Topic: How slutty should I be when making a JRPG?

I create horny art for fun but I've never really had the confidence to show anyone. Even online. In your opinion how sexual can a JRPG get before it goes from appealing to obnoxious?

It becomes obnoxious once it's clear that the game design took a back seat for the sake of the lewd content. If you're making a lewd game make sure the game itself is fun and compelling regardless of the pornographic content. In my opinion most lewd games aren't actually very fun to play because the developers were more focused on making porn than making a video game.

I think every porn game should have a "Porn Gallery" mode where you can experience all the porn without having to interact with any of the gameplay. Everything is unlocked even secret characters. Because you should be confident enough in the gameplay of your porn game that people will play it even if they can get to the porn without your gameplay. If every porn game dev does that it will remind them there is an internet full of porn not locked behind a game, so the game should be an appealing part of the experience not just filler.

redphoenix42 said:
I think every porn game should have a "Porn Gallery" mode where you can experience all the porn without having to interact with any of the gameplay. Everything is unlocked even secret characters. Because you should be confident enough in the gameplay of your porn game that people will play it even if they can get to the porn without your gameplay. If every porn game dev does that it will remind them there is an internet full of porn not locked behind a game, so the game should be an appealing part of the experience not just filler.

Needing to see the scene at least once to unlock it really isn't the end of the world, most games I've played have that in some capacity

Wait are we talking porn game or regular game?

As long as it's not some pseudo hentai type thing, I think a person could make it work for a sfw game.

eightoflakes said:
In my opinion most lewd games aren't actually very fun to play because the developers were more focused on making porn than making a video game.

I think a fair amount of that is inexperience or a lack of objectivity about the quality.
But yeah, there's a lot of poorly made porn games out there. And sadly they do sell. Or at least much moreso than they would if they were sfw.

donovan_dmc said:
Needing to see the scene at least once to unlock it really isn't the end of the world, most games I've played have that in some capacity

I think the gallery should go all the way and offer all porn from the start. If that's locked behind a cheatcode on the game's itch.io or steam page, that's fine.

I feel like I have the desire to make a sexual JRPG but I feel like both my options (make a normal JRPG but with hot Monster Girls and sex victory/defeat scenes or make a JRPG where they fight using sex and there's a cum meter and spells are "magic dildo attack" and techniques are "squeeze her tits" and "crush his balls" and "mega cum blast") suck cock and balls.

Nothing's grabbing me. Nothing feels right.

redphoenix42 said:
I think every porn game should have a "Porn Gallery" mode where you can experience all the porn without having to interact with any of the gameplay. Everything is unlocked even secret characters. Because you should be confident enough in the gameplay of your porn game that people will play it even if they can get to the porn without your gameplay. If every porn game dev does that it will remind them there is an internet full of porn not locked behind a game, so the game should be an appealing part of the experience not just filler.

If it's a free game, sure.

If it's a paid one that's just cutting the game sales, because on day one someone can just rip the gallery, post it "somewhere" and half of the reason for playing it goes to the trash lol.

At least having to unlock will take a few days of someone good with the game getting everything and maybe sharing the save file.

But I do think porn games need to have more incentives than just static CGs, that can easily be shared.

Well... good writing isn't easily shared but sadly that isn't valued much.

notknow said:
If it's a free game, sure.

If it's a paid one that's just cutting the game sales, because on day one someone can just rip the gallery, post it "somewhere" and half of the reason for playing it goes to the trash lol.

At least having to unlock will take a few days of someone good with the game getting everything and maybe sharing the save file.

It's likely pretty trivial to just rip the assets out of these games, especially if they're built with a common framework
(especially if it's a renpy game, those things can basically be split open in seconds)

donovan_dmc said:
It's likely pretty trivial to just rip the assets out of these games, especially if they're built with a common framework
(especially if it's a renpy game, those things can basically be split open in seconds)

Sure but there are some devs that are so unorganized that sometimes you will have to deal with dupes, sketches, placeholders, etc... There are some RPG maker games that assets are in plain sight but if you have to use even a simple tool that's still a barrier for most.

redphoenix42 said:
I create horny art for fun but I've never really had the confidence to show anyone. Even online. In your opinion how sexual can a JRPG get before it goes from appealing to obnoxious?

If you're making smut, it needs to have a good volume of smut. The bigger problem though is just making a good game. No amount of one picture sex scenes with some mediocre writing to them is going to make a terrible RPG maker game with no worthwhile mechanics interesting.

Frankly though, I think JRPG is just not a great format for smut delivery. Thirty minutes of command based statistics fighting between juicy bits just isn't good for maintaining blood flow. Even something well made like Kemo Colliseum has this problem where you spend like an hour playing low stakes bejeweled before you have a boss fight and then a two minute sex scene. Fenoxo games only make it work by making combat resolve in two minutes and having a long form sex scene after every battle.

Now if we're talking JRPG stucturally rather than just mechanically (IE you have one big long save the world story where you go from place to place in a preset order), I think it's absolutely doomed. It's much easier to create character appeal when people are choosing who to focus on at their leisure.

I don't really play "porn" games because the porn games are typically half porn and half game, and not a solid mix of both- and interactive porn isn't really my style, but I digress. If I were to play some sort of slutty, nasty, horny-as-hell [purely descriptive] game, I wouldn't care how much of it is porn as long as it blends well into gameplay, if that makes sense? Making RPG mechanics into pornographic parodies sounds like a really, really fun idea especially if you can keep up an exciting pace. Porn-apart-from-gameplay feels a lot less like an actual porn game and more like a game with porn in it.
That's a lot of effort just to see some animated penis, and a lot of the time it ends up not even being fulfilling penis. Game being fun is a priority to me. That way even if I find myself not being a huge fan of some of the sexual aspects, it's not a complete waste of time because I'm still having fun, and I don't want to stop playing the fun game for a two-minute sex cutscene, which leads back into my original point.

orangeleaf said:

Frankly though, I think JRPG is just not a great format for smut delivery.

That depends on how you go about it.
Some JRPGs blend sex and combat together, where sexual aspects are part of the combat itself and can be manipulated or leaned into.
Look at Karryn's Prison if you want an example of that. It's constant groping, clothing damage and sex (if you let your enemies).

Of course, Moonlit-Comet raises a good point as well.....not all games do so. Some games separate the porn and mechanics so much is really does start to feel like a game with porn in it. Which imo, would be better served as a mature game rather than a porn game.

popoto said:
That depends on how you go about it.
Some JRPGs blend sex and combat together, where sexual aspects are part of the combat itself and can be manipulated or leaned into.
Look at Karryn's Prison if you want an example of that. It's constant groping, clothing damage and sex (if you let your enemies).

I'm not familiar with Karryn's Prison, but I'm familiar with mixing 'eroticism' into combat via mechanics like 'tease' in Fenoxo games and I've got to say... doesn't really add a lot of value. It's more for comedic effect than actually being erotic.

orangeleaf said:
I'm not familiar with Karryn's Prison, but I'm familiar with mixing 'eroticism' into combat via mechanics like 'tease' in Fenoxo games and I've got to say... doesn't really add a lot of value. It's more for comedic effect than actually being erotic.

I'm curious what is the best way/genre to add porn to a game then?
Especially since RPGs are the popular genre to make porn games in.

If you don't want to mix the two or just want "porn as a reward", I don't really see the appeal. Unless we're talking about visual novels

orangeleaf said:
Frankly though, I think JRPG is just not a great format for smut delivery.

Oh, check Grove from Regalbuster
https://grovedevelopment.itch.io/groverpgnsfw

It's an gay JRPG that have a system that if you are nude you can be "knocked down" and then the enemy can have "fun" with you including some sprites exclusives to battle.

There's also Cruel Serenade by Bitshift
https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruelserenade

It's another gay JRPG that does have sexy stuff while you are battling but a bit more simple than Grove, still I love them both.

...

About Fenoxo games they are good but yeah they have some problems, you can excuse some of the older games that they are REALLY OLD so they couldn't change how the gameplay and/or the "engine" works.

redphoenix42 said:
I create horny art for fun but I've never really had the confidence to show anyone. Even online. In your opinion how sexual can a JRPG get before it goes from appealing to obnoxious?

IMO it has nothing to do with the amount of sex scenes as much as everything else. First and foremost you need to have a good answer to "why a game?"
What part of it couldn't work in a comic, gallery, storyboard or similar? You need to consider why you want the interactivity. Two of the most common answers would be "I want the story to react to the player's choices and/or actions" or "I have an idea for interesting gameplay mechanics". Lewd RPGs are, I'm sorry, seldom in the latter category.

You need a good hook to contextualize the erotic and a decent enough writing to not have the player rushing to unlock the gallery because the dialogue is too painful to read. You can get away with not having a reactive story, but you still need to offer either interactivity in the scenes or the bare minimum for the player to express themselves (as in, being able to act shy or dominant and have the characters adapt to that preference). The amount of sex scenes don't have a direct impact on quality, just on the kind of experience you'll offer. Some like the slow burner types like Spirits of Sabil which can take pretty long until the first actual lewd scene, others prefer a more to-the-point approach like Dragon Sleuth Brittany where there's sex at every step of the way. (And some are terminally online like me and will play either and overthink the shit out of them regardless, but that's beside the point.) Just pick one and make sure to build around it.

notknow said:
About Fenoxo games they are good but yeah they have some problems, you can excuse some of the older games that they are REALLY OLD so they couldn't change how the gameplay and/or the "engine" works.

I dunno, to me, Fenoxo games (or at least CoC, which I played more of than the others) are, like-- the pinnacle of what not to do in your game, porn or otherwise. they're mega grindy, and the pacing of the story bits is not great, you'll sometimes get a single page of content ending with just a [CONTINUE] button, followed by a the equivalent of a doctoral thesis with, like, seven options at the bottom.

also, "Wanna continue <character>'s story? Well, better get used to mashing the 1 and 5 keys endlessly!". the games kinda, like-- condition you to skip dialogue/story which is not great for games which are entirely text-based.

dba_afish said:
I dunno, to me, Fenoxo games (or at least CoC, which I played more of than the others) are, like-- the pinnacle of what not to do in your game, porn or otherwise. they're mega grindy, and the pacing of the story bits is not great, you'll sometimes get a single page of content ending with just a [CONTINUE] button, followed by a the equivalent of a doctoral thesis with, like, seven options at the bottom.

also, "Wanna continue <character>'s story? Well, better get used to mashing the 1 and 5 keys endlessly!". the games kinda, like-- condition you to skip dialogue/story which is not great for games which are entirely text-based.

Yeah you are right, it's not technically by them but I miss "fall of eden", really liked the bunny burrow place and quests...

dba_afish said:
I dunno, to me, Fenoxo games (or at least CoC, which I played more of than the others) are, like-- the pinnacle of what not to do in your game, porn or otherwise. they're mega grindy, and the pacing of the story bits is not great, you'll sometimes get a single page of content ending with just a [CONTINUE] button, followed by a the equivalent of a doctoral thesis with, like, seven options at the bottom.

also, "Wanna continue <character>'s story? Well, better get used to mashing the 1 and 5 keys endlessly!". the games kinda, like-- condition you to skip dialogue/story which is not great for games which are entirely text-based.

An Auto reader makes these games way more enjoyable from my exp, Dood.
╹‿╹)

And while I can't speak on how they've been holding up lately (Last Fox game
I played was 'Trials' and that was about a year ago.) I liked them a lot and actually
thought the gameplay only got better through the years. Given, I play the game with
an auto reader so during the long dialogue I can do something else in the background.
Could totally see why that would bug the biz out of peeps who sat down and read it,
but I look forward to 'em so I can get some work done between scenes.
Having something neat to listen to while I work, Dood!

If anything, felt like there could have been more visuals in that "Text-Based"
adventure, Dood~!
~‿~)

notkastar said:
An Auto reader makes these games way more enjoyable from my exp, Dood.
╹‿╹)

And while I can't speak on how they've been holding up lately (Last Fox game
I played was 'Trials' and that was about a year ago.) I liked them a lot and actually
thought the gameplay only got better through the years. Given, I play the game with
an auto reader so during the long dialogue I can do something else in the background.
Could totally see why that would bug the biz out of peeps who sat down and read it,
but I look forward to 'em so I can get some work done between scenes.
Having something neat to listen to while I work, Dood!

If anything, felt like there could have been more visuals in that "Text-Based"
adventure, Dood~!
~‿~)

I mean, my main problems were the RNG grind of it all, the weird story pacing was kind of a secondary to me. CoC has _a lot_ of situations where it feels like it's a 1/128 roll to start a story scene when in "explore" mode or whatever, then 48/128 you'll get a combat with a handful pre-set encounters, and finally like 80/128 to have a scene where it's just like:

You walked through the forest, light streams through a few gaps in the canopy.

On your calm, uninterrupted stroll you spot a small bird, singing beautifully. Slowly, and carefully approaching to better observe it's serine majesty, your <uncovered equine hoof> catches on an exposed root unexpectedly, causing you to briefly stumble. The sudden sound startles the animal, it takes flight, quickly disappearing past the ceiling of green.

You return to camp.

or one or two other bits of flavour text, so all you're thinking every time you read it is just "wow, dude. how many times are you gonna trip over the same dang root looking at the same dang bird?".

dba_afish said:
I mean, my main problems were the RNG grind of it all, the weird story pacing was kind of a secondary to me. CoC has _a lot_ of situations where it feels like it's a 1/128 roll to start a story scene when in "explore" mode or whatever, then 48/128 you'll get a combat with a handful pre-set encounters, and finally like 80/128 to have a scene where it's just like:

You walked through the forest, light streams through a few gaps in the canopy.

On your calm, uninterrupted stroll you spot a small bird, singing beautifully. Slowly, and carefully approaching to better observe it's serine majesty, your <uncovered equine hoof> catches on an exposed root unexpectedly, causing you to briefly stumble. The sudden sound startles the animal, it takes flight, quickly disappearing past the ceiling of green.

You return to camp.

or one or two other bits of flavour text, so all you're thinking every time you read it is just "wow, dude. how many times are you gonna trip over the same dang root looking at the same dang bird?".

Totally True, I completely understand why others don't like grind,
I don't either if there aren't any visible results at the end.
(Musashi Samurai Legend 's Stat system is a lie btw,
the only difference between 10 Str/Luck and 99 (Maxed) is that
you can beat a mob with 3 strikes instead of 5, Dood T‿T)

But for Coc 1, (don't know if this is true for the sequel.)
Grinding is really fun since the results are REALLY explosive
if you keep track of the stat ups and what cause them. I can't
recall the particular method I used since this was longer
ago than my last play of 'Trials' but if you choose the magic
build, keep upgrading your base magic stat with items and
events and boost it again with the staff you find in the
desert, (I think.) You become the Magic Missile! You'd be
able to beat Minotaur in a blast or two, along with almost
any other monster in the game, Dood! ◠‿◠)~★

In fact you become so powerful that you don't even need
to level up, It was so much fun blasting peeps to bits at level
1! (To be fair at that point I knew where most of the things
that raise your base stats were and maxed out my stats
'At' level 1, but still, Dood! ◠‿╹)~★

That fun run is the origin of one of my cast members actually.
Leo the Level 1 Lizard Wizard, Dood! ◠‿◠)~★
post #1929507

Grinding can be boring, tedious and down right life draining,
but it could be the necessary door you gotta go through to have
the power of the gods, Dood! ╹‿╹)~★

notkastar said:
Totally True, I completely understand why others don't like grind,
I don't either if there aren't any visible results at the end.
(Musashi Samurai Legend 's Stat system is a lie btw,
the only difference between 10 Str/Luck and 99 (Maxed) is that
you can beat a mob with 3 strikes instead of 5, Dood T‿T)

But for Coc 1, (don't know if this is true for the sequel.)
Grinding is really fun since the results are REALLY explosive
if you keep track of the stat ups and what cause them. I can't
recall the particular method I used since this was longer
ago than my last play of 'Trials' but if you choose the magic
build, keep upgrading your base magic stat with items and
events and boost it again with the staff you find in the
desert, (I think.) You become the Magic Missile! You'd be
able to beat Minotaur in a blast or two, along with almost
any other monster in the game, Dood! ◠‿◠)~★

In fact you become so powerful that you don't even need
to level up, It was so much fun blasting peeps to bits at level
1! (To be fair at that point I knew where most of the things
that raise your base stats were and maxed out my stats
'At' level 1, but still, Dood! ◠‿╹)~★

That fun run is the origin of one of my cast members actually.
Leo the Level 1 Lizard Wizard, Dood! ◠‿◠)~★
post #1929507

Grinding can be boring, tedious and down right life draining,
but it could be the necessary door you gotta go through to have
the power of the gods, Dood! ╹‿╹)~★

I don't dislike grinding, in concept. I love grinding when it's done right. I mean, I have probably upwards of 5000 hours in Old School RuneScape, I've placed in the 99.5th percentile in the last two Leages (limited time special game modes), playing probably 8-16 hours a day every day over the course of 8-weeks both times. so like, I can get down with grinding.

it's not just that grinding exists, the problem is the fact that CoC grinding it is just _supremely_ boring. grinding shouldn't ever just be a means to an end, like it is in CoC. it's a part of a game, it should have some amount of feedback, some amount of anything, I could be cleaning my room and I would be having more fun. if all you're getting out of grinding is the result of grinding, you could have just used a save editor and nothing would have changed.

dba_afish said:
I don't dislike grinding, in concept. I love grinding when it's done right. I mean, I have probably upwards of 5000 hours in Old School RuneScape, I've placed in the 99.5th percentile in the last two Leages (limited time special game modes), playing probably 8-16 hours a day every day over the course of 8-weeks both times. so like, I can get down with grinding.

it's not just that grinding exists, the problem is the fact that CoC grinding it is just _supremely_ boring. grinding shouldn't ever just be a means to an end, like it is in CoC. it's a part of a game, it should have some amount of feedback, some amount of anything, I could be cleaning my room and I would be having more fun. if all you're getting out of grinding is the result of grinding, you could have just used a save editor and nothing would have changed.

But I 'was' having fun grinding in CoC, Dood~!
Got that far as a level 1 since I wanted to know "Just" how
powerful could I get without leveling up. Turns out it's

"I don't think the game was prepared for that idea."

amount, First it started as a challenge, grinding on
not dying to imps, then it became holding my own
against them, then the forest, desert- So on and so
on, Dood!
╹‿╹)

Each time I reached that point of true power, Holding my own against
the next type of monster was an amazing feeling! Like in a -

I'll Beat The Odds With Shear Force!

Kinda way! You told me the way was dangerous,
and I ask "How" dangerous, Dood!
T‿T)~★

While you could use cheats to set your stats to the
highest, I personally find it Waaaaaay~ more fun to
work with the tools given to me at the beginning
to see how far I can get with just that.

Octopath Travelers

Final Fantasy X-2 remastered

Dragon Quest 8

It's about the journey, The power you feel from taking on things
that used to give you trouble late game, Solo at the beginning is
a feeling of accomplishment I can't put into words!

Getting there at a click of a button feels hollow to me.
but when you work for it, When you beat the game at
its own game, It opens up a whole new world of
experiences with the game, Dood!
◠‿╹)~★

Now I'm not saying all feels are universal, I don't think the grinding is
all that bad in CoC and it's the bane of your existence. Both things can
be true since we're two different peeps, Dood! Just saying, Just like
Octopath Travelers, Final Fantasy X-2 remastered, Dragon Quest 8.
CoC for me is one of those games where grinding can be fun
for me, Dood!
◠‿◠)

dba_afish said:
I don't dislike grinding, in concept. I love grinding when it's done right. I mean, I have probably upwards of 5000 hours in Old School RuneScape, I've placed in the 99.5th percentile in the last two Leages (limited time special game modes), playing probably 8-16 hours a day every day over the course of 8-weeks both times. so like, I can get down with grinding.

it's not just that grinding exists, the problem is the fact that CoC grinding it is just _supremely_ boring. grinding shouldn't ever just be a means to an end, like it is in CoC. it's a part of a game, it should have some amount of feedback, some amount of anything, I could be cleaning my room and I would be having more fun. if all you're getting out of grinding is the result of grinding, you could have just used a save editor and nothing would have changed.

Based, developers should design challenges so grinding never feels like a grind.

I'd rather do 500 Arena Challenges in Ratchet And Clank and 500 runs of the Bloody Palace in DMC than play one level over and over for money. That kind of boring design encourages players to find the optimal grind strat and use it, even if it means botting/AFKing like the Infinite Bolts Glitch in RAC1.