Rejected sprites and designs for the game.
There are no game over scenes in Libellia, I don't like locking content behind game overs, I find it stupid and a serious problem in design of hentai games. It makes the player save scum and go into battles looking for a way to lose quickly because the next scene can only be seen once you're defeated.
Fight-lose-see scene-load-continue to next big battle-repeat.
How to deliver content in adult games is difficult. In a normal game you approach content by making upgrades to improve gameplay, then there are items and party members to help you in challenges, in adult games however the focus the player wants is less gameplay wise and more cosmetic, visual, such as new costumes for the girls in the game or your MC if it's female, and then there's the actual sex scenes, mostly a good variety art and writing content.
Rejected animation for the first part of the demo.
There are 3 aspects of Libellia that I want to develop. Exploration, battles and relationships.
Exploration
Old art for the game.
Exploration will be mostly for finding scenes, new areas and more characters. There are no random encounters on the game so I want it to feel that when you are exploring you're focused on that, be it a town you're infiltrating, a forest where you can find monsters and other victims of monster girls and even meet or ambush some enemies.
So for now exploration will be for finding hidden scenes and characters mostly.
Battles
Old art for the game.
Battles won't have rape mechanics, at least for now I'm not implementing that, though it might be an addiition for enemies focused on sex (Like succubus). Battles will be decided by your loss of HP or Stamina.
Losing by HP means death and game over, most enemies won't try to kill you unless
enraged, this will be shown by the message "enemy X has marked you for
death" or "monster X is enraged and trying to kill you" this status is
temporary most of the time.
Losing by Stamina will knock you out and the monster will capture you. Once captured you'll have to escape from the monster lair, either by interacting with it or by fighting again, it will depend on the monster. A monster that has fought with you before will have a different relationship with the MC. If you're repeatedly defeated they will mock you and have a boost in power and if you've beaten them a few times they'll suffer a few negative states in battle.
Also, the same rules of battle that apply to your defeat work on the
enemy, and defeating them by Stamina leaves them open to whatever you
wish to do. Rape, stealing especial items from them or taking some information about enemies, the area boss or characters in the area. Obviously, defeating an enemy by stamina will be harder.
Relationships
Relationships increase by interacting with characters and monsters in the world, and battles if the character or monster is an active enemy. A meter will level up with the relationship between the monster and the MC and another meter will show their feelings, feelings being if they are dominant or submisive to the MC.
Monsters with a dominant attitude are more aggresive and assertive, outright raping you if they find you while exploring or going into battle if you resist. Their submisive counterpart are more peaceful and will tend to talk things out and charm you instead of fighting, each behavior depends on the monster, for now there's no way to change their behaviour from dominant to submisive and viceversa.
Old relationship window.
I might add one meter for Love if there's interest in it in the future, but that will be after the full demo.
Cool thoughts about the game development, and yeah presenting the elements of these types of game is hard.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand you want to have a nice flowing, self-coherent game which would be fun to play.
On the other hand you have present the sex and other elements, which may break the flow of your game and worse make it the stopping point(you know after a person ejaculates all over their keyboard), that is targeted at the people who play these games, since... well that's who's going to be playing your game.
I agree that game over rape(GOR) is kinda crappy, breaks immersion, flow, and makes the player go out of their way to get what they want, but it's the easiest thing that makes sense with the story, and lets the player get to what they immediately. And to be honest the gameplay of most all(even the better games like bad end collectors and lilitales) H games are kind of a preface, a skin to cover what people want, kinda like a fetish to make there porn more fappable.
What was I trying to say there? GOR sucks, but it's what people wants?
Anyway other games like to have where there is no sex until you finish a quest and that's the reward plus whatever else, and that seems to help make people actually play the game a bit more focus on actually playing with the game play system instead of ignoring it and looking for porn.
But then it makes the game super bland, blglagbdlfgadf I just vomited because I have no idea what I want to say anymore, idk.
Anyway about that idea where the monster takes you home after you lose, I think that's still feels a bit like GOR and I think it breaks immersion a bit. When you go into the battle screen you should know what your objective is and what its not. That you can get more content if you lose and get captured makes the players decision making a bit split.
IDK if that's how you see it, or if it plays out differently in your head.
But I think that a player should have to work to get that content, the getting captured and getting more content.
bluareahfghdasfadsfhas sorry I just vommited again, does that make any sense sorry if it doesn't, I kinda just want to see a well designed H game from the english community for once, and it looks like this one might be the one if it can leave dev hell.
GOR is definitely the "best" way to deliver the content, easy to understand and easy to get the content out of. However, that formula kind of "breaks" when the player doesn't want to be the submissive one but instead wants to initiate the action or be assertive. My way of thinking is that if the player wants "power" over the content or story of the game GOR doesn't meet it's expectations, in fact, it will do the opposite and fail at them. I do agree that GOR is famous though, but we also have the success of Rance games where the MC is actually the one in control most of the time.
DeleteYou're right that the capture mechanic feels like GOR, it definitely enters that territory since once I mention "capture" you can imagine what's going to happen in the context of an hentai game and the player will feel like he has to lose, not because of logical thinking but because hentai games created the bad trend of rewarding losing with content. I mean, anything related to losing will feel GORish at this point, but there must be a penalty for losing against an enemy that doesn't want to kill you right?
I will admit that I haven't found a good way to balance the delivery of the content properly, losing and being captured feels like it will take you to content just as winning will and that might confuse the player. There should be consequences for losing and rewards for winning, both for the player and the context of the game, the losing part is what's worrying me at this point.
Thanks for your input, and don't worry your post made sense, I really appreciate it. Please keep posting your thoughts if have time in the future, every bit of feedback helps.
I'm so sad why does everything i write always disappear like this?
DeleteAnyway
-something about my hate for vanilla rpg maker, people should play their game to see if its fun
-the eng h scene is a waste land, you, http://elanachampionoflust.blogspot.com/, and http://loganid.com/ are the last guys i follow before i jump ship
-sandboxes are not fun
-RANCE 6 AND BALDR SKY TWO H GAMES GREAT GAMEPLAY
-Ganbaruzou!
Can't blame you there, I have an apathic attitude towards RPGM and most english h-games. The only reason why I started mine is because there are no games that are to my taste.
DeleteI still hope the english H scene will get better with time.
I, for one, am excited for an H-game that could quite possibly have an interesting game and story in addition to the sexy stuff. I've become super jaded with most anime and games over the past year or so because I come in looking at the cute, hot designs and wind up not being able to sit through more than an hour because of the mind-boggingly stupid story, and that goes for as many Japanese things as it does English things. With what you're going for here, I, personally, even if it doesn't mean alot, am excited to play it and experience the story and the scenes. I've written lots of personal stories and roleplay with friends that mix sex, monstergirls, and longlasting plots, too, so it's right down my alley. I'm sure many others will think the same once this gains more steam, but it's risky. Just gotta make it very, very clear what this game is going for so that noone is confused.
DeleteOn an unrelated note, the goat-girl with the black fur and purple hair isn't going to be in game? I sure hope so, she was a character I was very excited to meet. And "greet".
ReplyDeleteYes, she's part of the main story and a very important character.
DeleteAlso, thanks for your input, it's good to know that there's people interested in plot along with the sexy stuff.
Dude what's the story~~~~~~~~~~~~
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