Why is almost every VN here a nukige?

[fidless]

Haha, Katawa Shoujo is exactly the point. It's not a Japanese VN, it's a western VN written by people who actually read and studied high quality japanese VNs and wrote a free english VN with no money almost 10 years ago. Now with a much larger community and more money still nothing comes close it's bizarre.

In terms of the skin it's just a matter of writing skill. The writing needs to be compelling enough to stand on its own, and if it is then you don't even need sex at all. FSN and others have completely no-sex sfw versions because of the high (enough) quality writing. And one of the stories I mentioned above ever17 isn't an eroge at all. If you need to have sex all the time, it's probably because the writing isn't good enough.

All the reasons (the way how western vn are funded and why they contain so much sex on every corner) were laid out for you by pasunna.
Plus Japanese people are more experience in this type of games and more skillful at writing coherent stories etc. Most western games are made by 1-2 people in their own basement who are new to the scene. You can't compare a medium which basically is new here to Japanese were they honed skills for decades now.
But western scene throughout last few years made a big leap and still evolves.
And to be fair, there are quite a few good VN that mimics the Japanese game style pretty good. Some even don't have sex scenes, but they usually end up in steam and they're not popular here.
Though I have to say, most Japanese VN/, as well as other mediums (anime, manga), are greatly lacking originality. Only a few authors can create something of their own. For example fantasy worlds. Most of them are generic cliche worlds compared to brandon sanderson mistborn series world building or many, many other western authors. You saw one picture of Japanese fantasy world, you saw them all (exaggeration, but not entirely false) That's why I don't really enjoy asian VN myself. Most of them are the same, though the stories are coherent and laid out logically and well, but boring most of the time about same stuff, situations and characters.

Speaking of Western VN with rich story, it literally took me 5 seconds to find a well received VN made by russians called Everlasting Summer.

And to add to the discussion about "nukige", it's the same in Japan. Lots of companies have to relly on sex filled games to fund their endeavors of creating a rich story games. Even famous manga creators had to draw porn to keep financial stability before they hit gold. Nukige sells fast and easy. It's not something unique to western market.

 

[taler]

There is a good point in the lack of 'story before sex' situation in the western market atm.
This current western adult market is only a couple of years old, so it is rather new. (not talking about the old flash games but rather this new style that more resembles the Japanese VN aka the f95 games).
It is still finding it's root. The stereotype for the western adult games is that it is more on the 'silly' side with dildo guns, porn acting dialogues, and is more on the comedy side than on the serious side.
But that slowly changed with games with devs such as DPC and phillygames that showed that there can be different styles.

And when people see success they tend to try to mimic it. Which is good. It evolves the market.
But even among the devs that say they go the heavy story route tend to add heavy sexual action quickly due to fear of the playerbase.
And they're not wrong in their fear. My own game as an example; 99,9% of my negative comments and reviews are due to one thing- lack of sex.
Or as some of them would say "Why so much text? Why no titties?"
This shows that on the western market there are still people having a hard time accepting 'non-nukige' games and that can scare new devs and make them not go for it.
Luckily, those kinds of people are becoming less and less and more games are coming out that dares to go against the stream.
Be a bit patient and you will see a big increase in different styles of games in the western market. It is constantly evolving.

About the Japanese games.
We sadly can't compete. They are companies with talented writers and artists while a guy like me who never wrote a story nor made art suddenly just jumped at it. Smash the keyboard and hopefully, some usable story and dialogues will appear.
But everything needs to start somewhere.

Just started your vn. Already obvious you're a superior writer to most. I hope to respond in more detail to comments tmrw.

 

[somebodynobody]

I think the other reason Katawa Shoujo made sense in holding off the sex is you knew everyone had issues to deal with. Each character was at that place because they were damaged goods. Which lends itself to everything being much slower. Most games nowadays are things in the fantasy realm, sci-fi, college, which can have their own issues. However normally these aren't extremely personal issues about their body or mental health. Maybe in a college one you get a mention of peer pressure or anxiety for a moment, then it vanishes.

 

[taler]

Try The DeLuca Family if it's a great story you are searching, there is some sandbox elements but I am sure you'll love it.
https://f95zone.to/threads/the-deluca-family-v0-05-hopesgaming.15459/

Good rec thanks dude, only been about 2 hours into it so too early to know if the story is good but actually do love it so far.

 

[repuindy]

Good rec thanks dude, only been about 2 hours into it so too early to know if the story is good but actually do love it so far.

I was sure about that, and don't worry the story is really engaging.

 

[Morgoth666]

I've tried looking for a long time and I generally don't see great visual novels that really nails the novels part. My ideal visual novel are stories like Fate/Stay Night and White Album 2 where the sex serves as a wonderful culmination of a rewarding character and plotline. I've read stuff like Dreams of Desire and Depraved Awakening and it really takes me out of it when all the porn talk starts 5 minutes into every conversation and the plot is paper thin.

Another great story it's Light of my Life. Stunning art and storytelling, it's in my top 5 list.
https://f95zone.to/threads/light-of-my-life-ch-2-v0-3-3-naughtyroad.29628/

 

[voldybuff]

Well, Dual family was going for this. The dev was annoyed at all these games where you get to the sex way too soon, instead of building up to it naturally. Or something like that. Hang on I'm just gonna grab the quote.

"Despite there being an endless ocean of adult games with this element, it appears that the majority refuse to depict any believable writing. It is far too common where the characters jump from hugging into sex in a matter of minutes. The dialogue between family members is often crude and sometimes too inconceivable for the player, even when distracted by only having one hand available."

So yeah was the reason I was excited about it. Still am, but the dev has taken way too long between the last update and this one (Over a year, unpaused patreon) and the game is to have 3 or so acts so god knows when he'll manage to finish it. The writing and the renders are great, even if it is incest which I am not exactly a big fan of but if you don't mind that then maybe give it a shot? Just be ready to play a bit of a waiting game.

 

[Babino102]

Sex earn money, that's all.

 

[nillamello]

Coming from a background of Japanese games myself, I tend to agree with the OP (but you definitely came out too strong criticising existing games). But, I mean.... I translated manga for just shy of a decade and did two hgame translations as well. Ricotta soft made some of my favorite games back in the late 2000s, and I think a lot of that has to do with the emotional payoff of culminating a relationship that has been built over a long time (at least a few months... Preferably longer) and then actually continuing as a sexually relationship as you get to know more about your partner. I really liked Sumaga, too (from Nitro+), but that never got even a hint of Western love. That one had a great time travel story. The fact that so many adult games can transition into mainstream anime is a testament to the strength of their storytelling.

Also, what I really miss is the actual game elements that were actually fun to play. Mindless point and click minigames... Ugh.

 

[anne O'nymous]

There is a good point in the lack of 'story before sex' situation in the western market atm.
[...] The stereotype for the western adult games is that it is more on the 'silly' side with dildo guns, porn acting dialogues, and is more on the comedy side than on the serious side.

Isn't this due to the fact that their authors mimicked porn movies and 3D comics, instead of following the path traced by European adult literature and comics ? Therefore, they felt on the stereotype side, except that instead of a plumber and a sexy housewife, they used a college student and his mother. This while they could have felt on the side of story driven sex.
But if you really look at them, there's more interest and more sex in a Von Gotha comics, by example, than in any 3D comics, and in top of that you have a strong story to link all this sex and make the reader imagination thrill even more.

But that slowly changed with games with devs such as DPC and phillygames that showed that there can be different styles.

And if you look at the games rising since one year, there's more and more of them that take the "serious" route. Take WVM by example, since it's the last that appeared. It had sex from the start, the MC will have a full harem of girls to fuck, and still there's a strong story with character that have their own personality. Its writing isn't this good, but isn't bad either. In a way it's the same difference than teen literature and more "adult" (not in the lewd way) one ; the writing don't have the same quality, but it doesn't mean that one is effectively better than the other.

But even among the devs that say they go the heavy story route tend to add heavy sexual action quickly due to fear of the playerbase.
And they're not wrong in their fear. My own game as an example; 99,9% of my negative comments and reviews are due to one thing- lack of sex.

From my point of view, it's due to the fact that the community is the union of two bases. There's those who come for the "game" part, and so expect a story or a game play, before anything else. And there's those who come for the "adult" part, and expect sex ; those ones probably coming to game because of the saturation of the porn movie market. The thrill was always low with movies, but now with pornhub and others, it's just a bunch of sex scenes and nothing else ; games at least still have a semblance of story and so are a little more enjoyable than pure movies.

Or as some of them would say "Why so much text? Why no titties?"

Wait, are you saying that no one bashed you because you made them cry (no need to say with which scene) while they had their hand on their dick ?

This shows that on the western market there are still people having a hard time accepting 'non-nukige' games and that can scare new devs and make them not go for it.

Should they really fear this ?
Two years ago, the top games were Dating my Daughter and Big Brother, which were far to be a fuck feast. While one suffered from Patreon, and the other from its author, Summertime Saga, was also a top game, and still is nowadays. Yet once again it's far to be a fuck feast.
Among them only the first is effectively driven by its story, the two others rely more on their game play, but isn't this the proof that there's no need to fear the public ?
It doesn't mean that fuck feast don't have a public, but how many of them really make it to the top ? They have their base, some are successful, but they still stand far behind the successful games that don't rely only on sex.

About the Japanese games.
We sadly can't compete. They are companies with talented writers and artists [...]

All of them being led by a scenarist.
They also have a way longer history than the Western scene and many of the actual studio started in the 80's/90's as manga studio, or were started by someone who worked for one of those studio. This while, despite their success, the European adult creators always were relatively confidential, and never tried to put a foot on the game market. It's porn movie studios that did it, and therefore influenced the Western scene, leading to false assertion for both the future (at this time) creators and the players.
Also come in account the fact that US production, which is porn driven way more than story driven, are natively in English, and therefore reach a bigger market than European creations that, for its biggest part, need to be translated first. And strangely, there's less people ready to do this translation, than there's for the Japanese to English one.

 

[taler]

I was sure about that, and don't worry the story is really engaging.

Read DeLuca Family (.05), actually soon after this thread was first started so about 3 months ago. Never got around to posting my impressions. Suffice to say I love it story wise, kinda hate the gameplay despite cheats. But I'll ignore that for now and just talk about the story.

DeLuca Family to me feels surprisingly anime tropes humor-wise despite the western art/writer/setting and it's pretty decent length already. There's no porn yet, which is totally fine. However I don't want people to get the wrong impression of what I'm talking about, making a dichotomy of nukiges and games with very sparse sex. If DeLuca family had sex already this far into the story it would've worked just as well imo so long as the sex makes sense. For example he could've been getting it from someone at school or another servant girl or something.

But yes basically the major difference between japanese and western visual novels is that western teams are led by essentially pornographers and all that entails while japanese teams are led by novelists. That's the crux of the issue, how do we get this industry more writer dominated instead of wanker dominated. I would love to see more novels like DeLuca Family out there. Keep up the great work HopesGaming

Another great story it's Light of my Life. Stunning art and storytelling, it's in my top 5 list.
https://f95zone.to/threads/light-of-my-life-ch-2-v0-3-3-naughtyroad.29628/

Will try this too thanks for the rec.

Well, Dual family was going for this. The dev was annoyed at all these games where you get to the sex way too soon, instead of building up to it naturally. Or something like that. Hang on I'm just gonna grab the quote.



So yeah was the reason I was excited about it. Still am, but the dev has taken way too long between the last update and this one (Over a year, unpaused patreon) and the game is to have 3 or so acts so god knows when he'll manage to finish it. The writing and the renders are great, even if it is incest which I am not exactly a big fan of but if you don't mind that then maybe give it a shot? Just be ready to play a bit of a waiting game.

Thanks for the rec again. Keep these coming

 

[Aeggy]

On depraved: Paper thin is sort of an exaggeration but it's still nukige tier, like Euphoria or Bible Black.

I know this thread is really old but I just want to comment on how frustrating it was to me to imply that Euphoria has a shit story because it's a nukige

Euphoria has one of the best plots of any visual novel

 

[woody554]

I totally agree with the nukige criticism, but it seems like most people in this thread are confusing the problem of nukige with plot. what makes the game nukige is early and plentiful sex. it has nothing to do with how good or original the plot was. the plot rarely matters in nukige, but it wouldn't be any different with great plot. (might even be worse because of distracting from sex). if you take war and peace and add a sex scene on the first page, and then more every couple of pages. it's a nukige. even if you touch none of the plot. nobody will care what happens before next sex scene in a nukige.

and yes filling war and peace with sex would totally ruin it. but what's important to understand is that the plot or character depth would not save it. it's irrelevant to the problem of early sex. so when people make these widely accepted claims that their 'classy' game with original plot and deep characters are somehow inherently superior to basic genre settings, even though they have loose women giving it up early, they are utterly and absolutely wrong. whether their game makes it or not has nothing to do with that. (and lets face it, their 'high brow' efforts almost never interest more than a small but fanatic following).

the real issue here is tension. building tension, keeping it up, and solving the impossible task of how to continue after you just ruined all tension. tension is what people physiologically respond to. that's what makes plots work, that's what makes characters work, that's what makes scenes work, that's what makes dialogue work.

and the problem with sex is that it's the nuclear weapon of tension relievers. so when you put sex into the first minutes, you're forced to start from zero right after it. and to make it worse you also ruined that character because now it has nowhere to go. so when you fill the story with sex and even worse, easily achieved sex, everything else will fall flat. your story won't matter, it'll be just something to skim through until the next image of tits and ass. doesn't matter how well you write.

and THIS is why all the hated cliches like grinding, sex ladders, bad endings, disabled scrollbacks and content gating exist. to stop your tension from falling flat on its face on page one. to keep the audience waiting for more. to hint that there's more to come. create anticipation. create frustration.

and this is why the most basic generic incest house setting with russian grind ALWAYS gets more audience than an 'original story' with 'deep characters' that lacks those hated cliche mechanisms. every time. it seems you can't make a genre incest house badly enough for it to not beat hands down ANY 'story-driven original story' with early sex. it just never happens. because the one with russian grind and sex ladder is the only one who regulates its tension building correctly.

now this doesn't mean you HAVE to have repeatable grind or sex ladder implemented, but you MUST implement the same delaying of gratification in SOME way. your tension must increase over time on average, and the new peak must surpass the previous one. if you don't have a mechanism forcing it, you must implement it in writing. (and ffs don't write a random dream sex scene with the main character early in the game).

there is no reason you can't even join these two approaches that are often seen as mutually exclusive. look at light of my life. the setting is one of the most cliched incest house settings, only this time mom is dead instead of dad. younger sister is the cliche sweet and ignorant of sex up to retardation, and the older sister is equally cliche angry hostile big sister. people should absolutely hate this.

but people LOOOVE it. they can't get enough of it. even the people hating the looks of the girls fall in love with them in 15 minutes flat. people even think these absolutely generic incest tropes are 'deep characters'. they strongly believe it has a 'deep story' and will fight you if you claim otherwise. this story where mom is dead and MC fondles and massages the girls until they want to suck his cock. (haven't checked it for a while, don't know if anyone is getting sucked yet, but clearly that's where it's going.)

it has none of those hated gating mechanics, but they're written into the story as the slow gradual progression. it takes ages getting to any action, which could just as well be grind. it's not like you're using that time in deep conversations, it's all very mundane chit chat. so it's a grind, just not repeatable one. also the sex is clearly gonna advance through a ladder. AND IT'S ALL WORKING GREAT! it's one of the best most polished VN we've seen yet, despite using every cliche in the book.

because the cliches work. avoiding early sex works. ladder works. frustrating audience with empty chit chat works. it didn't require a great plot, it didn't require deep characters, it didn't require supermodel looks with impossibly hot bodies, it just required AVOIDING EARLY SEX. which keeps up the tension.

avoid nukige, save the pervs.

 

[taler]

I totally agree with the nukige criticism, but it seems like most people in this thread are confusing the problem of nukige with plot. what makes the game nukige is early and plentiful sex. it has nothing to do with how good or original the plot was. the plot rarely matters in nukige, but it wouldn't be any different with great plot. (might even be worse because of distracting from sex). if you take war and peace and add a sex scene on the first page, and then more every couple of pages. it's a nukige. even if you touch none of the plot. nobody will care what happens before next sex scene in a nukige.

and yes filling war and peace with sex would totally ruin it. but what's important to understand is that the plot or character depth would not save it. it's irrelevant to the problem of early sex. so when people make these widely accepted claims that their 'classy' game with original plot and deep characters are somehow inherently superior to basic genre settings, even though they have loose women giving it up early, they are utterly and absolutely wrong. whether their game makes it or not has nothing to do with that. (and lets face it, their 'high brow' efforts almost never interest more than a small but fanatic following).

the real issue here is tension. building tension, keeping it up, and solving the impossible task of how to continue after you just ruined all tension. tension is what people physiologically respond to. that's what makes plots work, that's what makes characters work, that's what makes scenes work, that's what makes dialogue work.

and the problem with sex is that it's the nuclear weapon of tension relievers. so when you put sex into the first minutes, you're forced to start from zero right after it. and to make it worse you also ruined that character because now it has nowhere to go. so when you fill the story with sex and even worse, easily achieved sex, everything else will fall flat. your story won't matter, it'll be just something to skim through until the next image of tits and ass. doesn't matter how well you write.

and THIS is why all the hated cliches like grinding, sex ladders, bad endings, disabled scrollbacks and content gating exist. to stop your tension from falling flat on its face on page one. to keep the audience waiting for more. to hint that there's more to come. create anticipation. create frustration.

and this is why the most basic generic incest house setting with russian grind ALWAYS gets more audience than an 'original story' with 'deep characters' that lacks those hated cliche mechanisms. every time. it seems you can't make a genre incest house badly enough for it to not beat hands down ANY 'story-driven original story' with early sex. it just never happens. because the one with russian grind and sex ladder is the only one who regulates its tension building correctly.

now this doesn't mean you HAVE to have repeatable grind or sex ladder implemented, but you MUST implement the same delaying of gratification in SOME way. your tension must increase over time on average, and the new peak must surpass the previous one. if you don't have a mechanism forcing it, you must implement it in writing. (and ffs don't write a random dream sex scene with the main character early in the game).

there is no reason you can't even join these two approaches that are often seen as mutually exclusive. look at light of my life. the setting is one of the most cliched incest house settings, only this time mom is dead instead of dad. younger sister is the cliche sweet and ignorant of sex up to retardation, and the older sister is equally cliche angry hostile big sister. people should absolutely hate this.

but people LOOOVE it. they can't get enough of it. even the people hating the looks of the girls fall in love with them in 15 minutes flat. people even think these absolutely generic incest tropes are 'deep characters'. they strongly believe it has a 'deep story' and will fight you if you claim otherwise. this story where mom is dead and MC fondles and massages the girls until they want to suck his cock. (haven't checked it for a while, don't know if anyone is getting sucked yet, but clearly that's where it's going.)

it has none of those hated gating mechanics, but they're written into the story as the slow gradual progression. it takes ages getting to any action, which could just as well be grind. it's not like you're using that time in deep conversations, it's all very mundane chit chat. so it's a grind, just not repeatable one. also the sex is clearly gonna advance through a ladder. AND IT'S ALL WORKING GREAT! it's one of the best most polished VN we've seen yet, despite using every cliche in the book.

because the cliches work. avoiding early sex works. ladder works. frustrating audience with empty chit chat works. it didn't require a great plot, it didn't require deep characters, it didn't require supermodel looks with impossibly hot bodies, it just required AVOIDING EARLY SEX. which keeps up the tension.

avoid nukige, save the pervs.

War and peace with loads of sex is game of thrones and it's not a nukige. Notice how I didn't say anything about Light of my Life despite the recommendation. The sex ladder is even worse and less realistic than the promiscuity of other stories. It shouldn't be a sex ladder more of an affection ladder.

 

[Droid Productions]

You could try Love of Magic. Erotic VN / RPG with a card based combat system. I'd say the two key touch-stones are Persona 4/5 and the Dresden Files; Urban epic fantasy with some romance and some porn.

 

[TankyThomas]

no... I'm not talk about good story
I'm talk about long story(long progress good or bad is subjective)
in japan there are culture like porn Vn with long story can sale on public for a decade
there are fandom festival market etc

but in western you can't see that
now the dev here rely on patreon or subscripstar
and other that see it is not worth to do it
because you can't sale it public
no money no deal?
do you ever work for free?
if your boss let you do something for free are you willing to do it?
it is the same for dev

the western dev with long story in mind mostly do not have motivated to jump in porn Vn business
because it has low opportunity to success
unlike the dev that like nukige style
it's easy sale so it's a win win situation
they can work with what they like and it sells well

not just do a load work job
to got some few user praise oh this is a good Vn bla bla bla for free
They just keep their project bury in their mind
and go live a life do day job
safe spare time to go travel or other hobby instead

like most of user in this forum
they had some game in mind they want to make
some game style story that they very like
but... I'm lazy/poor/busy/lack of skill bla bla bla
so I go out shout about what I want instead
and the worst is go and say bad thing on what I don't like that already created
because hell it's not my cup of tea so it's not good
it deserved to destroy...

and I can say dev for Vn with long story exist
but less of them finish it enough to be public
you are the fan of those type of Vn
so I think you already think about how hard and time-consuming for it to be made?
you can't public a long progress story porn Vn with one chapter
because it doesn't matter at all for the audience(to support them)
and after bury them self to work on 2-3 chapter
with massive of art work story gameplay
their souls is exhaust
They think about why are they do this to them self? To their family?
What the point of these work load if it's not makes money
so... they end up quit it
and it is never go public...

exactly! I think this can be a good topic for an article. The different ways of Japan and Western developers making money have profound impact on what they stress in their products.

 

[fidless]

Nukige is the best earner in both west and east. Making a regular VN with the story as the main subject is a big financial risk. It must be something special.
Game with average story won't sell well and put a company in risk.
Many circles have a long history of nukige as it's more guarantee revenue. Some try to release a story game once they have a better financial support. I think it's more about respect, honor. Releasing a good story VN may not be the safest route, but if its success, it elevetes the company above others. Something I read about the culture of Japan nsfw game making.
Though Patreon based games lives off of clicks and sex is what makes people click.
Imagine the outrage if the game fails to deliver sex scene in its monthly release schedule.

 

[K.T.L.]

avoiding early sex works. ladder works. frustrating audience with empty chit chat works

Does it really? Sounds like a high risk strategy to me. Bit like playing hard to get. Fine till the one you really want walks out of the door in frustration and goes out with your (now ex) best friend instead.

 

[TankyThomas]

To elaborate a little:
In Japan, a well-written H-game can be redesigned to be anime / comic / light novel / other goods etc, so they can expect a good pay from a game series that have a good name. "Fate" is one of the best example. JP writers have a good reason to keep their stories interesting and not solely relied on sex, so that the story will have a larger chance to be animated.

However, in western world, adult games are completely cut off from movies / TV shows. The developers can only rely on their patrons, and most of them love sex. That's why visual novels are much less popular here.

Also, Japan has a long tradition in making visual novels. Even flash games do have a plot.

 

[fidless]

To elaborate a little:
In Japan, a well-written H-game can be redesigned to be anime / comic / light novel / other goods etc, so they can expect a good pay from a game series that have a good name. "Fate" is one of the best example. JP writers have a good reason to keep their stories interesting and not solely relied on sex, so that the story will have a larger chance to be animated.

However, in the western world, adult games are completely cut off from movies / TV shows. The developers can only rely on their patrons, and most of them love sex. That's why visual novels are much less popular here.

Also, Japan has a long tradition of making visual novels. Even flash games do have a plot.

You're right. That's a good observation.