Side Quests; How About a Completely New Approach and Design

[Zorba the Geek]

I became reacquainted with Everlasting Summer (for those who don't know it, it's a visual anime novel by Soviet Games).  I was forced to use the Steam platform to play it since Nutaku no longer seem to support it.  Nutaku's was the only English version that was not censored for 'explicit' sexual content.  However, for those keen to play the uncensored version of the game, it is available for iPhones from the Apple Store (not on Google Android interestingly enough).

Anyway, to get back on topic, the format and story of Everlasting Summer suggested to me a new way of looking at the side quests in Hentai Heroes.  I decided to play them while the new main adventure was yet to start so I could get points for the Daily Goals.  I don't expect others to agree with me and may find my suggestions untenable, but I found these quests to be tedious with little to commend them in terms of writing, story or illustrations.  Mind you, the character graphics in Everlasting Summer could share the same criticism, to be frank, but is far outweighed by the quality and pattern of the story itself, not to mention Sergey Eybog's music score.

I believe the side quests ought to be far fewer in number with script and dialogue boxes that one can forward through, and retaining the same graphic for a certain period (say the equivalent of the length of a paragraph or the end of character dialogue in traditional writing.

Kinkoid expressed the need for HH to 'up their game' and this is my suggestion for an area where this could be achieved.  [Just a note though, Everlasting Summer uses Renpy as its development engine.  I'm not sure how HH would incorporate an Everlasting Summer approach within its software development model.  Could it even be achieved?]

As with Everlasting Summer and other visual novels it should be possible to have alternative endings according to the choice of path one takes (for example, in Everlasting Summer, to 'Take the keys'/'Leave the keys').

Of course, there would have to be a 'save game' option because some of the choices one might make would lead up the garden path to some useless or terrible ending and players would not want to start right back at the beginning.

So, rewards... Well, my thoughts are being able to win some of the characters, depending on progress through the story and how complicated the choices are to progress along a 'right' path.  I admit to not having thought this through very far. I'm just putting it out there.  Of course another reward would be a satisfactory discovery of a 'good/interesting/compelling' ending - the Everlasting Summer model.

Just a note, Steam has a warning for users that Everlasting Summer is for those thirteen years or older.  This is patently absurd, given that they have gutted any sexual content, but yet they haven't censored the often very disturbing nature of the story which challenges our sense of reality and time - and what are our dreams and what is real.  It almost did my head in at times and I actually balled my eyes out at Lena's bad ending (a truly horrible suicide!).  Imagine a thirteen to fifteen year old encountering this and having to deal with the reality-challenging phases of the story.  Sometimes it's portrayal is so real that it challenges one's sense of reality in Donnie Darko style.  This is where the movie and game classification system is just a joke!

So what is my suggested format?

(1) Instead of having a multitude of side quests, I suggest just one (or three max), from which many endings are possible based on the paths that players take.

(2) Characters would be introduced (or reintroduced) along the path and, if a player takes a wrong path he may never encounter some of the characters.

(3) There would be a save game option to allow players to retrace their steps if they take a wrong path.

(4) The introduction of a complex and sophisticated script that better reflects something of real life with true romance and sex (in relationships) would be my recommendation too.  We are seeing frequent hints of this between Bunny and our hero.  This, for instance, could be developed.  Imagine the sexual passion when it involves true love too.  This would stir most men's groins - it does mine.  Everlasting Summer does this very well, especially when told from a female perspective.  There is often conflict and tension with much feminine mistrust with lots of 'wrong turns' and timid male responses that come across as disingenuous, even lies.  I often felt I needed to reach through the screen and shake some sense into the so-called hero when he took a wrong path.

(5) A girl character reward awaits those players/readers who unlock certain key stages by making the right choices to define their path.

This aspect of the game would take players a long time to complete and some might even give up along the way.

So what does everyone think?  Is it a goer, or a flop of an idea?

[natstar]

Some long side quests with a useful girl at the end or give rewards besides gems again would be nice.

If you want more people to actually read your post you might want to edit it to make it shorter as well just to the key suggestions.

I suggest editing it to a shorter version and then posting it on their discord where they actually read suggestions as well.

Edited February 13, 2022 by natstar

[DvDivXXX]

1 hour ago, Zorba the Geek said:

So what does everyone think?  Is it a goer, or a flop of an idea?

To me, you already answered that question just above:

1 hour ago, Zorba the Geek said:

This aspect of the game would take players a long time to complete and some might even give up along the way.

That suggestion is very "Rosso-ish" in the bad sense of the term in its approach: see a completely different game in which a completely foreign mechanic works well, pick it up out of context and inject it in HH without really asking why it works well in the other game and whether or not it will make sense in HH.

 

Anyways, I've moved your thread to the "Suggestions" forum.

[FinderKeeper]

2 hours ago, Zorba the Geek said:

So what does everyone think?  Is it a goer, or a flop of an idea?

I've yet to consider it in detail, but I see a problem with the "player choice" mechanic design.

Being locked out by your previous choice and unable to get the prize - a girl - would feel really bad for players. At the same time players have wikis and guides, which would remove player's choice while pursuing the goal.

Solutions I can think of would feel clunky and uninspiring in HH. I'd rather say "player choice" would have to be approached differently and shouldn't dictate if player would get the girl. It's a HH game after all. 

[natstar]

Player choice should be choosing which reward that you want so if people would rather have combativity/kisses rather than gems as a reward they can choose to select that out of the reward options rather than choosing between two paths that would require more time to do.

[jelom]

What Zorba is proposing is a mini visual novel inside HH. As much as I would have loved a separate visual novel based in the HH universe, the truth is that Kinkoid tried that path years ago and it didn't passed the beta stage, so I doubt KK will retake that idea again, and surely not inside their main game.

[lepidocter]

Hi, I'm in the Renpy development. I also gave some of the guys on Soviet Games tech hints in the early days, so I found your post 'cute'.

The issue with VNL approach is the 'hidden secret' pleasure you have with them. Is the multilayered progressive narrative. Most of players are unaware of that, but this is why people enjoy that fragmented narration. And is also the reason you're doing a VNL, as it's the only possible media to offer this experience.

I'll try to resume for you.

The first layer is the first time you play the game. Your first set of choices determine a single narrative (the "early story"), most based on immersion. You're dragged in and you pick choices based on how you perceive the plot.

But the narrative is not complete. The game hint you there's more, and so you'll explore all narrative possibilities, collecting pieces of truth and alternative endings that show hidden facts of the story. A movie can show you just one narrative truth (one individual get killed), a VNL can show you many truths at once (another ending tell you that girl X cannot be the culprit). This is the second layer, and is staged on the 'player' perspective.

At the end, once you've collected all informations, a new route unlock, a secret (often misleaded) was in the game premise. This is the disjunction layer. Your mind get boggled by being so smartly cheated. You'll play this route to find the true ending. Most of the narrative now doesn't consider you 'in the story' or not 'a player', but indirectly break the 4th wall and have you, 'the individual', as an agent in the story. Is mostly played by 'emotions'-

Now, if you don't convey this, you simply have a simplified branching story that's just prolongating the agony.

The requirements are anyway a closed, predetermined plot. Thats' mean the main adventure of the game **MUST** be all stated since the start and have a determined ending. Is the true ending that give meaning to whatever happen in the story (the 'reallocation of memory bits' once you found the 'interpretation key').

This cannot be done due the open nature of Hentai Heroes, that must live on top of a linear cumulative narrative.

Any branching will be only delaying the actual and *only* route, while other options will be just 'black holes' (a 'black hole is a 'sudden death' option that 'kill you', literally or metaphorically). It's not what players want, not in VNL or a casual game.

Thank you anyway for the long and detailed post you had the courtesy to write to explain your idea.

[Boring tech reply to a question. Renpy is just a set of python macros shipped with an interpreter that run the script in steps. It doesn't do anything magical, it just simplify the 'writing' of a staged narrative with an humanized lingo. So, when someone ask 'Can be this Renpy thing be done elsewhere?' the reply is always "surely YES, but probably much slowly".]

Edited February 14, 2022 by lepidocter

[Zorba the Geek]

On 2/14/2022 at 12:14 AM, FinderKeeper said:

I've yet to consider it in detail, but I see a problem with the "player choice" mechanic design.

Being locked out by your previous choice and unable to get the prize - a girl - would feel really bad for players. At the same time players have wikis and guides, which would remove player's choice while pursuing the goal.

Solutions I can think of would feel clunky and uninspiring in HH. I'd rather say "player choice" would have to be approached differently and shouldn't dictate if player would get the girl. It's a HH game after all. 

That's fair enough and I appreciate the more constructive nature of your comments than I often get.  I thought about the same things.  I put it out there because I've been feeling more than a little frustrated by how HH has evolved over the last year.  I have often felt manipulated by both the kinds of 'rewards' and what we have to do to get them (and the time involved!).  They often seem to me to be in conflict with one another regarding what goal one should choose and nearly always involve a dump of kobans to a greater or lesser extent.  Take Mythic Days for example.  Just about every time the girl is put with a villain who isn't part of my quest which involves defeating another villain and switching to the Mythic villain in an attempt to get a mythic girl is a poor chance option.  As it is, based on the last Mythic games where the girl just happened to be on the same villain I was playing at the time,  I got Norou to 11 kobans in one account, so I estimate that I would've needed 16,000 kobans or more to have any chance of getting her (it would take me two months to be really disciplined, and save up that number and forego a lot of girl rewards in the process).  Then there are those sandalwood perfume bottle boosters.  Yes, sure, but they never came up for me the entire time the last Mythic Days was on, except in one account.  This is just one example of many, too lengthy to mention here.

The big push for us now is gems.  How often do we run out of the one that suits this week's (or the second) blessings?  The rewards for these are very miserly and they may not match need or availability according the the villain one plays.  Plus, with Seasons, once we get the second girl there is an alternation between dominatrix and sensual gems (I think) - blue and black anyway, and we have to get a hellava lot of mojo to get each one compared with the path to the girls.  I just don't see the point of the reward system at all anymore.

After checking out the side quests then quickly giving up in disgust because of their lameness and weak graphics (not the artistry - some of this is good - but the lack of advancement of images to match the stories).  So, along with all my other gripes about Kinkoid's "upping his game", I thought I'd put the visual novel idea out there.

As I said, some players may rate the idea as 'meh', but others would embrace it, I'm sure - especially female players (they do exist).

Regarding your mention of 'It's a HH game after all'.  I have a feeling that hentai games of this particular type will have had their day eventually.  I mean to say, how often will non-stop fucking (even dogging), and gross (and potentially very painful) anal sex at the drop of the hat plus endless supplies of semen (almost instantly refilled) sustain interest.  It doesn't me.  I'm starting to get bored.  This is a reason I seldom watch hardcore pornography, especially that suggesting rape and misogyny.  It's the same with hentai games.  I don't see why a shift towards more  sensual, romantic and attentive scenes is not possible.  For instance, the last appearance of Ankyo was a disappointment.  That wasn't her at all (even though what she was wearing and her pretty face were incredibly sexy and arousing for me).  Her character was more in the category of Neono/Rafine - bland, uninterested in sex or men, and very inhibited - consenting in order to keep things quiet and not make a fuss.  An overly lustful cum-bucket is not her.  This side of her needed careful development and evolution, with a back story to explain how this came about otherwise it completely lacks any credibility.  The visual novel format would've been a great way to develop this because, despite first impressions, Ankyo's character is rather interesting.

Digisekai was the closest world adventure to something of a backstory to the whole raison d'etre for Hentai Heroes (sorry, but I can't do circumflexes on the keyboard).  This was brilliantly written and conceived and Neono's character was beautifully female and mysterious (to the other 50% of us poor bastards!).  She very much reminded me of Lena from Everlasting Summer in how she managed to tie our hero up in emotional knots all the time (even though he is congenitally dumb and rather lacking in the 'hero' department).  Digisekai was great in how it switched time unexpectedly such that I (for one) had to re-watch the story to start to make sense of it.  It was great, though, because it took time and was never boring.  All but one of the other characters were just side props and could've been any of the oversexed nymphomaniac girls that dominate Hentai Heroes.  Digisekai was really about Neono and Blue.

I'd love to see more tender kissing, more sensual petting and real foreplay where the girls do not surrender themselves lightly - as in real life.  They may all be anime girls (hence not even remotely real) but a link to reality would do far better to help us suspend our disbelief (and we could even get a bit hard from time to time).

This is is better concept for the visual novel genre, and, if it could not be incorporated into Hentai Heroes, then a new Kinkoid game might be on the cards.  Hentai Clicker was a bummer, and frankly pointless.  A Hentai visual novel might then be on the cards, which those of us who are interested might choose to login to under our HH logins.

I appreciate your thoughts and I wasn't surprised at a lack of general endorsement.  On the visual novel front in general, I downloaded and installed Renpy with the aim of creating my own some time.  I have a few interesting stories with some interesting sexual elements (and some genuinely non-human characters - but earthly ones).  I also have folders and folders of my own images, quite a few of which I managed to recover after my portable hard drive failed after I spilled coffee on the keyboard (yes, the all-time no-no!).  This new aim of mine was inspired by Everlasting Summer and I thought I could do even better (although ES scene graphics are superb and I doubt I could meet these standards).  Nor would I be able to come up with a music score that would come remotely close to what Sergey Eybog achieved.

Thanks again.