10 things that make me click on a game and what makes me not.

[xyzabc198]

So, I think this needs to be said, because there are so many games that come on here, that I'll never even look at, and I want to make it clear why.

First, what makes me want to click on a game?

1. An interesting name, if it doesn't catch my interest, i'll skip straight past it.

2. A nice thumbnail, the thumbnail is the first impression I get of your game, if you haven't put the effort in to make a thumbnail, I will assume the same amount of effort went into your game.

4. I can't count.

5. PAIRINGS/FETISHES, PLEASE remember to put them, if you can't be arsed to do that, I can't be arsed to try your game!

6. Something other than RPG MAKER, I used to like RPGM games, but there are sooo many of them now I'm just tired of them tbh, but that's a personal thing and not everybody will agree with this.

7. Art work, if you have nice art with some sexy girls, I'm more likely to hit download.

8. A better selling point than "OOH BOOBIES" we see a lot of adult games here, you have to have something unique and interesting.

9. Something other than just giant boobies, I see so many games with girls that have boobs twice the size of their body, I know some people like that, personally, I like normal human size boobs.

10. Screenshots. I see so many games that don't give any screenshots, I don't care, even if it's a text game gimme some screenshots so I know what I'm getting into before I hit download.

Hopefully this is helpful to some new dev's and will help more good games get more viewership.

 

[Kesil]

Being able to...

• Tell whether it features pairings/fetishes I am interested in. Being able to avoid kinky or sex scenes I am not interested in is also a plus.
• Tell whether it features a setting, plot and characters I can be invested in.
  
• Tell whether it features strong player agency. If one can play with a customisable female/female herm and the game doesn't speak for me (or how I intend the character to be), we're golden. Having to alter a character I have carefully crafted to unlock contents doesn't sit well with me.
  
• Know it features toggleable images and sounds if the game is a text one/aren't an important part of it. If they are unavoidable, I prefer 2D drawings and sprites over real pictures and 3D renders.
  
• Know it features passable writing, especially in a text-only game.
• Run it on my old PC.

 

[Tinman]

I check out most games at least once, and just continue looking in on the ones that interest me. So the things that keep me coming back are

• Plot synopsis. If I don't have an idea what the story is I'm not going to be invested in the game from the start. This is also a good place to get an idea of how good or bad the writing will be. If the synopsis is difficult to read the game probably will be too.
• Pairings/fetishes. This one is obvious. If you don't have kinks I want or do have fetishes I don't want I'm never going to even try the game. If you don't tell me what's available I won't even try to find out myself.
  
• Content. If the game is in early alpha I probably won't try it unless the art/kinks really get my attention. But if there's virtually no content in that alpha I'm going to lose a lot of that original interest. If multiple updates don't add a significant amount of content I'm going to outright ignore your game. I wouldn't recommend releasing to the public unless you have at least half an hour of content available.
• Passion. If you're really passionate about what you're making it usually shows. If you have no interest in what you're making and just want money it almost always shows.
• Art/renders. This is pretty low on the list for me, but good art or renders can help get my interest. Seeing the same generic renders won't drive me away, but it doesn't draw me in either. Important note on this, "good" doesn't have to mean textbook beautiful women. Light of my Life is a good example of less than perfect character models being well done and having enough personality to get my interest. It's also a great game for anyone with an incest fetish although I do wish it was more complete.

 

[karunama]

The others hit on many of the salient points, but I'll add a few that tend to stick out to me as a minority consumer (read: gay guy)

• Pandering. People in underserved groups (gay guys who aren't furries, lesbians who want content written by another woman, people with rare fetishes, etc.) tend to be willing to put more money out for content that appeals to them, which in turn invites a great deal of half-hearted pandering. "We have something for everyone! Look at this one easily missed m/m scene we have nestled in a veritable sea of unskippable and unavoidable tits!" This shit is hateful, and we quickly learn how to spot and avoid it like the plague it is.
• Uneven pairing distributions: this is related to the above; At most, it's only going to take 10 minutes with your game to see this if it's there, and you can expect the reaction to inevitably be negative. Making a 'token effort for a token audience' is a fantastic way to see torches and pitchforks firsthand though.
  
• Filters: These are necessary if you want to have multiple pairings or fetishes. Moreover, they need to treat all pairings and fetishes equally. Being able to turn off one kind but not the other is inevitably going to cause negative feedback (as it rightly should)
• Locked behind X Content: Never, and I repeat, *NEVER* try to sell your game as inclusive via different pairings/fetishes and then make it so a large part of your game is locked behind a scene or type of content that not everyone is going to want to see. Unavoidable scenes are just as bad. You can get away with that shit just fine if you're only going for one pairing or it's the main fetish of your game. Otherwise, just don't do it.

 

[Taboo-Sho]

Things I will click on:
Interesting Concept - If the general concept is good overall I will check it out.
Good art - Not much else needed here, if the art looks decent and good Ill check it out, my bar for this isn't to high.
Open World/sandbox - INSTANT ATTENTIONT GRABBER! I like lewd games that let me play at my own damn pace.
Character creator - My ultimate weakness, I pretty much will buy anything with a good character creator.

Things I wont
MtF transformation only- THIS ONE FUCKING SUCKS and is taking over the TF area as it seems everyone things that what TF is and it JUST drives me to drink.
- 2nd point on this, a male brain just being stuck in a female body, Just piss off with that, you might as well not have changed the gender at all.
Daz3D/Other pre-built assets - Nope, I wont bother for one second, its lazy, boring to look at, and over done.
Male getting the Harem - Thats an auto-no for me fam. This story is done to death and is just plain boring now.
Male protag only in general - They all end up in the one of the following manners 'Hero who must stop evil, but evil monster girls try to rape him.' 'protag is super dude who gets all the girls' 'Hero blah blah blah, evil chick, hero fucks evil chick' Like NONE OF THESE are fun to play, I want something besides 'lul get pussy' to be the reward.
VNs- I WANNA PLAY A GAME! Not click some text box options.

 

[karunama]

Things I will click on:

MtF transformation only- THIS ONE FUCKING SUCKS and is taking over the TF area as it seems everyone things that what TF is and it JUST drives me to drink.
- 2nd point on this, a male brain just being stuck in a female body, Just piss off with that, you might as well not have changed the gender at all.

These sometimes have themselves listed as M/M despite the forced transformation before any sex happens. Fuck that shit. Anyone who does this needs to burn in a fire.

Daz3D/Other pre-built assets - Nope, I wont bother for one second, its lazy, boring to look at, and over done.
Male protag only in general - They all end up in the one of the following manners 'Hero who must stop evil, but evil monster girls try to rape him.' 'protag is super dude who gets all the girls' 'Hero blah blah blah, evil chick, hero fucks evil chick' Like NONE OF THESE are fun to play, I want something besides 'lul get pussy' to be the reward.

You forgot the other stereotype story; 'You play as Douchebag Pussywrecker, worst human being of all time, and your only purpose in existence is to rip free will away from big titted gurlz.'

 

[Kesil]

Or "Samey McSameface goes to Same City to live with and possibly (I mean, certainly) screw every female member of his step-family, who all happen to be conventionality pretty".

 

[Forget Me Knot]

If we're talking about porn games specifically, then it's the following...

• the ability to play as a woman (this one is crucial; I would rather not have to play as a man if I don't have to)
• robust character customization possibilities
• pretty art
• pairings/fetishes that are relevant to my interests (like how so many others have said)
• an interesting story/premise with captivating characters
• at the very least, decent writing
• replayability
• preg content

As for what would turn me off, they would be...

• porn games that are male protag only (yeah, no, thanks)
• yet another "Big Strong Alpha Male Fucks a Bunch of Horny Bitches" type of premise
• hell, anything from the perspective of an obnoxiously Heterosexual Man
• porn games that use porn actresses as a visual representation of npcs
• forced transformations that were given absolutely no warning (*especially if they change or modify the pc's sexual configuration)

*I never play a pc who has a penis, so, I always make sure to read the wiki to avoid that sort of thing (i.e. surprise dick growth). The reason why is because my pc doesn't wanna have one for Personal Reasons — i.e. gender dysphoria (she's a fully-transitioned trans woman). Also, I just don't really get any enjoyment out of reading sex scenes where the pc has a penis (especially if they are topping). Likewise, I don't really enjoy nor agree with the notion that your pc HAS to have a dick, or else they're "missing out" or whatever.

*cue shrug emoji*

Everyone has their own Thing, ok?

Some people don't like the idea of their tough guy pc getting fucked up the ass — I don't like the idea of my lady pc growing a penis.

It just is what it is.

 

[Kesil]

For the sake of completion (so to speak), I remembered that the opposite of this thread already exists: https://forum.fenoxo.com/threads/what-type-of-hentai-games-are-you-tired-of-seeing.10751/
Similarly, the old forum had a thread named "Bonerkillers and Cunnydriers" that could be revived for the "anti-kinks" (or kinks one likes done in a way one doesn't like).

 

[karunama]

Speaking to Forget Me Knot's point, personally, I am so fucking sick of forced gender transformation in porn games. In exactly the same way that s/he doesn't want to play a male character, I don't want to be female. I don't want to grow a vagina. I don't want to have tits. I don't want to be in any way shape or form even vaguely feminine. Frankly, femininity disgusts and repulses me. So please, stop forcing this shit on me in unavoidable ways.

Also, if porn game writers could not tell me that my PC finds so-and-so attractive, that'd be great. I will decide who my character finds attractive. If there's some level of mind control going on, I can accept that, since it has nothing to do with what my PC actually likes, but otherwise stop telling me how hot my PC thinks those horrific hypertits are.

 

[Styg]

What makes me click on games is the art (or real pictures), shown in screenshots and sexier than goofy. Also, either a male protagonist or, even better, character creation where I can decide some facets of the character (it doesn't even have to be too many) that will actually impact gameplay (and that lets me make him male). Lately I've found myself clicking much more often on HTML or other 2D UI games (like those in renpy) than 3D games (for some reason I've also grown a bit tired of RPGM, which I used to love - probably played too many of those). Finally, I do prefer the game to be more of a game than a visual novel, as long as it's not too grindy and has quests and the like as objectives to point the way instead of being too loose and sandboxy.

I dislike forced transformation of any kind, but the deal breaker for me is M2F. While I do enjoy playing other types of game with female protagonists, I just can't stand it in porn games and for some reason a male protagonist who was forcefully transformed into a female or sissified feels even worse than a straight up female protagonist. I certainly don't mind if the option is there (I think it's cool if it's there, actually, and a couple of my TiTS characters even had some female features, like a tail cunt), but it has to be an option.

 

[Forget Me Knot]

Also, if porn game writers could not tell me that my PC finds so-and-so attractive, that'd be great. I will decide who my character finds attractive. If there's some level of mind control going on, I can accept that, since it has nothing to do with what my PC actually likes, but otherwise stop telling me how hot my PC thinks those horrific hypertits are.

Okay but THIS, though. I understand that, in the case of the fengames (which I'm including CoC II into for the sake of brevity), the pc is pansexual by default but I wish that there could be toggle options that allow us to input what our pc personally finds attractive. My girl is pansexual so, the whole "finding most npcs attractive" thing didn't feel too jarring for her — but the laser-focus on just how big other breasts are didn't quite resonate with me. It's not because she doesn't like breasts — she likes all kinds, in fact — but rather she just doesn't have a huge obsession with them — you know what I mean? Cocks, on the other hand... But, anyway, back to my point: can you imagine how amazing it would be if sexual orientation was a part of character customization? Just picture it: your pc meets a busty lady npc and the game checks if your pc is attracted to women first before describing her to you, the reader. If your pc is attracted to women, then they get the typical "DAYUM! look at the huge knockers on that ho! " type of physical description. If they're not, then her physical description would be decidedly neutral (i.e. "meh, she's not really your type but she's okay-looking, you guess.")

Also, I wish that there could be more body diversity, to be honest. There are only so many dames with gravity-defying boobs that you can bump into before that archetype starts to get a little...old. And, speaking of old, can we have some actual pretty boys, please? Not femboys — pretty boys. Not tiny twinks who are thirsty for cock — but rather the tall, swoon-worthy Legolas type. Sure, there are maybe one or two (the elf dude that's part of the forest elf band immediately comes to mind as does our bunny boi companion) but considering just how much more prevalent Manly Men and femboys (especially) are, I eagerly welcome more of this type of lad. Or any type of lad for that matter. My girl loves the ladies — don't get me wrong — but both CoC II and TITS are strongly lacking in lads (which is unsurprising considering the fact that Straight Men are the primary demographic for H-games, in general, but I still wish for more dudes so sue me).

And unrelated but I go by she/they, by the way.

 

[Evil]

Going to keep this brief, using some examples.

Things I like to see:
- If there's 3d art, variety and effort go a long, long way. Sisterly Lust did this well in that everyone looked unique.
- If there is an option to play a female character, the ability to avoid hopping onto some guy's dick. My main is usually male, but I do like have an alt who just loves snatch as much as the main.
- Speaking of, games where you can offer cunnilingus to a partner. While I don't mind blowjobs, I much prefer going doing on her.
- The ability to strip a partner how I choose. Its a weird one, but I prefer seeing a character bottomless over topless.
- Ability to turn off pregnancy. Its not a fetish for me, so if I can turn it off, bonus in my eyes.

Things that turn me off:
- Ridiculously oversized body parts. I'm sorry, but it just puts me off. I can handle it in text games because I can just imagine something else, but, for example, breasts larger than someone's head just puts me off.
- Bimbofication, along with forced transformations. No. Just no.
- Incest, which I admit is weird having used SL as a positive example, but the problem for me is that its just everywhere now and its shoved in your face. It would be fine if it was written well, like LLTP or SL, but its usually crappy scenarios or pretenses and you can tell its a short ride from A to B to webbed fingers.
- "Comedy". I mean where the PC is usually some pathetic schmuck who ends up in embarrassing situations and gets treated like crap. Its not funny, its just lazy writing. LLTP does comedy well in that the PC gives as good as he gets and doesn't often make a complete idiot out of himself.
- Asshole PCs. Like, dude, just how often did you get rejected that the PC has to be a dickhead to everyone? Why do you need to have the edgelord crap?

 

[Deleted member 34547]

Likes:

-Highly customizable main character (in any game really. TES and Fallout ftw)
-M/M pairings. In fact, if the whole game is 100% gay/yaoi, I'm in.
-well-drawn anime-style or western comic-style pictures (if any).
-an actually good main story and good side stories.
-lovable &/or memorable characters.
-bonus points if there's mpreg. And not just "tentacle eggs up the butt", I mean like the satyrs from CoC1 or anusol from Fall of Eden.
-includes some weird niche (I don't wanna say gross, but....) fetishes, especially if presented in a comedic way (with the choice to avoid them of course).
-speaking of comedy, I like lighthearted porno games that poke fun at everything.


Dislikes:

-forced gender transformations with no way to avoid them or turn them off, and flat-out labeling the game as M/M (tfgames, I'm looking at you)
-forced hyper scenes.
-forced vore scenes.
-forced bimbofication. It's really not my thing.
-edgy emo crap and torture/gore/snuff if not presented in a funny way (like Boyfriend to Death, blech...)
-disproportionate ratio of female and futa characters to male characters.
-futas, futas, everywhere, and I mean the classic hentai futa, the one with a 19 inch cock and DD cups, and a face that couldn't possibly be mistaken for anything but a girl. Srsly, not all hermaphrodites have giant tits and feminine faces and voices.
-actual pornstar pictures instead of drawings, or worse, uglyass DAZ-3D models.
-the furry characters looking like Scooby-fuckin-Doo instead of a more realistic anthro like Jon Talbain. Honestly, I never saw the appeal of furry porn solely because 90% of it looks like Saturday morning cartoons.
-bad ends, bad ends, everywhere. And no warnings of a bad end beforehand either. Better yet, ALL possible outcomes are bad ends no matter what you do (Sweet Pool, I'm looking at you).
-speaking of endings, a linear story with only one ending.
-annoying and persistent forced encounters (Lumi, Gel Zon, and the independence day bison lady from TiTS, Tamani from CoC1... Etc)
-having to alter your character's appearance &/or genitals just to unlock certain scenes.
-social/political/whatever beliefs being shoved down the player's throat. Srsly, who puts that in a PORNO game?!
-the fact that you can: have 10 dicks, each one of a different species. have 6 tits, each one a different size and lactates a different substance. have 5 cunts, with double-clits and each one is connected to a separate womb all of which are currently pregnant with different species. have 2 human legs in front and 2 dog legs in the middle and a bunch of tentacles attached to a bee abdomen in the back. be a half-dog-half-cat-half-horse-half-fish-half-bird-half-demon-half-angel.... Etc. But mpreg?! Some guy getting a womb implant up his rectum?!! How preposterous! That would totally defy nature and break all the scientific rules of the universe!

 

[savagesix]

• If your post announcing your game is poorly written, I'm going to assume your game is also poorly written and skip on it.
• I'm far more impressed with a stylistic art style than with the same three dead-eyed blonde/brunette/redhead render engine hookers with overinflated tits.
• "In this game you play a guy who has sex with a lot of women" is not a selling point for a game. Every other thread on here is full of sex. I want to see what your game brings that the ten other games I scrolled past don't have. Is there an interesting hook? Is your game about superheroes, or space travel, or a crazy fantasy world? Is your game about seducing Dracula? I mean, I don't know if I'd be into a game about seducing Dracula but goddamn if it doesn't already sound far more interesting than 99% of the games I see.
  
• I'm looking for some sort of interesting hook, and I can get mediocre renders of heterosexual intercourse between a faceless anime guy/muscley jackass and personalityless skanks anywhere, the internet is covered in them. I can find 3d art of my absolute weirdest most niche fetishes with just as much context as half the games I see on here, so why would I spend hours playing a poorly balanced RPG in order to get rewarded with boring penis-in-vagoo humping between two characters I barely care about? This isn't even knocking games with straight vanilla sex, I've played some great games like that, but your game has to have SOMETHING else.
• I don't hate RPG maker games but I'm not playing your game for nightmarish difficulty or fiendish puzzles, I'm playing it to get my rocks off. I know there are some people who will take issue with this, but seriously I can play Dark Souls or something if I want a challenge. I definitely don't want to have to fight my way through a nightmarish dungeon for hours in order to see a tiny sex scene.
  
• I know someone is going to say I've contradicted myself up there but I really haven't. I'm not interested in zero context fucking OR in 30 hours of Etrian Odyssey-tier difficult combat to be rewarded with two still renders of buttsex. These things aren't either/or, they're two extremes. I don't want to sit in a room that's 114F OR a room that's 33F, but there's somewhere in the middle where I am comfortable. I want a game with an interesting story and maybe a slight modicum of challenge but I don't want to sit through twelve hours of gameplay before the first sex scene.

 

[karunama]

- Incest, which I admit is weird having used SL as a positive example, but the problem for me is that its just everywhere now and its shoved in your face. It would be fine if it was written well, like LLTP or SL, but its usually crappy scenarios or pretenses and you can tell its a short ride from A to B to webbed fingers.

Ah, I totally forgot another constant absurdity I see. 'Incest' instead of actual incest. It's a fucking video game. Why does it need to always be your step-family? If you're going to cross that boundary, fucking cross it for real. Don't just dance around the edges like a total coward. If you're going to try and sell your game on that particular kink, just fucking embrace it already. Oh, and if you could remember that most guys also have dude relatives, that wouldn't hurt my feelings, but seriously though. Drop the 'steps'. It's a porn game, not a set of stairs.

 

[eurus]

For freeware games, I pretty much assume that the dev is making whatever appeals to them personally and I don't really judge. Elaborate transformation mechanics aren't my thing, for example, but that's fine, it's just someone's hobby that they probably wouldn't have put all that work into if they weren't personally into it. Also I'm into M/M and occasional femdom if it's really good, so I've come to terms with the fact that 80% of games won't be of interest to me and my likes/dislikes aren't of interest to 80% of game devs. So here's my most general advice for paid games specifically that should be applicable to more than just my personal tastes.

-Provide a demo, please. I'm not trying to be greedy here; there's a lot of scams out there, and if I can't confirm for myself that there's at least a playable foundation, I just don't trust it. Censor the naughty bits in the demo if you really want to, at least it'll be better than a few screencaps that could easily be faked. Free games obviously don't need this.

-Explain exactly what sexual content is included, and what's unavoidable. If you say that your game contains M/M, M/F, F/F, F/M/M, gender transformation, furry, and fetish content, I have no idea how to parse that list to figure out what the actual experience of playing the game is like. Broad appeal is a noble goal, but most people aren't going to be into all of it, so you really need to break down exactly how much of what kinds of content you have, especially if you're trying to charge money.

-I'm willing to put up with mediocre art quality if the premise and writing are really good. I'm less willing to forgive a boring premise and bad writing for the sake of good art, because there's plenty of good art floating around the internet already

-I'm also okay with a game that puts you in the role of a specific character, rather than being customizable. If you tell me that I'm playing Jack Hardwood, and then tell me how Jack Hardwood thinks and feels, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and try to enjoy being in the mindset of a crafted character. But a game like that is going to be much more niche, and if I end up disliking Jack, I'm going to dislike the game as well.

...Oh, and for crying out loud, have your advertising post proofread to at least the same quality that your game is. Glaring typos in the advertisement make me assume that your game is going to be filled with similar, and that's probably going to drive me away.

 

[TrustworthyTraitor]

1. The most important thing - writing - , how good is it ,how impactful are decisions , how many routes for quests/ scenes there are (replayability)etc.
2. Gameplay / mechanics - is the game challenging and how many different things you need to manage (hunger , stamina , morale , supplies etc.) also how useful are skills (is the skill used only for a single scene and left abandoned for the rest of the game or is it useful throughout for most of it [absolutely hate one trick pony things like that]) , does your equipment / appearance matter while interacting with npcs , how much can you customize yourself
overall the more detail the better.
3. Genre of the game - sandboxes/rpgs are top tier imo because they usually give you the most freedom of choice.
4.Is it based on RPG Maker or something similar ? If the answer is yes then the game is 100% no-go for me.
5.List of fetishes - very important - , also is there a option to toggle on/off for certain kinks , if yes that's gr8 if not are the scenes involving the ones you yourself dont fancy optional or are you forced to see them regardless.
6.Art/animations - unimportant - if 1. is good enough at descripting things i dont need images/animations .
7.Visual novels are not games for me , interactive movies more like it , usually heavily lack in 2. and as such i tend to heavily avoid them.
Did i miss something important?

 

[Taboo-Sho]

7.Visual novels are not games for me , interactive movies more like it , usually heavily lack in 2. and as such i tend to heavily avoid them.

Off topic a moment, Check out Long Live the Queen, a VN that has ACTAUL player input and thought into it.

 

[Evil]

Wait, do you mean Long Live The Princess by Belle?

 

[TrustworthyTraitor]

Off topic a moment, Check out Long Live the Queen, a VN that has ACTAUL player input and thought into it.

 

[Paradox01]

This thread should be pinned as a tutorial.

 

[schad013]

Agree on the absurd body sizing beyond human limits - come on, a penis that's a 3rd leg, or could cause fainting from blood loss, boobs that arrive 2 turns before the character. . .
Don't call it sandbox and then railroad - discovered during play
Dislike heavy pigeon holing / black & white fetish choices
Spineless creators who are swayed into causing things to go 180 degrees
Impossible situations - also discovered during play
Hate transformations required to unlock content - put the effort into figuring out how it works from multiple angles
Forced / out of the blue transformations are a big wet blanket
Don't promise flexibility and not deliver
I'm not into vore / forced sadism
*******
Having computational limits too certain systems work.
I think the problem with RPGM games is that people aren't learning how to get the max from their tools and go the easy route - same old artwork, same old interface.
In the matter of choice department I have certain genre preferences

 

[karunama]

One last thing; a native/fluent speaker of English to write your game for you. When you have a poor command of English grammar, it will show long before I even click on your game, and I will expect the exact same (lack of) quality present in your grammar out of your writing in general.

If you're not a native speaker and you're writing all the stuff for your game, hire an editor. Hell, you can sometimes find people willing to proofread it for free. Proofreaders (especially the free ones) aren't going to give you the same level of quality as a professional editor by a long shot, but it's far better than nothing.

 

[xyzabc198]

thanks for all the replies, it was really interesting to see everybody's opinion on this