What makes a game GREAT in your opinion...

[fitgirlbestgirl]

good still images are much better than unnatural robot people animations.

I have seen some games that literally just take two renders and kind of "morph" back and forth between them for a minute straight and call that an animation. I struggle to understand how anybody finds that appealing. If you can't do animation, don't do it half-assed, just concentrate on good renders and good writing instead.

 

[polywog]

I have seen some games that literally just take two renders and kind of "morph" back and forth between them for a minute straight and call that an animation. I struggle to understand how anybody finds that appealing. If you can't do animation, don't do it half-assed, just concentrate on good renders and good writing instead.

Back many years ago there were some games that simulated sex by undulating an image of a single pose frame.

If I remember correctly the process was called Leonization. The developer does much much better work today.

 

[MilesKiyaAnny]

My kind of game

Story

Can be incest and how they develop their relation and same to normal couple or perhaps mystery??
The main character rise up from dirt to gold and get what he/she deserve
Happy ending no cheater but love triangle
But most improtent How the story are presented..is it interesting? or too meh way too normal? How to make player attract to story telling time?
and also story is the foundation of everything so if this mess up...

Gameplay

- Something that make player feel rewerded...if the game is not visual novel which I too tired to read everything
- Beating monster style or go run and gun maybe? well no one ever make this one with great story..maybe?
- Survival due to I am gamer myself I prefer survival game where you have to work for survive through out the day..maybe harsh but rewerd must be quite rewerded
- Sex If you somehow turn human sexual desire to video game you may have to make it more creative. I do not know how you or someone know how to do it but it can be fun and challenge if you done it right
- Not try to make the player rage
- Not do same stuff over and over again without interesting and fun game mechanic
- mechanic that not annoying player like 2 minute in and hungry again BUT you could turn annoying mechanic against player in form of boss or enemy or greater that player don't have to face them again after beaten
- Balance between level..there is reason why golden armor knight not gone on forest just to hunt some wolf unless to gather resource for something else that better than his own equipment

Character desigh

- There is reason why some plant manage to grow in desert and some can't. It the same to people. People are not the same
- How do you present each character...this one is super hard I think whoever reading this can figure out yourself
- Character and how they relate to Story. With the help of story desigh...someone who you somehow feel attract to back stab you in the back and make you rage. If the game can make you feel this way then the game probably accomplished both their story desigh and character desigh to suit your liking

Art

- I playing video game not reading book so no picture no chracter then I guess no me playing
- I dislike 3D but not hate....it just need to done right
- I perfer cartoony if drawing style like combind both Japan and western and done it right..YEAH
- With the help of story desigh this could turn whole game around

This is my kind of game BUT mostly you have no idea what game story like until you play it yourself if you not watch any spoiler
so in the end. It very hard say what kind of game you or I like because even stuff I tell you here I may not even interest in at all because another feature of the game keep me interest that I look over bad stuff in game unless my bad stuff is so obvious and already have so much hate on then I dify not gonna playing to the end of the game

so basically. Play first so you know does it suit to your liking or not if you are not game developer

 

[ppoooors]

I'm here mostly for reading other replies but I've noticed a very interesting fact, and that is:
a game that has extraordinary renders + worst story you can possibly think of = 100% Success (Example: Milfy City)
a game that has normal renders + a unique and original story = %50 Success, depending on the gameplay, presentation, etc.

So basically, and apparently, if the renders in a game are really really good, I think people seem to forget about everything else!
Does anyone agree with this, or do I have it wrong?

 

[polywog]

Football fans describe themselves as the 'twelfth man' — as essential to the success of the team as the players and coaching staff. It is the actions performed by fans during the game — the ritual chants, songs, banner waving, etc. — that motivates the team, intimidates the opposition players and perhaps even influences referees' decisions. The fans truly believe they must attend the game to 'help the team to win', not just to observe the event.

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[TCMS]

Nothing makes a game great, life is just pain and games are just a way to forget about it for a while.

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[polywog]

Nothing makes a game great, life is just pain and games are just a way to forget about it for a while.

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[frap]

I'm here mostly for reading other replies but I've noticed a very interesting fact, and that is:
a game that has extraordinary renders + worst story you can possibly think of = 100% Success (Example: Milfy City)
a game that has normal renders + a unique and original story = %50 Success, depending on the gameplay, presentation, etc.

So basically, and apparently, if the renders in a game are really really good, I think people seem to forget about everything else!
Does anyone agree with this, or do I have it wrong?

That may well be the case for a large sub-set of the people here. I, however, am not one of them. If I want sexy pictures and don't care about the story I might as well watch porn. After all, it's photo-real and has some of the worst stories you can dream up.

For me the writing is the prime motivation. I want a story that's worth following. By the same token, the best effects and camera work around won't keep me watching a show where I can't get invested in the story. I have sat through horrible effects and sub-par acting to follow shows where the story hooked me, however. (Bab5 anyone?)

So I would fall into the group of people where a game with (as you put it) "really really good" writing allows me to forget about everything else. Janky UI? Well, shit, the story's so good I need to see where it goes. Uninspired and/or poor renders? Same thing. Annoying music? Mute it and continue on.

As an example from AAA games: I don't really like FPS games "on rails," I prefer open-world shooters. That said, the stories in the Bioshock series had me coming back and replaying them many times. The story arc in the one Tomb Raider I tried, however, had me deleting the game before I finished one playthrough. (Don't hate me, the concept is cool, maybe some of the other games had a better story. I can't even be arsed to remember which one it was, if that tells you how much impact it had.)

 

[obibobi]

Tits the size of basketballs. (or bigger)

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

For me the writing is the prime motivation. I want a story that's worth following. By the same token, the best effects and camera work around won't keep me watching a show where I can't get invested in the story. I have sat through horrible effects and sub-par acting to follow shows where the story hooked me, however. (Bab5 anyone?)

Yes, writing makes or breaks games. But good art is what gets a lot of people into the door. Unless you are catering to a niche kink, then you can count on people being desperate enough for content that they won't care about your shitty Sims 2 art.

The story arc in the one Tomb Raider I tried, however, had me deleting the game before I finished one playthrough. (Don't hate me, the concept is cool, maybe some of the other games had a better story. I can't even be arsed to remember which one it was, if that tells you how much impact it had.)

Well fuck you, I liked the new Tomb Raider games. Also without them we wouldn't have Animo Pron's delightful animations of Lara getting fucked by a horse. So really, you are wrong on all accounts.

 

[polywog]

What if there was a game that played itself? All the NPCs went about their daily routines. Your in-game girlfriend sends you nekkid selfies (to your phone) while you're at work not even playing the game. Telling you that she misses you.

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You text her back telling her that she looks hot, and you can't wait to get home.
or you message her telling her that you have to work late, and she replies later with a pic of her dildo having all the fun you're missing out on.

Great games raise the bar.

Graphics don't matter as much as "action" if there's action, fans will forgive bad graphics.

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Every great game has an antagonist. Doesn't have to be NTR, the antagonist can be your own self-conscience. (Dating my Daughter) Big Brother had Eric. Eric wasn't a threat, his penis was smaller than the MC. You could choose to make Eric an ally, or an enemy, but the real enemy in the game was your self esteem.

Fans immerse themselves in a game. Like @TCMS said, games are an escape from reality, temporarily. A chance to live vicariously through a game character. Football fanatics feel like they scored the TD, they feel like they are on the team, and they want their team to beat the antagonist. Football is the male version of romance novels.

A fantasy (not reality) like @frap said "If I want sexy pictures and don't care about the story I might as well watch porn."
Realistic people isn't the goal, you can't compete with photorealism of real life, not without a huge budget. 2D and 3D games excel in the unreal... monsters, elves, super abilities that you can't do in real life. "In this game you can get a girlfriend"<not a game. anyone can do that IRL. futa girlfriend, yes. superhero girlfriend, yes plain old girlfriend, go watch porn

NTR and getting cucked may be someone's fantasy, but it's mostly someone's visual novel written about their life and what happened to them. Some people enjoy living other people's experiences, good or bad, whatever it is, is better than their pathetic real life, like people who cut themselves to feel something. Some enjoy the competition of NTR but hate when their team loses. Others like NTR because of authenticity, women are sluts as much as men, so there's a sense of realism in both sided cheating, as opposed to reality where men are called dogs, but women are secretly bitches. NTR is a niche, it will never make a great game in terms of number of fans. Players usually don't like to lose. A grindy game isn't going to win you game of the year either.

Fetish tags, are also niches. More people hate fetishes than there are people who like them, literally the definition of taboo.
Trying to be edgy and adding 10 fetishes will kill your game. The church is collapsing today, because religious leaders refuse to update their bibles. It was ok for King James to do a revised edition, but Bible v.3 is unacceptable. You are the Creator of your game, you are god over your game universe, not the fans. You can choose to be merciless, or forgiving. Stick with your vision of how your universe unfolds. If fans stop showing up, evolve, or destroy the universe, the choice is yours.

 

[ZZ23]

When it comes to VN, story and visuals are equally important and are depended on each other to tell the story.
Now what makes game great is how it uses that to make us invested in story. because unlike written
imagination is not left on us it is shown.

 

[swiezak1988]

Sorry, I didn't fit in 5 points, but I think that all 6 are very important.

• Playable for hours - doesn't have to be completed, but if I'll enjoy it for hours without bugs or crashes, it will be marvellous (and if it is really good, I'd play it later again, even if saves will be uncompatible with newer version),
• Creative - vanilla stuff is boring, surprise a player with something new or unpredictable
  • Example 1: Witch Trainer
    Spoiler: Cum soaked panties event

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• Change/progression of repeatable content - basically I like the game more if some actions, scenes repeats and in case of corruption games, subject is willing to do more and more (and scene allows more and more lewd scenarios progressively)
  • Example 1: Witch Trainer (read example from "Creative" part above)
• Good mechanics - make content appear at the right time and make player aware of potential content to play:
  • Example one: You corrupt subject (girl) to do a handjob to her bf. That adds +1 to corruption. Then you grind that a lot. Corruption reaches 100. Now you suddenly see that she is willing to do bj, missionary, doggy, dp, threesome, 50 guys gangbang and pretty much everything else. In case of games it was never that bad, but some of them were failing to some degree of this extreme example. Solution? Cap the progression, so you will not go above certain level with some act.
  • Example two: I play a game, repeat some scene, raising corruption of my character and I have no bloody idea if my grind of stat from 300 to 350 or 400 will give me a progress and new scene. It worked when I reached 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 250 and 300. But game didn't give me any single clue if there is any content ahead - that's wrong!. That's frustrating.
• Accurate level of detail - estimate your creative power against the complexity of the game. Many semi text-based with PC avatar are more playable than games done in full, GTA-style 3D (or games that have 3D animations where pictures would be enough). Also some over-complicated mechanics can kill the game, because not a lot of people will waste a lot of time to see five bj or sex pics. I see in such cases that development of the game becomes super slow and that's always a bad symptom.
• Don't over-complicate the gameplay - this is a porn game and it's purpose is pretty simple. Don't mix in your child life dreams of developing your own Heroes of Might and Magic / Baldur's Gate / The Elder Scrolls / any button mashing arcade game etc. I strictly refer to complexity or difficulty. Porn games requiring a lot of focus or both hands on keyboard are mistake. Choice-based version of <whatever most frustrating game you know> is also wrong. I have recently played some game where I got a game over caused by series of choices that apparently were spanning over 2-3 hours of gameplay. Game ended up in trash.

 

[FoxLust]

It alls depends on personals preferences but i would say

1. Lots of features
2. Easy to understand how the games works
3. Modding support or just be able to mod the game (make it fun to play and add a extra things to do with the game)
4. The developpers keep the game alive and make good updates.

 

[Mark17]

5 points:

- Great graphics: the CG or drawings should be great, I should feel lust, horny
- Great story: story with good dialogs and good exposition but not boring stuff because I want play a porn game not read Pulitzer award story
- NO BUG: for obvious reason
- Memorable characters: characters believable and good looking
- Preference no RPGM game

 

[Avaron1974]

1. Story. It's the main reason I play these things. It's a bit of interactive fiction with more depth than just watching porn. I'm not interested in fuck fests, I have my girlfriend or pornhub for those. I need an engaging story with some adult content.

2. Characters. Goes hand in hand with the story really. The story is used to build the characters and the characters in turn build the story. If one is bad then chances are so is the other.

3. Varied choices for love interests. I mainly play date sims or romance VN's so it's more a personal thing. I'll use an example here with Being a DIK. The game itself is great but the choices of LI don't interest me. For me they are all look samey, 2 even have the same hairstyle. The more interesting tattoo'd, punk looking girls are side characters or prostitutes. Then take games like Allison Fall of the Apple where you have a couple of typical pretty girls but then you have Mel who's tall and toned, Allison with all that ass and Shadow who's a goth plus other characters coming up. Personal Trainer has a couple of typical pretty girls then you have the older grandma, the middle aged milf and Jenna with muscles like a goddess. Point is, variety is the spice of life. A group of typical pretty girls aint variety.

4. Updates. I don't normally mind about update length. A lot of those I play have multiple paths so I expect shorter updates to accommodate all paths. What I don't like is when a game has very little in the way of choices yet still only comes out with 10 minutes of content for a months work. I'd rather a dev say "i've not got much spare time so i'll hold off this update for a couple of months to make it better and worth your time downloading" rather than shit out 10 minutes of clicking to try and squeeze those patron bucks out.

5. Renders and animation quality. I'll say it now and i'll say it emphatically, I fucking hate those stop frame loop animations. It looks like 2 half dead salmon flopping around together in a dark room with a strobe light flaring up like a shit 80's disco. They look terrible. Dreams of Desire was ruined for me by the first scene. By all means learn to animate if you wish but don't force us to endure your learning process. I know their are some out there that go into every thread asking for animations and I hate those people too. They push devs that aren't animators into making animations which does 2 things, ruins scenes and makes updates shorter because animations take more work.

 

[macadam]

a KLX, TCMS and F95 upvote in the game thread is already a great sign of positivity for a game quality...

more seriously... what make game great for me is :

- originality , the more original, the better. a proof that the dev aint copy paste others ideas to build something up McGyver style, but actually work on a decent story.

- good update, its not a suprise, we all like when a game have good update, instead of shitty 5 minutes updates of nothing.

- optimisation, i prefer full 3D games, but lots of them run terrible on my pc. only a few are actually very optimised and run great. that's a good point for me. Ren'Py games didnt give problem most of time, but if theyare lots and lots of game breaking bugs... its not cool :/

- devs, that's probably my main point, extremly decisive for a game to be great or not. if the dev is cool, relax, gentlemen and all, then its great as we can communicate with him/her/them with manner and share opinions. at the contary, if dev is very strict, arrogant and all, then its a no go for me. that point also count Patreon of course... depending of the goals and all. also, if the game is made by an actual "devs team", then i expect even more from all the points mentionned.

- story, an important point, but i can put it in "originality". the more original the story is, the better chance i will stay and follow.

all the rest are honestly not important for me, including the renders quality. even if i very like some kind of 3D stuff more than others (aka i not like furry and shit, but i love some good realist or cartoonish stuff). But that wont stop me to give a try anyway.

i guess my points are mostly the same as many others peoples anyway. we all have kind of similar "standard" about a game quality.

 

[RogueKnightUK]

I'm here mostly for reading other replies but I've noticed a very interesting fact, and that is:
a game that has extraordinary renders + worst story you can possibly think of = 100% Success (Example: Milfy City)
a game that has normal renders + a unique and original story = %50 Success, depending on the gameplay, presentation, etc.

So basically, and apparently, if the renders in a game are really really good, I think people seem to forget about everything else!
Does anyone agree with this, or do I have it wrong?

I'm going to disagree with frap in just one small but essential detail. Many of us put good writing and story very high on our list, but we overlook the obvious: we're the ones bothering to write replies because we appreciate words, and we are the tiny but vocal minority of users/viewers for this forum.

The images, be they hand-drawn or rendered, translate to all languages, even to people not skilled in any language at all. Given that we all know that there are users from around the world here, with varying capabilities for any one language, pictures being universal is a huge factor.

(This is also why some of the Movies and TV shows that do the best worldwide are those with slapstick visual humour, or with big bold visual effects - things that transcend language barriers)

Then there is the extremely subjective nature to the evaluation of both writing and story. I mean, here we are, a very specific sub-group of people not only in a community of this kind and with that specific shared interest, but further into being of the type to engage in discussions such as this one, so in the grander scheme of all humanity we are very closely aligned in interests and tastes ... and yet if I asked each of you to pick your top 5 movies and your top 5 books, the chances are that we'd all have quite wildly different answers and tastes.

Follow logic, and you'll realize immediately that if we tried to do a mass survey, we'd quickly be back to the lowest common denominators, and the greatest hits would be slapstick comedy and big action and effects - the most universal elements - being the only things people could agree on en masse.

Even fans within the community around just one particular game will disagree on which girl or LI is 'the best', and why. Which in turn brings to light the added importance of what Avaron1974 mentioned about having a good variety - something for everyone. Of course, you have to balance this against the fact that the more variety you add, the greater the chance one of those varieties will be something people hate, really hate, and might rage-quit their fandom over.

So yes, ultimately if you could only focus on one element, then the visuals are the one that hit the widest possible audience. If numbers are your thing then prioritise the visuals, the universal language.

But I will add one personally important corollary - the numbers aren't everything. More people will eat a McDonalds today than will eat dishes at the best restaurants in each town and city that has a McDonalds, and does that make McDonalds the best restaurant? Sometimes it is far more important, to your own soul, and to 'culture' as a whole, to be a truer artist. So what if more people read Harry Potter than read a classic such as Heller's Catch 22, or if more read Bridget Jones' Diary than read Orwell's 1984.

What you want to create ought to be more than just money. You can't actually buy pride or self respect (although you could sure indulge self-loathing in a lot of comfort).

 

[Avaron1974]

Even fans within the community around just one particular game will disagree on which girl or LI is 'the best', and why. Which in turn brings to light the added importance of what Avaron1974 mentioned about having a good variety - something for everyone. Of course, you have to balance this against the fact that the more variety you add, the greater the chance one of those varieties will be something people hate, really hate, and might rage-quit their fandom over.

I had that with one game.

I don't know what it was like here, I wasn't around at the time but over on Reddit (I needed to go somewhere to find this stuff, I didn't know about F95 until late last year) and a few other places We had a game called Dreaming of Dana.

In that game I loved Jessica but people haaaaaated her. We had people hate her because it was a dominant woman, we had people hate her because she was bald and we had people hate her because she was black.

I love that the dev never budged on his stance with her and that pissed off a few people.

Then again that's about the time I started disliking devs that changed things about their story to pander to their players so any that didn't instantly got my vote.

Anyways, when it came to the endings I still maintain Jessica's was the best one. She dropped her dominant streak, took on the role of good girlfriend, helped him out at work and loved both of them.

One thing that really, really and I mean really pisses me off. Not in a forum sense I mean genuine anger at how selfish and self centred some people can be. It's when you have a game that has a large group of women of all types and you get one that isn't a super model, that looks a bit different and isn't to everyones taste.

The bit that pisses me off is when you get those absolute cock holsters in the forum demand that 1 girl out of 20 be changed because they personally don't like how they look.

 

[seamanq]

The fact that there are so many games with characters that are almost identical is actually embarrassing.

^^^ What she said, 1,000 times.