Advice for Theoretical Game Direction?

[ynlucks]

Let me preface this by saying it's astronomically unlikely anything actually comes to fruition with this. This is essentially just an extension of my fic writing hobby, and I don't write much there, so the amount needed for a game is practically insane to me.

However. I enjoy 'what if's.

I'm an erotica fic writer for a rather popular korean boy band, Big Titty Suckers. I like CoC and TiTS and had the extremely self indulgent idea of taking my favorite member and putting him through the ropes. Long story short, I'm having a decent amount of fun coming up with ideas for a theoretical game.

Context: It's most similar to CoC, and even the base idea is that he gets sucked through a portal, but I've made some distinctions. I'm still waffling over it, but the central quest will likely be about some sort of artifact, probably piecing it together. The portal will stay and act as a way to interact with the real world, primarily the other members, developing your relationship with them (and seducing them) and going through their stories. The corruption idea is split more into a sense of self and sense of home concept, with the two separate mechanics influencing scene triggers and the eventual ending of the game (ex: if he has low sense of self but high sense of home, he does choose to go home, but essentially as a sex monster intent on corrupting the members he wasn't able to lure across the barrier). Since this is pure self indulgence on my part, the kinks are somewhat limited (oviposition, cum inflation, growth, humiliation, dominance (mostly of the pc), very little topping, sounding, tentacles, selfcest, macro micro, mind fuckery, etc), and while there is many species tfs, changing MtF would only be temporary to have sex with a recurring character if you want to. On the other hand, I want what scenes I do have to have considerable variation depending on what has been done to the character. The most disappointing thing for me (which still wasn't super disappointing because the games are so great) with TiTS and CoC was that aside from changing what sex scene options existed, changing the body often wouldn't influence more than adjectives in a scene. I definitely understand that's a lot more writing so I have no issue with it in the games but in my own writing, I think I'd want to focus on variation over quantity of scenes, sort of to reward experimenting with the tf mechanics (and also probably the mood mechanics)? I recognize that would ward off a lot of people and I am fine with that, since as stated it's unlikely it'll come to fruition and it's just me having fun planning this out and writing some of it.

My actual request to y'all if you have time: I wanted to ask if anyone had things they like to see in text based erotica games like these, and also just. Advice on storylines. Because to be honest, I know the quest is to get home, but I'm not sure how he's going to get there. How to draw it out without it feeling contrived, you know? More specifically, with that kind of quest, what annoys you as someone playing that? What feels more rewarding? What feels artificial when it comes to barriers versus not?

Thank you!

 

[DarkSinfulMage]

The most important thing about a game - particularly a sexy game - is that the game does things in response to the player. It can surprise them and respond to their choices.

That is the difference between a game, and a porn dispenser.

Every interesting sexy game I can think of is sexy in addition to presenting a scenario that is interesting and responsive to the player. The player wants to do more than click something or push a button to get porn. Even better if the game can surprise the player sometimes.

As for TF games in particular - it's a wide reaching theme and set of mechanics. Changing anything and everything about your or another's character doesn't mean much if there isn't content to support it. If it doesn't affect anything than the description - it isn't worth much.

Finally - More and less should both be useful. Bigger assets useful, smaller assets useful. If there isn't content or mechanics to make every transformation state useful, then it's not as interesting.

So - what can you DO with this?

Treat your transformations like cards in some kind of table game. What can you DO with each card you could get? If you make content around a player having any combination of cards, you'll be on the right track.

 

[ynlucks]

The most important thing about a game - particularly a sexy game - is that the game does things in response to the player. It can surprise them and respond to their choices.

That is the difference between a game, and a porn dispenser.

Every interesting sexy game I can think of is sexy in addition to presenting a scenario that is interesting and responsive to the player. The player wants to do more than click something or push a button to get porn. Even better if the game can surprise the player sometimes.

As for TF games in particular - it's a wide reaching theme and set of mechanics. Changing anything and everything about your or another's character doesn't mean much if there isn't content to support it. If it doesn't affect anything than the description - it isn't worth much.

Finally - More and less should both be useful. Bigger assets useful, smaller assets useful. If there isn't content or mechanics to make every transformation state useful, then it's not as interesting.

So - what can you DO with this?

Treat your transformations like cards in some kind of table game. What can you DO with each card you could get? If you make content around a player having any combination of cards, you'll be on the right track.

Thank you! This is definitely helpful to think about. I think keeping with the quality over quantity idea will be important especially in making each tf impactful in its own way.

And great point about game vs porn dispenser. It's something I'm a little worried about conceptually as there's just the one central quest, but with the portal/real world interactions especially, I think there will be genuine pushback and influence that will feel good to play. Bringing that to the rest of the game, of course, is something to focus on too.

Thank you for your insight!