is that the ppl want this. I try to keep an eye out for some games that don't follow this "basic vn" train and they are constantly criticized for what the dev is doing or "why isn't the game a vn?". It's heartbreaking. If I want to read erotic content I get much MUCH better stories online and they even give you the luxury to "customize" the looks of the characters since it's up to your imagination. So I don't get why these ppl try to reshape a used-to-be-diverse industry just because of their way of enjoying porn.

What happened with the (yes sometimes grindy) "adventure" games where there is a world where you can lose yourself in, and decisions I can make on my own without being forced (like Harem Hotel, Man of the house, Akabur games, etc)? And I didn't even mention the effort they required. For the vn-s you pretty much don't need any coding skills, considering how most of the game's visuals look, you can skip that part too, just download a free 3d program and some free/stolen assets and you are good to go. For the story, either steal and slightly rewrite someone else's game's story or any other stuff you find online. Post a v0.1 and hope if it brings in some "fans". If it didn't you can always just scrap the whole thing and try again with a new stroy since you only invested in maybe a week. This is just my idea of how I would do if I wouldn't care...

Anyway. It's getting long. All I wanted is to talk a bit about my disappointment and hopefully find others who think the same and maybe have a conversation, or share actual good games.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this way, but it's fine if disagree.

I understand your plight, and I have a few short N Sweet games in mind of making. More power to you.

 

[F4C430]

You maybe want to give Porn a try... these Games are not for arousal lol. They are way too slow-paced to erect anything.

Adult-Games are basically like Romance-Movies where they dont cut to black during Sex.

Not true. It depends on what kinds of games you're playing. Not everything is a slow-paced VN and not everything has romance involved.

 

[desmosome]

When making an argument or statement, try to make sure that your presuppositions are sound. This site is objectively not just a porn site. There are games with no sexual content on this site. While it's a fair assumption that the majority of players might just come here to fap, there is a very big group who prefer a nice story over mindless sex.

If you ask me, a sex fest or "exciting" game as you call it, doesn't mean it is even fappable. Many devs just suck at making sex scenes, whether it be a slow burn or a sex fest. I find it harder to find a fappable game among the sex fests than it is to find an interesting story among the story driven "spanish soap operas."

That said, talent is in short supply in both categories. Go figure.

 

[Sphere42]

The fundamental issues with your viewpoint have been addressed already so here are a few out-of-context answers:

First of all, the murder of Flash. Adobe discontinued it without a clear replacement in sight and while HTML5 and Unity can achieve the same results those seem to be harder to learn/use or at least attract a different group of people. Way fewer single-scene "touching games" or the like.

Secondly, the rise of crowdfunding and with it Paytreon scams. Previously porn games were mostly produced by dedicated hobbyist perverts or professional studios (mostly in Japan) but after a few people succeeded financially with subscription-crowdfunded development a lot of people tried to imitate their success. Both honest hard-working people who nevertheless mimic the style of those devs and a lot of shovelware scammers pushing v0.001 pre-release alphas. And needless to say both those and legitimate first chapters or tech demos take far less effort to produce than the completed product so they'll come in far greater numbers.

At the same time barriers to entry have become much lower for VNs thanks to easily accessible documentation and online help, while expectations and workload have also gone up massively on the other end with HD-3D. I'm pretty sure the people who would have made ambitious Flash games a decade ago now mess around in Unreal Engine, Blender, Honey Select Studio etc. and simply require far more dev time per unit of consumer time.

Then add a heap of confirmation bias to the actual facts. The Games forum here usually has 5-10 new threads per day plus a load of major updates, meanwhile some of the big Flash sites back in the day had like 1 new (usually shitty) game per day and sometimes nothing of value until the next Zone release half a year later. I can't tell when exactly you started but there's also the matter of exhausting the backlog, at some point you have played every tentacle harem isekai RPG produced and gradually translated over the past 30+ years and finally witness the actual production rate. Seeing something for the first time doesn't mean it's actually new.

 

[Icarus Media]

Market trends.

 

[SpearOfReigns]

From what I saw after observing this industry for over 5 years, this is mostly a reactionary enviroment. When Summertime Saga became popular, there was a massive influx of western 2D art incest games.

And then DarkSilver with Big Brother & ICSTOR with his many works also gained huge popularity and opened a portal of many DAZ3D incest games.

Lastly, Dr. Pinkcake hit a jackpot with Being A DIK. This time it opened many portals, many people thought college setting is where the money is. Some people thought the audience want romance stories. Other thought adult toilet & penis humor is the secret ingredients

If you want fuckfest games to be popoular again, there must be one work where it gained super big popularity which later spawned many copycats.

Of course there are many outliers, VNs & Games that don't follow trends, but most of the time they don't get patreon support they wished and end up abandoning their works.

 

[Dicks McKenzie]

First of all, the murder of Flash. Adobe discontinued it without a clear replacement in sight and while HTML5 and Unity can achieve the same results those seem to be harder to learn/use or at least attract a different group of people. Way fewer single-scene "touching games" or the like.

That's an interesting point.

I'd wager that a not insignificant number of people's first exposure to adult/pornographic "games" were through Flash. And as a result of that, their entire perception of what porn games are was moulded around that (e.g. the assumption is that all porn games should look/work like those smaller scale nukige Flashes)

Then, when Flash support slowly trickled away, a lot of those people came to realise that there's actually a significantly larger variety of adult games out there, which might come as a bit of a culture shock.

As you've said, those types of "Flash-esque" games are still being made with UE, Unity, HTML5 etc (even with Flash itself still in some dedicated circles) but in a seemingly lower supply than before, at least in the Western scene.

So I can understand why some people might end up being perplexed

Also - "Murder of Flash", lol. You make it sound like it was some sort of premeditated assassination

 

[Sphere42]

You make it sound like it was some sort of premeditated assassination

Yes, because it was. Ceasing development sure, nothing wrong about that. But having your update service constantly nag about uninstalling with no "noted, but no and do not ask again" option is bullshit. And browser devs followed suite.

 

[edod5]

There are about 10 games I'm following. None of them are VNs, because VNs are completely unengaging as a genre. Maybe you're excluding genres, graphical styles or game engines that do have interesting games. Anyway, since it sounds like you have a Ren'py bias and have enjoyed trainers, check this one out if you haven't, it's a banger. I have others I follow, but most are RPGM 2D or text-based, I can share those if you want.

I used to play a lot of tads/adrift (best was goblinboy) and rpgms so don't hold back!

 

[edod5]

No, you got it all wrong.

To begin with, not only I disagree about most of the game being about story when most games here try speedrun sex as if they were speedrunning 16 stars in Mario 64, these are porn games but these are also visual novels with novels as in "story". If there is one place in porn to have or attempt to have a detailed and developed stories leading to sex scenes, that place is here.

Visual novels (VN) are just one type of adult games and the speedrun factor comes from the fact that you can just "shift" through the whole game because they are boring as fuck so no wonder why only those couple of sex scenes are "worth" searching for.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

I used to play a lot of tads/adrift (best was goblinboy) and rpgms so don't hold back!

On Edge
Grolokk
Princess Tower
Dungeon Lord A new Beginning
Star Knightess Aura
BMO TV
Summer Sweepers (Caution: NTR)
Corrupted Saviors

 

[edod5]

When making an argument or statement, try to make sure that your presuppositions are sound. This site is objectively not just a porn site. There are games with no sexual content on this site. While it's a fair assumption that the majority of players might just come here to fap, there is a very big group who prefer a nice story over mindless sex.

If you ask me, a sex fest or "exciting" game as you call it, doesn't mean it is even fappable. Many devs just suck at making sex scenes, whether it be a slow burn or a sex fest. I find it harder to find a fappable game among the sex fests than it is to find an interesting story among the story driven "spanish soap operas."

That said, talent is in short supply in both categories. Go figure.

From what I saw after observing this industry for over 5 years, this is mostly a reactionary enviroment. When Summertime Saga became popular, there was a massive influx of western 2D art incest games.

And then DarkSilver with Big Brother & ICSTOR with his many works also gained huge popularity and opened a portal of many DAZ3D incest games.

Lastly, Dr. Pinkcake hit a jackpot with Being A DIK. This time it opened many portals, many people thought college setting is where the money is. Some people thought the audience want romance stories. Other thought adult toilet & penis humor is the secret ingredients

If you want fuckfest games to be popoular again, there must be one work where it gained super big popularity which later spawned many copycats.

Of course there are many outliers, VNs & Games that don't follow trends, but most of the time they don't get patreon support they wished and end up abandoning their works.

I didn't say I want mindless fuckfest games. What I meant by "exciting" was more like being original. It doesn't even have to be that good, but just show something new... "exciting", instead of making an incest/milf/highschoolloliharem/etc game for the hundred times. Also, by exciting, I'm not talking about the extreme stuff either.

Those creators SpearOfReigns mentioned did something relatively new that bred a ton of copycats. What I can't get my head around and what was one of the reasons for my disappointment was why don't these copy masters make something new instead and give them a chance to become those "idols" they copy? I mean yeah it's easy to say but if they never even try all they do is flood the industry with trash. And even though most of the devs only started their game to get money on patreon, they won't succeed cos their game sucks, is unoriginal and boring. This is why I complained about the story element because nowadays the only differentiating factor between the "two same games" is the quality of their story, but even if you have an award-winning story, it's still just the same harem/incest/loli vn what the rest is.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Those creators SpearOfReigns mentioned did something relatively new that bred a ton of copycats. What I can't get my head around and what was one of the reasons for my disappointment was why don't these copy masters make something new instead and give them a chance to become those "idols" they copy?

You just complain about something that happen, and have always happened, for every single creation/product. One do something new, whatever it's a furniture, vacuum cleaner, dish, book, movie, board game, video game, and all, then in the few following months you see dozen of copy coming from its competitors. Why should it be different for the adult gaming scene ?
It's not because this time you are a direct witness of this trend, that it's something new or something specific to this scene.

I mean yeah it's easy to say but if they never even try all they do is flood the industry with trash.

All of them start their game thinking, not that they are creating something new, but that they are doing it differently. And the fact is that it's the case for most of them. Sisterly Lust and Sweet Affection are two harem incest games, but it's their only common point. And it's not because Sweet Affection share the same "harem with individual stories" approach than Harem Hotel, that they aren't two totally different games.
And the same apply for most games. There's really few that are just a copy of another game, all try to distinguish themselves from the others. It's not because the result isn't interesting, at least to your eyes, that it's the same than any other games.

And even though most of the devs only started their game to get money on patreon, they won't succeed cos their game sucks, is unoriginal and boring.

Yet WVM, that is one of the most generic game made those last years, is also one of the most successful on the scene.

This is why I complained about the story element because nowadays the only differentiating factor between the "two same games" is the quality of their story, but even if you have an award-winning story, it's still just the same harem/incest/loli vn what the rest is.

I get that you never read books, nor watch movies or listen to music. After all, it's three domains where less than 5% of the production is effectively innovative, and where what differentiate the 95% other percent is the story or the lyrics ; what is, according to you own words, boring as fuck due to the lack of originality, and therefore lack of excitement.
Or could it be that your judgment is purely biased by your disappointment, because the scene isn't what you want it to be ?

 

[Kinderalpha]

I have so many words on this topic it's not even funny. OP if you want the real documented answer to your question. Listen or read the book "Butterfly Effect" by Jon Ronson. It's a very fascinating book. It doesn't specifically talk about adult video games, but it heavily focuses on the psychology and impact the pornography industry has had. More specifically, it goes in depth with real big time porn producers about how their directing and production has changed over the years to cater toward the modern audience.

It sheds a tremendous amount of light on why the problems we have in the adult gaming industry exist, and it even gives some solid hints on how to survive in this type of industry. I am trying very hard not to write a novel about this, but I highly recommend the book.