This is aimed to be something in the vein of games like Slave Maker, Whore Master, Sim Brothel, etc. In other words yet another brothel management kind of game. The genre has a lot of potential but I feel like every game is inevitably bogged down by micro-managing, soulless repetition of generic cut-and-paste content, and poor writing. I'd like to create a game that avoids those pitfalls. Streamlined gameplay that mostly manages itself with a little guidance from the player so that they can focus on immersing themselves in their interactions and sex with other characters.
The title I had in mind was Harem & Brothel. Like the name suggests, you're meeting characters and you have to decide for each one whether you want to make them your lover or turn them into a prostitute, with different events, conversations, and consequences depending on each choice. The idea is that you get to keep all your favorites for yourself and use the rest to earn money. Make money with the brothel, make babies with the harem.
^ Some character sprites I've made to potentially be used in the game but also just for fun. In true brothel-management fashion the characters are drawn from various games and anime and whatnot in one big crossover. Not all these sprites are complete, by the way.
In these games what you typically do is order your characters around with zero actual interaction with the world itself, and the only thing resembling an obstacle is basically how long the player can keep going until they get bored. Those are two big design issues that I want to tackle. You've got actual adversaries, obstacles to your success which threaten to defeat you if you do poorly. Organizations, businesses, factions which are all doing their own thing separate from the player with set objectives. They can be friendly, neutral, hostile, vary depending on the player's actions, whatever. If you've played Sengoku Rance or Long Live the Queen, it'll be something like that--it starts simple but more and more enemies get introduced the further in you get.
You'll have to deal with events each turn (which is a day or week or whatever) and decide how to react, influencing your relationship with these other groups, and eventually become big enough to wipe them out, take them over, or just get them to leave you alone. A basic example of this might be Don Corneo from FF7, he's got his gang and they're becoming hostile towards you because your business is getting threatening. You can either go to war with him or try to capture Tifa somewhere, if you don't already have her, and offer her as a present to get on his good side.
Along the way you're recruiting characters into your ranks and giving them orders, something like in this image. There are three ways that I want to differentiate this from similar games.
First is that there's no notion of needing to rest. The characters have energy but they basically just work each turn until it's empty and then it gets refilled when the next turn begins, so there's no micro-managing all your workers every turn to see who needs to rest and who's ready to work again.
The second is to have a battle-fuck system (RPG sex combat if you're unfamiliar with the term), a mini-game, or something like that. The sex in these management games is typically unsatisfying because there's no substance, you just get the same couple sentences each time and that's that.
The third is to have individual events written for each character to give flavor to their interactions with the player, their sex scenes, and their overall role in the world. Every time I think about this genre I arrive at the same conclusion, that there will never be a satisfying game until one of them includes actual hand-written content instead of generic messages leaving everything to the player's imagination.
Who I'm Looking For:
I can handle the character sprites and RPG Maker side of things. The two big roles I'm looking to fill are a lead writer and area mapper. I probably will contribute to the writing here and there, but I'm a slow writer and I think it's just too much for me to handle on my own. As for a mapper, again, it's something I can do if I invest enough time but other people are faster and better and it would just be more efficient for me to put my efforts into other areas.
If you're interested in writing, it would help to be decently familiar with a broad range of games and anime, or willing to check out ones you haven't played/seen. I'm not gonna expect you to marathon through a bunch of shit or anything, just be willing to take a look at the source material and get a feel for it. I can probably provide you with basic scenarios for most characters I've got planned anyway and bounce ideas back and forth, so you hardly have to know everything like the back of your hand or anything like that. Also, if there are characters you personally want to add, that's cool, too. Events would additionally on average probably be shorter than, say, CoC. I think "brief" is probably the aim here, so don't feel like you have to write massive amounts unless you want to.
As for a mapper, I was thinking of largely incorporating locations from the source material, but I think there will be original locations as well, so it might be best if you feel confident about making both. In the end the most important thing is that the areas just look good. Exploration is a thing that most of these kinds of games don't have, but I think it would go a long way over the whole game just being played by navigating menus. I don't mind if you want to use RTP, custom graphics, or whatever floats your boat.
Those are the big ones, but if you want to contribute in some other way I'm open to hearing it. For example, I'm not worried about finding a scripter but I won't turn you away if you're offering. A second pixel artist would depend on what you're contributing. An illustrator would be nice but I'm obviously going into this not expecting to find one. Input and brainstorming on game mechanics and design is welcome, I've got general ideas right now but getting specifics figured out wouldn't hurt. So yeah, just feel free to speak up if this type of game interests you and you want to help in any way.
The title I had in mind was Harem & Brothel. Like the name suggests, you're meeting characters and you have to decide for each one whether you want to make them your lover or turn them into a prostitute, with different events, conversations, and consequences depending on each choice. The idea is that you get to keep all your favorites for yourself and use the rest to earn money. Make money with the brothel, make babies with the harem.
^ Some character sprites I've made to potentially be used in the game but also just for fun. In true brothel-management fashion the characters are drawn from various games and anime and whatnot in one big crossover. Not all these sprites are complete, by the way.
In these games what you typically do is order your characters around with zero actual interaction with the world itself, and the only thing resembling an obstacle is basically how long the player can keep going until they get bored. Those are two big design issues that I want to tackle. You've got actual adversaries, obstacles to your success which threaten to defeat you if you do poorly. Organizations, businesses, factions which are all doing their own thing separate from the player with set objectives. They can be friendly, neutral, hostile, vary depending on the player's actions, whatever. If you've played Sengoku Rance or Long Live the Queen, it'll be something like that--it starts simple but more and more enemies get introduced the further in you get.
You'll have to deal with events each turn (which is a day or week or whatever) and decide how to react, influencing your relationship with these other groups, and eventually become big enough to wipe them out, take them over, or just get them to leave you alone. A basic example of this might be Don Corneo from FF7, he's got his gang and they're becoming hostile towards you because your business is getting threatening. You can either go to war with him or try to capture Tifa somewhere, if you don't already have her, and offer her as a present to get on his good side.
Along the way you're recruiting characters into your ranks and giving them orders, something like in this image. There are three ways that I want to differentiate this from similar games.
First is that there's no notion of needing to rest. The characters have energy but they basically just work each turn until it's empty and then it gets refilled when the next turn begins, so there's no micro-managing all your workers every turn to see who needs to rest and who's ready to work again.
The second is to have a battle-fuck system (RPG sex combat if you're unfamiliar with the term), a mini-game, or something like that. The sex in these management games is typically unsatisfying because there's no substance, you just get the same couple sentences each time and that's that.
The third is to have individual events written for each character to give flavor to their interactions with the player, their sex scenes, and their overall role in the world. Every time I think about this genre I arrive at the same conclusion, that there will never be a satisfying game until one of them includes actual hand-written content instead of generic messages leaving everything to the player's imagination.
Who I'm Looking For:
I can handle the character sprites and RPG Maker side of things. The two big roles I'm looking to fill are a lead writer and area mapper. I probably will contribute to the writing here and there, but I'm a slow writer and I think it's just too much for me to handle on my own. As for a mapper, again, it's something I can do if I invest enough time but other people are faster and better and it would just be more efficient for me to put my efforts into other areas.
If you're interested in writing, it would help to be decently familiar with a broad range of games and anime, or willing to check out ones you haven't played/seen. I'm not gonna expect you to marathon through a bunch of shit or anything, just be willing to take a look at the source material and get a feel for it. I can probably provide you with basic scenarios for most characters I've got planned anyway and bounce ideas back and forth, so you hardly have to know everything like the back of your hand or anything like that. Also, if there are characters you personally want to add, that's cool, too. Events would additionally on average probably be shorter than, say, CoC. I think "brief" is probably the aim here, so don't feel like you have to write massive amounts unless you want to.
As for a mapper, I was thinking of largely incorporating locations from the source material, but I think there will be original locations as well, so it might be best if you feel confident about making both. In the end the most important thing is that the areas just look good. Exploration is a thing that most of these kinds of games don't have, but I think it would go a long way over the whole game just being played by navigating menus. I don't mind if you want to use RTP, custom graphics, or whatever floats your boat.
Those are the big ones, but if you want to contribute in some other way I'm open to hearing it. For example, I'm not worried about finding a scripter but I won't turn you away if you're offering. A second pixel artist would depend on what you're contributing. An illustrator would be nice but I'm obviously going into this not expecting to find one. Input and brainstorming on game mechanics and design is welcome, I've got general ideas right now but getting specifics figured out wouldn't hurt. So yeah, just feel free to speak up if this type of game interests you and you want to help in any way.
