H-Game Design, My Problem(tm) and My Idea

[Woodlelewd]

Spoiler: Note To The Moderators

I think and hope this is in the right place, but feel free to dump this in Shitposting or Trash Can if it's unwanted here.

So... I am a game designer, and I am also a hentai game enthusiast. And I... Have noticed a trend, of sorts. I'm going to talk about it, and then I'm going to talk about how I might go about fixing it were I to try. So I won't mince words. Or rather, I will mince a metric butt-ton of them and dump them in this thread, for you to suffer through. The point that I get to the point is in bold below at some point, you'll be skipping the part where I discuss the problems I have with existing games for context, you're welcome.

Female Protagonist. Narrative: She's trying to not get sexed and also do a thing, and there are things that want to sex her. Cool, okay. Let's ignore the ludonarrative dissonance that comes with a horny gaming individual controlling a narratively prudish avatar. So what does this game have to offer?

Game: Literally lose on purpose, or enjoy the sparse amount of sexual/erotic scenes on the """virgin path"""

Yes, I know what you're thinking. No, I said we're not going to talk about the ludonarative dissonance inherent to the premise, and we're not. Not right now. People still play these games, obviously, and I can respect the fact that there *is* a sexual fantasy here, somewhere. Honestly, a really hot one. But... The GAMEPLAY. Does not suit the PREMISE. And it also doesn't suit the CORE FANTASY. Let me explain.


The core fantasy here is the struggling woman, attempting to resist the sexual advances of aggressors. And there's this moment, that often show up in the game over scenes - The aggressors start having their way with the woman, gaining more and more control over her, and there are a few key moments where, if she had more willpower, more strength, or *something* still left in her to resist, maybe she could push through and escape...

And stop right there. THAT'S IT. THAT'S the moment. And... It's not even gameplay. What the hell is it doing in the game over scenes? Why??? Why don't you bring me to this point through gameplay? Why do you not let me *experience* this *viscerally*? WHY IS THIS EVEN A GAME IF THE CORE FANTASY IS ENTIRELY NARRATIVE AND HAS NO MECHANICS. Ugh...

Okay, yes, I know. There's financial reasons most games don't try this, and there are games that try this thing, and some that do it well. I mean, I can point to Swordswoman Asagi, Jumble Jokers, and that one game, with the monster hunter girls... That at least sort of wander in the general direction of doing something interesting here. Heck, Dark Alley Elf, by the DeathBlight people, did pretty well with this. I enjoyed those experiences quite a lot. But I do sort of feel like a lot of them don't quite hit the mark for me - I'm going to go over why, and present an idea of mine.


See, my main issue here is that a lot of these games might have stuff like combat rape, clothing damage, stuff that feeds in to the core fantasy, but a lot of them also have these points of frustration, right? You get raped, and - Oh! Game over for you. Bad gamer, trying to indulge in the core fantasy. Yes, sometimes the game-overs are the point, but, um... Can't I just keep playing, after that? Do we need all this nonsense of me having to *go back to my previous save*, or *retry the mission*?

And so many of them have these annoying ass positive feedback loops, where the more you get sexed, the... More you get sexed. My dude, I get sick of it after a while. Please, for the love of god, have the goddamn men get tired after a while. Does it really cut into the fantasy that much to have some restraint here? It would be SO. MUCH. MORE INTERESTING. To at least have the guys have their fun over one, two, maybe three rounds of sex if you really want to go crazy... And then just leave, and let you get up. By that point, the player is well and truly fucked, pun entirely intended. We can talk about throwing in some interesting loss mechanics - They're complicated, they're expensive, they're not necessary. They would be cool, but let's get back to the point.

I haven't seen a game that's really dedicated to that core fantasy - The woman resisting the man, struggling, and either eventually giving up, or getting away. It doesn't need to be entirely about this, but a robust 'resistance' system could be so interesting. and I do think it could very nearly make a game by itself. So, I think I've ragged on enough - Here's how I fix it.


The point, if you want to just get to it.

So - You've got a combat system with clothing damage. *Actual* clothing damage, not tied to health. Step one. We've seen this done well before, it can be done well again. I have some ideas to spice this part up in line with the premise I'm about to outline, table it for now. Next, what happens when we get an H attack on our heroine? This is where things get interesting.

We cut into a cutscene - An interactive cutscene, mind you. This isn't a game over, but we are currently not worrying about the combat, we have bigger priorities. So what's the goal? Well, the aggressor is going to try and progress the cutscene from foreplay and stripping to sex, and then orgasm. And we're going to try and stop it. The key here is that we're doing this *by watching the sex scene*. Let the player indulge themselves a bit! That's the goddamn point. So many games whiff on this - Anyway. You watch the scene, and try to intuit, from what the aggressor is doing, a moment where their grip on you, literal or otherwise, is weak. You have to be fast and attentive, it may be obvious and well telegraphed, but this is a lever to scale difficulty, too. Sometimes the moment you should act, and how you should act when it comes time, will be obfuscated, or only very brief. But there does need to be a core of logic that the player can pick up on, and some variation so that they can't get too comfortable. If they fail, the scene progresses; if they succeed, the scene ends and they return to combat, with minor to major debuffs, 'damage', etcetera, based on when they managed to break free. If they fail to the point of the scene coming to an end, you could have all sorts of things happen - Other games would put a game over here. Sure. Or you could have the player lose the fight, but continue the game. Maybe even continue the fight - Again, probably with severe debuffs or damage.

The actual action that happens in "the moment of truth" doesn't need to be super complicated, and I'd frankly recommend against complicating it too much - But I think we can also do a bit better than button mashing. Obviously, if the player presses a button at the wrong time, that would cut into some kind of stamina meter, maybe add to their lust meter, among other things. You could play with the consequences of that for some interesting characterization on the part of the aggressors. On easy enemies, maybe button mashing still works to a certain degree, even. As for the actual action to take in the moment, I might suggest something like this: Two/three buttons representing different parts of the body being used to resist the aggressor - Say, arms, legs, head - And if you press the right button at the right time, you open up a brief opportunity to do "charge attacks" with said body parts, or maybe even different ones. You could imagine a more difficult encounter involving the girl yanking her head off the guy's cock, and throwing a couple haymakers to actually get away, or kicking him with her feet, and kicking again to get away. Again, easier encounters could be simpler, here. And the challenge here is in interpreting when and where the aggressor's 'grip' on you has weakened, and what opportunity that opens up. This is why it's important, if you use multiple buttons, to have them map to some kind of logic - "Oh, I headbutt this dude now, because that's the opportunity I have". You could even have multiple correct choices for easier enemies, especially tied to upgrades.

And, tie this in to the other mechanics! Please! Have the scene progressing do chunks of clothing damage - The aggressor ripping off the girl's panties to get at her pussy was the moment the player ended on, so they're vulnerable now. Maybe the character's lust meter went up from all the sexin, maybe certain aggressors don't like dey bishes feisty and give up after the woman defends themselves with particular skill. Maybe stunning one aggressor prevents them from joining at a ripe gangbang opportunity, giving you an easier time resisting the other bastard (or more time to enjoy yourself ;p).

And look... Yes. I know the realities of game design. "This sounds expensive," you whinge. "It would need so much art," you wheedle.

Look... Look. The point of hentai games, to me, is the art (and the mechanics tied to that art, obvs). *shrugs* That. Being. Said. Hold up for a moment, because this doesn't need to break the bank. Ready?

All you really need to make this idea work is this: Two frames of animation for each phase in a sex scene. Yes, I know that's not nearly as exciting, but this is minimum, to control scope. You can expand from here. Anyway. Two frames of animation per phase, one frame for a 'moment' and one for 'false moments' (variations in the animation to spice things up and potentially goad the player into acting early). You only need one of each for any given phase, some phases don't even need false moments. Two phases per sex scene, you could get away with that few if you were smart about it, I think. Maybe even one, heck, you don't necessarily NEED phase transitions. But one or two frames for each transition if you do have them. And two sex scenes per enemy type would be just enough to keep things fresh for a bit. Two or three enemy types, you have a very interesting game already, if you're smart about it. That adds up to... Bare mimimum of five unique frames would be just enough for a sex scene, times two sex scenes is 10-11 frames, let's be generous and estimate a minimum of 33 frames of animation for a short, unique, and at LEAST very passable game. Yes, I know, this is just on the one mechanic - But how much else would you really need to make this a thing? If this is the focus, you could practically make THAT your CG count, to a certain degree. 33 CGs. That's totally doable, guys, come on.

Okay, that's my pitch to the developers out there. Now for my pitch to the players.

This idea has so much potential. You could easily have an amazing-looking game with three, maybe four good frames of animation for each phase. This idea does NOT need much to shine. I imagine this with a system that randomly picks from "moments" and "false moments" to break up the normal animation and make things vary just enough to keep it interesting and keep you on your toes, and those "false moments" can be all kinds of hot things - A quick slap on the ass, yank on the hair, push the lady down, grope her boob, go a little harder, and so on. But you could just as easily make a few more sex scenes and have the variations be static, and still have a low CG count. And this is super expandable - More moments means more on the gameplay side, more false moments means more on the sex side, and you could have this apply to all KINDS of different enemies. You could have a couple default sex scenes, have the aggressors skip ahead in the scenes if the heroine is already horny, or already naked, or both, which makes things hotter - And then you can have special sex scenes, like a gangbang with multiple enemies available to do the sexing, various statuses and clothing buffs affecting the scenes and coming from the scenes to affect the combat, and so on and so on.


So... Yeah. I finally ran out of steam. That's my idea. Rip me a new one if you think I'm obsessed, weird, long winded, wrong, or what have you. If I'm missing out on some great games - And I will say I probably am - Point me towards them. I may have played them already, but also like... If I didn't name it already I don't mind hearing about it again. Never hurts.

Bleh. Going to bed now. See you below.

 

[Beatru]

I'm working on something similar to what you describe in my game. But I ended up with each animation having between 60 to 300 frames. It took a lot of time to make them When I have a larger portion of the game finished I want to hire an animator to make more animations that I can add to the framework. It's a lot of hard work. Even just making simple things like picking up a weapon and equipping it, takes tons of coding.

Some of the animations I have are Falling down, Idle while down, initial success, position enemy if fail, several idles while positioned, rip clothes, fail and success anims when player fights back, enemy stunned, a bunch of the actual sex animations, cumming, standing up, enemy stunned after sex (to give the player a chance to stand up).

I want to have something playable by the end of this year!

 

[Beatru]

also, those animation variation things aren't difficult to do and it doesn't have to be a few frames. You can blend the animation into the one that is currently playing from some specific bone in the characters skeleton (so for spanking you would just need to blend the arm of the character that is doing the spanking and then blend whatever is being hit), at least in UE4. I may try this! It sounds like a great idea

 

[stashar]

Kunoichi Botan:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[habisain]

That general idea has been to varying degrees of success. As well as Kunoichi Botan (and probably Red Collar Arena from the same dev, Enokippu), I can easily think of MaidenSnow Eve, Virgin's Protection Magic and the Lily Akos games which have all done things along these general lines, albeit probably a good deal simpler than what you're thinking of.

However I feel like I should point out that the real problem with what you're outlining is code complexity, not expense of art. I suspect that Raredrop's Dreameater would have been exactly what you're looking for, but that game seems like it's abandoned due to the code being far, far too complex to maintain, or at least for the level of most H-game developers (no offense intended, but from what I've seen GameDev in general doesn't have the best programmers, and H-GameDev is quite often driven by artists, who at the risk of stating the obvious, aren't programmers).

Some of the more experimental text-based games do this kind of thing quite well though. Maybe you should have a look at some of the more fringe EraMaker games?

 

[Tenma]

As a player of games, this sounds a bit confusing. I know this is just brainstorming however if you have an idea lay that process out in steps. What sort of battle progression are we talking about, regular gameplay → grapple(?) → struggle system → escape or escalation(?)

 

[stashar]

I think the original poster is just being critical of the lazy female protagonist -> game over rape sequence.

 

[SoulLess Child]

I think the original poster is just being critical of the lazy female protagonist -> game over rape sequence.

That goes with lazy writting in many case, like the overuse of Medieval Fantasy settings.

 

[Funsizelife]

I feel like there's a bit of a cultural barrier that even I will never understand, but I think it contributes to the idea why GoR still exist, why people avoid your ideas of multi-staged sex scenes with a huge range of art.

1) Japs likes their girls pure. So that when they get corrupted, it taste better. Hence why a virgin route is so important to them, and why GoR is still a thing, even though I think they're both absolutely waste of dev time. Your idea of getting progressively closer to rape with each interaction breaks that immersion. It'll definitely have a market, but probably not the Japanese Dev's and consumers first instinct.

2) they have pride in the weirdest things, like, an expansive fantasy world for their porn game. The last time I cared about the world was lilitales, and that's cause the game slowly drip their character's pretty barebone backstory over the game.

3) it'll be lucky if these guys have enough artist to last them even a single game. It may be an industry problem, but I feel like it's just a japanese indie game problem in general, where they won't really reach out to others. Hence, why the game time inflation. Good luck with animation for 2 different phase.

Personally though, I'm mixed with your idea. On one hand, it's great cause corruption points can be applied just for entering into battle. On the other, there's not many reason I should battle at all.

 

[habisain]

1) Japs likes their girls pure. So that when they get corrupted, it taste better. Hence why a virgin route is so important to them, and why GoR is still a thing, even though I think they're both absolutely waste of dev time. Your idea of getting progressively closer to rape with each interaction breaks that immersion. It'll definitely have a market, but probably not the Japanese Dev's and consumers first instinct.

On that specific point, I suspect you're just looking at the wrong games. Virgin routes are certainly not common in H-games in general (as in, for every game with a virgin route on DLSite there's at least ten without). But given what you go onto say in your second point, I think you may just generally be looking at the wrong types of game. Expansive fantasy worlds are pretty important in RPGs in general, as is story and player agency - which brings me back to virgin routes, but I digress. I'd say that in general, if you just want to fap to something (and just to be clear, I'm not saying this is a bad way to approach H-games!), there's certainly a case that HRPGs aren't going to be your cup of tea because they'll put a plot in-between you and the fap material. Incidentally, because I'm on the other side of this divide (I like some plot in my H-games), I tend not to pay too much attention to, say the Action games on DLSite.

And I suspect that getting artists to commit to an adult game is a problem in most places, not just Japan. Which is why a lot of H-games are artist led, which leads into problems with coding complex things. This is probably also why a lot of "expansive fantasy worlds" in H-games aren't really that great - an artist is necessarily a writer, after all.

 

[Tenma]

I don't think there's one Japanese High School where there's 'pure' girls. If you've dipped your toe just slightly into Japanese culture you'd know, they don't advocate for purity in the sense you're thinking of. NTR, that's semi-common because the nobles in feudal japan would sleep around with each other. As for purity about girls nowadays, I don't think there's one Japanese High School where there's an unsheltered girl that hasn't at least given oral or gone the whole way, High school boys; they're expected to get some as well. You can even notice this in anime where all those considered 'men' have had sex and are teased about their inexperience otherwise. Hence why a lot of H-games don't bother to feature a virgin route ending. Japan, sex is normal, still not easily brought up; however sex outside marriage isn't the worst thing.

 

[Tenma]

The issue with that from a story standpoint is that original character is dead in metaphorical, non-literal sense. If a character is raped in anyway, that removes their innocence, their naivety. There's no good ending available, that's why a writer cannot make a good ending for a raped character.

 

[habisain]

The issue with that from a story standpoint is that original character is dead in metaphorical, non-literal sense. If a character is raped in anyway, that removes their innocence, their naivety. There's no good ending available, that's why a writer cannot make a good ending for a raped character.

This assumes that a characters innocence is somehow pertains to the good ending. One of my few issues with Virgin's Protection Magic is that the best endings are needlessly tied to the protagonists virginity. For reference, the best endings are where the protagonist is deemed by her peers to be more competent; chastity doesn't actually enter into it at all. If I had to guess this is actually more to do with content being cut from the game, but eh...

But I digress. It may not be possible for a character to remain the same after a traumatic event, but to say that rape implies a character is narratively dead and cannot have a good ending is not the most compelling of arguments. Characters should change of the course of a story, and innocence and naivety aren't prerequisites for a good ending.

 

[Tenma]

Not narratively dead, however removing a character's virginity; especially violently would fundamentally changes their perspective/view in not a good way. A character can have their virginity removed, however the best case would be the virginity being removed voluntarily by a romantic partner or even an escort if one suspects they may lose their first time violently. Though if a character is too 'pure' to comprehend such a perspective, then the player allowing them to be raped should result in something similar to a game over. If a character is too pure to realize that they maybe raped and are in the end raped, being left broken mentally would leave them unable to continue the game.

 

[super_slicer]

That's a pretty good point. Doubt anyone here would consider it a good end if they got raped.

 

[habisain]

That's a pretty good point. Doubt anyone here would consider it a good end if they got raped.

The implication of what you say is that as far as you're concerned, the story of a rape victim cannot have a good end - that somehow the act of rape means someone is forever damaged and cannot heal. That seems like an incredibly bleak viewpoint. I'm not for one moment entertaining the idea that a rape victim would not suffer, but I do think that traumatic events do not rule out a good ending to a story.

 

[super_slicer]

A bad end isn't the end of the story, it's the end of what the author's willing to write / implement in the game following that result.

But to answer the question: I would literally choose death over being sodomized.

 

[habisain]

A bad end isn't the end of the story, it's the end of what the author's willing to write / implement in the game following that result.

But to answer the question: I would literally choose death over being sodomized.

A bad end is an end for a story. That's literally what an end means, unless you count player interpretation/fanfiction. If it's not an end to the story, then the story is incomplete.

Also just to follow a slightly interesting but perhaps off-topic point about a question which I didn't really ask: You're answering completely the wrong question. A rape victim by definition doesn't get to choose if they get raped, do they? So rather than boldly stating you'd choose death rather than being sodomised, you should really be thinking of answering "If I was sodomised against my will, what would I do then?" I mean, would you consider your life completely over at that point, with suicide the only option, regardless of any other achievements you might have accomplished? The stats says that most people in that sort of situation don't choose that path, at least.

By the same token, most H-games which do track things like virginity do not go rape->bad ending. There's normally some stuff in between, and certainly in games where sex is not the primary part of the story, it seems unnecessary to tie good/bad endings to arbitrary sex stats.

 

[super_slicer]

I worded that poorly, my intent was to say that bad ends aren't necessarily the end of what a character experiences, but the end of what the author relates to the audience. We're all familiar with the term "happily ever after" it's like that, but not good. Also I can't remember what point I was trying to make even though it was only an hour ago.

I already gave you my answer. I gave it because it supersedes your question. There will be no sodomy, as there is always a choice, just because many fools believe it to be the worse of two outcomes does not negate it's existence.

 

[Tenma]

If we're talking multiple endings; as a writer I can't imagine anything other than a net neutral to neutral-good ending. If a game can say, your chooses led to the MC being raped; they lived happily ever after. That requires an asterisk. Happily ever after*. They needed time to heal, to have some form of recovery. Yes, someone can recover from such a traumatic experience; however bearing that wound, that burden, not only affects the MC. Their romantic partners will notice as well and need to pay attention to any issues that might result from such an experience.

It's easier to just write such a prospect off a bad end instead of writing out excruciating details when just writing porn. Otherwise you get torture porn or a sex battle game. As an aside that one thing I've not seen yet. All the sex battle games I've played typically have you controlling the male. I think it'd be a fun divergence to try to battlefuck as the female.