It's definitely worth a read. I'm a bit wobbly on some of Impious's narrative choices as well, despite my supportive screed. But I think he has commendable ambition and massive guts. And I want to see what he has in mind next.Impious Monk has published aYou must be registered to see the linkson Episode 4 on Patreon.
I finally understand why he thinks "loss of Colleen" is a thing and more importantly, I like his plans for Emmeline which I didn't expect. But that speaks somewhat more to my lack of faith than his narrative choices, so go read it for yourselves
Recommending Story-first games
- Thread starter jufot
- Start date
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I just wanted to single this out as probably my biggest pet peeve as well. I get really sick of every NPC in most games constantly telling the player character how great they are.
Another one along a similar line, that actually is an absolute deal breaker for me: Having a main character constantly making bad jokes and having other characters constantly laughing at them.
If what the writer wrote is actually funny, let the reader do the laughing. If it's not funny but you're now adding in a second character to laugh at it to try and pass it off as funny, you're just making two characters look bad now, and making your writing look even worse.
Absolutely. There's one conversation that MC has with Milena, in which he admits to her what he has never admitted to himself: that he thinks he's a bad, selfish, person who has hurt his romantic partners. That is... exceedingly rare behavior for a male MC in an AVN [only Tlaero has plumbed that territory consistently]. More astonishingly, I understood precisely why the MC thought that way and, in part, agreed with his self-assessment... and ALSO agreed with Milena's supportive response.
Really great stuff. There's plenty of that in LDNA.
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- Jun 26, 2022
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Well what people find funny can be subjektive like dark humore or miss matching the genre with jokes (romance having morbide humore or horror having ridicolueouse humore that destroys tension)
ego stroking for writer self insert is the real problem if done to much (like having a 3 leg
but getting no credit also sucks,i like a bit praise if it was something importent but not the one that does not add to story or characters in a meaningfull way)i think many writers try to be to 'funny' that it is like marvel movies where people joke in serious situations that tension is not there anymore where real people would focus and sometimes giving a well timed joke is better,
or the other way around where all are serious all the time even when nothing important is happenig
Truth is most Writers don't 'test' there jokes
I find somethings in Eternum or Being a Dik really funny but some jokes don't land with me but if it's overall good humore it's what the sucessfull Vn's have over the generic one's ,
they hit the target more often with good idears and the bad ones are forgetable so mostly the good stuff is in our minds
Of course. But I'm a lot more forgiving of a joke that just didn't work for me than there being a joke that didn't work and then there being another character that believes that joke was the funniest thing they've ever heard. And the worst games will repeat that situation ad nauseam.
Think about almost any good sitcom or comedy film. Usually other characters are not shown to be laughing at even the funniest lines (at most you'll see a slight chuckle). And doing so is just such a blatant attempt at manipulating the reaction of the audience that it's more likely to have the reverse effect.
To put it another way, the same person is writing the lines for both characters so having one person say something and then having the other laugh hysterically and tell them how funny they are is really just kind of pathetic when you think about it. The writer is basically just having puppets of theirs laugh at their own jokes and then praise themselves for their brilliant humor.
- Nov 20, 2018
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A couple pages back someone mentioned Little Regina, so I thought I'd give it a try.
We have a lone wolf protagonist, trying to fix injustice, vigilante style, kind of reminded me of Reacher a bit. For me he was the best part of the game (I always went for the milder choices) and he seemed to be generally competent, generally attractive person.
Where it all goes downhill is the introduction of female characters. Completely coincidentally, both LIs who are members of a junior football club look like they're 14, despite none of their teammates having that problem, there's also a police officer who's a little comically buff, but the real issue is how they think. I get that we're not privy to all the thought in their heads, but whenever the author decides to cut to their inner dialogue it's frequently in reference to out big dick hero (or to highlight the distress they're in).
Foolishly I have pursued the only love interest that looks anywhere close to MC's age and being shagged by MC rocked her world so hard that it completely ruined her personal life. But, no, she's too principled to act on attraction to who is now her surrogate little sister's boyfriend. So she does the right thing and confesses what happened to our forced LI and of course, the natural consequence of that is our 14yo LI realizes how unhappy her older friend is and that the only way to cure that unhappiness is with her BF's magic dicking.
That's where the the game gave me the WVM flashback to doe-eyed blow up doll girlfriend asking MC to share the love by shagging the entire campus worth of women and I dropped it. That shit was comedy, this is supposed to be serious.
Production wise the game is meh. Models are plain, visuals are... there, and the direction that could have salvaged it to a higher level isn't. There's also an attempt at animation.
Overall, this stands or falls on it's writing and if you can overlook comedic love lines, you can maybe have fun with the game.
Is it story first? I'd say it's story adjacent.
We have a lone wolf protagonist, trying to fix injustice, vigilante style, kind of reminded me of Reacher a bit. For me he was the best part of the game (I always went for the milder choices) and he seemed to be generally competent, generally attractive person.
Where it all goes downhill is the introduction of female characters. Completely coincidentally, both LIs who are members of a junior football club look like they're 14, despite none of their teammates having that problem, there's also a police officer who's a little comically buff, but the real issue is how they think. I get that we're not privy to all the thought in their heads, but whenever the author decides to cut to their inner dialogue it's frequently in reference to out big dick hero (or to highlight the distress they're in).
Foolishly I have pursued the only love interest that looks anywhere close to MC's age and being shagged by MC rocked her world so hard that it completely ruined her personal life. But, no, she's too principled to act on attraction to who is now her surrogate little sister's boyfriend. So she does the right thing and confesses what happened to our forced LI and of course, the natural consequence of that is our 14yo LI realizes how unhappy her older friend is and that the only way to cure that unhappiness is with her BF's magic dicking.
That's where the the game gave me the WVM flashback to doe-eyed blow up doll girlfriend asking MC to share the love by shagging the entire campus worth of women and I dropped it. That shit was comedy, this is supposed to be serious.
Production wise the game is meh. Models are plain, visuals are... there, and the direction that could have salvaged it to a higher level isn't. There's also an attempt at animation.
Overall, this stands or falls on it's writing and if you can overlook comedic love lines, you can maybe have fun with the game.
Is it story first? I'd say it's story adjacent.
I like your classification: 'story adjacent' porn game -- i.e. a game that uses narrative (sometimes an appealing narrative) primarily to deliver porn/fetish content.
There's nothing wrong with 'story adjacent' AVNs per se, but they are not 'story first' and they do not belong on jufot's list. (I agree with everything you say about _Little Regina_. Ugh.)
- Jul 7, 2017
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A post from Arisushi, she deleted her account here and might stop working on games in the future...
You must be registered to see the links
I'm so disappointed that developers who make games with actual stories that either don't have sexual content or it's a mild erotica are treated badly by coombrains on this site. It's such a shame there aren't quality romance vanilla games with passionate erotica or porn without hardcore content uploaded anymore! FMC game won't get attention if it's not a barely legal protagonist, a whoretagonist in a slutville town, a milf with a ntr theme, or any FMC game that have corruption/blackmail/ with taboo themes!
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- Dec 5, 2020
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Damn, bro, I understand your disappointment, and I also can't stand the mindless crowd that allows themselves to insult developers and their work if they don't find their favorite fap content in their games.
But, in my opinion, although they are a very noisy bunch, they are far from being the majority, so attributing any failures to the evil coomers' will seems not entirely fair.
Unfortunately, Twin Eclipse was hard to survive from the very beginning. As far as I remember, he started drawing illustrations by hand not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't afford to pay a CG artist. We can argue endlessly, but the difference between a visual novel and just a novel seems obvious and clear. You can't skip the visuals and expect success. Of course, the story is important, and I think many players will forgive simple graphics if the story is engaging, but only to a certain extent.
Now add "censored" and "no porn" to that. Not that it matters much with the visuals like this, but coomers aside, the average player who's a member of the largest part of audience, they don't demand super kinky or overly porny stuff, but still expect sex topics to be touched upon. You can make a romantic story and people will like it, but they expect the characters to have sexual relationship.
And if you're making such a niche game, it's probably hard to expect a significant financial return, given the size of your audience. And let's be honest, projects that are much more successful and popular than Twin Eclipse don't bring their developers enough income for the project to go beyond a side hustle developed in their spare time.
And the last part. "At no point in these 4+ years, did I earn enough to "fully commit" to visual novels."
I respect Arisushi and like his work. He's a nice person and a talented writer. But if you want to make a living developing content, I personally see two options. Either work for those who are willing to pay you a compensation that you find adequate for your work. Or develop the content that is most popular and profitable. Your ambitions as a creator should take a back seat to financial feasibility. It is unlikely that the audience tuned to adult content will enthusiastically embrace a paranormal/fantasy/mystical story without a single sex-related tag.
And I'm honestly skeptical about the future of games like Twin Eclipse. In the last six months or so, not even taking into account at least 3-4 new games I've been added to my watchlist, I've learned that at least three more daz artists who have been posting their own works and fan art on f95 for a long time have started developing their own AVNs. They're very good artists, I don't know about their story writing skills, but I'm sure their games will be visually top notch.
The pressure and competition for new developers is getting stronger, and there is not much money in this niche. And so, on the one hand, I want to support newcomers, but on the other hand, I am also limited in funds, and supporting them means stopping supporting someone I have known for a long time and whose games are quite mature. It's sad.
I finally had the time to read back through the thread, and saw your very raw response, Impious. If my own take on LDNA Chapter 4 contributed to your feelings, particularly that false sense of 'failure,' I am heartily sorry for it.
Tlaero's reply said it all, really. I hope that you drew strength from her supportive words, which should be particularly meaningful coming from her. She has great fans, but also takes endless shit (particularly on this site) for dealing with her imperfect characters in realistic, insightful, humane ways. Just like you...
Let me be clear: your game is the opposite of a failure, even in its incomplete state. It's an inspiration. I have been a supporter form the beginning, and hope to stay that way to the end even if/when those Patreon idiots kick you off.
As I've said (and has Tlaero has implied) what you're doing takes guts. Nothing really good, worthwhile, or brave, ever comes easy. (Especially love.) Stay strong.
- Jan 4, 2019
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Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm here to once again ask for recommendations for stuff here on this topic because if I ask anywhere else on this site, chances are I'll get nothing but suggestions for pointlessly disturbing shit from people "as a joke" with the mods "magically" not noticing when I report them like always.
Can you recommend anything older with very outdated visuals, but things like really great dialogue, and/or a lot of visual detail?
I worry that I'll never find anyone besides Jufot that can look past outdated visuals in AVNs if the dialogue is good enough, or there's a lot of really really interesting things to look at. It's why Tales From The Unknown Void is one of my faves, and Dreaming With Elsa is my personal faves. It sure would be nice to find someone else like this that could recommend some stuff.
Edit: Just so we're on the same page, I'm looking for stuff that isn't still highly highly well known and still highly praised like Acting Lessons.
Can you recommend anything older with very outdated visuals, but things like really great dialogue, and/or a lot of visual detail?
I worry that I'll never find anyone besides Jufot that can look past outdated visuals in AVNs if the dialogue is good enough, or there's a lot of really really interesting things to look at. It's why Tales From The Unknown Void is one of my faves, and Dreaming With Elsa is my personal faves. It sure would be nice to find someone else like this that could recommend some stuff.
Edit: Just so we're on the same page, I'm looking for stuff that isn't still highly highly well known and still highly praised like Acting Lessons.
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- May 15, 2021
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Well, if you are looking for good dialogue and "interesting things to look at", would you consider RPG/VN hybrids?
Winter Wolves has a series of games released over the last decade (including very recently) that all take place in the same universe, with good worldbuilding and many interconnected, recurring characters. Together, the games cover a time span of decades. They were not released chronologically, but I will list them in my recommended order:
- Cursed Lands (The beginning of the story, and an introduction to several major characters of the Aravorn universe. M/F protag, 2 LIs each)
- Loren The Amazon Princess (By far the biggest, most well-known game in the series. A full on RPG with team building and combat. 12 LIs (M human / F elven protag, 6 LIs each!)
- Tales From The Under-Realm: Hazel (Takes place decades before Cursed Lands. A darker story about a trio of women and The Nameless God. F protag, 2 LIs)
- Tales From The Under-Realm: After Midnight (Another Nameless God game, also quite dark, with many references to Hazel. F protag, 2 LIs)
- Tales From The Under-Realm: Lilith (The third and final Nameless God game. Takes place quite a bit after AM. F protag, 4 LIs)
- Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf (Takes place before Loren, in a distant part of Aravorn but with many references to other characters. Slavery themed. M/F sibling protags (you choose one) 2 LIs each)
- Tales of Aravorn: An Elven Marriage (A political marriage / palace intrigue game. Continuation to Loren. M/F protag. 2 LIs each. You can continue a relationship with one LI from Loren, or choose a new LI)
- Amber's Magic Shop (Potion crafting game / VN combo. Provides some background to After Midnight, but not really necessary. F protag, 4 LIs).
These should keep you occupied for several months
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- Jan 4, 2019
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Oh hey Jufot, how's it going? Good to see you again.
I guess I should explain things a little further.
Quite often I'm on the lookout for decent or better stuff that truly is under the radar. Right now I'm craving older 3d vns with very outdated graphics that most vn fans are gonna dismiss, but have good, WELL PACED(special emphasis on Well Paced. Pacing is very important to me, and if something is slow and/or boring for a significant amount of the experience where nothing is happening) dialogue, with interesting things to look at.
It's why I listed Dreaming With Elsa, and Tales From The Unending Void as examples. They're not particulary good 3d, but I find the characters so compelling, especially in Dreaming With Elsa, hence why It's my favortie Visual Novel.
With the case of Tales From the Unending Void, I think it's got the best written sex scenes I've seen in a game. Most of them are so descriptive and detailed, that I'm mostly imagining what's going on with the text, with the detailed visualbackground helping. And there is just so much cool shit to look at in the game in general, like the space ships. I always feel like this game pretty much fell into obscurity once the graphics became outdated, and I've run into maybe 2 people that also have this game on their top 10 list. Nickel for every VN fan I've run into that is surprised that I still love this title.
The Winter Wolves games have really good 2d visuals, and 2d ages a LOT better. Going by the screenshots, they still look amazing, and from what I understand Winter Wolves is a pretty big name amon vn fans. Thanks for the reccs though, I imagine that they're really great.
edit: I also should mention this. IIRC the people that run this site said that they were gonna get rid of most of the games in this site that don't have sexual content. Nice to see that they decided to save the Winter Wolf titles.
I guess I should explain things a little further.
Quite often I'm on the lookout for decent or better stuff that truly is under the radar. Right now I'm craving older 3d vns with very outdated graphics that most vn fans are gonna dismiss, but have good, WELL PACED(special emphasis on Well Paced. Pacing is very important to me, and if something is slow and/or boring for a significant amount of the experience where nothing is happening) dialogue, with interesting things to look at.
It's why I listed Dreaming With Elsa, and Tales From The Unending Void as examples. They're not particulary good 3d, but I find the characters so compelling, especially in Dreaming With Elsa, hence why It's my favortie Visual Novel.
With the case of Tales From the Unending Void, I think it's got the best written sex scenes I've seen in a game. Most of them are so descriptive and detailed, that I'm mostly imagining what's going on with the text, with the detailed visualbackground helping. And there is just so much cool shit to look at in the game in general, like the space ships. I always feel like this game pretty much fell into obscurity once the graphics became outdated, and I've run into maybe 2 people that also have this game on their top 10 list. Nickel for every VN fan I've run into that is surprised that I still love this title.
The Winter Wolves games have really good 2d visuals, and 2d ages a LOT better. Going by the screenshots, they still look amazing, and from what I understand Winter Wolves is a pretty big name amon vn fans. Thanks for the reccs though, I imagine that they're really great.
edit: I also should mention this. IIRC the people that run this site said that they were gonna get rid of most of the games in this site that don't have sexual content. Nice to see that they decided to save the Winter Wolf titles.
- Jan 4, 2019
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Offcuts, Alexandra, Tribulations of a Mage (new but very well paced epic like TFTUV but fantasy rather than scifi), on the off chance you hvent played Reluctant Archon that's #1 always and forever </3
I'm forgetting more hopefully those match what you're looing for
- Jan 4, 2019
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- May 15, 2021
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It hasn't made its way to F95 yet, but I have a new recommendation:
So, what's it about? Cage of Roses is a gothic romance drama set in 17th century Germany (and appropriately scored with copius Bach). It's heavily inspired by Beauty and the Beast, which should be apparent within the first hour. Noble girl Meike is on her way to Augsburg to meet her future husband, travelling with her family and her maid Henny. Their carriage is attacked by bandits and none are spared, save for the two. Just as they are about to die too, a shadowy figure leaps in and makes short work of the outlaws.
Enter, Magdelena - an aloof, dignified vampire living in a decrepit old manor. She throws the girls into the dungeon, but after some bargaining agrees to let Henny go. And so, a parallel story starts. Henny goes to great lengths to rescue her mistress, recruiting some unlikely allies in Johann and Heidemarie. Meike spends her time getting to know her captor better, who might not be so alone in the manor, if the occasional screams she hears are to be believed.
That's all I can say about the plot without heading into spoilers. Hopefully it sounds interesting to some of you. Unusually for a story of this kind, Meike is neither the most interesting nor the most important character. That's despite being the protagonist and the literal damsel in distress. That honour goes to the other four I've named, all a lot more colourful and endearing.
Cage of Roses is very, very far from ebi-hime's darkest work. She has grown soft! But if you're looking for a story that's a bit more challenging and angsty than the usual safe space harems around us, you might want to give this a shot. I'll wait for the game to show up here before adding it to the OP, but I'll leave you with an excerpt. It might even entice you
You must be registered to see the links
This is somewhat of a return to form by ebi-hime, whose recent games have all been fluffy, saccharine romances. Roses is angsty, dark, and flowery in its prose - as the best of ebi's work tends to be. In fact, it turns out that a VN studio well known for publishing yuri games approached her, who pitched this game to them, and they rejected it as being 'too dark'.
So, what's it about? Cage of Roses is a gothic romance drama set in 17th century Germany (and appropriately scored with copius Bach). It's heavily inspired by Beauty and the Beast, which should be apparent within the first hour. Noble girl Meike is on her way to Augsburg to meet her future husband, travelling with her family and her maid Henny. Their carriage is attacked by bandits and none are spared, save for the two. Just as they are about to die too, a shadowy figure leaps in and makes short work of the outlaws.
Enter, Magdelena - an aloof, dignified vampire living in a decrepit old manor. She throws the girls into the dungeon, but after some bargaining agrees to let Henny go. And so, a parallel story starts. Henny goes to great lengths to rescue her mistress, recruiting some unlikely allies in Johann and Heidemarie. Meike spends her time getting to know her captor better, who might not be so alone in the manor, if the occasional screams she hears are to be believed.
That's all I can say about the plot without heading into spoilers. Hopefully it sounds interesting to some of you. Unusually for a story of this kind, Meike is neither the most interesting nor the most important character. That's despite being the protagonist and the literal damsel in distress. That honour goes to the other four I've named, all a lot more colourful and endearing.
Cage of Roses is very, very far from ebi-hime's darkest work. She has grown soft! But if you're looking for a story that's a bit more challenging and angsty than the usual safe space harems around us, you might want to give this a shot. I'll wait for the game to show up here before adding it to the OP, but I'll leave you with an excerpt. It might even entice you
P.S: As always with ebi-hime's work, when you finish the game don't forget to check Addendum and Notes under the extras section.
- Oct 20, 2022
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That set up gives me Beauty and the Beast vibes. I'm curious if Henny's quest to save her mistress will lead to unintended tragedy. I really need to give this one a try to see how the story goes.It hasn't made its way to F95 yet, but I have a new recommendation:You must be registered to see the links
This is somewhat of a return to form by ebi-hime, whose recent games have all been fluffy, saccharine romances. Roses is angsty, dark, and flowery in its prose - as the best of ebi's work tends to be. In fact, it turns out that a VN studio well known for publishing yuri games approached her, who pitched this game to them, and they rejected it as being 'too dark'.
So, what's it about? Cage of Roses is a gothic romance drama set in 17th century Germany (and appropriately scored with copius Bach). It's heavily inspired by Beauty and the Beast, which should be apparent within the first hour. Noble girl Meike is on her way to Augsburg to meet her future husband, travelling with her family and her maid Henny. Their carriage is attacked by bandits and none are spared, save for the two. Just as they are about to die too, a shadowy figure leaps in and makes short work of the outlaws.
Enter, Magdelena - an aloof, dignified vampire living in a decrepit old manor. She throws the girls into the dungeon, but after some bargaining agrees to let Henny go. And so, a parallel story starts. Henny goes to great lengths to rescue her mistress, recruiting some unlikely allies in Johann and Heidemarie. Meike spends her time getting to know her captor better, who might not be so alone in the manor, if the occasional screams she hears are to be believed.
That's all I can say about the plot without heading into spoilers. Hopefully it sounds interesting to some of you. Unusually for a story of this kind, Meike is neither the most interesting nor the most important character. That's despite being the protagonist and the literal damsel in distress. That honour goes to the other four I've named, all a lot more colourful and endearing.
Cage of Roses is very, very far from ebi-hime's darkest work. She has grown soft! But if you're looking for a story that's a bit more challenging and angsty than the usual safe space harems around us, you might want to give this a shot. I'll wait for the game to show up here before adding it to the OP, but I'll leave you with an excerpt. It might even entice you
P.S: As always with ebi-hime's work, when you finish the game don't forget to check Addendum and Notes under the extras section.
Not a fan of this take. I have characters laughing at stuff all the time - sometimes *I* don't even find it that funny. The point is that the characters do. (Although sometimes I personally think it's hilarious).
But it's like was said, humor is subjective. Maybe you don't think it's very funny, but maybe someone else does. Maybe the writer does. You'll even often see instances where someone makes a joke, one character laughs, and a 3rd isn't even remotely amused.
I obviously can't speak for every writer, but for me it's not about whether you find it funny or not, it's about whether the characters do. I can actually think of one thing I wrote, that IMO wasn't even a tiny bit funny (actually it was one of the more cringe things I've written tbh), but one of the characters laughed his ass off because he thought it was hilarious.
If you're trying to make a comedy AVN (and a few of them exist) then yeah, having characters laugh at every joke probably isn't the best idea - but in most cases, it's not about the writer, or even the reader, but the characters.
I can see how a writer would think that. But honestly, think about how they do it in good television or movies. Take Anchorman, for example. I can't think of a single character that laughs at anything anyone does. Or let's say Curb Your Enthusiasm. There's tons of laughing in the outtakes, but it's just much funnier if the characters play it straight while ridiculous things are happening.
There may be a studio audience that laughs, but the other characters rarely do. And even studio audiences / laugh tracks have gone out of vogue in recent years.
Now if there's actually 100% a character reason to have someone laugh, that's different. Like if you're trying to show something about that character's sense of humor. But the big irksome thing for me is people surrounding the main character and constantly laughing at every little thing he says. Like having every woman in the world constantly telling the MC how great they are. Mary Sue main characters suck.