I think it's very easy to create a good game.

[MrSilverLust]

Instead of typing out a 1,000-word essay on why I think you're wrong, I'll just say this: I dare you to make a game. Any game. A tiny, small game, with only 15 minutes of content.

We need an adult game jam

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

We need an adult game jam

Oh god no, please no... Just imagine what kind of abominations people would spawn! Game jams run for like 5-6 weeks on average IIRC - people can't make a finished porn game in 5-10 years, they'd probably never get past the initial loading screen in 5-6 weeks!

 

[Gwedelino]

For many the ones that don't feature the mainstream kink are bad, nothing you can do about it.

Your gay game example wasn't a good choice as example because gay isn't a kink like incest and so on.

No, games that don't feature the mainstream kinks aren't bad, they're simply not appealing to the taste of the main audience. That doesn't mean the game itself is bad, and it's not something that can be perfectly translated in F95.

Or it would mean that every "niche game" is always bad.

And my gay game example work even if gay isn't a kink. Most people doesn't want to see gay scenes in their game, but it's still possible to find gay games with good ratings and support from a small but existing community.

 

[MJB]

Eh, you're both right and wrong, OP.

I agree the bar is lower for games here (the games being free is a pretty huge reason), but that doesn't really mean anything when you're the one trying to make the game. There's a reason so many games are abandoned. It's like going to work, and most weeks you come home without a paycheck.

If you're trying to produce updates for your game every month or two so you can hopefully convince a few people to support you for a few dollars a month, well guess what? Now you have deadlines, people have expectations, and for some reason there's always a few people in your office screaming at you the second you step off the elevator demanding to know why you're dating a girl that's obviously had a boyfriend before, and why you can't just be happy corrupting your sister.

I do sometimes feel the same way OP, when I see some successful developers stop giving a shit because they're making enough money each month to finally buy that new video card for rendering that will look awesome in their new McMansion, but that's like me complaining about Youtubers getting rich. It's a tiny minority. What's impressive are the devs that keep putting out quality updates when they no longer have to.

Now, I get you're really talking about the skill involved in order to make a decent game, but you're ignoring the time sink. It's a huge factor. It takes dedication to finish a game. A lot of people simply can't do it. It's hard work, with no guarantee of any reward.

As for me, I can code and write, but I can't do graphics worth shit and don't want to have to learn an entirely new skill set. I review quite a few games here, and I agree with you that often people can do two out of the three things you mentioned decently enough. Where I disagree is that if one of them is bad, it can completely ruin an otherwise decent game.

Sure, anyone can write... but the problem is a lot of the bad writers end up here. VN game engines like Renpy make it easy for anyone to make a game, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I don't really care about spelling or grammar, or even if the author clearly isn't writing in their native language. All that shit can be fixed easily enough, often by others in the community. What I hate is playing a sex game written by some that I suspect has never actually had sex. Research that shit if you have to. I'm working on a trans game and I'm cis. If my wife or co-workers ever discovered my recent search history, there's going to be a lot of questions...

And admittedly this is a pet peeve of mine, but just the rampant misogyny in so many games that seem to be written by fourteen year old future Republicans. Try going to a bar, walk up to a woman and 'Take a closer look at those milk bags!' before following her into the bathroom so you can 'Look Closer'. Or tell her that the only way she can join your harem is if you can get her pregnant, but she'll have to help babysit your mom's new kid.

"Hey, it's just escapism dude!" Well, at least blatant racism doesn't get accepted as 'escapism' anymore.

Sorry, that got a little ranty, and maybe you also can blame the rise of the MCU movies to explain why so many game protagonists now have super powers they unleash on the world when they unzip their pants... but by far the worst (and most common) thing I see is that the story is just simply boring. This is why God made UnRen, so I can unzip the folders and head straight to the video folder if the renders are worth it. Writing is easy. Writing something decent isn't.

I don't judge graphics as harshly because I don't have a clue on how to do them, but I've played enough games that I recognize most Daz models. And I appreciate that devs want to edit a base model to make it look unique, which is awesome. What I don't understand (at least from the one art class I took in high school) is how I was led to believe that hands were always the hardest thing to get right, when it's clearly the mouth. So many fucked up mouths in games, and there's some unwritten rule that the worse it is, the more close-ups I'm going to see. And are male hair styles expensive? So many bald dudes. Mostly it's the unoriginality in graphics that bug me. Oh, you have twins in the game? Lemme guess... red hair?

But the number one thing that's probably the hardest thing to do well in a game doesn't require either writing or graphic skills. It requires common sense and restraint. There are so many games ruined by needless, horrible gameplay decisions.

When I made my first game, I added in all the things I liked in games:

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sandbox game? I can do that!
Day and Night cycle? Done!
Mini Games? Everyone loves those!
Grinding to build up my stats? Skyrim was awesome!

Then as I started downloading and playing games here, I realized I hated that stuff in VNs. So many games here are ruined by game mechanics that simply don't need to be in the game. Don't make me scum save and try every combination of time and places just so I can finally figure out that my step sister won't talk to me again until I meet her in the laundry room Tuesday morning so I can rescue her from the clutches of a washing machine.

If I have to enable the dev console to give myself enough money to buy my landlady a vibrator that costs $1000, and I make $30 a day, you dun fucked up.

I already wear glasses, don't make me go even more blind by forcing me to hunt down a pixel that needs to be clicked before I can convince my hot college teacher that she should jeopardize her career by giving me a blow job while hiding in the lectern as I give my class report just so someone later can deliver the classic "What a great oral report!" line.

I recently uploaded my renpy save files for someone that lost theirs, and was surprised that I had 230 game files. Then I realized that I probably only finished around 50-75 of them. That's a lot of free games that I simply couldn't bother to finish because one of those three things was bad enough for me to say 'fuck it, I'm out'.


TLDR:
It's easier to make a bad game than a good, or even decent game. Mostly, because it's hard work.

 

[Deleted member 440241]

Gameplay (coding, game design) is perhaps even harder than the writing to be good at because very few devs actually succeed in standing out in this category.

While I agree with most of what you said, I think gameplay is the easiest for an amateur and the hardest for a master. Engines like Renpy and RPGM allow pretty much anyone to provide a game with basic functionality. Standing out isn't necessary for something to be good, so this fundamental ability to run is all a dev really needs. It's only when you try doing something novel that it becomes much more difficult. Creating a new system that both works and is intuitive is incredibly difficult.

 

[woody554]

nah.

 

[xj47]

I think what you said about it being easy but time consuming is kind of flawed. Using that logic making great art is easy, just spend a few thousand hours learning to draw first :^)

You have to be realistic with the resources you have available. "Skill" is kind of like the efficiency with which you spend your resources. If you suck at putting it all together you'd need a unfeasible amount of resources to make the end product good.

 

[kzaazul]

No need to dare me, that's a challenge I'm already working on. This whole thread is kind of my little take as a inexperienced dev.

Moreover, I fully agree about saying that creating a good game require a gargantuan amount of work. What I'm unsure of is if it also requires a gargantuan amount of skill.

To simplify, I currently imagine that creating a good game is like having to fetch water from a well witch is 2 kilometers away from your home 1000 times.

It's something that will require a lot of efforts on a very long span of time, not everybody will even try to make it, but at the end, that's something a lot of people could achieve because the skill level to go fetch that water is kinda low.

I think you are mixing skill and talent a bit. Like, reading your example, it seems like you think it is easy because it is possible with time and effort, even if you don't have inherent talent. In theory, you could be a complete amateur at all skills involved in making a game, and still make it, learning as you go. However, it still requires MASSIVE amounts of time and effort.

 

[frankentank]

I actually think this approach to gaming will be a epic failure but you sound convinced and I really do hope you will prove me wrong. Cant wait to check it out.

 

[Rafster]

I thing that creating a good game is not a question of skills, but more a question of time and ressources, which are in a way, easier to get than skill. (not for everyone, I know)

I think it is both. Skills AND time and resources. You state the case when is a one-man-army and you only have one (or zero) of the 3 main skills (coding-writing-art). You have to start to improve not only the one you have, but since you don't have a team, you have to develop the other skills, and even if that's possible, you'll need a LOT of time, resources, patience, dedication and passion.

I started on November 2020, with ZERO knowledge of anything related to Twine/Sugarcube/JS/HTML to start developing. I am a programmer, but I never touched a line on HTML or Javascript. Writing? I don't write since I was on high school. Art? I can't draw shit, and my PC would explode with Daz, so I took the route of editing images/vids (thing that I know to do) with a text based Real porn game.

Turns out, Took me a year and a half to have what you saw on my game's thread. One useful help I had, was having the discord and F95 users (on the dev thread I had here) giving me constant feedback for months and months. My skills programming, (and writing to some extent. that is my weak point) augmented, but it was an effort, and I don't think everyone is up for that.

So yeah, I don't think it's easy to do a good game, at least if you're a one-man-army dev. Of course, if you get a team, this process is almost instant, the only skill needed is to actually have them working together -And that's a rare skill- .

 

[OsamiWorks]

Turns out, Took me a year and a half to have what you saw on my game's thread. One useful help I had, was having the discord and F95 users (on the dev thread I had here) giving me constant feedback for months and months. My skills programming, (and writing to some extent. that is my weak point) augmented, but it was an effort, and I don't think everyone is up for that.

lol I separate learning skills in my head out in my head into 5 parts, im not sure if this will help people but it helps me simplify the process in my head

The first part is getting the skill to be capable. They are basic to learn, second nature, gut reaction skills that you autopilot through and dont think about. You can immediately develop these skills most of the time but they need to be practiced to maintain. For me that gets broken down like this:

-Experience seeing things functioning and recognizing what is and what isnt valid in practice (symbol drawing in art, syntax errors in code)
-Working repetitions, time spent doing a skill repeatedly


After you have you basic autopilot skills down, you need to start interacting with people, you kinda have to socialize, +get peers to review what youre doing, self reflect, and actively seek improvement. I dont know if any of these skills have this by default. This is mostly adds onto foundational skills:

-An environment with feedback on your work and being willing to take criticism, review your own work based on feedback, and improving if needed (because sometimes people give straight bad advice when they have a different opinion)
-Practicing with specific challenges and goals in mind

After this gets exhausted a bit, you have people who might even look like they are bad at what they are doing at times but they have a lot of variance and freedom to kinda just do whatever they enjoy. This fifth stage is what I think is mastery. Someone who understands it so well that they are just looking for new things to do, they can identify issues in the current accepted process, and push boundaries by freely doing what they want while still maintaining a valid and functional result

 

[khumak]

It's a bit of a daring title, so I need to explain myself first.

I will make a clear difference between quality and popularity, as I think it's way more difficult to make a popular game than to make a good game.

So I'm not talking here about having a ton of followers or having a successfull Patreon, those are things way more difficult to achieve and which additionally depends on many others conditions like reaching popular fetish, being skilled at communication or even having a bit of luck.

I'm simply talking about having a game that looks and feels good for most people. The kind of game which mostly receive very positive reviews and that when people doesn't want to play it, it's more because they're not into the content featured than it's a trash game.

The skillfloor of game making for H games is incredibly low. People don't need to be incredibly skilled in either coding / programing / writing / rendering to make a good game, The audience will often give you a pass about one of the three main pillars of H-game which are Gameplay / Writing / Visuals if the others two are alright.
You only need to focus on two of them to even make a great game and I think it's pretty easy to find good games on F9 that completely miss one of those pillar but succeed at the two others, and this for every possible pattern :

- Good gameplay and visuals but poor writing
- Good gameplay and writing but bad visuals
- Good writing and visuals but poor gameplay


I thing that creating a good game is not a question of skills, but more a question of time and ressources, which are in a way, easier to get than skill. (not for everyone, I know)
As long as people are willing to put time and ressources into the developement of the game, then they will be able to create a good H game, no matter what their game making level is, and this even if it's their very first game.


I'm curious to read what's your opinion about that.

Making a game is hard. The only thing I've actually released is a mod and that took me hundreds of hours of work. A full game would be thousands of hours. I am working on a game now and have already put hundreds of hours into it without being far enough along to do even an initial release. You think it's easy? Prove it. Make one.

 

[nln0]

We need an adult game jam

Oh god no, please no... Just imagine what kind of abominations people would spawn! Game jams run for like 5-6 weeks on average IIRC - people can't make a finished porn game in 5-10 years, they'd probably never get past the initial loading screen in 5-6 weeks!

There is already an adult game jam

You must be registered to see the links

I don't know why it didn't do one this year but it's been going on for 5 years now and it gets 30+ entries

 

[Gwedelino]

This is one of the worst takes.

If you mean it's "easy" to create a porn game, then you might be right. If you actually mean it's easy to create a good game, then the simple observation that the majority of porn games that exist at any moment are objectively bad says otherwise.

All 3 core aspects (writing, visuals, coding) of making a game is skill based. Right off the bat, the vast majority fail immediately at the writing part, in a visual novel. Gameplay (coding, game design) is perhaps even harder than the writing to be good at because very few devs actually succeed in standing out in this category. The renders/art is obviously skill based. There is a vast difference in cinematography between the talented and the average, even when you hand them the same machine/assets.

So you just mean that it's easy to create a game. Your idea of good might basically just be that it runs without crashing, has pictures, and is written in somewhat coherent English.

To be honest your last point isn't far from reality. I think having a "stable" game with visually appealing sex scenes and a well-writen text, even if the scenario isn't outstanding, is enough to drag you some success on F95 and have a game which is considered as "good" by a large enough community.

 

[OsamiWorks]

To be honest your last point isn't far from reality. I think having a "stable" game with visually appealing sex scenes and a well-writen text, even if the scenario isn't outstanding, is enough to drag you some success on F95 and have a game which is considered as "good" by a large enough community.

Out of curiosity, how far have you actually gotten with making your own game in the 3 main disciplines that you mention of coding, art, and writing?

 

[Gwedelino]

Out of curiosity, how far have you actually gotten with making your own game in the 3 main disciplines of coding, art, and writing that you mention?

That's kind of difficult to explain but if you want a quick summarize here you go.

It's been two months I'm working on my game. I will need between 6 and 8 additional months to be able to release a first version of my game as I want to release a polished V1.

The scenario is fully set and I'm doing all the writing. It's 40 % done for now. I think it's my best skill as I have a lot of experience with that. My main drawback is that's the very first time I have to make a complex work in english, but I have a Proofreader to help me out.

My coding is "okay", but mostly because my game is really simple as I took the visual novel route. I think it would be a mistake to go for something really complicated for my very first game.

Regarding graphics I'm really lacking skills. I'm basically doing everything related to UI/UX but everything else is outsourced. This is where I'm using all the money invested into this game.

I hope this quick summarize is what you were waiting for.

 

[Vinyard]

It's literally a full time job on top of your full time job and as others mentioned, you are one person having to constantly learn and improve multiple skills that your project needs.

 

[OsamiWorks]

That's kind of difficult to explain but if you want a quick summarize here you go.

It's been two months I'm working on my game. I will need between 6 and 8 additional months to be able to release a first version of my game as I want to release a polished V1.

The scenario is fully set and I'm doing all the writing. It's 40 % done for now. I think it's my best skill as I have a lot of experience with that. My main drawback is that's the very first time I have to make a complex work in english, but I have a Proofreader to help me out.

My coding is "okay", but mostly because my game is really simple as I took the visual novel route. I think it would be a mistake to go for something really complicated for my very first game.

Regarding graphics I'm really lacking skills. I'm basically doing everything related to UI/UX but everything else is outsourced. This is where I'm using all the money invested into this game.

I hope this quick summarize is what you were waiting for.

As long as youre making an effort I wont be too harsh. Most of us dont have a team and are just one person. What you said opening this thread is something everyone is on the same page with more or less, the problem is that it ignored something we all know, which is only results matters. I broke down how I learn things earlier but i truly believe that until you know what works, you cant execute to get the result you want, which is a "good game" in your case. The ability to know what to do, is the result of a number of projects and failures that were never good enough just to become functional as an individual creator. Actually succeeding is separate iterative process that requires feedback from the market, your peers , and yourself multiple times to specifically know the details required to get there.

I don't really think there is much to say other than dont give up, completing 1 polished game means you beat the average and overcoming it is the most important hurdle in my opinion.

 

[Gwedelino]

I think it is both. Skills AND time and resources. You state the case when is a one-man-army and you only have one (or zero) of the 3 main skills (coding-writing-art). You have to start to improve not only the one you have, but since you don't have a team, you have to develop the other skills, and even if that's possible, you'll need a LOT of time, resources, patience, dedication and passion.

I started on November 2020, with ZERO knowledge of anything related to Twine/Sugarcube/JS/HTML to start developing. I am a programmer, but I never touched a line on HTML or Javascript. Writing? I don't write since I was on high school. Art? I can't draw shit, and my PC would explode with Daz, so I took the route of editing images/vids (thing that I know to do) with a text based Real porn game.

Turns out, Took me a year and a half to have what you saw on my game's thread. One useful help I had, was having the discord and F95 users (on the dev thread I had here) giving me constant feedback for months and months. My skills programming, (and writing to some extent. that is my weak point) augmented, but it was an effort, and I don't think everyone is up for that.

So yeah, I don't think it's easy to do a good game, at least if you're a one-man-army dev. Of course, if you get a team, this process is almost instant, the only skill needed is to actually have them working together -And that's a rare skill- .

Thank you for this message.

Did you reach some point during the development of your game where you were completely or partially stuck without any help ?

 

[Rafster]

Thank you for this message.

Did you reach some point during the development of your game where you were completely or partially stuck without any help ?

Hmmm, nope. But I was close at first, when I was trying to make my "Hello world" project in Twine to even run, I had no idea where to code, write or anything in Twine, and the tutorials in youtube weren't clear enough. I almost discarded the project... but then I got it done, with my very first link . That helloworld screen is now the main screen of my game 1.5 years later.

Oh, and when I realized that doing a sandbox would take me years... but I pressed on anyway. The games that are my inspiration (Young Marcus, Hornstown and Shameless Impority) are sandboxes, so I keep insisting in my project. But doing a dev thread here made a HUGE difference. People here is willing to test and help with the development, even outside the games section (On the programming and Development section) and their constant feedback helped me A LOT.

Also, interacting with other devs helps. Have you seen the game Confidence Man? its creator, Whale_Shark , helped me A LOT with the Ui in my game, thanks to his tips I finally had a decent Ui. Reaching out other fellow HTML devs is great (also Alcahest -The monastery- gave me advice along the way).