Re: General H-game design discussion
I cut a lot, but tried to keep the general gist of the post (probably failed).
As far as I can tell, you've kept the main gist of what I said well, and understood the main thrust of what I said well.
There
is something you left out, and I'm not sure if that's because you didn't notice it or not, but I'll refer to it explicitly later on.
*
My issue is your disregard of everything not porn related.
My regard for non-pornographic elements in a porn-game is indeed relatively negligible, and so it will remain, but it is not quite a
disregard.
Comparative disregard, sure.
But while window-dressing is unncessary, good window dressing is better than bad, and if it does not waste too much time or effert, it can indeed also be better than none.
First, it appears that people are trying to break subjectivity out of the discussion and talk objectively about game design. I am not sure how you can do that with porn, which is by nature subjective.
My preferences are subjective of course, as are the preferences of any person or demographic, but the question of how to appeal to those preferences is completely objective, and I maintain everything that I have stated in my post.
That said, I understand your sentiment that if you design a porn game, the focus has to be porn--if not, then it is NOT a porn game. In that light, most of what you say makes sense.
Always good to be on the same page.
While these features may not be the primary focal point of the game (porn), they are still a necessity for game design. Gameplay, story, etc. are what makes these "games," otherwise, you might as well call it a CG gallery and be done with it.
Not so much the story.
H-movies and manga can have those too.
Not so much the character development.
H-movies and manga can have those too.
Now as to the
gameplay:
I suggest that it is the
interactive nature of the gameplay which is the most key element that distinguishes the h-games from porn videos and the like, rather than any other element.
You can pause an H-video, or delay turning the page in an h-manga, but that's about it.
Can't choose positions, can't wander about, can't invite specific participants, can't... do anything but watch.
It's fun, but it ain't that interactive.
Gameplay interaction itself may very well be a non-porn aspect as you suggested, or (as again, for example in touching games)
it may itself be a pornographic element of the game.
I don't actually have too much of a preference between the two,
as long as, in cases where the gameplay is non-pornographic, it
conforms to the criteria that I set out under "focus".
There was at least one guy who seems to have had a preference for battlefuck, (another example of pornographic gameplay) and there was at least one who seems to have had a preference against it.
*shrugs*
Keep your eye on the demographics you want to please, that's up to you.
*And as I said - which you did leave out of the quote - where the gameplay which interposes itself between the player and the porn is flawed from the perspective of the genre of game that is being built (eg, platforming gameplay
in a platformer in which you're supposed to win to see porn, fighting game gameplay in
a fighting game in which you're supposed to WIN in to see porn, etc) then that flawed gameplay
does become a detriment.
Now where the gameplay is both poorly done, and it stands between you and the porn, then it's a detriment.
Take a platformer with a porn reward at the end of the stages, for instance.
A platformer with bad collision detection on the platforms is a failure of a game, and where that gameplay inadequacy interposes itself between the player and the pornography, it's a failure of an H-game as well, and so the poor gameplay has become a detriment.
My regard for it may be comparatively negligible, but I would be the first to acknowledge that if it is sufficiently obstructive of the main content, it becomes a problem.
Simplistic gameplay can, and does, equal poor game design.
My disagreement with that statement is categorical and complete.
There's nothing in the world wrong with the most simplistic gameplay or game design as long as it enhances the central (in this case, pornographic) focus.
Example:
(同人ソフト) [120502] [7thDream] モンスターの肉奴隷 RJ094682.zip
... which is presumably by "7th dream".
...I uh... I hope SOME part of that is the title, I copy-pasted it from the file, and I don't know what is title and what is ... anything else, because I don't know a lick of japanese.
There's a chick, you're a monster with a gang, you beat her up a bit and you and your monsters gangrape her.
You don't have many moves, more like ... a slap and a grab, and that's about it.
She can't effectively fight back, though she makes a token effort.
You cannot lose.
You can add different monsters to different positions by pushing various buttons.
The gameplay is
as simplistic as you can get, and yet it's one of my
favourite h-games.
I wouldn't mind there being more variety, but I mean variety in the porn, and not in the gameplay.
The gameplay is focused, there is interaction, it ties in perfectly with the experience by placing you squarely in control of one of the main actors, (arguably more than one, since you add other monsters with button-pushes...) and from a design standpoint I'd call it near to perfect.
In "
Superbind", (Aka "
ultra binding or "
ulta binding"?) which you can find on this forum by searching, you control some rings and a mechanical tentacle, and by lifting a girl with the rings and arranging the girl on the tentacle you get the tentacle to either make the girl pass out from pain or cum (and... then also pass out) from the pleasure.
You cannot lose.
VERY simple concept, but an enjoyable little game all the same, and one that is completely focused.
I believe that there's room for improvement, but again it's in the pornographic aspect and the chick's reactions, not in the gameplay.
...Well, not in the COMPLEXITY of the gameplay.
If it were easier to move the chick and tentacle around that
would certainly be nice, because being
unable to move them around properly gets directly in the way of enjoying the pornography, but I think that's
probably mainly an issue of getting the hang of the controls.
I'd prefer it if they were somehow easier to use, and to be sure I'd consider it better design if they became easier to use, but once I got accustomed to them I rarely fumbled.
"
Shinobi girl", "
Jungle girl", "
Angel girl" and the rest are popular as well as being
well (though perhaps not
perfectly) designed from my standpoint, and they're ... almost as simple as you could possibly get from a game-design perspective, though arguably not quite so simple as "
Japanese name that I hope I even correctly included in this post" by 7th Dream, above.
Not every game has to have gameplay as simplistic as that 7th Dream one, but games like it, "
Superbind" and "
Shinobi girl" and the rest are my conclusive counterargument to the idea that "simple" is "bad" in terms of gameplay, and I explicitly extend that statement to cover "simplistic" gameplay, which is on the simplest end of simple.
Objectively speaking, they appeal to me and my demographic very well.
If persons exist in an h-game viewing demographic that DO NOT like those games, and yet DO like the fetishes that they involve (gangrape, tentacles, etc) that's their business, but I'm not ACTUALLY sure such persons could conceivably exist.
If they somehow do, they can give you their demographic's perspective, so you'd know how to appeal to them.
I'm not amongst them.
This is not at all an argument
against complexity of gameplay
where that gameplay and its complexity alike assist the focus, but what I'm saying quite categorically is that it is the focus which I consider to be important, infinitely over and above the complexity.
A poorly written story littered with grammatical errors does equal poor game design. The designer should have edited the work or brought in an editor. Those are poor game design decisions, however you look at it.
Grammatical mistakes can certainly make the story less enjoyable,though not as severely as a self-contradictory story, I think, and so I did not mention them.
I'm sure there are other things that can show up in a story so as to make it less enjoyable as window-dressing.
Now, I have nothing against people editing their stories so as to make them grammatically correct, but the significance of that and all their efforts in that regard is to me precisely as I've said - a matter of window-dressing, which can enhance or be detrimental to the main experience, but which is not in itself anywhere near to the be-all and end-all that the porn is.
Apart from fixing a contradictory story, which was a big enough deal to me for me to include it in the original post, I can't currently think of a story-related fix which would make an H-game worth more than a single dollar more in my estimations.
Would I pay one dollar more for PERFECT grammar and editing?
Well yes, certainly, sure I would.
I think it'd be an improvement.
Would an editor allow himself to be hired for a single dollar?
...Well, that's different.
But hey, some'd do it for free.
It's quite possible that you could recoup the editor's fee, or money for the time you spent editing, as a result of improving the story.
It's a balancing exercise.
You cannot please everybody,
Probably LITERALLY true.
but there [do] appear to be some good guidelines to follow.
Seems that way to me too.
I'm sure you'll design your game as you see fit, and if you have regard in that effort for things that I, my demographic, or any other demographic see as irrelevant, that is both your right and your own affair.
Hopefully you'll appeal to enough people to make a decent bit of money, though to be surrre, some of us may eat into yer profits when we fly da jolly rogerrr, matey.
