To start off, something that adult games bring to the table, and what I believe makes them such a popular alternative to pornography; is they offer a window into personal connection, control, and creativity that can't be achieved through a pornography film. There's a reason why some of the most grossing adult games are incest-themed. It's the most searched genre of pornography, and the most represented in porn. Due to legality, most hosts will not allow 'incest' on their website. This is why PornHub appends "step-" to all videos containing incest. This adds a layer of fidelity to the consumer. In addition, most studios won't refer to actors as brother/sister, but also use "step-" in order to maximize the platforms they distribute to. Once again, another layer of fidelity. Suddenly, you're left with step-brothers, step-uncles, and step-landlord ladies. All this fidelity ruins the fantasy of it being incest.
Next, novelty is KEY with pornography. I'm not gonna go into the science of this, but "The Butterfly Effect" by Jon Ronson is a -fantastic- book about this subject. This is why the demand for content is so high. You could write a novel all you want. That novel is only good for one read-thru, and then the novelty wears off and it doesn't peak your interest anymore. Same with images, content, or anything that applies to pornography. It is usually only good for one use. Summertime Saga recognized this pretty early on, and allows users to skip all content in previous versions just to get to new content. This is a pretty simple concept, but is proven time and time again. The players already know the story, have already fapped to the scenes. They just want the new images - hell some of them don't even play, and just look up the new images.
Now lets combine the two, and discover why adult games are so enticing. You get to experience fantasies much more closely than you ever could in a pornography film, because these games don't follow the same restrictions. That means almost any amount of story writing or plot can go. Developers take advantage of the players personal connection to better sell the scenes and images they present. Ex. Anybody could scroll through the forums and jerk off to an infinite number of 3D renders and be satisfied. That doesn't cut it though, because the characters in those renders have no significance. What's the difference between those renders, and ones on imagefap or pornhub? Nothing. Not until you introduce some kind of character depth, story, or narrative. They're just empty vessels otherwise.
This is why RenPy is so popular. It's a medium to tell either poorly written, or novel-level stories while also delivering adult content on top of that. Erotica has been around for a long time. Adult gaming is essentially the new medium for erotica.
I do agree with most of what you said but there is an if, overall what you say is correct to neutral to dominant players, however a group that is usually forgotten are the submissive ones, those that want to get content as a sub. Overall someone that wants to have that type of content doesn't usually want absolute control, but rather just a few guidelines or limits.
On another note H games did evolve from porn rather than games, overall many gamers don't have good eyes for a hentai game but those that come from the porn aspect don't have a problem with them. This is shown based on the initial hentai games that get developed, the nukiges, visual novels with high ammount of sex and low on storyline.
But at the same time the industry keeps evolving, in time what we want to see is games like the Rance series, kamidori alchemy meister and similar ones, games with gameplay and sex.
In the end I believe that what matters the most is the game concept, it's what can make someone truly interested in it, overall we are still in the early stage of porn games with only a few trying to add gameplay or be interesting in how they deliver their sex content.
The game that I have liked the most was kichikuou Rance, a game that is based on bad endings, reacting to events, saving people before it's too late, war, suffering... that game was the game that saved Alicesoft from disappearing at it's time, but it's a game that would be extremely attacked if a developer tried to imitate the concept on patreon.
I do agree with most of what you said but there is an if, overall what you say is correct to neutral to dominant players, however a group that is usually forgotten are the submissive ones, those that want to get content as a sub. Overall someone that wants to have that type of content doesn't usually want absolute control, but rather just a few guidelines or limits.
On another note H games did evolve from porn rather than games, overall many gamers don't have good eyes for a hentai game but those that come from the porn aspect don't have a problem with them. This is shown based on the initial hentai games that get developed, the nukiges, visual novels with high ammount of sex and low on storyline.
But at the same time the industry keeps evolving, in time what we want to see is games like the Rance series, kamidori alchemy meister and similar ones, games with gameplay and sex.
In the end I believe that what matters the most is the game concept, it's what can make someone truly interested in it, overall we are still in the early stage of porn games with only a few trying to add gameplay or be interesting in how they deliver their sex content.
The game that I have liked the most was kichikuou Rance, a game that is based on bad endings, reacting to events, saving people before it's too late, war, suffering... that game was the game that saved Alicesoft from disappearing at it's time, but it's a game that would be extremely attacked if a developer tried to imitate the concept on patreon.
The only fetish that I have a bit which is foot fetish isn't part of the list, the irony .
ARGH! Sorry mate! Turns out i maxed strawpolls list too, i need to find another way to do this properly and not forget anything. Will look into it tomorrow.
I think one thing which might make it easier on the writers is a system like Artificial Academy, where the NPCs are constantly increasing like/dislike or love/hate points on everyone else. At least for the background characters without a main route. The game also gives you dozens of choices, everytime you talk to the NPC (some are empty/useless).
Though once you know how it works, it's too simple, and the characters feel empty again. Though people then wrote many "modules," which a game could also randomize on the NPCs, maybe based on "sliders" with fetishes at the start.
If I were building on top of that basic idea, instead of having the same options for every NPC, I could mix it with the timeout answers of other games. For example, there are 200 interactions hidden, which always do +- on Friend or Love, and when you go to the stable girl, you see +1 F, empty, -1 F options, then the next set -1 F, -2 L, -1 L, etc. And to avoid save-scumming, say, if L = -5, you see three heart icons pop up next to her, and one lil' heart breaks. And the L thresholds can be set as difficulty at the start of the game. And every girl has a hard mission to restore a heart, hah. Just one example.
And then if the 3 hearts break at L = -15, her "good" route is closed and she either goes on NTR or another fetish route. Or you could do both routes, if after the good one's done you unlock -5 L or -5 F options.
I think one thing which might make it easier on the writers is a system like Artificial Academy, where the NPCs are constantly increasing like/dislike or love/hate points on everyone else. At least for the background characters without a main route. The game also gives you dozens of choices, everytime you talk to the NPC (some are empty/useless).
Though once you know how it works, it's too simple, and the characters feel empty again. Though people then wrote many "modules," which a game could also randomize on the NPCs, maybe based on "sliders" with fetishes at the start.
If I were building on top of that basic idea, instead of having the same options for every NPC, I could mix it with the timeout answers of other games. For example, there are 200 interactions hidden, which always do +- on Friend or Love, and when you go to the stable girl, you see +1 F, empty, -1 F options, then the next set -1 F, -2 L, -1 L, etc. And to avoid save-scumming, say, if L = -5, you see three heart icons pop up next to her, and one lil' heart breaks. And the L thresholds can be set as difficulty at the start of the game. And every girl has a hard mission to restore a heart, hah. Just one example.
And then if the 3 hearts break at L = -15, her "good" route is closed and she either goes on NTR or another fetish route. Or you could do both routes, if after the good one's done you unlock -5 L or -5 F options.
The good artificial academy, personally tried to play that game but was totally lost in what I should do, it kinds of need a tutorial for noobs because wow.
I envy you about you have skill to made what you want while I now just the newbie, try to study everything.
Ok. After read everyone’s wall of text. I try to help with my wall of text. Hope it may be useful to you. And hope I don’t miss anything you have just written.
What creat the good Porn game?
People usually think about add as many sex animation or rape HCG as they can. But… I am very respect Studiofow. However, I actually never feel horny because their movie ( although their film include full of rape-fuck-sex.).
Unlike other game, I believe that in Porn game, we always be limited by the number of sex-positions. Doggy, boobjob, blowjob,… So, if we creat the Porn game which include just sex-animations, the player will soon feel boring because they have to repeat again and again the same sex-positions. That exactly is what I feel from Studiofow’s series.
So, what a good Porn should include? I think:
1/- Many sex-positions. Of course.
2/- Many of Beautiful 3d model of heroines. Of course.
3/- Beautiful fashion and the animation how to take off them when you have sex: Don’t know why every porn game ignore it. I believe the beautiful fashion made you heroines more beautiful, and even you feel more horny “ I want to take off this clothes and sex with her.”.
* You know that very many 3d artists on pixiv make money from 3d fashion’s mod for the Honey Select game. So sad, they just can change the skin, not add new animation about how to take off these clothes when have sex.
5/- The story and gameplay to connect you to your heroines:
If don’t include this part, the heroines will more look like the sex object more than the character-human you want to sex.
However, I’m not the fan of Visual Novel or dating sim.
The story and gameplay just help to explain the heroines’ character, or make the player feel “ oh, I try so hard to capture this heroine. Now, I will “ enjoy” her so much to punish her about that.”.
So, we actually don’t really need to write the story so huge, or too serious gameplay. I am fan of Eushully studio. But I always wonder why they have to creat these Turn Based Strategy game that include too serious gameplay which full of numbers ( yes, number) as they can.
I have the gameplay concept about the Turn Based Strategy Porn-game follow these theory,too. Actually, I trying to study Unreal and Game Maker just to hope can made that game reality in the future. If you want to hear, I’m very please to explain it to you, in the shortest way as I can, so you can easily imagine it. --'
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Now, this is my answer for your question:
1/ VR is good, but it not important. Not everyone use VR today.
2/ Although I will choose the medieval ( fantasy medieval concept), but it is because we usually have more beautiful fashion with that environment. So, I’m more concern to beautiful fashion.
3/ Menu is more easily to use. Just like Illusion game ( Honey Select).
4/ Free Camera. I think we just follow the camera as Illusion's games ( Honey Select, Playhome,...).
5/ I think we need both of them.
A little story to introduce the heroine. A little gameplay which prevent you can take any girl you want easily ( keep you starving to capture her). And a good sex-animation as the reward.
6/ AI/personality. If the heroine just is the sex-toy, no matter how many sex-position you add, it still very boring.
7/ Do you mean the background where we have sex?
Ok. I think it is good to have sex in the palace than the dungeon. However, we don’t need too many background. Heroines’ reaction and sex-position is more important.
If you are talking about easter eggs. Well, I think it just interesting if it help to unclock new sex-positions. So, the problem is how these easter eggs influence to sex-elements.
Let see. In my dream's gameplay concept, you are the lewd conqueror who trying invade other cities and capture other girls as your slave. With the girls you captured, you have four choice to enjoy them:
A/- Training slave: Bondage mod. Just for sex.
B/- Military Brothel: Gangrape; Group sex + Help to improve your army ATK,DEF,...
C/- " Volunteer lover": normal sex with main character( not include bondage) + Can add her as the general of your army.
D/- Civilian Brothel: Threesome; foursome ( many girls, one customer)+ Gain more money for your faction.
Every girl have someone she love. Someone/ something is important to her. If you can capture this Weakness, you can order her as you please.
= > While you will unlock A and B mode right after capture her. However, you need to clear the girl's "Weakness mission" to unclock C and D mode.
I think C and D mode is the eastern eggs in this idea.
Is the animation itself more important than the story leading up to the act or is the other way around
Animation for me is kind of secondary, but well that may be because I played many CG based games.
What is more important, more animations or a more natural AI/personality?
Natural AI/personality 100% sure, if the girl is dominant she should act according to it, same as if she is submissive or neutral, overall I prefer to find the girl as someone with personality.
How much do you enjoy novelty interactions in porn games? Like being able to interact with the environment, easter eggs, etc. On a scale of one to 5, how much do they matter for you in such a game?
2, the environment itself I find it as a complement, just that, easter eggs aren't bad to find but it isn't something that I would use my time trying to find, but occassionally find a few is always good. Overall it's something nice to have but it's a really low one on my priority list.
And you could inject some film theory into that dynamic. In short, like in
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Joo has at 8:50, of all the shots in a single video. In a game, it could be a good/bad answer makes the camera close up on her facial expression, and when interaction ends, it pans out. Maybe based on some code like
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.
The change in camera forces us to reevaluate the image, and if it's coupled with the expression, that movement is the focus of our attention. While the pan outs are constant "establishing shots," for contrast.
You also see it done well in hentai hah. Like
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. You'll notice establish. shot > closeup > same scene different angle > face closeup, etc.
I think one thing which might make it easier on the writers is a system like Artificial Academy, where the NPCs are constantly increasing like/dislike or love/hate points on everyone else. At least for the background characters without a main route. The game also gives you dozens of choices, everytime you talk to the NPC (some are empty/useless).
Though once you know how it works, it's too simple, and the characters feel empty again.
I'm not sure if this level of interaction between NPCs is something we should focus on for the time being. It's definitely a "nice-to-have" but I'd like to nail down player-npc interactions first.
Your post also brings up an important aspect: the actual interaction with the characters, and how that should be done. Would a minimal set of commands/positions suffice or a should we focus more on this and make it more like a lengthy VN-style dialogue tree, maybe even with multiple dialogue choices and fail states? Keep in mind im not excluding this ever becoming a thing, i'm just trying to figure out priorities here. Added this to the question poll, thanks!
The good artificial academy, personally tried to play that game but was totally lost in what I should do, it kinds of need a tutorial for noobs because wow.
I envy you about you have skill to made what you want while I now just the newbie, try to study everything.
Ok. After read everyone’s wall of text. I try to help with my wall of text. Hope it may be useful to you. And hope I don’t miss anything you have just written.
I really enjoy reading your walls of text, so don't worry about that ^.^
Trust me, its not really that much skill, as i said, we're relatively new to this as well, instead what matters for us is having the determination to work our asses off and pull through. While it may sound like a shitty experience -and at times it can be- the enjoyment you get when you finally manage to pull something off is absolutely intoxicating and well worth it imo. Especially when all that effort also goes into a subject/project you love.
3/- Beautiful fashion and the animation how to take off them when you have sex: Don’t know why every porn game ignore it. I believe the beautiful fashion made you heroines more beautiful, and even you feel more horny “ I want to take off this clothes and sex with her.”.
Very well pointed out! I really share this sentiment with you. As to why it gets ignored, i think mostly because it is very hard to animate something like this and make it look decent. Clothing (physics) in general is a delicate subject in games, especially when done on a large scale, not just a few belts dangling here and there. Xstory again comes to ming here about a game that has -to date- the best dressing system i've seen out there, and the fact you can dynamically interact with them gives it a great layer of immersion.
So, we actually don’t really need to write the story so huge, or too serious gameplay. I am fan of Eushully studio. But I always wonder why they have to creat these Turn Based Strategy game that include too serious gameplay which full of numbers ( yes, number) as they can.
Again, completely agree, im sick and tired of this as well being overused in games, and as i mentioned in my OP, i want to thread very carefuly if i ever add something like this that potentially blocks you from getting to the interactions you want. My main focus is to make the user have an amazing nut experience, not annoy him untill he ragequits or gets bored grinding sewer rats.
I have the gameplay concept about the Turn Based Strategy Porn-game follow these theory,too. Actually, I trying to study Unreal and Game Maker just to hope can made that game reality in the future. If you want to hear, I’m very please to explain it to you, in the shortest way as I can, so you can easily imagine it. --'
Oh, I guess DawnCry meant all the choices. Characters have diff treshold for lewd and % chance of success depends on PC stats or other things (ex. if someone else made them angry, you will fail unless you do Calm). Though //spoiler for Dawn//
Though it's kind of basic, I think that whole system was the reason people liked the game. And the randomness helps. In a different start, chars would make different relationships, and then you could play those characters.
Overall when I tried to play artificial academy I just felt lost, like I didn't even know how to do anything, even more I couldn't see stats or something that guided me, later on I read that it was thanks to a statue that you could see stats or something like that.
So if I had to say a culprit... it would be a lack of explanation from the game, if you suddenly throw a person to a jungle and tell him to survive it is much harder than giving him first a guide of how can he survive in the jungle.
More or less it's like that. Lack of information and because of it I felt that I was doing nothing at all.
Oh, I guess DawnCry meant all the choices. Characters have diff treshold for lewd and % chance of success depends on PC stats or other things. Though //spoiler for Dawn//
Overall it's just that I wasn't prepared to suddenly not being able to see any stat, not knowing the meaning of my actions, it was quite a few years ago and I was more impatient, I'm thinking about downloading it again to try it, because the game concept of artifical academy is quite similar to what I truly wish to see in games.
I have to say that perhaps I have waited too much before trying to play it again.
Overall when I tried to play artificial academy I just felt lost, like I didn't even know how to do anything[...]
[...]if you suddenly throw a person to a jungle and tell him to survive it is much harder than giving him first a guide of how can he survive in the jungle.
More or less it's like that. Lack of information and because of it I felt that I was doing nothing at all.
I honestly feel that if you need a tutorial level for a porn game, something is fundamentally wrong with how you designed your game... But that's just me, maybe I'm wrong.
I honestly feel that if you need a tutorial level for a porn game, something is fundamentally wrong with how you designed your game... But that's just me, maybe I'm wrong.
Hmm I don't think so, I mean it kind of depends on how complex the game is, the gameplay of this game is kind of unique, but at the same time it could be called it's charm, I have played many japanese adult games and in many I did need tutorials and need more knowledge.
For example kamidori alchemy meister is a great H game and it has quite a few starting tutorials, it kind of depends on what you are doing with the game. One thing is to be more complex than necessary and another is being too simple.
Hah, I said it would make it "easier" on the writers, partly because the alternative is relying fully on the story, and making the PC care about the stable girl's dialogue, and not that she's flirting with someone else, and you want her.
The RNG and the code make you believe they have agency, like a rudimentary AI hah. Which AI Girl seems to build on. You have to trick people into thinking they are real and actually love you. And "love requires work," said the Pope.
Thank you for gaining my morale. Actually I think the most difficult part is no one actually teach to made Porn game with Unreal/Unity. So, I have to study it from nothing. ^^’
Well. This is my Porn game’s concept. I’m not try explain everything, just these most important elements so everyone can understand its main concept.
I/ Story:
“ The lewd conqueror trying to invade other cities/castle and capture other girls as his slave.”
2/ Game’s main idea:
It is the Turn Based Strategy + side scrolling mini game in some missions. You build the Army, lead it to invade other cities and capture these girls. With these captured heroines, you have 4 sex mods to use them:
A/- Prison: Bondage mod. Just for sex B/- Military Brothel: Gangrape; Group sex
- > Help to improve your army’s ATK,DEF,...
C/- " Volunteer lover": normal sex with main character( not bondage)
- > Can add her as the general of your army.
D/- Civilian Brothel: Threesome; foursome ( many girls, one customer)
- > Gain more money for your faction.
Every girl have their own two missions: Capture mission and Weakness mission.
- Capture mission ( unclock A and B sex-mod): How to capture the girl.
- Weakness mission ( unclock C and D sex-mod): Capture something very important to her, so you can blackmail and order her as you please.
Not just sex-positions. The girls’ different reaction in every sex-options is the interesting element,too.
= > Follow what you mentioned above, “ Capture mission” is the main gameplay while “ Weakness mission” is the easter eggs.
3/ Gameplay:
Game just include three main values are: - Money: just can collect from cities’tax and Civilian Brothel. You use it to buy your Army’s Units; buy some new sex-positions, sex toy,…. - Units: use to invade other cities to capture girls. - Heroes ( Girls).
This game include World Map, Battle Map and some side scrolling stages ( appear in some mission).
A/ World Map-Economic:
The huge plain which include many cities. Some basic menu:
- Build: pay money to unclock new kind of Units
- Search: pay money to unclock new girls’ missions. This is main place you read the girl’s story,too.
- Buy: buy something. Item, girl,...
- Army: pay to buy new Units, to creat your armies to invade other city
Summary, it is where you use much of your money. So, that is why you need unclock D/sex-mod, order your girls work in Brothel go make more money.
B/ Battle Map-Battlefield: When your army meet the enemies’ army on World Map. Or when you invade other cities. You will be move to this map.( Think about Heroes of Might and Magic). This is where almost the fighting happen.
Just as same as the basic Turn Based Strategy ( Fire Emblem;…). However:
- You can’t lev up anything. You can’t made your Heroes-Girls learn any new magic,…too.
- The number of Unit types be limited. This not the serious Strategy game. Heroes 3 include around 140 types of Unit for 10 factions. Oh no. It is too much. Just Swordman; Archer; Cavalry; Heal Mage is enough.
- Instead, you gain your Units’ power by:
+ Use Military Brothel: The more girls you send there, the more bonus ATK,DEF your army receive.
+ Add Heroes ( Girls) in every unit as the unit leader. One Hero for one Unit. Every girl have their Battle bonus ( +ATK; +DEF; + Bonus spell which you can cast during battle;…)
- > That is why you should unclock “ Volunteer lover” sex-mode.
