Lemma Soft Forums

I'm involved with several projects which seem to be 'safe' and 'marketable' and don't regret that. However I do still get the itch to want to work on something totally way out of left field. Usually if I had a lot of time I'll just work regardless, but nowadays with not much free time, I'm starting to realize I don't really want to spend a lot of effort on a project that won't get any traction. In the sixteen projects I've had a hand it, I've seen my fair share of failures and successes in terms of reception, so I can't avoid that. In other words, I don't want to waste my own time, as well as the time of others.

Thus I'm placing this idea here. I know the demographics of this forum skews female and feminist, but what the heck this is all for fun anyway (or should be). While the concept may seem like a parody, I want it to feel as though it's taking the concept very seriously. I'm inspired by the lives of religious fundamentalists such as the Amish or the Fundamentalist LDS faith. You play the role of a young patriarch you can called Jebediah, Brigham, Methuselah or other Biblical name and it falls upon you to build your family to increase your wealth and social status, your wives, and your children. It is going to be a simulation game where you have starting stats such as:

Rank: 3
Political leaning: Extreme right-wing fundamentalist
Social Status: Good
Net worth: 2 Billion
Businesses: 7
Wives: 14
Concubines: 8
Children: 72

During the course of the game, you will interact, trade, or fight other polygamous families and have your ultimate goal be securing the title of Clan Patriarch. You have to maintain the affection rating of each wife or concubine by building a house for each to live in, and you ideally will balance the visitation so no wife is under-visited. You'll also have access to an ovulation table to track and monitor the peak fertility of each woman so you know when it will be strategic to beget children by her. By fighting directly other patriarchs, you can defeat them and kick them out of the clan, thereby inheriting their wives and children. You can also send your children to play with and influence other families, thereby gaining strategic alliances.

My motivations are that nobody has made a genuine harem game and I really love the aethetics of anime style female characters in 19th century clothing (even if they'll probably be made of a mix n match template system).

Of course I'm knee deep in other projects and have yet to start intensive production in other projects down the pipeline, but I just want to know how much interest there is in this idea has so I'll know whether it'll be a low budget or middle-budget affair... it'll be freeware regardless, but the difference is in how much time (or money) I would want to invest in the art. So it won't be a totally one-sided affair, I plan to make each patriarch a bishounen with choice of beard: long, longer, longest.

Sounds very interesting. IMO, it's better if the setting is fantasy (not in our real-life world) and makes the theme not-too-serious (like building your clan back after it's wiped out in big war against dragon/demon king) to avoid any hate/anger and so it's enjoyable. I don't know about beard, but I want the MC to be very handsome, very intelligent, and very very playboy (a good playboy) ;P

I'm pretty interested in making art for this game, but I don't know if my simple loli art would be suitable for this kind of game.

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I don't even.

That's seriously my reaction to this. I would give critical feedback on it in terms of asking why this game has to revolve around such a topic and what message it is you want to be sending but I honestly can't tell if you are being serious or not and I'm not sure that changes my opinion of it anyway. So yeah :-/

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I agree with Lvuer...if you put this into another kind of setting.

In such a setting, you could also allow women to be the head of the clan and you can either aquire multiple husbands or wives. In which case I'd definitely play it. It reminds me a little of King of Dragon Pass, which I loved.

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When I search the web for "waifu," a Know Your Meme article appears near the top. It has a meaning distinctly different from "polygamist's wife or concubine."

Anyway, this idea sounds similar to a fairly well-known HBO program. You will probably benefit by making sure your story/game does not resemble Big Love too much. So, how will you make your concept distinct? Will you use a different setting? How will your tone differ?

Hmmm, so that's three votes for not being based on real-world polygamous setups. The idea actually is a few years old already, and the premise was that the white (caucasian) population of the world shrunk from 50% in 1850 to 10% in 2000 to .5% in 2100. Even non-whites were worried about destruction of natural genetic diversity so several countries set up 'Reservations' that function like Madagascar: preserving species with rare strains of DNA, even recessive strains. See where I'm going with this? I'm throwing all political correctness out the door.

I'm not against making a reverse harem polyandry version (in fact I already planned woman's POV segment during the main game itself, since it shows the guys in a different light), the problem is there's no practical reason for polyandry I can think of that works as well as polygamy: Jump start your population since with the absence of critical technology, historically demographics size = amount of power your society holds, like in ancient China/India before Europeans grabbed industrialization and embarked on the Age of Conquest.

One reason I'm inclined to embark on this challenging subject matter is precisely because it's a challenge -- to see if any work will pay off and the resulting work will get ratings other than a '1' on vndb. My model is Koi Kaze... a story about incest between blood siblings, culminating in statutory rape of the little sister by the big brother... but the story was presented so realistically, so humanly, so beautifully, it was a masterpiece. That's something I hope to achieve someday else I can't call myself a craftsman.

Well, it's up to you if you wish to pursue this. Clearly, you're going to get a lo of flak for this, but then again political correctiveness hasn't always been creativity's friend. If you're up for the hellfire that's about to befall you, go ahead and do it. You are making it, therefore you should do as you see fit.

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Then why aren't you writing a story like that? What's with the game mechanic? That game mechanic could be used for anything. You could very well be amassing cows or orange trees or boats. Instead you have women and children. That's either going to come off as propaganda or extremely ironic which is why I pointed out I couldn't tell if you were being serious or not. I have no problem at all with people writing about whatever material they want, but I'm not going to go anywhere near anything that turns women and children into tools for a game without a bloody good reason. Seriously, the title, the 'Waifu' thing, the description isn't leading me to believe you are going to handle this with any kind of subtlety. It sounds like your main goal is to get people worked up and that's a cheap way of doing things. You need to be making strong commentary on that type of thing otherwise it's not going to come off well. People handle delicate material all the time. Lolita and Brave New World both did it to a massive extent and were herald for it. So the question is, what are you trying to say and why?

If you look at the descriptions of Koi Kaze, you certainly won't pick it up as being ironic, because it's not. I don't see the point of being ironic with polygamy unless you are using it as an extravagated stance of questioning the way the world can view women as baby makers and children as tools in which case there are probably cleaner and clever ways to go about it.

*Edit: I'm also going to agree with Mink about the "I'm throwing Political Correctness out the window" thing. It is used an excuse by people to do whatever they want without having anything meaniful and shutting down people who disagree by colouring them as 'over sensitive'. It's probably not the best stance to take when you are actually dealing with sensitive material.

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Ninja'd by Auro. Ah, well. Maybe repetitive after the fact, but whatever.
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Okay, I was going to leave this alone, but...

'I'm throwing all political correctness out the door"? Really? Because, in my personal experience, people only say things like this when they intend to be an immature jerkwad (to put it mildly). There is not believing in censoring or changing difficult subject matter to make it more 'appeasing', but that's not how most people use the term 'politically correct'.

And is the implication here that different races separate to preserve their genetics? Because if so...no. That makes no sense. There is no biological or genetic basis for race, and differences among humans can be attributed to their environment. If you want more genetic diversity, you should be MIXING races, not isolating them.

Lastly, if you were trying to play this realistically, fine. Whatever. As it stands, the way you presented this comes off as, "misogyny, tee-hee!", "women (and children) in this game are effectively cattle, tee-hee!" No, just...no.

Again, you want to write a deep, complex story with what may be difficult subject matter? By all means, go for it! I would myself, especially if I believe it's an important or relevant topic. But that is not how this comes off.

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I am capable of enjoying a well-done absurd wife-breeding game, but that sort of thing has to have the tone handled very carefully to be either funny or make a point (and hopefully both).

However, even at its best, that would not result in a beautiful masterpiece. At best it would result in something that many people found hilarious, many people found deeply offensive, a few people found tragic, and a few people could use as fodder in arguments ("This! THIS is what your rhetoric would lead to! THIS is why we have to oppose you at all costs!" sorts of things.)

Throwing a bunch of random ideas around that are intended to offend as many people as possible is an example of a certain kind of troll art, but it's not a touching masterpiece. And really, it sounds like all you have are a bunch of concepts tossed in a blender.

If you really want to work on this idea as a comedy you should probably team up with people who have experience in writing that sort of comedy and making it funny, because I don't think you do. Comedy is not easy, especially risky comedy like this. It WILL fall flat without some serious skills behind it.

If you think you're writing a drama, stop now and start over, you have taken a hugely wrong turn.

AFAIK, Big Love actually did try to handle some of the dramatic issues with the whole patriarchal concept in a serious and thoughtful manner. I can't really say as I haven't quite watched it. I really should, but I went to school with one of the actresses and it gives me a bit of a complex about seeing her stuff.

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My responses to this thread in approximate chronological order:

1. Heh, kinda clever.
2. Sort of depressing, too.
3. I bet people are going to flip out over this.
4. Why does reversing the harem make it okay?
5. Is this any more defensible than a slave plantation sim?
6. ...Why do games about perpetuating social injustice irk me so much more than games where I actually kill people?

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4. Why does reversing the harem make it okay?

Well, just with regards to this question...personally I don't have a problem with polygamous cultures, except when women are discouraged to ever be ones having multiple husbands. I mean, why the double standard?

Aside from that, if adults find it more efficient to have legal relationships where property and children are (somewhat) shared, it's really none of my business, and hey, whatever works for them.

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