Developer Diary 2 (Patreon)

As an artist, creator, designer and gamer I’ve always held a few core beliefs about what makes a game enjoyable. Especially in the context of porn, there are some rules I’ve had in my head for a while which I want to try to stick to. It's sort of my general game philosophy to follow during development. I will go over a few important ones so you can understand my mindset as I am navigating this challenge.

First and foremost, I am adamant about the player being able to decide their own pace. There is nothing I dislike more than a game with a constant timer, or with a timed moment, or where the game forces you through a section without the player having control over the pace (think of ‘escape’ parts in games). This is doubly true in porn games. If you rush someone through a piece of content they personally were enjoying and wanted to enjoy at their own speed, it can cause serious frustration. Any and all ideas I will pursue will always leave the player with full control over the tempo of the game.

Another thing I am a strong believer in is positive reinforcement. The difference between giving the losers some or no reward is massive. Any time the game forces the player through a lengthy ‘game over’ state, where they are potentially mocked for their mistakes are a no go. While I think it’s OK to ‘punish’ players in some way for making mistakes, it should always be framed in such a way that the player doesn’t feel bad or demotivated from trying again. Depending on the scenario, dealing with it in a lighthearted way (think of the silly ways Crash Bandicoot dies) is the ideal way to go.

Repetition is a difficult problem that probably deserves its own post, but porn games especially suffer from repetition to the point where the player skips through loads of content just to get to one juicy, new bit (I think of CoC’s approach to randomly stumbling on locations or how it deals with its combat). I don’t think repetition itself is a bad thing, it’s just that the things you decide to repeat should be fun and enjoyable, and worth repeating. It also helps to introduce minor variation to keep a framework of actions which repeat themselves from going stale (Combat systems like Pokemon are pretty much the same throughout the game yet don’t feel repetitive because of the move sets and types of enemies you keep facing constantly change). So a solid repetitive framework of actions (more commonly referred to as a game loop) spiced up with big and small variation will allow for a game that is enjoyable while helping me reduce the need to create a mountain of content.

Difficulty creates some problems too. Generally speaking I would rather not have any kind of serious difficulty in anything I create but on the other hand if things are too easy people will simply blow through the game and be done with it incredibly fast. Having the game be too difficult or introducing a section which suddenly spikes the difficulty for no reason will distract from the pleasure you’re meant to be having and will lead to frustration. That’s not what I want to achieve.

Finally, one of the most complex aspects to wrap my mind around is the fine line between porn and game. Both demand your attention in very different ways and usually they are mutually exclusive. How are you gonna fap when you’re focusing on getting past a specific boss or trying to solve some jumping puzzle? These don’t necessarily need to be difficult parts in games either. You could also create something so fun that people forget the erotic part of the experience. In my opinion that is a bit of a problem. Lowering the ‘game’ aspect is one way to do it, by reducing elements we are used to seeing in games (like health bars, points, and so on). This is part of the reason I don’t really like calling this project a ‘game’. I like to think of it more as an interactive piece of erotica.

There are some other minor things I will be keeping in mind but they have less relevance during the phase where you explore potential ideas. I hope this gives you some insight into the complex puzzle that is creating something like this. Next time I’ll talk about something a lot more practical: game engines and programming.

Thank you very much for reading and for the support!

Albatross