tlaero wrote:I played Betsy tonight and enjoyed it. I liked that it was about a real relationship instead of a "meet, say nice things, and have sex." I also liked that the characters had distinct personalities. I really liked that, even when you didn't do well enough to have sex, it had a good ending. It was cool that there was an overriding goal besides getting into Betsy's pants. Tlaero
I'm about to say something really unpopular which many on here, especially game developers, probably aren't going to like. As a player, for me there is nothing wrong with the "meet, say nice things, and have sex" type of games. In fact, under most circumstances, it is preferable to a more complex story and often times makes a better game. I like games where the player has a sense of agency and can make choices which impact the game. The tendency is that the more complex the story, the less agency the player has. There is also a tendency for a complex story to make the player a side character in the story with someone else as the focus. A story that is too complex or a game that is too story driven can get in its own way.
When making games in the (broadly defined) erotic genre, I think you have to start by asking yourself what your premise is. For this genre your premise will often center around a fantasy. For example, this game is essentially "corrupting a good girl" fantasy. What the player will want from the game is an exploration of that fantasy. A story line that is too linear doesn't give you much to explore and is a little boring for the player. In Betsy, we weren't really the protagonist, Betsy was. The game was about her getting the part in the play. If she gets it we "win", if not we "lose". The story is just pulling us along for the ride, we are never the driving force of the story. If we're good and help Betsy out then we're rewarded with a sex scene at the end.
Now if we really wanted to explore the fantasy of corrupting a good girl we could shift the role of protagonist to us and give us the agency to make an impact in the game. First thing would be to take away Betsy getting a part in the play to be the winning criteria. It could still drive the story but not necessarily be the ending. Then we look at what the possible outcomes are from our perspective. Betsy learning to be confident (and what the means for us) is what is driving the player. So we can then look at what happens if Betsy is confident. Well, first she can not be confident and we can fail in our task (but still have a relationship so we kind of win too). There could be an ending or two revolving around this. The second is that Betsy could be confident but different things could happen. Betsy goes through an arc and is changed by the experience. Perhaps she takes the part in the play. Perhaps something happened along the way where she no longer wants the part, but instead wants to do something else. Perhaps you end up being too good in your job and Betsy finds you boring and meets someone else. There could be multiple endings based on all of these experiences.
The second part is the progression through the game. Right now there is a single path. You have to pick the right dates to progress. But what could be done is allow all the date options and have multiple nights where you go out on dates. As Betsy gets more confident, more options open up on each date. So if you go to the nightclub first, it may not be so wild an experience but if you go later in the game where Betsy is more confident, then it opens up a whole lot more options for what could happen. The options also don't have to be all good for the player, there could be some landmines thrown in too. If you take Betsy to the nightclub and she's really confident and if you pick the wrong choices, then she could start dancing with someone else and break up with you for being too boring for example. Or she could decide that the play is just too short sighted a goal for her and jumps a bus to Hollywood without you, leaving you a note. The photoshoot could be moved to the middle of the game and divide the game into two parts. There could be pre-confident Betsy before the photo shoot and post confident Betsy after the photo shoot. Once you go on enough dates and get enough confidence points for Betsy then the photo shoot happens. After the photo shoot you could still go on the remaining dates with confident Betsy (who is still getting used to being confident) but also run the risk of something bad happening. There could also be the reward of extra sex scenes during these post photo shoot dates. Then the player can decide if they want to save the boring dates until later like going bowling just to be safe or take the chance and save the nightclub date until the end. This way I actually get to explore the "corrupting the good girl fantasy" the game hooked me into playing by promising me.
So watering down the story by changing it from "help Betsy get the part in the play she wants" to just "help Betsy be confident" takes off some of the shackles that the game puts on the player. As the player I get to fully explore the fantasy the game promises instead of following along a rigid story and being told at the end "Betsy is now sexually confident, here's a single sex scene as an example of how confident she is" and then we end the game . That's like playing a first person shooter, making it through the training missions, and then the game ends and tells you "you go on to kill all the enemies and saved the day. Congratulations!" Of course I would not be expecting all of the above from a free game, but if Betsy was a paid game that is what I would want from it. I gave an example earlier on in this thread regarding how we could add some player agency that would be appropriate for a free game.
In conclusion, story is far from the most important thing in erotic games. A good story may actually hinder a game and prevent it from becoming a good game. I do agree with you about the characters though. Well written characters are probably the most important part of these types of games. They are far more important than the story. I should feel bad about keep bringing this up in all my posts, but Date Ariane is probably one of the best games ever made in this genre and it had absolutely no story. It was a "meet, say nice things, have sex" type of game. It had a very well written main character and provided the player with a fantasy of "you are going on a date with a cool, sexy girl where anything could happen" and it delivered on that fantasy. Good things could happen. Bad things could happen. But at the same time Ariane had a distinct personality and specific limits and an internal logic on how to get her to do what. The player spending all game interacting with a well written character is far more fun and engaging for the player than following a well written, linear story.
What I'm not saying is that story is completely unimportant. If a good story can be added to a game that does not impede it then great. I'm saying that story is not the most important part of a game and at times this needs to be taken into account to make better games that players want to play. Different mediums have different sayings to offer guidance to people working in them. Movies have the "show, don't tell" saying. I think a guideline for writing these type of games may be to "write the fantasy, not the story".