sex games

[nice90sguy]

...computer sex-themed games, that is.

I spend WAY too much time on them these days. Few of them have much in the way of story, and I always wish I had the time to develop a game that had a little more characterisation and story.

One game in partuclar has a sort of "story arc", where the MC is gradually drawn in deeper and deeper into a d/s relationship. Have any of you ever worked as, or with game devs?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I know what you mean. There are gazillions of Visual Novel porn games based on Ren'Py or another engine, but few are well-written. Not to mention lame update periods, aimed at milking the Patreon followers. I'd say that writing interesting characters and plots would be easy for most of us, considering the quality of those things in most such games. Programming in Ren'Py isn't that hard as far as I know, although I never used that engine. The art though...

 

[djrip]

I played the headmaster. Only one of those I've messed with but it was pretty great. Just the right mix of humor and smut.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I know what you mean. There are gazillions of Visual Novel porn games based on Ren'Py or another engine, but few are well-written. Not to mention lame update periods, aimed at milking the Patreon followers. I'd say that writing interesting characters and plots would be easy for most of us, considering the quality of those things in most such games. Programming in Ren'Py isn't that hard as far as I know, although I never used that engine. The art though...

Source: Before I got on Literotica and started writing again in earnest, I took a stab at doing a (way too complex) Ren'py/Daz3D-based VN. I'm friends with a couple of relatively high-profile AVN creators and have corresponded with several more; I am a full-time software developer in my day job and have given code guidance to several projects.

While it's true that there are a LOT of poorly written Ren'py games out there, it's not true that most of the Patreon creators are aiming to "milk" their patrons. It's more about the amount of time it takes to create a chapter/update. If you're making less than 2-3K a month on Patreon making a VN that ships an update every 3-4 months (depending on size, complexity, etc.), there's a good chance you're making less than minimum wage.

I was working on a sandbox Star Trek-inspired harem VN called CrewMates. I'm almost done with the first two chapters, which would be about 5 hours of content depending on reading speed, thoroughness, etc. And I abandoned it for... a lot of reasons, not least of which was that I realized that the part I loved (the writing) took maybe 5-10% of the time, while coding took another 10-20% and art took the rest. I grew to hate doing the art; all the fidly nonsense with posing, etc.

There was so little time involved with actually writing dialog that I didn't consider it "writing" in the way I do the stuff here on Literotica, which is why I mark that as the point where I started writing again, instead of Crewmates. There was plotting (I had the first 5 chapters plotted and the next 10 roughly outlined), but it felt more akin to putting together an RPG campaign.

Now, a lot of it was front-loaded; I'll admit that. All the UI design and UX coding, the game systems, etc. A lot of the reusable character art (talking to character X at location Y, with dislike/neutral/friendly/happy variations), the initial scene setup, etc. But even talking all of that into account, I sat down and did the math on how long each update would take me to put out and realized there was no way I'd finish it before I burned out completely. and this is a project I LOVED; I'm planning to rework it as best I can into a series of novellas.

RJ Rhodes, who makes the absolutely fantastic Come Home (available on Patreon, Steam, and itch), helped me a lot when I was first starting out, and she and I discussed a lot of the nitty gritty. It took her about two years working on it full-time before it paid more than her just-above-minimum-wage job that she had before COVID. She's releasing Update 15 to the game this month, and I think she still has 4-6 more updates to go. Those updates take 2-3 months each. When her house caught fire, she had people say, "Sorry about that, I'm going to pause my Patreon until you're back up and running."

Andrealphus Games, who runs a whole staff of folks and pulls in 10K a month on Patreon, last time I checked, still relies on Steam releases for their paydays. TruLove, which they had worked on for over two years, got delisted days before it went live with no recourse. why? Because the game was clearly set in a college, but Steam decided that since there were lockers visible int he art and one of the love interests was a waifish goth girl, that they were clearly trying to sneak in underage material.

I can name a half-dozen more developers who are either praying they never fall under the gaze of Steam or Patreon staff, because things they were told are "fine" changed after Visa and MC cracked down on paying for porn with their cards. There was a purge that basically broke the backs of several developers/studios a few years back.

For the most part, the folks making VNs are doing them as a labor of love. They aren't "milking" their patrons. Life gets int eh way. Hell, one of the devs on a game I played literally had to check himself into a mental hospital because of the stress of working his day job and then dealing with people claiming he was "milking" them because his updates slipped by a month each over the course of a year.

It's a fucking awful way to make a living. I salute them, but once I heard their war stories, and once I realized the only part of the process I loved was also the one I got to do least? Nah. I'm good.

Bonus ID badge pictures of some of my favorite love interests from CrewMates:

Jane, science ensign:

Kelsey, engineering lieutenant:

Sania, security ensign and MC's best friend:

Alex, grumpy flight officer and MC's frenemy:

Malaya, medical officer:


Someday, girls, you'll at least make it into e-readers!

 

[NoTalentHack]

Recommended VNs, with kinks (almost all of these are also harem):

Come Home - one of the best written ones on the market, wide variety of kinks
Love and Sex: Second Base - sandbox with no "main" storyline, but a ton of flavors; lots of D/s and breeding
To Be a King - one of the few VNs that had an MC that's not a teenager or young adult; set in Rome, the MC is a general dealing with court intrigue and an assassination plot. Lots of flavors.
Paradise Lust - Funny and sweet harem game centered around shipwreck survivors on a tropical island. A rare game where the MC never comes off as a douchebag.
A Petal Among Thorns - I/T "cleverly" disguised with Ward/Guardian as the default titles; not harem
Long Live The Princess - Fantasy/chosen one with corruption/mind control
Midlife Crisis - I/T harem with a middle aged protagonist. Decent writing, bad renders
Stranded in Space - Enjoyable writing when the writer stops trying to be clever. Give it an hour, you'll decide whether you like it or not
The Headmaster - Darkly funny BDSM-themed pseudo-dystopian
What a Legend - Gorgeous hand-drawn art, funny and sweet. Impregnation (mostly not implemented) MILF, monstergirl

Aurelia - This is less of a VN style game, and more like if Sierra Games back in the 80s had said, "let's REALLY do a porn game instead of just Leisure Suit Larry." Lots of minigames, etc. and tons of flavors. Writing is good, not amazing, but there's an actual game there.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Couple more screenshots of CrewMates (I was going for an interface reminiscent of L-CARS from TNG):

Map screen:

Social menu:

 

[impresso]

There are others like NLT Media. Seems the dude works alone, or worked alone before the current project. Released several games, has almost 14k patrons with a minimum subscription of $2, consistently releases updates every 2 weeks. He's not a human, I guess.)
I tried to make my game with RenPy and RPGMV, I really liked the process, but now I don't have a good PC to render in DAZ and I'm disappointed in my story ))

 

[NoTalentHack]

There are others like NLT Media. Seems the dude works alone, or worked alone before the current project. Released several games, has almost 14k patrons with a minimum subscription of $2, consistently releases updates every 2 weeks. He's not a human, I guess.)
I tried to make my game with RenPy and RPGMV, I really liked the process, but now I don't have a good PC to render in DAZ and I'm disappointed in my story ))

He's working off a different engine than Ren'py; pretty sure it's RPGMaker. Fewer renders, more "game-y." Not a slam; but different than the other stuff.

 

[impresso]

He's working off a different engine than Ren'py; pretty sure it's RPGMaker. Fewer renders, more "game-y." Not a slam; but different than the other stuff.

Yeah, it's an RPGM and he's cleverly simplifying his life when working with CG production )

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Source: Before I got on Literotica and started writing again in earnest, I took a stab at doing a (way too complex) Ren'py/Daz3D-based VN. I'm friends with a couple of relatively high-profile AVN creators and have corresponded with several more; I am a full-time software developer in my day job and have given code guidance to several projects.

While it's true that there are a LOT of poorly written Ren'py games out there, it's not true that most of the Patreon creators are aiming to "milk" their patrons. It's more about the amount of time it takes to create a chapter/update. If you're making less than 2-3K a month on Patreon making a VN that ships an update every 3-4 months (depending on size, complexity, etc.), there's a good chance you're making less than minimum wage.

I was working on a sandbox Star Trek-inspired harem VN called CrewMates. I'm almost done with the first two chapters, which would be about 5 hours of content depending on reading speed, thoroughness, etc. And I abandoned it for... a lot of reasons, not least of which was that I realized that the part I loved (the writing) took maybe 5-10% of the time, while coding took another 10-20% and art took the rest. I grew to hate doing the art; all the fidly nonsense with posing, etc.

There was so little time involved with actually writing dialog that I didn't consider it "writing" in the way I do the stuff here on Literotica, which is why I mark that as the point where I started writing again, instead of Crewmates. There was plotting (I had the first 5 chapters plotted and the next 10 roughly outlined), but it felt more akin to putting together an RPG campaign.

Now, a lot of it was front-loaded; I'll admit that. All the UI design and UX coding, the game systems, etc. A lot of the reusable character art (talking to character X at location Y, with dislike/neutral/friendly/happy variations), the initial scene setup, etc. But even talking all of that into account, I sat down and did the math on how long each update would take me to put out and realized there was no way I'd finish it before I burned out completely. and this is a project I LOVED; I'm planning to rework it as best I can into a series of novellas.

RJ Rhodes, who makes the absolutely fantastic Come Home (available on Patreon, Steam, and itch), helped me a lot when I was first starting out, and she and I discussed a lot of the nitty gritty. It took her about two years working on it full-time before it paid more than her just-above-minimum-wage job that she had before COVID. She's releasing Update 15 to the game this month, and I think she still has 4-6 more updates to go. Those updates take 2-3 months each. When her house caught fire, she had people say, "Sorry about that, I'm going to pause my Patreon until you're back up and running."

Andrealphus Games, who runs a whole staff of folks and pulls in 10K a month on Patreon, last time I checked, still relies on Steam releases for their paydays. TruLove, which they had worked on for over two years, got delisted days before it went live with no recourse. why? Because the game was clearly set in a college, but Steam decided that since there were lockers visible int he art and one of the love interests was a waifish goth girl, that they were clearly trying to sneak in underage material.

I can name a half-dozen more developers who are either praying they never fall under the gaze of Steam or Patreon staff, because things they were told are "fine" changed after Visa and MC cracked down on paying for porn with their cards. There was a purge that basically broke the backs of several developers/studios a few years back.

For the most part, the folks making VNs are doing them as a labor of love. They aren't "milking" their patrons. Life gets int eh way. Hell, one of the devs on a game I played literally had to check himself into a mental hospital because of the stress of working his day job and then dealing with people claiming he was "milking" them because his updates slipped by a month each over the course of a year.

It's a fucking awful way to make a living. I salute them, but once I heard their war stories, and once I realized the only part of the process I loved was also the one I got to do least? Nah. I'm good.

Bonus ID badge pictures of some of my favorite love interests from CrewMates:

Jane, science ensign:
View attachment 2247459
Kelsey, engineering lieutenant:
View attachment 2247460
Sania, security ensign and MC's best friend:
View attachment 2247461
Alex, grumpy flight officer and MC's frenemy:
View attachment 2247462
Malaya, medical officer:
View attachment 2247463

Someday, girls, you'll at least make it into e-readers!

That is some nice insight, I must say. To be clear, I didn't say most of them are milking the patrons, but I'd say that quite a few of the successful ones do, by often extending their promised update intervals and/or making the updates with considerably less content. For example, Eroniverse, who has a sandbox Ren'Py game, delivers small updates almost every month, yet those updates do not amount to more than 40ish renders. The writing is mediocre at best, although the art is quite nice and original. The guy always has 3k+ patrons while his lowest level of subscription is 4 eur/month. His monthly patreon gain has to be about 20k euros or so. That is hardly an average daily job. But yeah, it takes time and effort AND talent to get there. Most of those who are just starting are investing a lot more time and effort into their games than what they get in the way of payment but that is true for many other creative jobs. (Being a writer?! )
The key ingredient is probably understanding the market and recognizing what people want to play. I must say that I have seen some excellent games, games that are in my opinion better written and directed than some more successful ones, struggle financially because they cover some kinks that are not widely accepted. Same as on Lit, games that focus on Incest - mom/son and such, netorare, harem, breeding, male domination and other popular kinks fare much much better than other games.

 

[djrip]

Recommended VNs, with kinks (almost all of these are also harem):

Come Home - one of the best written ones on the market, wide variety of kinks
Love and Sex: Second Base - sandbox with no "main" storyline, but a ton of flavors; lots of D/s and breeding
To Be a King - one of the few VNs that had an MC that's not a teenager or young adult; set in Rome, the MC is a general dealing with court intrigue and an assassination plot. Lots of flavors.
Paradise Lust - Funny and sweet harem game centered around shipwreck survivors on a tropical island. A rare game where the MC never comes off as a douchebag.
A Petal Among Thorns - I/T "cleverly" disguised with Ward/Guardian as the default titles; not harem
Long Live The Princess - Fantasy/chosen one with corruption/mind control
Midlife Crisis - I/T harem with a middle aged protagonist. Decent writing, bad renders
Stranded in Space - Enjoyable writing when the writer stops trying to be clever. Give it an hour, you'll decide whether you like it or not
The Headmaster - Darkly funny BDSM-themed pseudo-dystopian
What a Legend - Gorgeous hand-drawn art, funny and sweet. Impregnation (mostly not implemented) MILF, monstergirl

Aurelia - This is less of a VN style game, and more like if Sierra Games back in the 80s had said, "let's REALLY do a porn game instead of just Leisure Suit Larry." Lots of minigames, etc. and tons of flavors. Writing is good, not amazing, but there's an actual game there.

The Headmaster is the only of this kind of game I've played. I'm glad to see it in your list, I thought it was awesome. I kept thinking, something like this would be great in a story...

The rest of these sound similarly inspiring!

 

[NoTalentHack]

The Headmaster is the only of this kind of game I've played. I'm glad to see it in your list, I thought it was awesome. I kept thinking, something like this would be great in a story...

The rest of these sound similarly inspiring!

Some niche recommendations:

Ravager - Have you ever wanted to be a dragon, raping and pillaging your way across a dark fantasy world? Sure, we all have! Well, no, not really. But if you have, this one is for you.
Love of Magic - It's like an airport bookstore fantasy novel crossed with a harem VN. The writing IS NOT good, but it's very... specific. If you like that kind of fun trash urban fantasy experience, it's perfect.
Lunar's Chosen - Holy shit, so many futa. When I started playing it, it was kind of "hey, here's this guy, and he's got a magical talent, and harem romance," but eventually I guess the dev just decided to shout to the world "THESE ARE MY KINKS!" I haven't played it in a while, but if you want fuats and don't mind not-so-great writing, there you go.
Max Gentlemen Sexy Business - This one's flat out silly. There's cartoonish nudity and outlandish plots, with non-gender-specific erotic text. It's a deeply, deeply goofy game. Kinda grindy, though, and not in a fun way.
Quickie: A Love Hotel Story - Great art, a gentle, sweet story, and a variety of love interests. Also, there's a management sim in there! This probably could have gone in the non-niche section
Seeds of Chaos - Dark as fuck fantasy story. Too dark for me, usually. Beautiful art, though, and tons of kinks.
Tame It! - Not great writing (translated from German, I think) and uses a gimmicky system to communicate with the two monstergirls that are the main love interests. Survival-themed, so you have to deal with gathering, etc.

 

[nice90sguy]

Great to read these posts! Thanks @NoTalentHack for your insights!

I'm also a developer by day (and many nights too). I've helped out a couple of gave devs porting their games to Android (using Cordova).
There are quite a few femdom-themed games around, a couple of which are really excellent, but most them suck in terms of originality, graphics, and game play.
One guy, Darktoz (who has a Futa obsession), produces very nice art, but his stuff is more VN than game. He's recently switched to Ren'Py. The RPGMaker games are generally poor, except for those that feature the amazing artwork of Bowei.

I follow quite a few on Patreon. The best ones have a Trello board and take their work seriously. As a developer myself, I get how much work it is, and what it takes to actually make a living from it.

What surprises me is the weak plotting in most of the games -- the developers really need to read more stories on Literotica! (although I know that some actually are readers here).

I've spent a heck of a lot of time learning the graphic game tools (mainly Unity, Daz, iClone, Blender), and have spent a fair bit on 3D assets. I've "started" lots of games myself, but soon come unstuck due to lack of time, skill and perseverance. And the money side of it is a problem for me -- it's a lot easier to take a proper job to pay the bills. But my day job is a lot like being a game dev (lots of graphics/audio/AI) so it's always feeding into it. I'm waiting to retire (some time in the next 50 years), and devote myself full-time to jerking off developing sex games!

I won't recommend any games here, but for anybody who's into femdom games, hemdom's blog is the portal to pretty much all the best ones (and lots of manga too).