Implied sex

[DaFool]

I have been considering making my upcoming game a full-on eroge title. Not X-rated as in hentai, but R-rated. I.e. if it were commercial I'm aiming for MA rather than AO rating. I just feel that several lovemaking scenes flesh out my characters more and is surprisingly relevant to the overall story --which is already a sci-fi slice-of-life romantic ecchi comedy action adventure.

I've long given up trying to make something as poetic and dramatic as some of the writers here and just thought "The heck with it, if its getting ridiculous, might as well make its ridiculousness work in its favor".

However, it shall not be crude. It shall be warm-hearted. Thus you can imagine the sex will be respectful and lighthearted and fun, just like in certain cases of hentai anime which have been popular with female viewers. Also just like the best Harlequin romances. Sex will be a spiritual activity rather than a sport. Thinking this way has convinced me to create a handsome character design for the male protagonist, and for him not to be faceless and not seem like he's raping.

This is my strategy to separate my work from those on newgrounds and from most of the commercial titles listed on getchu. My target audience should be generally more intelligent than the casual hentai watcher. I'll just let the work speak for itself and hopefully gain the honor to be a highly-qualified addition to ren'ai archives.

[monele]

I'm all for this kind of H. Anything that can make H more than what it's been led to be ^^

[teankun]

Hmm.

So how far are you going to go on the nudity?

Since, you are going only for an MA rating does that mean sex will only be covered up but still obviously happening?

And since it will be a non-rape ergoe, doest that mean the character is more of a lady's man?

Also, what will the ages of the character be?

[DaFool]

- no genitals (even with censorship...that'll still qualify as AO). One thing I want is to be able to classify this work as 'Other' rather than 'Hentai'. I mean, Speedgrapher had sex, Elfen Lied had breasts (not to mention mutilation), but they were still solid R-level.
- Thus, its along the lines of nude pinup art, or earliest issues of Playboy. That being said, I've recently started reconceptualizing and revamping the character art (which also means I will have to spend less efforts on the BGs, as the style is along more of close-ups since the focus is now on the characters and less of the settings.)
- I personally don't like ladies' men, so I won't be including any (I'm still contemplating on whether to add a third guy. But it depends on the third girl whose design I haven't hammered out yet.) Players are not the only romantic men, ya know
- 22-25+. Probably older than most eroge players, but heck, no schoolgirls on principle.

I just did a little bit of backstory juggling, meaning lines that were originally meant for one person had to be reassigned in light of recent developments. I figured that I currently only have one strong idea theme and won't be sure if I would have a chance to come up with another strong theme for my next project after this. So might as well give this project all I've got, as if it were going to be the only installment I'll ever make. I'm making no compromises now, the ideas I had before I discovered Ren'Py are now coming to the forefront, so I am going to make this as I envision it to be, and that is, an eroge. I don't have a title yet, but its going to be one that doesn't associate with porn but yet also be very sexy. And yes, it's still relevant to my universe of Geomancer Chronicles.

[Watercolorheart]

Geomancer Chronicles.

Eek.

On that topic, is the next chapter out yet?

[DaFool]

What sort of reaction is that?

The next chapter isn't going to come out by itself, because I'm totally overhauling the project. I'll release it when its fully complete (meaning, one stand-alone arc / story). Thus I'm not going to put anything under Works in Progress anymore. You can forget about whatever I put out last month. The new game will look and feel and play and read different. (although now its about Geomancers having sex (jk...partly, there's still a main theme)

[mikey]

So the new GC is actually going to have a different name? (although being set in the GC universe...)

- 22-25+. Probably older than most eroge players, but heck, no schoolgirls on principle.

Well, and if you can avoid it, I'd say no moe either (although that probably goes hand in hand with the eliminating the sixteens).
Garden Society Kykuit comes to mind. All the girls are relatively young, but all of them are elegant and feminine and everything. They are still technically schoolgirls, but...

I'm making no compromises now, the ideas I had before I discovered Ren'Py are now coming to the forefront, so I am going to make this as I envision it to be, and that is, an eroge.

It's always worrying to see that no compromises are being made in a project (usually implies that it's going to be a huge game) - this doesn't apply to the style or the story though, which I hope was what it meant. If you wanted a story with sex, then do it. All the better when you're a member of the N.S.A. (no-schoolgirl association ^_^)

[Watercolorheart]

All the better when you're a member of the N.S.A. (no-schoolgirl association ^_^)

You know, mikey, it never used to bother me until you pointed it out ... and then every anime I liked, from "Escaflowne" to "Inuyasha" to the more recent "Voices of a Distant Star" faded a little for me ... yet, I love Haruhi for just that reason; because it makes fun of itself. Kyon is also grounded in reality, unlike most students in most animes ...

I liked the bit in the very first novel when he's pointing out the incongruity of the girls where summer schoolgirl uniforms, and the boys wearing light winter jackets or something. XD

Anyway, my reaction to Geomancer Chronicles ... I just couldn't imagine it with sex. From what I saw of the demo, it was full of whimsy and written for a large audience.

[teankun]

I am still a little confused of how this game is going to be eroge.

To my understanding while some ren'ai or bishojo games have the nudity and/or sex at the end (more or less the reward for winning the one girl over), eroge games have them throught the game possibly with multiple girls.

Or am I incorrect here?

So, will the genitles be concealed under bed sheets while breasts are visible above? How detailed will the breasts be?

BTW, does this game have its own thread here on the forum?

[DaFool]

I am still a little confused of how this game is going to be eroge.

To my understanding while some ren'ai or bishojo games have the nudity and/or sex at the end (more or less the reward for winning the one girl over), eroge games have them throught the game possibly with multiple girls.

Yeah, I'd have to strike a right balance here.

Firstly, I DON'T want it to end up something like this:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... hp?id=3204
Review here:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/columns ... .php?id=68

Thing is, I DO want sex in the work, and I also have a strong philosophical message, and I want them both since they're kinda related to each other (the philosophical message being about the relationships between men and women). I don't want one to mess up the other. I am really thinking hard to pull it off.

Since the length of this visual novel will be around movie-length, it might fall into the trappings of commercial yaruge where the plot only serves as an excuse to go from one sex scene to the next. I explicitly want to avoid that and rather have it be the other way around, with sex supporting the plot. The story itself is ecchi to begin with so this shouldn't be a problem...I hope.

Since this really isn't a dating sim, sex will not be a reward structure per se, however it can be used to highlight 'climaxes' in the plot (both figuratively and literally). I'm anticipating at least 2 scenes (at most 4), constrained by the overall length of the game. This definitely makes it have less sex than commercial yaruge, but more sex then ren'ai such as Crescendo (in proportion to the number of girls, I mean)

So, will the genitles be concealed under bed sheets while breasts are visible above? How detailed will the breasts be?

It's all about layout and posturing. And I've been drawing breasts since I was 10 years old, so right now I'm pretty damn good at it . Definitely this time around I'll be using paper + pencil + scanner, not like last time which was directly drawn via wacom tablet.

BTW, does this game have its own thread here on the forum?

Unless you count that standalone 5mb little thing that's floating around in Completed Games forum (before I decided to go the eroge route), I'd rather not. I don't want to promise more than I can deliver, nor talk too much about it. I'm holding off showing any previews since I want to surprise people.

[teankun]

so detail will go up to areolas?

[mikey]

IMO the only choice is between showing or not showing genitals - if you do show them, then you're on the dark side, so to say, you have a hentai game - which is perfectly fine, but you'll have a hard time convincing the players the hentai isn't just there to... be there. And an even tougher time if you want the explicit scenes to fulfill a different role than to (primarily) arouse your players.

Otherwise IMO it makes almost no difference if you show breasts in more detail or simply use barbie-doll-nudity. I even think you can show a completely naked body and it still won't be 18+, as long as you do it in the mentioned early Playboy fashion.

[DaFool]

Thanks for the pointers.

Put it simply, drawings won't look like they were made by a horny teenager. Drawings won't seem like they were shoved in your face like in the case of hentai or h-doujinshi. Bear in mind the sexy feel has to be given off by the whole scene, by the character, background, posturing, lighting, highlights.

[teankun]

I feel often the more detail the more it draws attention to it.

[DaFool]

Sure, but its a relative thing.

Like when you have a generic character design who is wearing the most intricate set of panties unimaginable, complete with laces and contoured around the bumps in one's crotch.

Or when the boobs are drawn with more attention than the hair or eyes.

It won't draw attention if the detail is consistent with the rest of the drawings.

That being said, I'm leaning toward low-budget (unfortunately, I don't have much time). It may be an experiment in oneself to find out how close to stick figures an actual character design can be and still be a turn-on. If you know Madarame's (whatever his name is) theory in Genshiken, you get the picture. Sex is in the brain after all.