Game Career Guide's OEL renai game idea contest

[gekiganwing]

Here's something which may interest Lemma Soft regulars. I found it through a citation in a recent article on the Anime Diet blog... but unfortunately, I only learned about it days after the contest ended. If I'd heard about this earlier, then it would be more relevant...

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/831 ... lenge_.php : Game Career Guide asked, "Is there any way to make a relationship or dating game that's appealing to Westerners?" They wanted to encourage people to write ideas.

EDIT: The results were posted on March 16. These include:

1. A kid-level game with "fuzzball" charas.
2. A multiplayer mobile game which sounds vaguely like Fourscore.
3. A stylus driven game which mentions war strategy. (I was confused...)
4. A game which sounds like reality TV series. NSFW potential is mentioned.
5. Somewhere in between Sakura Taisen and Chrono Trigger combat.
6. A complex-sounding "seducer" game.
7. A game about recovering memories through significant others.
8. The western equivalent of Tokimemo Dancing Summer Vacation.

Fascinating ideas... now can any of them work as independent games, or are they too ambitious?

[Tsundere Lightning]

Isn't Mass Effect pretty much already a science-fiction VN?

[Lunethex]

Mass Effect 2 will appeal to anyone who can afford to play it.

If there is a western weeaboo, then there is a dating game for that person.

[Ramidel]

Isn't Mass Effect pretty much already a science-fiction VN?

No, it's a shooter with blue-skinned alien eye candy.

Jokes aside, when the majority of the game is diving for cover action sequences, it's probably not a VN or a dating sim. (Says the guy whose female charrie is still loyal to Liara and whose male can't decide between Miranda or Tali...)

[Tsundere Lightning]

Isn't Mass Effect pretty much already a science-fiction VN?

No, it's a shooter with blue-skinned alien eye candy.

Jokes aside, when the majority of the game is diving for cover action sequences, it's probably not a VN or a dating sim. (Says the guy whose female charrie is still loyal to Liara and whose male can't decide between Miranda or Tali...)

Okay, overstating my case. Still, there are people who play it primarily for the dialog and the romantic options - I know that I play it DESPITE it's FPS elements, not for them - and when RPG.net has as a running joke Miranda stammering "I... it's not like I LIKE you or anything, Shepard..." I KNOW that I'm not the only one.

A better example is probably another Bioware game, Dragon Age. You mean to tell me that it's not the same kind of game as Ar Tonelco and Fate/Stay Night? Morrigan disapproves.

[Ramidel]

Morrigan also disapproves if you say it is the same kind of game. Morrigan disapproves, period That said, yeah, it's definitely about the relationships between the characters, even if it isn't necessarily about the romance.

'course, that's the thing about RPGs in general. More and more, they're adopting adventure game, VN and ren'ai influences in between the numbercrunchy stats. (Sometimes by accident; I recall a game about mecha and Gnosticism that got its second disc turned into a kinetic novel. ^_^) Which is all to the good. Ironically, now we're seeing more ren'ai in Western RPGs, by and large, than in Eastern RPGs (which are still, by and large, Final Fantasy and kin). Perhaps because pure VNs are a niche market over here?