Quick question about receptivity

[aukiyyumu]

I've recently been brewing up an otome eroge kind of visual novel plot idea that I hope can be mixed with a bit of point and click, but I'm unsure if people would be interested. I would like to make it a commercial game, but nothing too horribly expensive. I don't want to get too invested into the idea to only see it flop. So I thought I'd ask if this was a kind of vn that people would find appealing and interested to actually buy.

A basic synopsis of the story is that it follow a second person (or first, yet to decide) perspective of a female android who works in a club/brothel in the distant future. I'm hoping to have seven different romantic interests of male and female, but of course this is a lot and may need to be cut down depending on how many people I can manage to recruit if this goes anywhere.

So I just wanted to ask what people think and if this is something I should actually try to formulate into an actual project. Any sort of tips or suggestions would be great!

[Elsa Kisiel]

I'll be honest, I don't play a lot of otome, though I play a lot of visual novels. But here's what will make me buy an otome:

- Beautiful art : Bonus point if the art style stand out from usual arts styles used in otome

- Interesting love interest : and I need to know that they are interesting just by looking at the trailer

- Standing out features: I don't know what you intend to do with point and click features, but there's interesting gameplay mechanic that can be done with it. When a game have a feature I have not seen yet, I often buy it. (Gameplay mechanics, a new animation's technique, ...)

- Interesting story: Bonus point for mysteries, politics, ethics, humor, sci-fi, ...

- Foreign universe: I'm NOT interested in something happening in our time, in our world. I want to travel, to discover other times, other places, other universes.

- Game on steam: I'll be honest, I usually do not buy if it's not on steam, because I like having all my games in the same place. I know there's plenty of good alternative, that's just my preference.

- Not a blank sheet protagonist: I know a lot of people prefer a blank protagonist, so they can project themselves, but I, personally, really prefer a protagonist with a strong personality.

Note: these are my personal preferences, and I'm probably not the target audience since otome are usually not my thing.

[Zelan]

- Not a blank sheet protagonist: I know a lot of people prefer a blank protagonist, so they can project themselves, but I, personally, really prefer a protagonist with a strong personality.

I super agree with this; along this line, a lot of games that are written in second person tend to go along with a blank protagonist. Not always, of course, but then if you do write a very defined protagonist in second person, there are others who will have trouble identifying with the protagonist if they are told "you do [something that you would never do, ever]."

[parttimestorier]

I think it sounds like a fun idea, and I know a lot of people who are especially interested in 18+ otome content! There aren't nearly as many eroge aimed at women as there are for men. I remember a lot of people being really excited when the translation of Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome came out a few years ago, particularly because it was one of the first Japanese 18+ otome games to ever get an official translation. So I think there would definitely be an audience for your game, and I'd love to read it myself!

[hiko27]

The thing with the Western otome game community is that there's not much 18+ ones already so I'm sure people will already be interested in your game. And in my opinion, you can make most ideas (at least, ones that aren't super abundant in the genre) into a great game. As long as you step away from the otome game cliches, you're good. If you want, this might help you with your otome game development: https://tailortales.wordpress.com/2018/ ... yers-want/ It's a survey done on r/otomegames. There are also tons of other surveys done in that reddit (if you look up survey, a lot should show up).

As for me personally, I'm an artist so I tend to be heavily biased towards games with good art. If the art isn't to my taste, I'm way less likely to click on it. Your idea sounds good though, but I mean, all ideas sound good ofc. As I said, it really depends on how you develop that idea, and how interesting your story as a whole will be.