E6/2 is over

Hey,

Game… keep… working… stuff…

So recently I’ve been reading about game length and about how games could be shorter, but people want them to be longer because of price and all that, and checking PSN trophies it’s interesting to see how sometimes only 50% or players finish the games and even you can see the game progression, for example 90% of players got the chapter 1 trophy but by the final chapter is already around half that, people just lose interest or they genuinely don’t like what they’re playing or just didn’t care enough and moved to other games, is normal I guess; but to me is actually crazy how chapter 1 sometimes has 90% that means 10% of people actually bought the game but didn’t even bother to finish the first chapter, why would you buy a game you won’t even play? To me 10% is a big number.

Anyway, I’m not judging, I just find it interesting.

Sooo just for fun I thought we could have some related polls about xenotake, don’t feel pressured to lie on the internet, it’s just for fun. Of course if you never played the game you shouldn’t answer, it’s only for the people who played the game regardless if you finished it or not, that’s one of the questions.

What is this Ultimate Imaginative Scenario 7 people speak about recently? Is that one of those new computerized diversions kids use these days?

100 Responses to “E6/2 is over”

  1. Anonymous Says:

    Your games need galleries. That’s the biggest thing to remember, and don’t lump them in after someone beats the game. If I kill an enemy, I should unlock that enemy’s animation. This stops the random pause in the middle of the game to whack it or the loss of focus in it being a game.

    Never forget that most people aren’t interested in the fact that you made a game, but the fact that it’s porn. Sure you’ll get folks praising it to high heaven but in reality they play it then put it away because they are done with it. Your games are known for an extreme which is why they don’t fizzle out as fast as say something from Ky or some of the other more “well known” creators.

    • Maybe.

      I guess I phrased that badly since I don’t really see it as a problem with smaller games like these and really more often than not it’s easy for you to just download a save file, normally a legit player wouldn’t want that but as you say if they only care about porn and not the game itself then doing that shouldn’t be a problem.

      Also I was really talking about big 60$ games. Small games are sometimes guaranteed to never be even opened, even when you pay 10 bucks for it, ask any steam user how many cheap games they haven’t even installed.

      But to be honest I’m more interested in making an actual game than just fap material, and I’m more interested in reaching the players who want an actual game, otherwise I wouldn’t waste an entire year of my life making it, for the other “most people” as I said you can easily ask around for a save file and be done with it, is not what I would prefer but It’s easier to just do that.

      (Days, not weeks, I’m overreacting)

      That being said, I’ll probably do a progressively unlocked gallery anyway, I had already thought about that.

      This stops the random pause in the middle of the game to whack it or the loss of focus in it being a game.

      Funny you mention that since several times before I’ve bitched about how I hate how enemy encounters break gameplay flow. That’s why enemy encounters aren’t my prefered h-game gimmick.

      • But I can think of a great many people that would play the game for the story as well. In my opinion, an equal or almost equal blending of both story and H content is the way to go and I think a lot of people would agree.

        Now what you’re doing is perfect, especially with the cutscene H scenes. Those are masterpieces and many say that is the most memorable part of Xenotake for them. However, battle sprite sex is what a LOT of people look forward to in an action game. It doesn’t break the focus of the game at all because you can simply break out of the grab and continue fighting. Part of the pleasure in this method is allowed the girl to get grabbed during a fight or being surrounded by enemies and having a hard time escaping, which is what you did in your new game (except those ghosts attack a little TOO frequently…).

        Take Parasite in City for example. The job is to survive and for the people that want to do just that they can because they can simply escape the grabs. However, the people that want to enjoy some H content while playing can do so as well and even have a harder time succeeding due to the girl getting pregnant or horny which adds to the pleasure.

        This entire concept is the point surrounding H games made with female protagonists. With males it was “defeat the enemies and get H as a reward.” With females it’s “try and get her into as much trouble as possible.”

        Also, the escapes aren’t done in the right way imho. Since the point is to get her into as much trouble as possible, simply “letting go” or “giving in” should be what results in the change in pleasure for the girl. In the new game if you sustain the escape for long enough that’s when she starts to enjoy it more than the bar changes to pink. To me, this makes sense because it’s like she was fucked for so long that she started enjoying it. However, I think if she stops resisting for long enough and just lets the bar empty, that’s when she should really start enjoying it. I also point you in the direction of Crisis Point for this mechanic.

      • Ian Walker Says:

        The game is too hard, cant find the item needed to unlock next part.

    • Anonymous Says:

      Absolutely disagree. The reason I enjoyed Xenotake so much was that there was actual gameplay involving a simple, but not-that-stupid story involved. Don’t speak for everyone if you just want to fap.

      • But if I just wanted to fap I could just go to the gallery. I enjoyed the game because the combat rape was well integrated into the gameplay. Taking it out actually harms the gameplay. Final Fuck is also another example of combat rape being well integrated into the gameplay.

  2. Long length is ok providing it doesn’t become tedious. You have to remember that most people play these things for the porn. I’m not saying that it doesn’t need a plot but said plot shouldn’t cause long gaps between the porn.

    On an unrelated note this game needs a better game over screen than Xenotake had. The game was great but the quick black screen was a little disappointing. Perhaps letting the monsters continue to rape her while she’s unconscious, a unique ending animation or even just a still image? Any of the 3 would be better than Xenotake’s game over.

    These are just suggestions though so do what ever time permits or what you’re willing to do. The new game seems like it’s gonna be good. lol

    • You’re right, though I don’t like the “most people” argument, I don’t want to go for what most people want, instead I want to do something I would want to play myself (that seems to be a common thought). Of course there can be a balance, but using that as the main argument for changes or main draws is not what I want to do.

  3. Keep in mind there are plenty of people who will either rent a game or borrow a friend’s copy (this is especially prevalent for the PS3, where two people can share a single PSN account on different consoles); I imagine many of the 10% who don’t finish the first chapter either were only renting or didn’t pay for the game at all.

  4. What is “E6/2” mean?

  5. Anonymous Says:

    To be honest, I played Xenotake over an over again. I found it very fun and I find you to be one of my favorite H-Game Artists on a blog at the moment. About game length: Xenotake had a good length. But I would probably have played it till the end even if it was double as long, quadruple, 10 times, 30 times, or whatsoever. As long as new enemies pop up that I can “try out” *cough* I don’t get bored. At least if the game’s mechanics themselves are not bad or tedious. And your game mechanics are always easy to handle and fun to play with.

  6. A great example of how length != quality is Alien: Isolation. Most reviewers noted that the game played well and the premise was reasonably durable for the first half of the game… but then the developers added an almost absurd amount of fetch quests.

    I suppose the argument to be made here is that game length should accomplish something besides delaying The Reveal or padding the duration. When I hear, “Gamers want longer games,” I think “Gamers want a good experience extended for as long as possible.” But the experience itself must be worthwhile in order to endure, and only time will tell if your players find your experience worthwhile.

    When considering game length in the context of game design, I recommend asking yourself what a given segment provides us: a new challenge? Character development? A new h-scene?

    Note that many older video games got away with being long because each level offered us some new pleasure. Example: Doom and Doom 2. Each level offered new (and often diabolical) challenges; most levels offered new music, and some levels offered new music and new monsters to fight. But even for those of us familiar with the weapons and the monsters, the levels themselves are sufficiently challenging (in terms of finding all the secrets) or compelling (such as Doom 2’s Tricks and Traps, in which there are lots of situations that reward lateral thinking, such as letting the Cyberdemon kill all the Barons of Hell for you before taking the Invulnerability sphere and then finishing the Cyberdemon yourself).

    In terms of the game you are developing (which I adore, by the way), I invite you to consider the depth of experience rather than the length:
    -Are we guaranteed to save all the girls, and if not, does failing to do so change the ending?
    -What will happen to the main character as she unlocks more powers through the demonic hand?
    -Will the main character’s relationship to sex, power, and violence change over the course of the game? Will she start to enjoy sex or her ability to use special powers?
    -Can players choose to cultivate lesbian relationships with the other girls?
    -Are there any collectibles that can be used to unlock new h-scenarios (that is, “Collect 5 hidden skulls for special content”)?
    -Are there any alternate endings planned? These could conceivably be based on any number of factors, from “sexual corruption” to how much the demonic hand takes over (I imagine one ending in which she masters the hand and another in which the hand uses her to take over the world)

    Answers to the above questions will determine things like game length, replayability, and how much players enjoy their experience.

    One more thing to consider is the motivational psychology of players. In my experience, many h-games are counter-intuitive in the sense that you must get “killed” to experience or unlock all the h-scenes (because the bad guys are monsters who will attack the heroine, for example — to proceed you need to dodge the monsters), but doing so sets your progress back, and you are punished for missing them.

    But in my experience, most players play h-games FOR the h-scenes. Consequently, the game creates dissonance between two goals: to complete the game; or to experience h-scenes. It is effectively two different games: progressing through the game to encounter more h-scenes; and then finding ways to unlock those scenes (rather than progressing through the game).

    When creating an h-game, you have the opportunity to craft an experience in which the player’s forward progress is aligned with unlocking h-scenes, either by not penalizing players for unlocking h-scenes, or by integrating h-scenes into forward progress.

    Hypothetical examples:
    1). By completing a level you unlock all h-scenes in it for future viewing in a gallery
    2). By finding hidden items, you unlock h-scenes individually
    3). By defeating monsters, you can unlock h-scenes with them

    Just my two cents.

    • See that’s why I liked how he paced Xenotake, the controllable H scenes were like rewards for defeating the bosses(or making progress).

      The sex machines as puzzles looks promising as a mechanic for Ghost Hunter Vena, would like to see more of that.

      • This, This is how I felt. “I had to beat the game to unlock the gallery for the game I payed for. ” Is what I had in mind. Its.. Really the first H-game I payed for. Because.. well.. I think really its cause I was able to buy it in US/CDN. Unlike other places where its in yen.

        Regardless.. The Controllable H-scenes and the gallery, were DEFINITELY a reward with how well and great the animation is..

    • Well, I didn’t put too much emphasis talking about it in this game in particular for a reason, I was talking about commercial games in general since I really can’t have the luxury of deciding my game length, no matter how long I make it it will still be short by “normal games” standards, the best I can hope for is to make it as long as possible, which will still be short.

      I like the way you see it though, I’ve talked about how I don’t like precisely the thing you talk about, that’s why I like progression based/story based sex moments, and I want to make the experiment in a future game to remove all enemy/gameplay sex and see if it can be compelling enough; to me losing to “win” is almost anti-video games, it’s weird.

      • DerPeter Says:

        You have to be careful tho.
        having to lose to “win” is bad, but playing the game, then getting h-scenes, then continuing to play the game, then getting the next h-scenes is also bad. You should look to implement h-scenes into the gameplay first and foremost, you never should have the feeling as player that this game could be working without h-scenes.

        Xenotake for example would have been playable without the h-scenes. The cutscenes were nice, but they felt like interludes and not that connected to the game (exept the tentacle lift).
        I’m not saying Xeno was bad, it certainly wasn’t, but still the player had to decide if he wants to play the game, which wouldn’t bring him much h-scenes, or if he wants to see the h-scenes, which wouldn’t help him completing the game (with the exception of the cutscenes ofcourse).

      • I see what you mean, even though I wouldn’t have any problem with the idea of moving the story forward just to get to the next sex part, of course that seems like a very shallow way of seeing it, but it wouldn’t be exactly like that since the story and the characters would move the story forward. I think that’s why doujin hentai is so popular, because of the characters, of course I won’t have characters as compelling as established franchises but that’s the idea, if you care enough about the characters and the story then you want to see what happens next, now creating compelling characters and stories, that would be the real challenge… or at least that’s the kind of stuff I would like to see at some point… as I said it would be an interesting experiment, but then again I’m starting to see how the extremes are bad too so, keeping a balance always seem to be the best way… that is, not removing enemies completely, just leaving bosses and some major ones, like only sex from the leader of the orcs and minor thug orcs only drag you to him or something like that… we’ll see.

      • DerPeter Says:

        I can just tell you what I like the most. From a h-content perspective, I’d like to have atleast one animation per enemy. From a gameplay perspective, I’d like to to have h-content that has more impact than just being a nice game over animation. Sex ought not displayed as game over scenario or “you failed” scenario, but should actually drive the story forward or have impact on the mechanics.

        I like having the option to choose a “darker” themed story, like, the heroine is being made subject to sex but saves the rest by being addicted to sex. Or something like that.

  7. I agree with what Gaius said. Another thing with the H-scenes, I feel as though sometimes it can get repetitive if it is the same kind of H-scene.

    For example. I’ve played a few games where all the H-scenes were basically vagina penetrations of some kind and nothing more. No anal and nothing with the breasts. This does not suit the broader of the audience if it is just focused on one area.

    Oh and Grammar check: Poll option 3 for question 1: ‘No and I don’t think I’ll finisht it.’ “finish”

    Question 2: About game lenght… “length”

    • Aww I’m an illegal inmigrant, have some mercy.

      That’s one of the big problems with the whole “have more enemies, and have 3 animations per enemy”; a lot of them will end up looking very similar, also, I don’t like the idea of putting all of your ideas and all the positions ever in one game, you should save some stuff for next games too.

      Also, it’s time consuming and tedious so.. there’s that too…

      • I wonder if there is some sort of happy medium?

        For instance: Koonsoft has created a number of side-scrolling games in which there are a wide variety of sex positions available per enemy. The animations are high-quality and the variations interesting, but for some reason, I don’t find the games particularly compelling.

        I think this is in part because they have no meaning, no symbolic value. They don’t represent the character’s growing comfort with sex or pleasure; they aren’t related to the story; and they don’t reflect a character’s growing power.

        But what if the sex scenes, regardless of variation, had some significance?

        I can imagine a wide variety of scenarios in which stats, hidden or otherwise, influenced the quality of the sex scenes based on a number of different factors. For example: as the character has sex with female characters, she starts to like it. The more she likes it, different responses emerge:
        –Tier 1: “Wow, why did I just cum from that?”
        –Tier 2: “This isn’t so bad.”
        –Tier 3: “I actually like this.”
        –Tier 4: “I WANT MORE.”

        To keep things fresh, you can add randomized responses for each tier (random number generator selects different responses). Alternatively, you can vary the length of intensity of her orgasm by, say, varying the number of repeats of a spasming animation.

        You can do the same thing with violence or power:
        Tier 1: “OMG, why did I get wet from destroying that ghost.”
        Tier 2: “Having power isn’t so bad…”
        Tier 3: “Heh, that was fun.”
        Tier 4: “Flee or die, ghosts!”

        Ideally, the player would have some control over these responses. For example: the tiers could decay over time as you kill ghosts less often, so a player who prefers the girl to have a more dainty reaction to violence could simply evade ghosts most of the time and kill ghosts less often. The tier could then influence the ending — if she ends on Tier 1, she returns to a normal life with no regrets; if she ends on Tier 4, she becomes a power-hungry lord of the undead. =)

        Just brainstorming. I love your games and the philosophy you bring to them. I’d help if I could!

      • Well those kind of mecahnincs are a bit more complex and need to be planned from the very begining.

        Also, I really don’t think about sex that much as a gameplay mechaninc but I do think about it in the way you say in story and character development, one of the main reasons I don’t like gameplay sex is becuase it ends up not making sense character wise, or at least in the way I want to portray the characters, like for example when a big bad traps you and sex happens, why is sex realevant and a big deal now but why wasn’t it the last 100 times you jumped into the enemy before getting there? I guess it really dosen’t matter in the long run but still makes it less eventful and less important, I agree with you there.

        But again, the lesson for today is balance.

  8. Anonymous Says:

    “10% of people actually bought the game but didn’t even bother to finish the first chapter, why would you buy a game you won’t even play? To me 10% is a big number.”

    Maybe they didn’t actually like the game?

    How many of those games actually offer demos to try before you buy the game these days?

    I would wager many of those no chapter/1 chapter players bought the game based on how the trailer looked, only to find out that they weren’t enjoying the gameplay; so they had little choice but to say ‘oh well’ and just not play it anymore (or try to sell it as a used game, in case of console games). Why do you think so many so-called AAA game companies make flashy trailers with almost no actual gameplay for marketing their games?

  9. I loved it just needed Way more Yuri like have a few female enemies and there needed to be masturbation as well and some bones stuff that you can only see if you unlock the gallery mode and a few characters to play as like a foster one with more firepower and smaller breasts (you know smaller but not LOLI) but with less HP that would be awesome!

  10. As someone who hates GoR, Xenotake is one of my favorite H-games. Purposely losing for the H just doesn’t make any sense to me as a gamer. The storyline scenes are perfect fix for that.

    That being said, from a personal viewpoint, Xenotake could’ve been about 4x longer (with appropriate increase in story H scenes) and removed the random enemy rape. Bosses should be a special case and have their own rape grabs as well.

    • Also, I thought this was appropriate to the conversation:

    • Good to see more people think like that, maybe I’m not that far off and can try removing gor/ror in a next game and see how that goes… interesting.

    • Anonymous Says:

      I both agree and disagree; I agree with you about GoR, losing on purpose to see what happens isn’t that fun. But at the same time, I disagree with you about storyline scenes. If it’s just storyline scenes, then the gameplay is just a filler- an obsticle and nothing more. You could just as well be a visual novel at that point.

      To me, the goal should be an integration: The mature content is part of the gameplay; not just a game-over or an intermission. The best example I can give of this was a japanese game called “Creature Hunter”. It was a fairly basic rpgmaker game with average combat and graphics, nothing special. Except that the H was a part of combat; it wasn’t something that you only got for losing, or by playing badly; it was something that was a part of the game.

      • GoR as far as I know means Game over on Rape.

        Well more than actual game over I’m more inclined towards not liking rape on the middle of gameplay, but both still kind of bother me.

        There are several ways of looking at it of course but gameplay becoming an obstacle could be said about any story driven game and then we fall into the same old “gameplay is the only thing that matters” “if you want a story read a book” argument.

        I have no problem with a visual novel approach since I do care a lot about characters and story, of course balance is the best option so having a natural story progression alongside gameplay to drive the whole thing would be ideal, but that gameplay doens’t necesarilly have to include copious amount of rape IMO, because among other things that would also break the cahracter flow (in a story driven game), as someone mentioned before, why would they care when a big sexy trap in a cutscene happens when rape happened constanlty on the way there? it becomes inconsequential, just another sex animation to the pile.

        But again, those are still ideas in progress, who knows, maybe removing all of what people know might not be a good idea after all and maybe some elements need to remain.

      • DerPeter Says:

        I agree that GoR or RoR are not the best ways to implement h-content into a game. In my opinion, the h-content should be an integral part of the game. Just like it was said, mid-combat h-content is one way to integrate the h-content into the game, another one, which I am in favor of for example, would be to give story relevance to h-content. Different rapes leading to different stories, decisions of what or how you fuck things as story-changing events.

        You said that you don’t like mutual sex in your games because you don’t think that a human would react in such a way in that situation. I can understand your standpoint, but it removes the possibility to give incentive to getting raped.

        Both Xenotake and GHV only show h-content in cutscenes or if you fail. I personally don’t like cutscenes because they are basucally like movies and I’m playing a game because I don’t like how little control I have over the action. Furthermore, I don’t think that the only reason to get fucked should be the player wanting to see the animation. It’s basically what you said already, GoR is forcing you to purposely lose. You should add mechanics or drive the story in a direction that requires you to get fucked (and maybe even enjoying being fucked).

      • mutual sex

        You’ll have to explain that one better.

        Different rapes leading to different stories

        Well that certainly makes it more important but then again, that’s more advanced stuff that is not in reach at the moment, instead of dividing the content into different paths I prefer to put it all in a straight line in one main path, or else it would be a very short game you can replay 3 times or so. Which is not a bad idea though, but mmmhhh…

      • DerPeter Says:

        You said that you don’t like the idea of having mindcontrol in the game or that the heroine starts to enjoying the sex, since you thought that this woouldn’t be very realistic in such a situation. I could remember that wrong ofcourse.

      • DerPeter Says:

        I also would say that subtle changes based on how much you gut raped/ by whom you got raped are better than cutting the story short. For example, the heroine could get special effects (positive and negative) based on how much she got raped by special enemies. As for different endings, I always liked the idea of a “bad” ending, showing what would happen if the heroine fails, but also giving you the chance to recover and get back on the usual story track.

      • Yeah that sounds like something I would say, I don’t think realistic is the right word and I don’t like the idea in general, but I’ve also said before that there’s going to be some ghost possession, that kind of counts I think.

    • …forgive the stupid question, but what is GoR?

  11. Well i guess some games on PSN is installed due free giveaway on PS Plus (I myself installed Metal Gear Solid Ground Zero but haven’t played it yet) But yeah, some times seeing that in other games the first achievement gets only 70% i have same question, why?
    Honestly i played xenotake on 80%-90%, as i somewhat got stuck on some levels and did not want to to try too much, so i got a save, and and selected levels manually, haven’t finished few levels a bit. Though i DO plan of getting 100% GHV by myself.
    And i think the longer the game – the better, if the game is extended cleverly, i mean if the plot gets your time and not the quest like “go from here to the end of the map, get item and go to the other end of map go finish the quest” and after that you unlock nother quest on the other end of map… Many games get their gameplay time on something like that (like in the Dragon Age Inquisition) and sometimes lack of anything interesting in this gets on your nerves. So yeah, i liked those small talks with glove you made in game.

  12. beachjustice boobs Says:

    IMO longer is always better. When it comes to sexy games with sexy predicaments, longer is always better, because one has the expectation to keep one interested that one will achieve more erotic animations. As long as there’s either a new enemy, or different atmosphere, or different strategy required, or anyway something to make each ‘stage’ of the game unique and worth exploring. Creative cut-scenes are nice too, even if it’s just dialog.

    I loved Xenotake. Of course I would’ve loved if it were longer and had a wider spectrum of things (enemies, &c.) to keep me interested. But, I loved it anyway at its length, and would def. buy it again if given a chance to change my mind.

    • The ONLY thing I would have liked to see more of in Xenotake is more reactions from the main character. Like, wandering through a lake of jizz on the lower levels? REACTIONS PLZ!
      “Is that what I think it is?”
      “This can’t be good.”
      “It’s getting inside my suit…”

      Other than that, I thought it was a true gem of an h-game and one of my all-time favorites.

  13. I feel you did a fantastic job with Xenotake. I would have preferred it to be longer because I enjoyed it so much; it was a game I didn’t want to come to an end.

  14. DerPeter Says:

    There are two h-games I played that I can specifically recall: Xenotake and Sakyubasu no Tatakai 1.
    Both games have rally good story associated with them and SnT also has really engaging mechanics. Xenotake was good and fun to play too, but I don’t think that the mechanics were that advanced (GHV has more engaging mechanics, but is still pretty simple. Not that this is bad).

    For me, the biggest factor of a h-game is, beside the h content, the story. I wouldn’t play h-games where I can explore the story myself if I wouldn’t like story-heavy h-content. Mechanics are less important for me if the h-content and the story is good. Yet, if the mechanics are fun, the game becomes even more enjoyable. The length of a game is only important for me if the things previously mentioned are good. So when I say that I want your games to be longer, then you can take that as compliment.

    I’d just like to ask you to not rush your game. The first half of Xenotake was glorious, while the second half was not so much, mostly because of the drone scenes and because the story moved away from the heroine while I wanted to know what happens to her.

    Also, a personal request from me would be to renounce game over -> fade to black -> respawn situations, because I personally find them really unengaging.

  15. Xenotake was a fun game, since the sex thing was not the “core” of the game, But is relativelly short. You think in make ghost hunter vena longer or shorter than xenotake? To a game what action is more important than the por, i think the lenght is very important! ( sorry if i am being inconvenient :p )

  16. I finished xenotake a few times!
    Honestly? It could have done with more positions.

  17. Anonymous Says:

    I bought your last game and I thought for the length there was enough variety of the H scenes. a game that was longer would have needed more variety otherwise it would have gotten old too quickly. overall I think you balanced things out nicely for a solo dev, I can already see you getting better in the demo for your next one
    I am looking forward to eventually you getting to the point where you do multiple animations / scenes per enemy because it becomes so much faster and easier to make

  18. Hi,Vosmug.Long time no see,How are you ?

    I was vote your question,I played Xenotake and finish it. As a matter of fact, It is so fun.And I suppose the game is length little longer,but that’s good.I wanna play long games,long,long,long.It’s OK yup.
    I expect your new games “GHV” variety of the H scenes,the game length,and more etc….So I waiting for you stuff complete of GHV.Don’t give up please.Good luck.

    P.S.Sorry I’m not good in English.By now, I guess you get used to my broken English writing.See ya !

  19. NelsonJohn Says:

    yes, I think Xenotake was really good, the only problem was that we were not enough positions as aliens there was. there were secondary characters that do not serve too much if we talk about the sex scenes if only to fill some scene that are I grant. you might want more scenes H what is secondary characters, but also to add H scenes for the main characters. Put more rape scenes in GAME OVER and change depending on the location or locations visited or monsters.
    throughout bosses Xenotake was pretty good, but pretty driven. It would just put more fitting for sex boss secondary characters or why not?

  20. Mamango Says:

    Vosmug, I got a little idea. While playing few similar games, i noticed that in some, there are possibility for 2 or 3 enemies engage MC at the same time, and in 1 game there were possibility for 2 or 3 different type of enemies engage with MC. That looked interesting, different types mace different combinations and there were enemies that won’t attack MC until she is in some predicament.
    How about something like that in your game? Maybe to make it harder go get out if MC is being held by multiple enemies, and maybe to even make Bad End if MC is captured by 3 special enemies? (Like 3 living ropes that tie part of her body each, and if player won’t get himself free the third rope will tie her last free part of body and MC won’t be able to move, resulting Game Over)
    What do you think?

    • Mamango Says:

      I’m a sad panda now
      T_T

      • June 29, 2015 at 9:18 am
        Wanted to know your opinion on that post

      • I have responded to similar stuff before, this kind of mechaninc means way more animations and variants which takes a lot of time to make, and you guys love waiting for what I have noticed, and I myself don’t want to go longer than necessary, also that wouldn’t work for normal enemies, you’l just want to see it once and then it becomes a chore, too me it’s a waste, instead that could be a special trap or something, in that case it could work, I have similar ideas already, not exactly the same but close, I read and consider (to some degree) every comment, I just don’t respond to everything.

  21. Anonymous Says:

    I play your game for the quality h-content and animation – so I feel the Xenotake bit where you played as the robot was entirely unnecessary. And honestly not a lot of other games can live up to the quality you put into the h-content so yeah just remember that in your case game length = h-content, subjectively.

  22. Anonymous Says:

    I thought about this for a bit.

    I understand where you are coming from when you say that h-scenes during gameplay are bothersome in that:

    a) It breaks game flow.
    b) It disincentivizes game progression.
    c) It makes scripted h-scenes less significant in that they are just another animation.

    Problem is, with a game that involves a female heroine and lustful monsters, it’s only natural for the gameplay to involve h-scenes.

    One idea I thought of to rectify this is that the playable character will only have monsters attempt to kill^ her during gameplay, perhaps due to the threatening presence of the glove. The h-scenes will only occur at fixed intervals according to story progression, and act as the reward. The context of the h-scenes could be Vena, whilst unnoticed, witnessing her friends being raped, or Vena losing possession of the glove and being overcome by monsters.

    ^ (or knock out, disarm, etc. Just not sex.)

    I get that this is a far different approach than what was showcased by the demo, so perhaps it’s an idea for the next game.

    ***

    As far as length of the game goes, so long as the quality of the game is sufficiently high, longer is better. By definition, longer games have more content. And content is good.

    However, allow me illustrate a scenario where longer is not better:
    I recently replayed Xenotake and found that the gameplay was not engaging enough for me to continue playing. For a non-h game, this would mean quitting. But the only reason I chose to open this game was for the h-scenes. And thus I took the path of least resistance and used the skip function and gallery to view all the h-scenes I wanted. Certainly, this ended up being less gratifying than if the gameplay was enjoyable, thus enticing me to play through it, and receiving the h-scenes as a reward. How does this relate to length? Well, if the gameplay is stripped away, then what is left is an assortment of h-animations. And if that’s all that we’re after, why play an h-game at all?

    What I mean to say is that people play h-games for the sex. But what makes them actually play the game instead of finding a save file and going to the gallery is the gameplay. By having fun, enjoyable gameplay, you ensure that players finish the game and maybe even play it many times over.

    It’s been said that happiness is the feeling that resistance is being overcome. In this way, an h-game is no different from a regular game. Aim for the game being as long as possible without the gameplay becoming stale. And with the quality of h-scenes that you are capable of making, I have no doubt that your game will be played for years to come.

    • You got all of the points right.

      it’s only natural for the gameplay to involve h-scenes.

      Is it, really? Well yeah I guess, but it could be that it’s only natural because it’s all we know and we haven’t played anything different and I totally get that, but it doesn’t have to be always that way as long as it improves game flow and keeps you interested to keep playing, imo, and that “lost” gameplay content frees workload so more content in the same quantity can be put somewhere else in the story, in the background, in intermissions scenes, whatever. As I said it would be an interesting experiment for next projects, of course not this one.

      As for the rest, to be honest I never wanted to focus on “pure gameplay” that much because to me that wasn’t the most important part, even now I think going for a super tight Megaman X style gameplay it’s kind of a waste in this kind of games (mostly because of gameplay flow and stuff, everything is related), it’s not personally what I would like to make, at least not for now, only now I’m trying to do a bit more gameplay but it’s still restricted due to the survival horror-ish style, every time I hear gameplay I keep thinking about a regular platformer, which to me will trigger my autism even more about gameplay flow, I don’t know if I want to go there yet. But going back, gameplay will be as good as you are at making games, which remains to be seen I guess.

      I keep thinking that if I make the a game with the best gameplay ever I wouldn’t make it a hentai game and would rather put it on steam or something, maybe I’m crazy but I don’t want the best part to be the gameplay for a hentai game, as long as the gameplay is serviceable, it’s good enough for me, I may be outrageously wrong about that though, problem is I have a ton of ideas and if the gameplay gets super good, I fear I would want to do one of those commercially viable ideas instead, which is good for me too I guess, but I also want to keep doing hentai… so, dilemma.

      But anyway that doesn’t really matter for now, you are right, hopefully gameplay will get better with time regardless, so you could say that was a starter testing ground.

  23. anonymous Says:

    My only complaint about Xenotake is there wasn’t enough of a sexual variation in the animations. It could have used more oral, anal, double/triple penetration, yuri, … that one bit of yuri animation was a little disappointing how there wasn’t any more to that. It feels like most of the enemies just grab the character and go for vaginal sex. Nothing wrong with that but it just felt like it lacked variety. Like it should have a little bit of everything for everyone. Worst comes to worst you can just find your favorite animation that fits your niche and replay that over.

    Just my opinion.

    • Footguy Says:

      That’s what I said! Vosmug already replied to that though.

    • Like it should have a little bit of everything for everyone

      Well, not necessarily, I very much dislike some stuff so even for the sake of variety I wouldn’t include them.

      What a lot of people seem to miss every time they do similar points is that more variety, and more of a particular something, and 3 animations per enemy, and more poses, and different reaction and animations depending on your state or position, means more time making those things, and we all know how much people love to wait, sometimes the bare minimum is all there is not because I’m mean and I don’t want to do your thing, but because is necessary to reduce the completion time… well and sometimes I just don’t want to do particular fetishes, sometimes that also comes from the fact that I don’t think I’m a fetish person, 90% of the time I’m not thinking about fetishes, I’m thinking more about situations; for example, instead of “let’s do yuri here just because” I think, “let’s make this and this character have a fight because they are finally meeting for the first time and they don’t like each other and then some tentacle monster appears, oh snap, this means yuri, ok cool” and stuff like that.

      But most of the normal ones including the ones you said should be included somewhere, how many depends on time and “tiredness”.

      Vaginal is the most normal one so it should be incluided the most, right? no? right?

      • Anonymous Says:

        Vaginal yes

      • Anonymous Says:

        Vaginal yes, but oral’s kind of nice too 😀

      • anonymous Says:

        Well again if every single animation (exaggerating) is vaginal then it becomes boring.

        I’ll still play the game, but it would be nice to have more of a reason to replay it after I beat the game.

  24. 6DarkRaven9 Says:

    I do finger myself when playing but I play it for the story since you’re bothering adding it. I mean, what’s the point of just something to play with if there’s nothing else to it right? So far I like the game, it’s not too tedious nor slow. I also love the smooth animations and art style, really stands out from some other creations. Keep up the good work, and yes us girls who enjoy H games are out there too.

  25. Shadowj Says:

    Well in my opinion it was short BUT it was enough to feel how the game is going on. I mean there is no reason to make the demo more longer with the same things, so with what we had here it’s pretty enough and it was incredible, it’s seems that this will be a nice game too as Xenotake. (I finished the game of course)
    In my way i always try to play the game “serious” and try not to be raped, try to do everything perfectly and beat it, then later maybe enjoy the H-Scenes, of course you are making me lose putting that Hentai in Cutscenes because my goal wasn’t as worth as i want to because my girl gets raped xD, but it is very good to me so i can enjoy and play 100% the game.
    I’m going to say that i actually would like the idea of getting multiple choices to decide like if we want an H-Scene to complete something or we get it in another way, which it would be nice so if we choose H-Scenes, Vena is going to become addicted to sex or start enjoying it and all, and if we do by the hard way and not making Vena do sex things so she stays normal. It would be nice that with these things we get differents endings and stuff. Somehow as “Dusty Castle” i hope you know that game, where you have to progress with the game deciding if you want to do it easier (Having Sex) or in the hard way (you always need to get something to make something and progress), with all of this you get different endings like the character becomes addicted to sex and all or she stays “Pure”.
    I’m looking forward to your progress and really want to see the game finished :D, Keep the good work buddy.

  26. Anonymous Says:

    I like the length of Xenotake. The only complaint i have is the length of the robot section but i think you have already had enough feedback on that one

    • I had no problem with the robot section in theory. It makes sense to have some side characters in a game with capture story lines. The problem I had with it was the final battle was the robot.

      What should’ve happened is a phase one with the robot to rescue the heroines, with the final phase as Eerien for the finish.

  27. Anonymous Says:

    Hey Vosmug, I really appreciate your games and the thoughtful effort you put into engaging your potential audience, even though (as it should be) your primary focus is on making a game that you yourself like. These comments are just because it sounds like you like to hear feedback, I don’t mean to impose my will on you at all, I think you’re doing a great job.

    1) I really liked Xenotake and I LOVE GHV so far, art, funny and even over-talkative dialog, gameplay and sex.

    2) In terms of sex and rape and GOR breaking the flow – I disagree that it’s so black and white that it’s a bad way. All games are a balance between difficulty and frustration: how many of us remember a stupid hard platformer with a really hard jump or boss that took us 99 attempts to beat? But yet, finally beating it gave a sense of accomplishment. Of course some people hated it and gave up or cheated past it. Also, games are a balance on choosing your own adventure, which only means something it you can make decisions to skip things or not. All this to say, needing to “lose” to an enemy to see a rape reward scene is not too different to me than making a difficult part of a normal game where you have to try several times to get past it – either way you have to do it a few times to get past it, and maybe it’s more fun to go back and do it different ways. Also, needing to game over to see something isn’t that different than putting an optional branch into a normal game where you can spend time doing something not necessary for the main game to see a special cutscene or get a special powerup or whatever. I think this is really normal. If you don’t feel like putting the effort in, don’t bother, but as a player I like having the choice and having my persistence be rewarded.

    Also, in a hentai horror game, I absolutely think having the rape tied to game overs makes sense. It ought to be a little frustrating to lose, but because it’s hentai, there’s some titillation as well. Just make it quick to skip long scenes.

    3) I thought an awesome mechanic for a hentai game, to make the raping make more “sense”, was a kind of mind-control mechanic – says there’s a level with a boss trying to mind control you, and the way it tries to do it is with minions that try to sexually distract you, allowing it to try visual hypnosis/audio reprogramming/etc. to wear down your willpower (e.g. minions grapple and rape you when you get caught, and your arousal/orgasms enable other attacks that wear down your willpower gauge). As your gauge drops you lose certain special abilities, the most powerful and complicated take the most. When it hits 0 it’s game over and the boss takes over the character’s mind. For this game, maybe it would be a fun level centered around possession – the level boss is trying to possess you all level, and you have to fight to maintain your willpower or else you lose to it and become its slave.

    4) Another cool mechanic I’d love to see involves the complaint (which I 100% agree with) that losing and getting raped should “matter” – it requires multiple playable chars. Losing with one char means getting raped/milked and energy or life gets sucked out of that char and makes the enemy more powerful. Once that char loses, you start playing with a different char and you have to free the captured char, but now you have to fight a powered-up enemy.

    Anyway thanks for the great work, I’m really looking forward to this one!

  28. The length of xenotake was Okay-ish. I voted “It was okay” But I would have added “It was okay, but on the short side.” Though, thats just me because I -really- enjoyed Xenotake. I wanted more after I finished. It was -that- good for its length.

    there is also this you have to consider. It depends on how people enjoy the game. Sometime they just enjoy it. Sometime they enjoy it thoroughly and want more ! and some just wanted more, more and more.(Like the people who wanted more poses, animations, Changing characters in the gallery.)

    Of course, this splits in various routes, The one that enjoyed the story more than the H-scenes, The one that people enjoyed both and of course, the ones where the H-scenes were the best.

    I read that you hope that Ghost hunter vera should be longer than Xenotake, at least you hope it will be. And I feel like that should be a great length for games like these two you are making.

    I am -impatiently- waiting for GHV however, I’ll buy it, play it regardless of its length and enjoy it. I still enjoy Xenotake from time to time. No H-games comes to its calf in matter of animation in my opinion.. its just… so great. The quality of the animation makes it.. great to play through it.

  29. Anonymous Says:

    I feel a game can be made longer if it can sustain interest, if it’s not monotonous it’s fine.

    Just add variety in the enemies/animations, challenges etc… in each new level.

    If you just repeat assets and animations just to make a game longer you’re doing it wrong.

  30. Anonymous Says:

    so vosmug since the stages are finished and sprites what work is left? considering the major parts are finished?h
    ow long do you think the small parts will take?

    • The stages are not finished and only the main gameplay sprites are finished, most sex animations still need to be made, also I wouldn’t say what’s left are small parts, they may be small compared to the rest but not so much as to be fast to make considering a lot of dialogs and “cutscene” sequences are still missing, some of which are not even scripted yet… so yeah.

    • Anonymous Says:

      All that is gonna take months. Lets hope it comes out in October for Halloween.

  31. Footguy Says:

    Go at your own pace. Sooner or later, Fallout will come out!

  32. Hey,

    To me the game was just right on time, if any, I’d play an extra hour of it, but I know why people buy games and NEVER get to play them.

    I’ve had a lot of games, specially on steam sales, where I just buy them because I liked the saga, like Need for Speed and Final Fantasy and tell myself “I’ll finish this later…” but never do, hell, I bought Final Fantasy X-2 for PS2 like a year ago and I’m still 3 hours in, and I’m the biggest Final Fantasy Fan EVER! People with “a little” extra money sometimes buy way too many games, sometimes they buy a sequel and it disapoints them and just drop it like it’s hot because there’s better stuff to play, I know when I played Persona 4 I took a huge break because by half-way, and after playing P3, you should be sick and tired of the social links.

    So yeah, loving your game, so is everyone in my forum.

    Good luck with your project.

  33. NetDenizen Says:

    Windows Environment Variables would be the way to save screenshots to a directory other than the working directory of the application or the appdata cache.
    http://ss64.com/nt/syntax-variables.html
    “%USERPROFILE%\My Pictures”
    ^ with quotes. Should dump pictures to the my pictures folder for the currently logged on user.
    Inbox me if you need assistance.

    • Thanks but I don’t think that works with Game Maker, the problem is that Game Maker is sandboxed, which means it only writes and reads from the working directory, I think there’s an add-on dll to override that but it throws a critical error everytime I try to use it so I can’t even test if it works or not.

  34. I’m late to the party on this one, but I figure I’d give my thoughts. Personally I don’t mind if a game is short, not a bit. especially when it comes to H-games, instead I often prefer a shorter game that’s either packed with animations*, or a game that has some interesting game mechanics or something. A short but substantive game beats a long boring slog in my book, every time, not that I want to give you the impression that your games are that, but I find a lot of game devs will solve the problem of length with repetitiveness, and that’s something I don’t think anyone would want to play.

    (*if we assume the same amount of development time, less time spent on game length could mean more time spent on animations, though I certainly understand that we’re buying a game, not an animation pack, but I digress.)

    • Hopefully this is not going to be considered repetitive given that there’re progression stats, maybe some parts could be taken as grinding, balancing that thing won’t be fun at all.

  35. Old Coot Says:

    Honestly? Didn’t beat it. That fucking last boss difficulty, lord. Got to the last boss though, soo…
    I think that something to keep in mind when people talk about more positions is that xenotake was predominantly featuring humanoids and tentacles. Humanoid alien can only bend so many ways, tentacle is basically a really long penis. Ghosts do not have these limitations; while the most out there position in xenotake was the upside down midair fly, er, thing, ghosts could fuck you up, down, sideways, full insertion a-la demon girl, ANYTHING.
    Regardless of what you make I’m sure it’ll be kickass though, and even if it isnt your artwork will still manage to confound me with its faux 3d-ness

  36. I hope this game can keep records, or I didn’t find it

  37. Anonymous Says:

    The banishment skill doesn’t work when shes naked. So it’ll only work when shes fully clothed?

  38. Heeeeere comes Captain Obvious!!

    I’m here to spread unneeded advice and put Marshall de Lapalice to shame. Are you ready?

    “Only boring games are left unfinished!”

    Not enough? Still resisting my power?
    Take this:
    “You always hope a good game to be a little longer and more exciting than it actually is!”

    HAHAHAHAHAH!! Feel the force of truth and justice!! :p

    Jokes apart, I’ve finished Xenotake and I was happy to see a “open” ending suggesting a new chapter.
    Because I feel that much could be still done.

  39. Anonymous Says:

    hi vosmug?
    Did you set another challenge for yourself or is there going to be another post soon?

    • Not really a challenge, more like a forced goal that failed miserably, and no, will post sometthing on monday cause family visit and evo won’t let me think.

  40. Woodledude Says:

    As an amateur game designer and writer who’s very interested by your work – Especially this new game – I would just say this: Try to make the game as short as possible, while still delivering the feeling you want. Some of the best games make you feel like you’ve come a long way, when really you haven’t spent that much time playing. Good movies and books do the same thing.

    To clarify my meaning, I’d compare this to writing, and say there are three kinds of length for any media, whether that be games, novels, or comments. There’s short, long, and concise. Short is when you’re too lazy to do the work, long is when you do the work, but don’t refine the result into a truly great thing, and concise is the really hard thing – Making something short, but also comprehensive of everything you want to include.

    Don’t take this word for word and cut shit just because you feel like the game as a whole is too long for some expectation you’re trying to meet. Make the game exactly as long as it needs to be. Don’t pad it, don’t exclude important things. As for what that means for your game, that’s up to you. I can’t wait to see where you take it. 🙂

    … Okay, I kind of want to just keep talking. Can you tell I really, really like giving people more advice than they necessarily need? I’m very sorry, but if you’re interested in reading more, read on.

    Good example: The original Portal game. It was basically just one long tutorial. Why didn’t they add more? Something to use all that portal knowledge on at the end? Because they made the best tutorial ever, and that was enough to call it a game – And a great one, at that. For those who wanted more, there were the challenge levels, free of story but putting all that knowledge to use. For people like me who felt satisfied with beating the story, they didn’t add unnecessary crap to get in the way of their really fun game.

    Another note is that filler/padding comes in different forms: Unskippable cutscenes, overly long animations, grinding, timers, what have you. It’s not all bad, and a lot of those things can add a lot to the experience – Helping to make a coherent path out of an open world, for instance. But they should be used sparingly, intelligently, and they should all add to the experience. You can’t just sprinkle that shit on and expect it to be popular because CoD did it or Final Fantasy did it. They did it for a REASON, and you ought to have a reason for when you add something. Not in advance, mind you – The way you find out what really works is just plain experimentation and playtesting, trying the game with and without a feature. That’s a little hard to do, which is why having a head for the theory helps, but it’s not necessary to know these things beforehand. A lot of times, that actually ends up leading you astray.

    Well… It’s nearly five in the morning, and I’ve made a wall of text that is visible from space. I am a passionate person, and I really like your work. I hope I haven’t offended you or discouraged you with my ranting – I sort of went off on a couple different tangents there. If any of it helps you think about the problems you’re facing, or discover problems you didn’t know about, then good. But don’t sweat over it too much. And I hope you keep working on your game. 🙂 I’m going to stop talking now.

    • Something else that needs to be taken into account is that a lot of the decisions in this case come from “poverty development” constraints, so time, not enough skill/knowledge and a rushed process due to tiredness and melty brains also factor in, we can’t really be too picky in this situation, sometimes something seemingly easy as a new character is just not possible due to the amount of work and time it needs, so in some cases the bare minimum is necesary, hopefully that minimum is enough, I don’t really think in terms of lenght right now, I have a series of events and areas and would like to include them all despite lenght and the only real enemy is time instead of artistic vision or whatever.

  41. Treeman Says:

    I think the game should be as long as it can still dish out interesting things to keep the player hooked. If you think you still have good new stuffs to go on by all means the players would welcome for more, but if it’s up to the point where you start to repeat things or resort to uninteresting ideas then it’s probably best to stop.

    Here’s what I think would keep the game interesting (for a hentai game):

    – New enemies
    – New interactive environment
    – New characters
    – New interesting development on stories
    – New ways for heroines to get violated (mentally or physically)

    For Xenotake, its content was long and rich enough to be enjoyable (except the part you control the robot because no sex happens).

  42. I agree with Treeman, though I’m not sure where you stand on the spectrum from softcore to extreme guro

    New enemies are always fun, though not always needed, the same enemy can do any number of sex attacks but it seems as of now vosmug is only doing 1 attack per enemy.

    I don’t care much about the environment, since this game only features ghosts there’s a limited number of environments you can have. Spooky interior environment and a graveyard?

    New girls to play as could be interesting, and the enemies could do new sex attacks depending on which girl you’re playing as. PLEASE DON’T BRING BACK THE ROBOT!

    Story can be nice and intriguing. I especially liked that after the ghosts had raped Vena a bit too much, she would wind up with her limbs bound as if she were a toy, that kind of stuff is really hot and entertaining for me.

    Of course there’s the negative side where decisions such as turning this perfectly good RoR game into snuff garbage with the addition of the red bitch is really off putting but vosmug stringent on keeping the snuff genre within this game much to my dismay, but that’s his choice, I’ll just have to try and ignore it 😛

    New sex attacks are always fun, though I really advocate for originality and not the same old penetrative garbage you see everywhere with these types of games. The softcore breast play with the first two ghosts was REALLY nice I hope vosmug can keep the ball rolling.

  43. I purchased Xenotake and absolutely love that game, and when I went on your site to view any upcoming releases, I found a Demo of a new game. It is a game where the setting takes place in a haunted Mansion, and it is fantastic. I just had a few questions about the game: What is it called? (I see E6/2 and OVE mentioned on these new blogs), when does the full game release? And where can I get the game when it does release?

    • It’s Ghost Hunter Vena, there’s no release date, it’s still several months away and will be available here in this blog and DLsite.

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