LOVE Scenes vs SEX Scenes in your Game

----- Original Message -----

So I'm thinking of making a mature game in the near future and I just want to know how Making Love and Hentai scenes are different. Can one still show private parts and keeping in the Making Love section, or would it be considered a Hentai Scene?

 -- Interested in Otome

Whether or Not you show genitalia in a sex scene has Nothing to do with whether it's a Love scene or a Sex scene. Showing or Not showing genitalia is merely the difference between a PORN (R18) scene, and a SENSUAL (R16) scene.

Love scenes and Sex scenes are divided by something else entirely.

The Love scene vs the Sex scene.

The difference between a Porn/Hentai scene and a Love scene is Not CONTENT; it's not What the participants are Doing. It's WHY they are having sex. It's the MOTIVE.

However, before we get into that...

Don’t confuse Romance with Love. They are two completely different things!

Love vs. Romance 
There IS a difference!

• Romance – a manipulation technique designed to make someone receptive to Sex. The source of Romance is LUST.
  
• Love – when someone’s happiness means more than your own. The source of Love is CARING.

To many people, Romance means ‘showing love’. That’s not true. You show love by Protecting the ones you care for with the intent to ensure their lasting happiness. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re nice to them.

So, how do you create a LOVE scene

 -- as opposed to a SEX scene?

If you're doing it right, the ONLY difference between a LOVE scene and a SEX scene is the MOTIVE -- WHY that scene is happening.

• Lust’s motive is ORGASM.
  
• Love’s motive is CARING.

"How do you SHOW Love?"

It’s easier than you think, because you probably already do it regularly without realizing it.

Think in terms of your Pet...
-- When you want to show how much you care, you stroke them, cuddle them, and play with them. You also feed them, clean up their poop, and make sure they have vet check-ups. You do all of these things to keep them happy and healthy. You do these things to keep them from suffering in any way.

You do the SAME THING with people you love whether they are your parents, your friends, or your children – you hug them, play with them, joke around with them, make sure they’ve eaten, make sure their colds are taken care of, you make sure they are not suffering in any way –- physically or emotionally. You also bitch them out when they’ve done something that could harm them or result in misery.

The difference between these people and a Lover, is that when you are showing that you care for a lover, you use sex to bring them the greatest physical pleasure you can.

Point Blank:

• Sex is just another form of PETTING.

LUST is a whole other bowl of kimchee.

LUST is a physical urge, like eating when you’re hungry, seeking warmth in the cold, or needing to pee. It is an urge that seeks relief just like all your other physical urges.

If the urgency is great enough, LUST will attempt every dirty trick in the book to get their hands on their object of choice to get some relief. Think: Physical ADDICTION, and all the crazy, scary obsessive acts that go with fulfilling one. If their particular object (of addiction) gives them exceptional pleasure, whether it be a dildo, a rubber doll, a super soft sock, or a person, they’ll make sure that the toy is cared for, and in some cases, jealously guarded – so that the toy will still be there (and receptive) when they want to use it again.

The key word here is USE.

• Lust USES others for selfish physical gratification.
  
• Love doesn’t use, it GIVES.

Love GIVES Affection to make the one loved happy.

-- If something should happen to cause hurt to the one loved, the one who cares is devastated by their FAILURE stop suffering from happening.

Lust TAKES affection to make themselves happy.

-- Toys have PHYSICAL value, not Emotional value. If their toy should break, or Refuse to be used, they will be FRUSTRATED and ANGRY, but they won’t think they failed. They’ll think the TOY Failed -- and just go out and get another toy. If their addiction is strong enough, they may even attempt to Destroy the toy so no one else will ever want to use it -- especially if that toy is a Person. "If I can't use them, I'll make sure no one else can either!"

What's the real difference between a Love scene and a Lust scene?

Very simply:

• Lust Takes pleasure.
• Love Gives it.

Jealousy is NOT a sign of LOVE!

Jealousy a sign of possession, of ownership; of FEAR that their object will be taken from them and no longer theirs to USE; of Obsession and ADDICTION.

Jealousy is a point-blank sign of someone concerned with their own happiness, not their Beloved's. 

"I won't let you make me unhappy!"

When the Beloved's happiness comes SECOND to the lover's happiness, "If you love me, you'd do this to make me happy..." What they are expressing is OWNERSHIP.

When one is in Love, and their lover sleeps with someone else, they do not feel jealousy, they feel FAILURE, and point the blame squarely on themselves.

“I wasn’t enough to make my beloved happy in bed. What did I do wrong?” 

If their feelings are strong enough, they may ALLOW their lover to keep their other lover --and give up on them entirely-- simply because it's what makes their beloved happy.

When someone is merely in LUST, they will ISOLATE the object of their desires --from friends, co-workers, family, and even pets. They will use every trick they know, such as; Stalking and Spying, to keep rivals (read: THIEVES) from taking what they have claimed as theirs, even if it's merely their attention.

Should the object of their Lust sleep with someone else, they will attack the one attempting to steal their possession.

"How dare you touch what is MINE?!"

Then they will attack their 'supposedly' Beloved.

"How dare you let someone else have you?! You belong to ME!" 

Punishment --with the intent to cause Emotional damage-- swiftly follows, such as; breaking something important to their Lust object, a brutal and bloody beating, or flat-out rape.

If their Lust Object doesn't leave at that point, the jealous owner will then enforce stricter forms of ISOLATION on their Lust Object; up to and including Imprisonment, to ensure that neither Escape nor Theft will happen again.

-----Original Message-----
"Wow, I always thought Romance was about Love...?"
-- Prefers Romance

EVERYONE thinks Romance is about love -- because we really, really WANT it to be.

Romance tells us that the Other Person gives up everything for Us, when in fact, the opposite is true. Real Love makes us give up everything for THEM.

When you think about it, Love is a very scary emotion. It makes us give up everything we want, everything we are -- for someone else. If they are not worthy of such a sacrifice, it doesn't matter because we LOVE them and want them to be happy at any cost, even if that cost is ourselves.

Real Love
comes in many different shapes and colors.

A love that looks destructive from the outside, such as Bondage and Domination, could in fact be perfectly supportive, and exactly what both lovers need from each other. A good movie that illustrates this perfectly is "Secretary".

On the other hand, what an outsider may think is positive and supportive might in fact not be love at all. Case in point, stalking was once thought of as being an expression of love. Angry possessiveness can look an awful lot like love when in fact it is a terror tactic designed to isolate the one supposedly beloved.

When a lover asks their beloved to choose between them and anything else, a friend, a pet, or even a hobby, they not interested in their significant other's happiness. They are ensuring that their toy has no outside distractions, and is available for their convenience. A good movie that illustrates this is "Sleeping with the Enemy".

A lover that yells at their beloved for their destructive habits, such as; over-spending, drugs, booze, gambling...is more likely to be showing real love, than a lover that sweetly begs their beloved to drop their plans for going out with their friends for a romantic dinner date with them.

How do you tell the difference?

Measure each action by this question:

"WHO benefits from the results, really?"
The Lover, or the one supposedly Beloved?

Enjoy!

Planning a Visual Novel

How do I PLAN my 
Visual Novels?

Since it's utterly pointless to create a story I don't have the resources, or skill, to turn into a Completed visual novel, I begin my planning by looking through my Assets and Asset Sources, to see what I can use. By the way, I am constantly adding new graphics and links to my asset collections.

Music: 

For the main menu, and for individual scenes I prefer to use one album, or collection by one band, or artist per game. This makes the music consistent in style.

• Jamendo.com
• MusOpen.com

Images: 

For backgrounds and characters, I happen to prefer using photo images. Occasionally I'll draw my characters from scratch, but my backgrounds are almost always heavily filtered images, or filtered photo-manipulations.  

Photo Sources

• Dreamstime.com
• WikiMedia Commons
• morgueFile.com 

Anime style Character & Background sources:

•  OELVN Community Wiki

3D Modeling program:

• SketchUp It's free!

Sound Effects: 

For locations as well as for things that happen.

• SoundBible.com
• SoundDogs.com

Then I consider my...

Artistic limitations:

• What can I draw?
• What can't I draw?
• Can I make what I need with SketchUp?
• Can I Photoshop what I need from bits and pieces of what I do have? 
• Can I art-filter Photos into what I need? 
• Do I have the right plug-ins to make a photo look like Art?
• Do I have the right photos?

Then I consider my...

Coding limitations:

What I know how to code, or can get templates, sample codes, and/or tutorials to code.

The LemmaSoft forum holds a comprehensive library of tutorials, samples, and template games. Seriously.

• LemmaSoft forum

Next to consider are my...

Copyright Limitations:

• Paid license for commercial use?
• Creative Commons, free to use with Credit, but not commercially?
• Public Domain? 
• Stolen from the Internet? (With the possibility of a copyright infringement lawsuit?)

Once I know what I have, I can then figure out what type of game I can create vs. what I can't create, and explore possible work-arounds for what I want to create. 

What I Want vs. What I Have

As you can probably guess, I prefer making adult games. However, I rarely have enough graphics to fully illustrate an erotic scene, so I Fake It. I select one one static image and write extremely detailed text to fulfill the erotic portions of the game. Oddly enough, this technique has proved to be rather successful, (read: Popular among my players).

For those who have actions scenes in their games, but just can't get the graphics to illustrate them, this technique could be a viable option -- IF you have a damned good writer on your team.

To see full-sized image: Right-Click > View Image

Next comes...

Game Planning

I use FreePlane, a free mind mapping program, to plot out the main paths/options in the game. FreePlane is disgustingly easy to use. Most of it is simply point > click > type. It even has a built-in Spell-Check, though you have to Turn It On, plus internal hyper links (green arrows) to jump from any bubble to any other bubble.

• FreePlane

With this program, I can map out the game into multiple stages (or chapters,) with all their branching options, plus hyper links that jump to specific results.

By closing all the options, then clicking open only those I wish to select, I can actually do a dry-run of the entire game. This is particularly useful for uncovering anything left open-ended before I even begin coding.

 

To see full-sized image: Right-Click > View Image 

As for the story writing aspect goes, I tend to write out most of the dialogue and narrative right into FreePlane, then just copy-paste the text straight into the game's code.

How to Plot the Story? 

I plot out my stories in FreePlane, but then I've crafting stories for a really long time so most of the work happens inside my head. For those who need a little assistance getting their ideas organized, there's this technique;

•  Planning a Multi-path Game

Visual Novel Graphics

To make the graphics FIT exactly the way they're supposed in the game without any extra adjustments, I open Photoshop and create a PSD file set to the exact dimensions of the game. On separate layers in this one file, I create all the graphics; buttons, textboxes, menus, and backgrounds.

Once they're created, it's simply a matter of saving the individual layers as PNGs and JPGs into the Game file.

 1024x768 game

 

For full sized image: Right-click > View Image

I create the characters in their own PSD files because they tend to have hundreds of layers all by themselves. I also make them complete; head to toe at 1100px tall for a game 768px in height, then cut the image from the top - down to fit the 768 screen.

Ivan's PSD file was over 800MB in size.

He had 4 costume changes, 6 poses, and 14 different expressions. 

Once I have all (or most of) the graphics made, I open Ren'Py, my visual novel engine of choice, and begin coding the game together.

• Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine -- Get yours! It's FREE.

When I  run into problems --and I do regularly-- I visit the LemmaSoft forum for Tech and Coding support. It is the ONLY place to get quick, if not immediate help for Ren'Py coding complications. Mainly because the creator of Ren'Py; PyTom, hangs out there.

• LemmaSoft forums

The Cookbook section of the forum has a whole treasure-trove of coding tricks for just about everything from making an Image Gallery, and a Music Room, to setting up Turn-Based Battles. Warning: This section has been known to induce Feature Creep in games!

What about Beginners?

If you're a beginner working on your very first visual novel, I cannot recommend this tutorial high enough:

• How to Make a Simple Otome (romance) Game

This tutorial will teach you everything from the ground floor of opening the RenPy engine, all the way up to the intermediate level of setting up menu choices and jumps, posting flags to change events, and applying a point system to select an ending within a working multi-ending game that you code from scratch.

When I first ran into this tutorial, I had already completed two games. Even so, I could not believe how many Basic things I'd never learned. This one tutorial made so many things that seemed complicated very easy to learn -- and Use.

Enjoy!

TRAP! A Modern Fantasy ~ Visual Novel

Trap!

Do you believe in Faeries?

Short Story & Graphics by Morgan Hawke
From an Original Concept by Alex
Proofread & Play-Tested by the fabulous AntiquedFae!

Rated PG16

(Partial nudity & adult situations.)

Download from Internet Archive 104 MB
version 1.6

15 minutes of play, at most.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dartmoor, England...
A land of misty desolate moors, towering craggy tors, ancient weathered standing stones--

--and Faeries.

It's a place where things aren't always what they seem.

Or where they seem.

Will you escape to tell the tale?
Or fall into the Trap!

Features!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Music Room.

Selectable Player Character

Name-able Player Character

5,000+ words of Story.

23 menus.

Lots of mist.

View the "Let's Play" 

Enjoy!

The Erotic Story Generator

The Erotic Story Generator
M/M - M/F - F/F

R-18!: Partial Nudity, Suggestive Imagery & Adult Language.

Anyone familiar with Seventh Sanctum's generators will recognize the "list generated" style immediately. Basically, you click a button and a story happens. What's different about mine isn't merely the the way the words actually fit together to make a coherent story, but the sheer magnitude of the content used to make One story.

Each story generates from Eleven lists -- with over 50 items per list:

• 2 Character lists
• 2 Character description lists
• 2 locations lists
• 2 Smut/Action lists
• 2 Locations lists
• 1 Conclusion list (the story's End.)

Plus there's Music, and Graphics. However it does use Adult language!!!

It's free to download AND free to use! Seriously, if the generator provides inspiration USE IT! In fact, that's exactly why I made it, to help erotic writers come up with plot-based Adult story ideas.

If you do download it, let me know if you like it.

Download from Mediafire

-- Click on file to download. 45mb

For those interested in a Non-Adult Story Generator: 
Go Here: The Story Generator

To begin, simply Select your Genre.

To make a New Story appear, hit your Space Bar
or click with your mouse.

You can Change Genre's at any time
by selecting what you like from the Menu on the Bottom-Left.

Note: The stories in these screen shots contain the least amount of adult content I could find. You wouldn't believe how many times I had to click through the stories to get them!

The Bookmark in the top-right gives you direct access to the Save screen and Navigation.

I hope you enjoy the stories!

Making Adult Visual Novels -- for Women

Making Adult Visual Novels

for Women.

----- Original Message------

... [female] fans want more than just some below-average Visual Novels that resembles the worst 1970s romance novels.

 -- Frustrated VN Fan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, they do want more. I have seen my share of Adult visual novels and I can tell you from the hard experience of working for a porn video corporation, that the Adult JVNs currently out on the market do NOT appeal to us Western Females at all, and I doubt they appeal to women in the East either -- for the Same Reasons: the way SEX is portrayed. 

"But Romance is Romance, right?
Porn is Porn?"

Not quite...
-- The Adult book publishing industry in the West (Europe too, not just the Americas,) recently had a huge cultural revolution over:

Sex Positive vs. Sex Negative:  

Sex that makes the reader feel good about themselves, 

verses 

Sex that makes the reader feel like perverted freaks. 

In short, the erotic plots and the characters engaging in erotic activities had a huge overhaul to make Sex a Good thing, instead of a dirty little secret you didn't talk about to anyone, not even your lover or your spouse. 

Namely:

• Female characters are no longer written as sex-crazed Sluts or Passive Victims who like sex in spite of themselves.

• Male characters are no longer written as Rapists, (though they did keep the aggressive Seducer.)

But most importantly....

• Sex makes everything Better, especially Love.

Well that's just books, right?

It's not just Books. 

This shift in attitude has bled into the Porn industry too.

You can actually buy/rent xXx porn movies that are sex positive: where the characters are Not treated like freaks for liking sex. Adam and Eve in particular has made a huge killing selling this type of movie (in every genre flavor you can think of) to almost exclusively female buyers. Just to put things in perspective, 20 years ago Women buying porn for themselves was Unheard Of because "women didn't buy porn." They do now! And a lot of it.

In the meantime, Sex-Negative porn is dying off.

You can still find it, but the porn Producers that don't make sex-negative movies drastically out-number the ones that still do.

These days, Sex Negative sells to only a small niche of people and this small niche is who JVN eroge generally appeals to.

This shift in attitude about sex from Negative: Sex is Bad, to Positive: Sex is Good, hasn't happened in Japan -- yet, and it shows in their work. Worse, this sex-negative attitude shows in their Romances too.

So... No, Sex-Negative/Rapist Porn is Not Sex-Positive/Seducer Porn, and Sex-Negative/Bodice-Ripper Romance is Not Sex-Positive Erotic Romance.

The #1 reason why the two top-selling genres of JVN:
Porn and Romance
Are Not selling well in the West?

Adult JVNs are Sex-Negative.

So, what changed the Western Adult Book market so radically?

The Black Lace phenomena.

Black Lace, an imprint of Virgin Books, based in London, was the first publishing house to not only put out adult books specifically targeting women readers, but to Require that their authors be Female. They point-blank refused to take male authors because, according to their submission guidelines, "Only a woman truly understands what women find erotic."

However, most importantly: "Stories must be Sex Positive."

The Black Lace books proved so popular, they took over the entire adult book market. I have 19 of their books currently on my shelf, and only a handful of the 'other kind', the kind put out before Black Lace came along.

The sheer overwhelming number of books that Black Lace sold forcibly brought to the attention of all those other adult book publishers three important --and overlooked-- facts:
.

Fact 1:
Women DO like adult stories when they're Sex-Positive.

When the first books soon to be known as Erotic Romances first appeared on the market, the publishing industry had been claiming for over a century that "women did Not like Sex in their stories." (Pretty much the same way all those JVN companies are currently insisting that only Men buy adult games.)

The truth was: women did not like Sex-Negative in their stories.

The #1 largest market of readers among English-speaking countries are Romance readers. Once they started buying Sex-Positive Adult books, the adult book market changed --almost overnight-- simply from the sheer number of the books they bought.

Fact 2:
When women find something they Like, 

They Buy them as fast as they Find them,  

and go through them like toilet paper.

Women weren't buying these books one or two at a time. They were buying the entire series in one shot simply because Erotica has a habit of being banned in stores. The simple possibility that they might not get another chance to buy these books prompted these women into buying everything they could get their hands on all at once. 

(I would buy them five or six at a time myself because I didn't know if the store I bought them from would be able to carry them later.)

They were able to do this because Adult Women have Disposable Income especially those with a working spouse.

Fact 3:
Female readers vastly Out-Number male readers. 

The vast and voracious market of Romance readers, made up of almost exclusively Female (housewife) book buyers, were the direct cause behind the birth of the EBook market. (The traditional publishers simply couldn't keep up with the demand.) These readers were also directly responsible for the creation of a whole new genre of adult books never seen before: the Erotic Romance, AKA: Women's Adult Adventure Fiction.

Today, Erotic Romance is still one of the largest and most prolifically producing book markets in the US -- even more so than ordinary (little to no sex) Romance. Mainly because those Romance readers are buying Erotic Romances.

Where is Black Lace Now?

DEFUNCT. They changed their line of stories from "Women's Adult Adventure Fiction" to 'Ladette' fiction, AKA: "Do them and Lose them" stories with female protagonists instead of males -- and cut their own throat.

Women don't like Sex-Negative stories. However, when the protagonist is Female they utterly despise them. This is because women are far more critical of the actions of their own gender than they are of men.

In short:

How do you make Adult Games

Sell to Women?

Change the Stories to
Sex-Positive
Make the player Feel GOOD about Sex, 

and you will change the Sales.

I can guarantee that right now in Japan there are far more bored housewives sitting at home at the computer then there are shut-in, jobless, otaku men still living at home with mommy.

Can you say: Vast Un-Tapped Potential Sales?

How do You the Game-Maker

Tap all that Potential?

Make what Female Players Want: Sex-Positive.
Stories that make the player feel Good about liking sex,
and
AVOID what they Don't Like: Sex Negative. 

Stories where liking sex is Shameful.

AVOID these Four specific 
Sex-Negative plots:

Plot 1: "Do them and Lose them."

Where the main character pursues, catches, screws, then abandons as many characters as possible to get to Good One (The Keeper) at the very end.

This is a MALE-SLUT plot line.

It appeals to men because they love the idea of being able to screw as many women as they can. It does not appeal to women because women are brought up to look for One Special Man. In fact, one of the worst things you can call a woman is a Slut.

Plot 2: "Gotta Get'em All"

Where the main character pursues, catches, and screws as many characters as possible then Shames them into helping him get to Good One at the very end.

This is a CHEATING MALE-SLUT plot line.

A double-whammy BAD plot to market toward women because women hate Cheaters even more than they do Sluts! The last thing any female wants is a guy that might be sleeping with her friend too. (Unless she's in the bed with them both, and even then the situation is rife with jealousy and self-esteem issues.)

Plot 3: "Rape means Love"

Where the main character Stalks the character of their choice, Rapes them then shames them for liking it to isolate them from all the other characters. Then they use guilt to bully that character into being raped again, and again until the chosen character gets "Stockholm Syndrome" and says, "I love you".

This is your basic STALKER-RAPIST plot-line, or more accurately, "I SPIT on it and NOW It's MINE!" plot.

This is one of the most immature and childish plots there are. Think in terms of a child licking a candy, or taking a bite out of a cake, just to make sure no one else will eat it before they get to it.

The worst part is how the author makes all the support characters AGREE with the rapist and shun the victimized character for Allowing themselves to be Victimized.

This is point-blank Unrealistic among modern society. In the USA, and most European countries, blaming the victim for a rape can get you sued for 'Defamation of Character.' That's after the rapist is sent to prison for a long, long time.

However, certain third-world countries and Middle Eastern religious regimes, STILL believe that Stalking = Love and will indeed blame the victim for 'allowing themselves to be a raped' to the point of insisting that the victim marry their Rapist to make the Victim an "honest woman."

Plot 4: "Rape the One that Got Away"

Where the main character Stalks and Rapes a character already in a legitimate relationship with someone else, such as: a friend's lover, a friend's spouse, or a sibling with a boyfriend. However, in this case they prefer the victim to remain in their relationship so they can use it for blackmail sex until they successfully break the victim's mind. Also known as "Netorare" or "Cuckolding."

This is the BACK-STABBING STALKER-RAPIST plot-line, or more accurately, "If It's Not Mine, I Will Take It and Break It!" plot.

This is even more immature than the previous. Think in terms of a child jealously stealing then breaking another child's toy simply because it wasn't theirs.

AVOID Female Rapists

Sadly, you see just as many Female rapists as Male rapists in VNs and anime. In fact, I believe it's actually more common to see a Female rapist in anime than a male, AKA: The Fan-Girl. However, in the East a man being raped by a woman is still considered Funny. (Values Dissonance, anyone?)

I don't know about you, but I LOATHE  Female Stalker/Rapists. ("No" means No people, girl or guy!) I hate these characters even more-so if they're temperamentally violent; females that viciously attack guys for no provocation other than embarrassment. It's Unfair and Not Funny. In fact, I hate those sorts of female characters even more than I do "Too Stupid To Live" (TSTL) doormat characters. I certainly would never want to play such a character in a game!

If you want to sell to the Female Market

Do Your RESEARCH. 

Research what this market actually Buys. 

What movies do they watch?

What music do they listen to?

What books do they buy?

What stories do they actually Like?

Also, read what women actually Write. Not the professional stuff, the Amateur stuff, the dojinshi mangas they produce, and adult fan-fictions posted in the thousands for free viewing all over the 'net.

What factors do all these things have in common?

Sex-Positive.

It's a well-known fact that when people can't find what they're looking for, they will make it themselves. The BL/Yaoi/Shonen Ai market and the entire Erotic Romance market are direct results of this. They both started with strictly amateur artists and writers, and look where they are now?

And that's my opinion on the topic. 

How Smutty should you make Your game?

Just for clarification, if you are making a game strictly for your own enjoyment, and don't really care if anyone else wants to play it, feel free to ignore this essay and make your game however you please.

On the other hand, if you intend to make a game for a playing, and possibly paying, audience, this is my advice.

 How  Smutty

should you make Your game?

Before you can even approach this question, first you'll need to decide:

WHO is your target audience?

• What Age bracket are you aiming for: 
• Under 18? 
• Over 21?
• What Gender: 
• Male? 
• Female? 
• Both?
• What Type of Gamer: 
• Those who prefer Story over Game-play, or 
• Those who prefer Game-play over Story?  
• Those who prefer Story and Game-play equally balanced.
• Those who prefer Art Galleries with as little story or game-play as possible.
• Other
• What kind of Story do they prefer: 
• Angst
• Slice-of-Life
• Romantic Comedy
• BDSM
• Horror
• Psychological Thrillers
• Mystery
• Comedy of Errors
• Supernatural
• Sci-Fi
• Steampunk
• Fantasy
• Yaoi (M/M)
• Yuri (F/F)
• Other

The wonderful thing about smut is that it can be used in any genre.

Once you know WHO your target audience is, how smutty you should make your game depends on these major factors:

1) Your Target Audience and THEIR Expectations.

What level of graphic smut does your target audience EXPECT in their games? 

Designing your game toward what your target audience likes and wants is the easiest and most effective way of guaranteeing that they'll adore your work.

As a professional erotica author, my target audience are the readers of my novels. They expect extremely detailed xXx work from me because that's how my novels are written.

2) Your Skill Level in Art and/or Writing.

Can you draw or write Good smut?

Realize your strengths, but more importantly -- your weaknesses. 

I don't have the artistic skills to draw smut well, but I Do have the skill to write very good smut, so I handle my smut scenes with one static R-16 (suggestive) image paired with very detailed R-18 text. This has proved very effective for me because a static image does not distract my audience from the extremely detailed smut they are reading.

3) The level of smut YOU are comfortable producing.

How smutty are you willing to go?

I'm comfortable with any level, from sweet romance to xXx smut, but that's just me.

If you are not comfortable writing or drawing smut Don't Do It because that discomfort will show in your results.

4) The Story.

Would smut Add to the story, or Ruin it?

Smut is all well and fine, but if your game doesn't actually need a full-on smut scene to get its point across, then a simple kissing scene is smutty enough.

Out of the six games I've made, two are not R-18 because those two games would not have benefited from R-18 material. In both cases, smut would have distracted the players from the actual point of those games.

Make the Smut COUNT!

Just like every other element in your work, Smut needs a Purpose, a reason to be in the story. 

Show something:  

The type of smut a character prefers, and how they choose and gain their partners, can easily be used to reveal a character's Base Personality: tender, sweet, attention to detail, aggressive, humorous, serious…

Prove something:  

Smut scenes are an excellent tool for visible demonstrations of a couple's progression from mere passionate attraction to protective and supportive love. They can also demonstrate the downward spiral of a destructive relationship, such as one that starts with attraction and ends with irrational obsession.

Make something Happen: 

The best way to make smut work in a story is by having the smut trigger a shift in the plot. The traditional use for smut in Romance fiction is to make or break a relationship, but that’s not all it can do.

Smut can cause Transformations.

• Vampirism and Lycanthropy as STDs. 
• Demonic or Spiritual possession as STD

Smut can trigger Psychic or Magical ability.

• Initiation rituals
• The classic hentai game Bible Black uses this.

Smut can be a Distraction that allows someone else to accomplish something nefarious.

• The modus operandi of the classic Femme Fatale.

Smut can show a radical change in a character's Personality. 

• The classic novel, Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde does this.

I like about you pointing out the weak points (mine is definitely the level of written smut), many tips only talk about what to do and not what there is to realize before.

Well, if you know where you want to end up, you're more likely to actually get there. That means having the car pointed in the right direction from the very beginning. (If you're going to California and Route 84 won't take you there, don't get on Route 84.)

I'm firmly of the opinion that any weakness can be worked around. You just have to be clever about it. However, you can't work around any limitation if you - 1 - don't acknowledge that it exists, and - 2 - Plan for it.

There is a work-around for a weakness in writing smut!

• First, read some good smut and Collect It. Seriously, collect GOOD smut novels and bookmark the appropriate pages.
• Break out your highlighting pens and Highlight the Action and Description parts of those scenes. Skip the dialog because you won't be needing that.
• Write all those highlighted pieces into a document - only DON'T COPY the exact words! Paraphrase them by swapping out that writer's words with your own. Don't forget to elaborate on what you have by adding plenty of adjectives. (A thesaurus is very handy for this.)
• Add bits of scenery description and YOUR dialog.
• Rewrite and polish to suit your work. By the time you're done, the scene will be twice as long and Entirely Yours.

Before you freak out...! 

It's only plagiarism if you are using the exact same exact phrases. 

What you're doing is using a successful MODEL to build your own work on. Eventually, with practice, you'll be able to create without a model to work from.

Just so you know, this is a REAL writing exercise practiced for years by Romance authors and Horror authors. It's one the Big Secrets they don't like to share because it WORKS.

Art is taught the same way -- Copying. 

Everything is a Remix Part 3: 
Elements of Creativity

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Warning: FALSE ENDING!!! Check the time left before you leave?

 

When you draw from life, you're Copying what's before you. However, the way you draw and what tools you use changes the results into something uniquely yours. Even in a life-drawing class of 30 students, all using the same type of paper and the same type of charcoals, every student in that class will always have uniquely different results -- despite the fact that they're all drawing the same model. This is because no two artists SEE or Create the same way.

The Renpy system is also done the same way.
 -- You start with a successful Game Model and elaborate on the basic model by adding images, sound, and text. That alone makes for an amazing array of unique games -- despite the fact that they're all built on the same Renpy Model.

In Conclusion...

When used cleverly, smut can be an amazing tool to enhance a story. However, when used badly, or  worse; as an afterthought, ("Oh hey, let's add some smut scenes!") smut can utterly ruin an otherwise entertaining game.

The worst thing a creator can do is have smut scenes tacked-on at the end of an otherwise PG rated game. This rather ugly trick is used to attract players who prefer adult content. Doing this is the lowest form of cheating because it's False Advertising, also known as pandering.

Don't cheat your players!  If you're going to make a game with smut in it, design it to be smutty from the very beginning by making those scenes necessary to the story.

Enjoy!

Yaoi Story - Director's Cut Edition

Yaoi Story
Director's Cut Edition!
An Erotic ~ M/M ~ Visual Novel

Yaoi Story is a Mad-Libs type of game where the player adds character names, objects, body parts, and perversions to the story. In addition, there are 5 locations to choose from with their own variations on the story.

Content Warning:  Ages 18+!!! 

Explicit text and soft-core images.

 Download from:

 MediaFire
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117 MB - Windows ~ Mac ~ Linux

To play: extract folder, open it, and click on the Yaoi Story DCE.exe icon.

New Features:
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Upgraded and Updated to Renpy 6.13.12
Larger size: 1024x768
Jukebox
New and Improved Interface
Updated Graphics + some new additions!

The Main Characters...

Screenshots
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 Enjoy!