Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby TheBrain » Fri, 09Oct23 18:05

I only played Still Life and that is indeed just a linear adventure game and I didn't find the story to be that good (to drift off-topic for a bit, in adventure games, I could recommend the Syberia games and The Longest Journey for simply having an excellent storyline).

Anyway, the trial and error model... I certainly agree that it can be implemented in a frustrating way, requiring countless replays of a memorized sequence of actions.
After the initial exploration of Date Ariane I do recognize this process. At first you try some random stuff, see that the game has a lot to offer, but to really 'achieve' something you have to do better than random or even acting on intuition. Eventually you begin to memorize sequences because in the end that is what it takes to be succesful and see everything the game offers. A step even further is when you start to understand the game mechanics and you'll just learn the sequences that rack up 'nice'-points and 'drunk'-points and then go for the sex-scene (Chaotics games also spring to mind).

At this point I could take a detour to the "Women aren't vending machines" post ExLibris mentioned. The final step (understanding the game mechanics) is very related to this:
"This design approach is extremely simplistic and perpetuates the commodity model of sex—the player wants sex, they go through certain motions, and they are "rewarded" with what they wanted (like a vending machine)"
The post was an interesting read, by the way.

Back to trial and error. Be it that it can be used in a way that is frustrating, that doesn't mean it is a frustrating principle at its core.
Right now I can think of two games that use the principle a lot better: Masq and School Dreams 3.

In Masq I've never really been tempted to go for the combinatoric way (simply try all possible actions one by one). My first theory to this is that you only get 10 tries (without paying at least, or putting effort in registering multiple times maybe), so it's impossible to try everything. But I don't think that does the game justice. For one, there is the size. In the 5 episodes you take a lot of choices, but it remains relatively obscure which ones really influence the events (knowing the existence of a certain scene I've tried to work towards it, but that turned out to be incredibly hard). As a closing argument you could say it is an interactive story and not really a 'game', so choices don't need to have a result that is predictable to some degree. Rather, a choice resulting in a plot twist can be a good storytelling device. On top of that, almost none of the choices lead to an end, the story always progresses. So there's a lot of trial and little error.

Moving on to School Dreams 3. While it's a text adventure in its core I'd say it has a lot of similarities with the dating games. I do think that SD3 feels a lot more natural (is it just that it's well-written, or does that come from the freedom of interaction with the world?). As an example, my own first experiences with the game. Not knowing what to expect I get thrown into a world where I'm told I have a girlfriend, Becky. My response to that was pretty much what I'd do in real life: stay faithful. I play through the game and might have gotten the Becky-end, I can't remember. On the 2nd try I know of the existence of Molly, which I want to explore. Pre-emptively (Groundhog Day, anyone?) I try to see if I can break up with Becky directly to free myself from that bond. For me this would be a natural interaction if there was a more appealing romantic interest. Of course this is where I'm no longer able to project myself onto the character: I can't break up immediately. After all the creator can not code in every possible action (let alone something as pre-emptive as what I tried). Still, it remained to feel quite natural. One other thing that helps is that as the player you are hardly forced into situations where you do not choose to be.
But about trial and error: it may seem weird to apply that to a text adventure with little clear choices. A great aspect of it is that we make choices that are less apparent than a multiple choice question with actions (and the order in which you take them is not necessarily important). As such, I believe it becomes less likely that you memorize every choice explicitely.
SD3 relates to Masq as well, because the story has no endings in the middle, all choices culminate to the birthday party (which is in effect a measure of your success). Again: a lot of trial and little error.
On a sidenote, I regret finding out about the 'status' command, because it directly reveals the relationship status of Molly and Becky. The game would've been better without it in my opinion.
On a 2nd sidenote, strangely enough, in my mind it seems SD3 applies less of the 'vending machine' model (which I find strange in a world where every girl is essentially a slut). For example on the first date with Molly you can do all nice actions you want, she won't put out much.


A lot of words, but to sum up I think I should draw a logical conclusion that in my mind a 'good' trial and error game is one that avoids having endings 'in the middle'. I would call it having a delayed response: only at the end you fully know how well you did. I realize though that this is hard to do in a game that only covers a single date.
For direct responses ("you turn left, you die!") I would think a limited undo option is a more useful choice than a save system. Not only does it allow faster exploration in a limited area of the story, but because you only turn back one or two steps you remain immersed by the story, where with loading a savegame you are likely to have forgotten the context of what leads up to it.
I know I've used 'undo' in SD3 quite a bit, but never to go back more than a few choices (a fundamental change in strategy was better served with a complete replay). Similarly I've used 'back' on Date Ariane (especially the photoshoot at the lookout point comes to mind: lots of 'instant failure' choices, too many to justify replaying up to that point over and over).
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby GentleGiant » Fri, 09Oct23 21:50

You guys are quite right about Still Life, I realize that I have mistaken this game for another that I simply cannot remember the name.

Thank you for the links, ExLibris. They provide great insights and reflexion onto the subject.

Games like Fahrenheit have one thing that make them truly unique, they make the player feel empathy, not just sympathy, for the main character and the situation he is in.

Coming back to the games we all know and love, I do also think that an UNDO command would be a good idea in a Groundhog Day game. As long as it allows the player to Undo only when he made a deadly mistake, not anytime he wants.

The game would have to go back many screens in some cases, as some actions can have their consequences fold out only later. It's not simple to implement, but highly feasible. It also doesn't diminish the challenge of the game, which is trying to figure out what to do to get the endings.

A better solution would be what School Dreams 3 did. As TheBrain said, there are no Game Over. Which is something that is becoming more and more present in games. The ominous Game Over screen is counting its last days. Games tend to give the player margins of error, forgive his mistakes. In Grand Theft Auto, you never really die, you are just falling unconscious and waking up later at the hospital where you can just go back and try the current mission again. You don't actually get a Game Over screen and an option to reload your last save. This is becoming a thing of the past.

The main reason behind the disppearance of the Game Over screen is because the name itself is contradictory. Game Over blatantly and aggresively tells the player that his fun has ended. Its a slap in the face. A return to reality.

This tendency has given birth to one of the most popular form of gaming today, MMORPGs, where the game never really ends. Unless you can't afford to pay the monthly fee anymore ...
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby ExLibris » Sat, 09Oct24 02:05

As a point of clarification, there are a couple of 'Game Over' screens in SD3, but they're for doing something that would be a game over in real life which is why most people miss them.

That emphasizes what's already been said, in that if there is a sudden death ending it should be clearly signposted as such. An example from Fahrenheit would be when Lucas is trying to hide anything suspicious before the cop arrive. The player knows the cop is coming, and because the game is real time they end up sharing Lucas's sense of panic. The kind of feelings that can be generated that way are limited though. In Fahrenheit I can remember fear, anxiety/frustration and exertion (all that button pounding). I can't immediately see how you could do the same thing for more pleasant emotions.

SD3 never really feels like Groundhog Day to me, I think at least partly because your choices are never directly laid out like they are with a Virtual Dating game (although as I write that, I realise that's not quite true and SD3 does give you a few obvious decisions, so maybe it's mainly save/undo).

I disagree with some of the points in the Women Aren't Vending Machines article, but I think the basic one holds true: sex in games tends to be a reward for player behaviour. In the case of a Virtual Dating game it's a reward for methodically going through all the options and working out where all the drink and influence points are (or if you're like me, for searching the html files).

Maybe I'm getting old, but what I'd like to see more of is the sex better integrated into the storyline, with characters having sex because it's a natural development of their relationship. I think that happens to a certain extent in SD3, as all the female characters have their own reasons for having sex. In the case of Charlotte, for example, it's literally sex as payment; in the case of Becky it's her desire to hold onto the PC as a boyfriend; in Melissa's case it's because she's a colossal slut. Well, I never said they were all good reasons.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby ExLibris » Sat, 09Oct24 03:55

If you want some further reading, there's 'The Craft of Adventure' by Graham Nelson (which forms chapter 8 of the Inform Designer's manual and can be downloaded here: http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/download_dm4.html)

It mostly talks about interactive fiction, but I think a lot of it could be applied to other games. The sections on 'clues' and 'luck and accidental solutions' seem applicable to what's been discussed here already.

There are a few more articles of interest at Brass Lantern (http://brasslantern.org/writers/). Again, they're mostly about IF but they could easily be applied to other genres.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby Tjommi » Sat, 09Oct24 04:33

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. This discussion have now moved to an area where I don't really have any knowlegde, only opinions. It's very intereresting to read what you guys think and feel, and it's hightly enlightening. What I am wondering is, could I be so bold and ask directly what The well known developers on this forum think ? Shark, Arnulf, Erena and Qbv8 ( please forgive me if I forgot someone) and Chaos would you guys be so kind and share your thoughs with us ? First of all I am personally interested in how you guys think when you make games, and your thoughts about adult games, or what make a game good in general, but second I think it would be helpfull to other game developers as well.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby TheBrain » Sat, 09Oct24 15:27

ExLibris wrote :
SD3 never really feels like Groundhog Day to me, I think at least partly because your choices are never directly laid out like they are with a Virtual Dating game (although as I write that, I realise that's not quite true and SD3 does give you a few obvious decisions, so maybe it's mainly save/undo).

In fact, that is much more true to the movie than the dating games with obvious choices, it's just expanded to 4 days that repeat. Phil, the character in the movie, has total freedom to do whatever he likes. Of course we do see him recreating a day step by step to try another line and get further in his date with the girl, but other days he hardly speaks to her to learn about the town he's stuck in (ultimately leading the big ending).
Of course SD3 is limited in that aspect, there is not that much you NEED to learn to progress, but for one, knowing what Allison's plan is beforehand can help you decide whether or not you want to go through it.
Anyway, chances are that on the first time you play the game you don't end up with Molly, so one way or another, through playing the game multiple times, you do learn.

I disagree with some of the points in the Women Aren't Vending Machines article, but I think the basic one holds true: sex in games tends to be a reward for player behaviour. In the case of a Virtual Dating game it's a reward for methodically going through all the options and working out where all the drink and influence points are (or if you're like me, for searching the html files).

Yes, but the article is right about the overly simplistic models for a relationship, you mention it yourself... 'points'. The premise in the game always seems to be that the girl IS attracted to you, rather than that she COULD be (but there wouldn't be much point in making a dating game about a lesbian that would NEVER be attracted to you).

Maybe I'm getting old, but what I'd like to see more of is the sex better integrated into the storyline, with characters having sex because it's a natural development of their relationship.

The question is, if we look at the dating games, can that really be done in a 'single date' scenario? I would think it requires at least multiple dates (a lot more work for the creator), and/or a backstory (as in SD3).
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby ExLibris » Sun, 09Oct25 06:18

Yeah, what I probably should have mentioned, but didn't, is the reason that the 'vending machine' model is so prevalent is because it's so easy to do programmatically. The only way I can think of to do it more 'realistically' would be to radically increase the number of variables that are tracked so that there is no one 'critical' action. The other option would be introducing a random element, but I abhor that kind of randomness in game design. If a player thinks that something failed because they didn't think things through properly or they weren't quite skilled enough, they'll come back and try again. If they think something failed only because the game arbitrarily decided it would, chances are they won't.

If we're looking at a single date game, then it is obviously more work to integrate the sex into the storyline (especially since the date is essentially the story) but I don't think it's completely impossible, just very difficult to pull off. What's probably more achievable is making the female character seem 'real', which could be done with more dialog. ArianeB does that quite well I think, in part due to the way in which that game has grown over time. I also think that a major character should have at least some backstory, even if the player doesn't see all of it, it should inform how that character reacts and behaves.

'Casual Romance Club' is an example of a multiple date game, though like most visual novel style games it has the drawback of both making your choices very obvious and almost enforcing the trial and error approach. What I mean by the 'trial-and-error' or 'Groundhog Day' approach is slightly different from what's encountered in most text adventures. I think the difference is that with 'trial and error' the choices are foregrounded but the results often aren't obvious without trying them. SD3 doesn't quite fit into that definition, because it's not difficult to get an ending, although trial and error might be required to get a particular ending (but not the methodical trial and error of a visual novel).
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby TheBrain » Mon, 09Oct26 22:43

ExLibris wrote : Yeah, what I probably should have mentioned, but didn't, is the reason that the 'vending machine' model is so prevalent is because it's so easy to do programmatically. The only way I can think of to do it more 'realistically' would be to radically increase the number of variables that are tracked so that there is no one 'critical' action.

I was thinking about this for a moment and I thought it might be that in the case of these dating games the developers approach the design too much as a game and too little as a story.
Let's take Chaotics games (before VFG) as an example, the design is based on two variables, 'influence' and 'drink'. It should be clear that this is an attempt at modelling the girls behaviour or maybe more accurate, modelling the factors that influence the girls behaviour. While this is not by definition wrong, it certainly is a simplistic model.
And you are right by mentioning that it might be fixable by adding a lot more variables, to make for a more realistic model. I can tell you right now that combining several variables towards realistic responses is devilishly hard. While it may seem just an extension of what is being done right now, it gets you when you want to keep the realism, at each choice you must consider whether there is not a combination of the variables (out of potentially thousands of possible combinations) that justifies another option to choose from. Not an ideal situation for a writer/developer.

But wait, that is when you try to actually model some underlying system of behaviour (as would be common in game design). And here's the interesting thought, what if you don't?
Of course, you can't decide many useful things without variables, so instead we would define variables simply to track important events in the story, but without trying to model any consequences. And this is what I'd call a shift to a more story-oriented design.
Take a simple interactive story: we start at point A, then have 2 paths to point B (AB1 and AB2) and finally a single path from B to C (BC). Despite that we always end up in the same ending, the choice between AB1 and AB2 might have an effect on the content of BC. In this case it's blatantly obvious that you'd simply keep track of the choice between AB1 and AB2 in a variable. Or, if AB1 and AB2 have overlap, you'd pick a distinguishing point in each branch and do something like setting 'AB1 = true'. Because you know the contents of AB1, you can realistically respond to it in BC. The key is that there can't be any internal choices in AB1 that influence BC. Fairly trivial stuff, I'd say.
When designing a larger interactive story, the same principle would apply, just keep track of all important events (naturally you'd name them more sensibly than 'AB1'). Now you might argue that since there can be a lot of important events you would get the same combinatoric explosion as with variables based on a realistic model. Possibly true, but firstly, as the writer/designer you can pick the important events. Secondly, many events will be mutually exclusive because they would appear in different branches.

Applying this to Chaotics games is trivial. For example, when drinking in a bar, instead of 'drinks++' the side-effect would be 'hadDrinkInBar = true'. Important to note is that no information is lost, the drinks variable could still be rebuilt with 'drinks = (hadDrinkInBar?1:0) + (hadDrinkInCasino?1:0) + etc.', arguably more typing, but the same functionality can be maintained. Similarly, every place where variables are set can be transformed to an event variable, the only real difference is that no implication is made about the effect of the event. For example, with the influence variable the implication is made that every 'fun' event is the same amount of fun, while the events can be very different (playful fun, naughty fun, etc.).
Simply by changing to a design like this allows for more realism. One example I can think of right now is the fact that you can take the girls drinking at both the bar and the bar at the casino. I would think these would be mutually exclusive, assuming the date wants some variation, not just drinking at bars. It would be impossible to do this with just the drink variable, after all, you could be drinking at dinner and then drinking in a bar. With event-based variables, it can be done, and I would say it even adds a little bit of gameplay (the puzzle to gain all 'points' has an extra constraint).

Adapting date ariane completely would be possible, but very annoying, because of repeating events like kissing and such. But nothing would prevent doing both event-based variables AND 'model'-based variables. But I do believe that using the first in the right places can allow for more realistic responses, on top of not having to define arbitrarily chosen values for the effects of events.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby ExLibris » Thu, 09Oct29 10:05

TheBrain wrote :
I was thinking about this for a moment and I thought it might be that in the case of these dating games the developers approach the design too much as a game and too little as a story.


To be fair, I think dating games like ArianeB or the Virtual Date series naturally lean more towards game (specifically puzzle) rather than story. ArianeB in particular places a lot of emphasis on doing the right actions in the right order. The fact that you have to hunt around the screen to find the possible actions open to you, instead of simply deciding what the PC would do in those circumstances, also pushes things more towards the game end of the spectrum.

In neither game is there very much story, it's more a matter of working out which buttons to push so that the vending machine gives you what you want. What you're suggesting, starting at point A and then progressing (based on the player's actions) to point B and subsequently to point C, is a lot closer to being a story as I would define it. Both ArianeB and VG try for non-linearity, which isn't particularly story friendly, so it's a bit tricky to divide them into a beginning, a middle and an end like that. That's not to say that you couldn't do that with a dating game, although I suspect you'd need a premise a little stronger than 'guy goes on blind date with girl in hope of sex'. I also suspect that the finished game would feel a lot different to either of the examples we've been using.

And on a completely unrelated note, here's another article about sex in games: http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/sex-and-the-single-dragon-age-hero.html
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby Franco » Fri, 09Oct30 00:54

In my opinion, a dating game lends itself more to a relationship focus than a story/plot focus.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby TheBrain » Fri, 09Oct30 01:00

I was more talking about the internal design than the actual structure of the game. As in, rather than deciding straight away what the effect of some action is (drink++), you just take note of that the scene has been played (the scene includes drinking, but that will only be important once the drunkenness of the girl affects her response). And for the endscenes, rather than saying "these are the conditions to be allowed to play it" you rather look at the paths that could be taken to reach it and decide which ones are 'worthy'.
It would be easier to include more constraints to the 'puzzle' (the bar example in my previous post). Another example would be simple adaptive responses, where the girl could refer previous experiences ("Sure we had fun at the park, but you can't seriously expect me to have sex with you now!").
The difficulty would be stepping away from clear conditions for actions and rather handcrafting them (and rejection points and so on).

The ABC thing was just an example of implementing a simple story (1 or 2 variables, not based on any model of reality whatsoever), not a suggestion of how the games should be structured (although it could be done, of course).
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby ExLibris » Sat, 09Oct31 08:52

@Franco
I'm not sure what you mean by 'relationship focus'. Could you give me an example?

@TheBrain
Ah, I misunderstood you then.
I still think that what you're describing is inherently a more story-oriented approach though. For example, the VG series treats each drink the girl takes as being essentially the same. All the player has to do is score enough 'drink points' to get the girl in the mood. The exact circumstances of each drink aren't recorded by the game so they have no impact on the story. Conversely the structure you're suggesting retains a 'memory' of events. A drink at a bar is capable of being treated differently to a drink at the casino, and past experiences can be referred to specifically rather than generally. That kind of linkage, a specific action leading to a specific reaction, is what I think differentiates a story from being merely a bunch of things that happened.

YMMV
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby Newdood » Mon, 09Dec07 21:17

WOW - reading this thread is a TIME_CONSUMING process, but FASCINATING! I've never SEEN posts of such length and detail. It is clear that everybody involved has put A LOT of thought into the subject!

I've got some more reading to do yet, but I think I need a little bit of erana's "lesbian sex" first!
When it comes to binary, there are 10 kinds of people - those who get and those who don't!
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby Franco » Tue, 09Dec08 01:04

@ExLibris, Sorry, didn't see your post.

I am thinking about something like Singles2, or maybe even Artificial Girl 3. I would use an emotional point system for part of the game. Different player responses or questions or actions would give more or less points, maybe even negative points.

It would be similar to the game where if you kiss the girl on the cheek, that's good; if you kiss her on the mouth, that's too much; if you don't kiss her at all, it's neutral. In my system, kissing on the cheek would give 3 emotional points, on the mouth -1 point, not kissing 0 points.

Accumulating enough emotional points would move you to the next stage of the relationship. In AG3, you start out as neutral, then friend, then lover. You can move down from lover to friend, and from friend to neutral if you do or don't do some things.

I would expect accumulating points, or setting flags, for certain acts would also be included, especially while making love.
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Re: Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

Postby Tjommi » Wed, 09Dec09 04:26

I got my hands on artificial girl some time back and I had loads of fun with it for a while. However the problem that this game got is that there is no plot in it at all. All you do is chase girls and you hug em over and over untill they like you enough to do naughty things. There is no dialogue and no content in the game. It's allmost more fun to design girls you use in the game than the game itself after a while.

Bonetown is really fun as this game manage to balance things a little more and manage to make you work to get to the girls, but even this game get repetitive after a while.

To me the key to a successfull naugty adult game is balance. I actually think that the games that I have played that have been most complete when it comes to balancing naughty bits with diversion is actually Larry magna cum lawhateverIdon'trememberthepresisename. And Sims2 and 3 allthough these games never intended to be naughty, I made them that way with getting various mods and skins. The last rance game is allso really great. Allthough the hero is a complete asshole and some of the stuff he does is really horrible the combination with strategy and erotism is strangly a winner combo.

So I think that the winner recipee gotta be to make a game that got it's base in something else. If you follow that chain of though you get a figthing game where you get sex as reward... you got a well though out dating game with bunch of boobytraps and twists with sex as reward, you get a strategy game with sex as reward.... You see where I am getting with this ?

Those games that focus on sex alone are sometimes really well made, but you get caught up in the monotomy and when it's not new anymore you loose interest in it. All the games that I pick up again and play after a while are the kind that god a good packgade around the sex.

I gotta pull out 7 sins again as well, allthough the entire game is about getting your hero laid, the creators have really though out the scenarios and brought good variation and erotic contents with breaking alot of taboo's and creating exiting compromising situations that really spice things up.

Singles 2 might be a good game, I tried it and got a couple of mods for it that revealed more skin, made them have sex ontop of the bed instead of under the sheet and stuff, but the game simply got to complicated for me, hehe so I got rid of it again.

Anyway I hope that my post have contributed positively to this debate.
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