Ren'Py Creating a new game, tropes coming up? [incest] among others...

[Studio Errilhl]

So, I'm currently developing a new game called HSS (HighSchool Shenanigans), where incest is definitely part of the plot (but also completely avoidable) - due to Patreons new rules, the game is basically released with "Anne" and "Juliette" instead of "Mom" And "Sis"... which is fine, it's easily rectified if the player wants to.

But! I'm concerned that the incest bit is overdone by now? Would you guys play a game that involves incest, if there are other redeeming factors? Like (hopefully) a well-written story, decent English language, not-so-common art, and so on?

Any other tropes, apart from incest, that should be avoided? The game does not have any kind of mind-control, drugs (apart from common recreational ones) or other far-fetched sci-fi stuff - it's set in the "real world" (although with a few concessions).

I'll post part of the intro-sequence, so you might get a little glimpse into the games beginning:

Hi! I'm Marten, and this is the story of what happens this summer. Did that come out a little stilted? I felt that it did. Oh, well, I'm not that well versed in being a narrator. Hence, I will mostly conduct this in a first-person perspective - you know, "Hi, I'm Marten and you're about to be taken for a wild ride!" That sound good? GREAT!

Now, where were we? Oh, right. Yeah. This summer. You know, the one you're gonna be playing through? So much have happened, I don't even really know where to start. Hmm... Maybe May? Or... no, I think we'll have to go all the way back to April, actually. You see, I was attending my last high-school semester. Grinding away, trying to get my grades up that last bit, all the while trying not to become a total geek. Sorta failing, but I wasn't too worried. I had plans, both for the summer after end of high school, and for the year after. Oh, I was gonna go to college, of course, but I was planning on taking some time off before that, and take a cross-country trip. I'd been working on my bike for over a year, and now it was just a little bit left to do, before I could put on the very last, finishing touches. And, when it got done, I'd be taking it, and myself across the country. I was planning on starting more or less were I've grown up, on the East coast, and just drive - visiting as many states, online friends and aquaintances, landmarks and interesting spots I could possibly manage over the 3-4 months I was planning to spend. That was basically what was on my mind those last couple months of high school. "What to do AFTER high school". I completely failed to take into account what would happen BEFORE I finished...

So, there we are. April 1st, a Saturday, if I'm not mistaken. I'd just woken up, and was on my way downstairs to the kitchen when I heard noises coming from my sisters room. Usually I wouldn't care, but those sounds sounded... muffled. Like she was trying to keep it down, but failing. And I was curious what the hell she was doing. So, I walked up to her door, thinking I would just try to listen in, see if I could figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, spying has never been my strong suit, and the door wasn't closed all the way... so when I leaned against it, I suddenly found myself tumbling into her room. Not very elegantly, mind. Quite ungracefully, in fact. But... that wasn't what was on my mind AT ALL. My sister's room has the bed opposed the door. So right in front of my prone body, on her bed... well, half off her bed, was my sister, naked from the waist down, with most of her right hand buried between her legs, which, mind you, was spread quite wide over the edge of the bed. I couldn't really have had a better viewpoint even if I was sitting right in front of a porn-shoot. Didn't last long, though. About 5 seconds after me landing on her bedroom floor, I got hit with something hard! Then the shouting began, and 10 seconds after that, I was out in the hallway again, with a furious, but still very half-naked sister yelling at me. I'm still amazed that mom didn't show up... THAT would've been embarassing, for both of us. Thankfully, my sister realised what she was doing, and how she looked (partly because I had a raging boner in my boxer's, I guess) - turned on her heel, and went into her room again - this time locking the door. Me... I went to the bathroom and jerked off. Yes, I know she's my sister, and all that, but DAMN.

Okay... that might have been a bit TMI. I'm sorry. I just wanted you to understand what happened. And how that sort of led to... other things that happened as well. During that summer. You know... spring. Summer. End of high-school. The time I had all planned out. The plans that really didn't happen. Like... at all.

And, since I now can actually add a game-link, I'm gonna just post my Patreon-link for now ( I will create a release-thread eventually):

You must be registered to see the links

 

[DSSAlex]

Tropes are tools and not necessarily good or bad. And even shitty tropes could be done well. As far as incest being overdone... it is, except that it's one of the most common fetishes out there.

First of all, I would suggest you make a game you actually want to play. I've seen a few games where it looks good for a couple updates but then the updates get fewer and farther between and with less content. The sense I get from at least a couple of those is the dev didn't come out the gate making thousands immediately and they're a little grossed out by the content they're making.

Next, really think and understand the content of the game you're making. Why does like every F/D game have a sweet innocent and demure daughter and a slutty friend? Why does every B/S game have a bitchy older sister/demure and innocent little sister? And with an overly serious oldest sister for a kicker?

If you reason this stuff out for yourself you'll make better, less cliched content. And you can learn to push those buttons other ways.

And think about what you want out of the game as a whole. Do you want to be King Jerkoff of Porn Mountain? Not a great goal and you probably won't pull it off. If you want a thing that doesn't quite exist to exist that's a little more reasonable.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

Yeah, I don't really have any of those things yet, I think. First of all, I only have one sister, and a mother. I also have a neighbor GF / love-interest that is... well, at least on the surface, quite naive and such... but I plan on taking her in a different direction altogether (though, it will depend a bit on what the MC does).

I am trying to make something I want to play - given that I have to playtest it... quite a bit, it would be horrible not to do that For my own sanity.

I'm currently battling a bit of a grind-problem (since I loop days, there is a bit of a content overlap between them, and some days can be very much alike, at least currently - I hope to add more additional content to pick from during the coming updates).

 

[User_10739]

The only thing I won't play is rpg's & female protag games, it doesn't matter to me if the chick I'm trying to score with is a relative, neighbor, co-worker or whatever as long as the story makes sense. When everybody went nuts and changed their games to take family members out, the games went strangely out of context.

 

[User_215882]

It really depends on the tags. If you want a riot do not include some fetishes like NTR. I don't mind it as long as I can skip it or avoid it, but too many threads go up in a shit storm especially if a dev adds it on. As for corruption, blackmail, or mind control only mind control is getting worn out by the looks of it. So at the end of the day you need to decide the tone. Do you want it to be a feel good game or one that's an emotional rollercoaster. Just do something that you'll enjoy making since, if patreon is your revenue source, you're going to have to make consistent updates or at least meaty ones.

 

[User_215882]

One more thing to think about-grinding. Some games have way too much grinding. Like to the point where you're spending hours just to get to the scenes you want or to progress the story. Some is fine, but don't overdue it.

 

[9thCrux]

Well answering your questions

I would not play your game if it does NOT have an incest option.
I would ignore the game thread and I would never even look at it if you throw NTR/Netori/Netorase in your game, right after giving you a forced one star review (can't go lower than one star) and some nasty comments.
There are many "fetishes" I hate like rape, mind control, blackmail, but as long as I have the choice to avoid them I can stomach through the dialogs to say no to them.

And right, when I say play I also mean support the developer/game.

But it seems more like you don't have a real view of what kind of game you want to make, is more like you're trying to let people know that you will do anything if they pay you for it...

 

[User_215882]

I mean its fine that devs come on this site to get feedback. I mean at the end of the day its nice to make some money off your passion. But as to what you said a good chunk of people here probably would skip a game that cucked the main character even if its to add some story element to the game.

 

[n0b0dy]

Some of my thoughts:

- The biggest flaw in adult games I see is the 'trope' of one-dimentional characters. Many characters in these games only have a few characteristics (slutty, naive, arrogant etc.) and this makes the women extremely boring while they should be the main draw of the game! Us humans are extremely complicated beings, no one is just one thing. This depth makes people interesting and likeable and without it they are just soulless empty shells devoid of any humanness and it is hard to feel any connection to them. So try to place yourself in the characters shoes. Where do they come from? Were there any important events that made them the way they are now? How do they perceive the world and themselves? What are their hopes and what are their fears? What are their strengths and what are their flaws? These kinds of questions could help you create characters you feel a deeper connection with and the player will feel that connection as a result. If you feel insecure about your writing it might be an idea to look for tips on the internet or follow a cursus.

- try to keep the grind to an minimum. I already have to mindlessly repeat boring tasks for my job, please don't make do it in your game.

- I like incest. The taboo creates a tension that can really elevate the scenes for me. If you decide to make an incest game however make sure to differentiate it from the 100+ other games in this genre. This is also true for other tropes.

- The chase is better than the hunt IMO. Sexual content becomes a lot better if you know the context. Don't rush into the adult content but make sure the time and place make sense and there is also enough time spent outside the bedroom.

- Create what you like. This really is the most important thing. Don't listen to others too much, you will never make a game that everyone likes. If you don't create women and situations you find sexy why even bother? There is too much boring porn out there already.

So these are my ramblings about game creation, I hope I didn't go off topic too much and you will find some of these notes helpful. Good luck with your game!

 

[Studio Errilhl]

But it seems more like you don't have a real view of what kind of game you want to make, is more like you're trying to let people know that you will do anything if they pay you for it...

Okay? I'm not entirely sure how you got that impression...? I'm making my game. I have a fairly good grasp of what I want to put in, I have about 20000 lines of story / events to be implemented, and I'm currently developing the characters.

So I'm a little amiss on what or where you found the "I will do anything if you pay for it"...?

For the others that have commented, it seems like incest is a fairly common, but popular trope, and that is good, as a main part, or at least one of the storylines in the game will be about that. But, again, the game will be released, and done on Patreon, which have updated their policies, which again makes it hard to release something with incest directly. As I said, it's very easily rectified, either via a patch, users inputting their own preferred "names", or via console.

As for NTR, that's nowhere to be found (not a fan either), nor is rape gonna be a thing, I think. Not ruling it out completely, but if it's gonna be included, I don't think I'm gonna make the MC do it. Perhaps a potential background-story for an NPC, but nothing more.

As for blackmail and such, that might be used. I find the concept of blackmail a fairly useful concept, and today, with modern technology, getting a hold of someone's dirty secrets are quite easy in many cases. So that might definitely be part of the plot. Currently, however, it is not part of the main storylines, as they exist today.

As I've already stated, no supernatural, or sci-fi events, drugs, oujia-boards or anything of the kind either

 

[User_215882]

Especially with patreon you might just want to not even try blackmail or rape. To see how some people have worked around the patreon tos look at Man of the House. Also with your patreon page a good example would be summertime saga. You wouldn't even know what the game has if it wasn't for the community.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

Agreed. I really hope that the "alternative patreon" site will come up. However, that is a long shot. I still have no idea why they feel the need to censor artistic works. I would of course understand people promoting actual incest, rape or other kinks, but when it's entirely artificial... Sorry, I cannot, for the life of me, understand that point of view.

 

[User_215882]

So far just hiding the content behind patreon only and then being careful with the lingo seems to be working for most people.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Personally I don't care as long as the characters have some depth and the main character have a motivation other than "me wanna seeeeex". I play such games, but mostly because there are actually the majority.

Take

You must be registered to see the links

by example. It's a small and simple game, but with, at least for me, two good points and one bad :
1) The initial intent of the main character isn't to have sex with his future mother in law. Obviously we all play it for this, but it's not how the story begin and you need to reach half game to start having some possibilities.
2) The said mother in law have a background story which give her a reason to be a bitch as well as one to end being a slut.
3) (this is the bad point) like in too many games, there isn't real changes in the dialog and the game isn't really balanced. Whatever she hate you or love you more that your future wife, she will answer the same thing, unless you already had sex with her, in which case she will ask for even more sex.

So for me, give your characters a background and a personality. Balance the progression and try to express it through the dialogs. Oh, and make your characters be more than puppets, they have the right to not be in the mood sometimes and/or not have time for sex right now because they do more in their life than being cumbuckets. I find more pleasure in the need to turn her on some times (not always, don't exaggerate), than I can found making her my bitch in heat.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

I agree with you on that - I personally am not a big fan of continous reiteration of the same dialogue (if there are no new options, remove the ability to use the ones already used, or at least create some random choices so it's not ALWAYS the exact same).

Same sort of goes for the repeated scenes - like some games, where you get someone to a specific stage, and after that, they always do that - like come visit you more or less every night, always let you in to have sex, etc. SOME randomness would be nice. Or, even better, behavior based on how you have treated that person before / during that day / week / whatever, and matching that with that person's personality. No, not every single girl out there is a closet submissive, and not every girl out there will agree to demeaning demands and so on and so forth.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Same sort of goes for the repeated scenes - like some games, where you get someone to a specific stage, and after that, they always do that - like come visit you more or less every night, always let you in to have sex, etc.

OMG yes... And some times there's really just one iteration of the scene. You come to have sex with her for the tenth time of the week and she start with, "er, should we really do this ? I'm not sure that I'm ready to cross this line."

SOME randomness would be nice. Or, even better, behavior based on how you have treated that person before / during that day / week / whatever, and matching that with that person's personality.

At least the randomness. It's not difficult and with just two iterations it's already an improvement of what you can feel playing the game.

No, not every single girl out there is a closet submissive, and not every girl out there will agree to demeaning demands and so on and so forth.

Not only that, but the game also quickly become boring. Where's the pleasure if you already know that she will spread her legs as soon as you'll ask for it ?
Like you implied, too many games actually follow the same scheme. Reach the stage where she agree with a kiss, then a handjob, a bj, and so on. And she will always agree ; the worse case is when you can't have a kiss anymore because she's now ready for more.
I dream of girls with more inconstancy. Alright, she agreed for blowjob, but right now she isn't at all in the mood so, well, a handjob is all she'll agree for this time ; anyway she's not sure that she'll agree for another blowjob, you were really too rough. And here come another part of the game, now that she's corrupted enough to reach the next stage, it's up to you to make her accept it by pleasure and not because she feel that she don't have the choice.
In the same time, you'll have to keep her in a good mood. A lot of games have a buying system, but a game like

You must be registered to see the links

is one of the real few where you need to buy her flower or chocolate time to time, to keep her in a good mood. Why ? It's not difficult to implement and it really improve the game, at least for me.

 

[User_215882]

I have yet to play a game with renpy that had a gallery. What you could do with scene replay is switch the dialogue whenever the player revisits a certain scene. Also if you plan on using a stat system for mood or character enhancements (typical smart, strength, etc) don't overdue it with the keyboard. An example of this is Summertime Saga's strength mini game. Almost fucking broke my space bar before he fixed it.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

Oh, I'm planning to have a stat system, but currently I don't think I'm gonna involve silly minigames to modify them. Mostly there will be random benefits or detriments to stats (the amount, not the cause), based on a formula (where the modifer or chance of specific values changes based on the current stat and so on). There will also be stat changes based on what you chose in specific interactions - again with some randomness involved, so even if you pick something in a dialogue you've picked before, you're not guaranteed the same amount, or even any amount of stat increase. And so on.

As for the progress of the game, I'm hoping to get something in that will manage the "mood" so to speak. Also, I will try to have slightly different types of women - ie, some might like being dominated, others may not, and react accordingly. If the person you're trying to fuck is a submissive, there will be certain acts or traits that will benefit you more, compared to a girl who's just the girl next door, without any obvious submissive kinks... but perhaps a bit of an exhibitionistic streak... and so on. Part of the game will be to try and "get" their kink. Some might have several, some might have none, and some might develop over time, depending on how you treat them and what you do.

I have a fairly ambitious plan, although I'm not sure I will be able to put everything in this specific game. I might have to do another, and another... and so on.

 

[User_215882]

That actually sounds pretty interesting. Good luck with that!

 

[Studio Errilhl]

It's still in very early Alpha, and not all of this is implemented yet. You can keep track, and play the releases from here:

You must be registered to see the links