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Where ever there's romance, regardless of the media, there's gonna be lots and lots of girls. Fanfiction is dominated by girls, and the amount of stories tagged with the genre 'romance' is staggering. The most vocal Harvest Moon fans are girls who love the romance part of it (plus it's one of the few English dating games that is freely available across the world).

Even for anime shows there will always be a following of girls who are mostly interested in it because of the potential romance between characters. I can't say I'm any different, I am a sucker for romance, I write fanfiction about it, I play games with it, I watch some anime shows purely to see if the characters I ship end up together - and I'm making my own romance game.

Why this is, I guess it's mostly because of social roles. Girls grow up with the idea of finding a 'prince' and being 'in love' (see Disney movies), whereas boys don't grow up with something like this at all. They grow up playing rough and finding things 'cool' and girls 'icky'.

Anyways, that's rather largely off topic. On topic, I am a newcomer to this forum, so I familiarized myself with the terms before starting a new topic. So yes, I did put [WIP] in it, but also because you have no idea how many times I've had people ask me if it's finished or not. It gets annoying after a while.

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My dating sim similar to Harvest Moon & Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side.

Nah, it's okay this time - I got my question answered, and we're having some interesting conversation so it's all good

@lordcloudx: Come to think of it, Alistair was a big spark in the mass female influx. It was all part of a plan for forum domination! *looks at sake*

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It would be nice to see more variety... There's a lot of untapped potential for other generes besides games that only focus bxg, gxb... Bleh. Make romance part of your game but not the complete focus on it. You can fall in love AND fight evil organizations, find the cure for a disease that's ailing your little sister or be a swashbuckling space pirate.

Personally, as soon as you label your game BxG I'm instantly uninterested. Romance is something nearly everyone can relate to, if it's just about "falling in love", it will probably be 2 dimensional and boring. Not to mention, many otome games seem to be more about the pretty boys than an interesting story.. (No offense fellow ladies.)

;-; All the guys are the same to me now... When I'm playing through an Otome game the girl is always plain and the guys have the usual "Bad boy" , "girly boy" , "sporty guy", "popular guy" "broody guy" ;=;

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Echo: Legend of the Centennial Bells

Don't forget the high school setting that a lot of otome games seem to focus on (granted, so do a lot of BxG games)

Trust me, high school is not the best place to center a romace story. ESPECIALLY one centered on today's youth. All the good-looking guys are quite the Casanovas, the only real nice guys are usually the ones with the least sex appeal.

(Ok, the following may get a bit off-topic, so forgive me. Also, don't take offence from this)
And here's something to think about:


If I were to put these two men in front of you and told you that one of them is the love interest in an otome game and the other is an NPC, which one would you honestly believe is the LI?

Guy#1 (blue suit) or Guy #2(Brown suit)?

Chances are, you would pick Guy#1
Fact is, real males are never made to be LI's it's always the feminine-looking men (or the more friendly term: bishounen),and it's sorta depressing ;_;

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My thoughts on this, as a chronic shipper (Seriously, give me any show to watch and I'll ship somebody in it)... the shows and stories I most enjoy are those with lots of action/drama that push romance to the side. Why? Because most of the fun with romance in stories (and IRL, may I add) is the "Will it happen?!! Will it happen?!! AWWW YEAH IT HAPPENED!!! AWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" (BTW, that was my reaction when I saw the cover of the last volume of Hellsing. )

So ironically, while I like romance, I don't particularly care for the romance genre. I would much rather watch a "seinen" anime than a Rom-com, because IMO, the more you amp up the "romance", the more boring it gets. I really like stories which have a purpose other than straight up romance, because it makes it more fun and exciting when romantic elements do happen.

To make this more on-topic to the original topic...
I'm like Blue Lemma. I don't like making WIP threads because I want to come up with my story by myself

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and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'”
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I don't usually post WIP threads, if only because they either A) Get ignored, or B) don't need input. I don't even consider such a thing until the story's complete, and usually a script as well. Once I have those things done, I've done as much as I can towards a 'definitely will be released' piece of work, and I can asketh the Helps to finish it.

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I'm going to get off my soap-box now, and let you get back to your day.

Academy Daze- Demo pending
Knights of Chaos: Ghost- Coding underway
DevBlog: http://www.renaigames.net
Troubleshooter Tales: Childhood's End (story) http://www.knightschaos.com

And bishoujo girls are?

I can tell you why #1 is an LI and not #2. A cowardly hunched man with a poorly kept suit, a perverted look (or drunk, or handicapped -- SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH HIS FACE) with his hands shadily in his pockets, just generally unkempt, and is definitely much older and likely out of the age range of the player demographic. No, you're right. This is clearly a bias against "real" men and not at all that the sprite is unattractive. (I personally prefer older, masculine men and love body hair, etc, and I do incorporate them into my games. So, your generalizations are not appreciated.)

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It's my masculine logo, isn't it? I need a guy avatar, in accordance to lemma soft's reverse gender rule.


This is probably going to fall into the whole nature vs nurture debate, but I have a feeling that it is more then a socially taught role and our interest in it may stem from something deeper. I remember there was a study done on what was most important to people in their relationship. Females most wanted to be 'loved'. Males most wanted to be 'number 1'. Personally I feel these are logical in an evolutionary sense. We didn't get to where we are by being strong, but by being smart. Humans have long gestation periods, really long infantile periods and females tend to be vulnerable in the later stages of pregnancy. It makes sense that your bodies would reinforce any concept that will make partners stay together outside of mating. Bonding and romance would be hugely beneficial to the progress of the species. None of this is scientically proven of course, just my personal specualtion

@Hayzel and HigurashiKira Anything you say about an GxB game though can be equally applied to BxG. You have the snobby one, the sporty one, the cold one, the cute one, the loli, the big breasted one. Stereotypes are everywhere. Same with the love interests. From the BxG games I have played, you are not likely to find real females like that. Nor would I want to frankly, as I often want to slap them silly. If you were offered two options, one of a big breased office worker in a tailored skirt and one a single middle aged mother of two who doesn't have time for make-up anymore, which one would you suspect to be the love interest? Branching out on both sides in terms of characters and storylines would probably be a good thing. Though there is always going to be that element of escapism/fantasy in some VNs that are just not applicable to real life people.

@Sapphi I also agree that I prefer storyline with romance elements. Mostly because the storyline adds to the romance, but also because NO-ONE goes around with the sole purpose of getting a boyfriend/girlfriend,s and if they do, they have no life. Everyone has something else going on in their lives unless they are obsessed with the love interest.

Posting WIPs are obviously a personal choice thing, but if you don't post a WIP people may make observations in your complete thread that might make you want to tear your heart out. Design by commitee never really works out, but neither does design in isolation. I think it is good for a game to be exposed to a number of people before completion, not just the team memebers or people who are interested in it.

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He's much older, probably over 40 (which is beyond creepy if you're talking about teenaged girls), and is probably drunk and on quaaludes or some other sort of nasty barbiturate. Maybe with some THC to go with it. Add a few grey hairs, and the effect will be complete. From his clothes, he's way down on his luck, and having problems. Not all that many girls are going to go for that.

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I'm going to get off my soap-box now, and let you get back to your day.

Academy Daze- Demo pending
Knights of Chaos: Ghost- Coding underway
DevBlog: http://www.renaigames.net
Troubleshooter Tales: Childhood's End (story) http://www.knightschaos.com

No, bishoujo girls are just as equally unreal. (Though, that dosen't stop some women from trying)

Between those two men, believe it or not there's only a 2 year diffrence between them.

And I didn't mean to generalize, but with most of the released otome games having an obtainable cast of pure bishounen men (definition of which will most definately vary between people) it's something someone looking in from the "outside" would believe.

(and again, I didn't mean to offend anyone.)
EDIT:
@Auro

Yes, everything I've said can be applied to BxG games, so to put things simply: "Both genre of games will create characters who are attractive to it's main demographic"

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Here are why he's older:
a. he's bigger (wider) but has smaller eyes
b. has slightly darker skin
c. he very clearly has age lines (lines under his eyes)
But Japan has this obsession with youth that older ages are dramatically depicted. Take Auron from FFX. He's only 30, goddamn. Haha.

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I apologize in advance for being extremely opinionated.
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[quote="Auro-Cyanide"][/quote]

But what I'm saying is they rely too much on stereotypes that it makes their characters 2-D. There isn't anything about them other than they are the "big-boobed girl" or the "popular boy that all the girls love".

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Echo: Legend of the Centennial Bells

Since when did we had such a rule here in lsf?! I was never informed... *goes to draw a new avatar*

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That's a bad rule :/

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Echo: Legend of the Centennial Bells