Tuesday, August 27, 2019

New(ish) story on Literotica - "Let Sleeping Beauties Lie"

I say newish because those of you with good memories will recognize this as the Sleeping Beauty Mimic story from the H-space bestiary super short stories I put out a while ago.  I fleshed the story out to add more background and let Bate have a little more fun with the monster girl before his inevitable grisly demise (and it is grisly, that editor's note at the top is there for good reason!)

Let Sleeping Beauties Lie

The H-space bestiary shorts have given me a quandary for a while.  I'd like to put them in some sort of collection up on Amazon (and maybe reveal a bit more of the mystery around Bate and why he keeps dying).  I don't think the stories in their current state are good enough.  They were only originally intended to be placeholders to show off an unusual monster girl without having to develop a plot of how the protagonist ended up in the monster girl's sexy clutches.  I've been looking at taking the better ones and filling in the story to bring them up to the standard of the other stories in my collections.

It's a... trickier process than I thought.  Still trying to figure out the most efficient way of doing it as at the moment it seems even more time-consuming than writing a brand new story from scratch!  (On a more positive note, I have been chipping away at a few new bestiary stories - this time full stories rather than quick sex scenes ' n ' grisly death.)

The other thing I'm quite relieved about is that the story was accepted and is now live on Literotica.  Originally it was rejected and this post was going to be very different - me bemoaning how my usual Bad End stories were no longer acceptable and wondering if I'd ever have anything up on Literotica again.

I wouldn't have blamed Literotica for that, to be fair.  This story does feature one of my nastier bad ends and we live in the sort of outrage-hungry times where owners of sites like Literotica have to walk a fine line in what they allow.  Sucks, but that's how it is.  It would have also made continuing the Succubus Summoning series on there tricky.  At some point Nyte would be Nyte and then I'd have a chapter I couldn't put up.

Fortunately, rather than mope around in a funk, I reread the rejection note, saw that it mentioned "snuff" and then PMed Laurel (Lit's head honcho) for clarification.

While I have seen my good (vile) self referred to as "The Snuff Guy", I don't consider what I write to be snuff.  I think I've written on this before.  Snuff in erotic literature is generally writing from the perspective of someone getting their rocks off by killing someone else.  The sexual titillation comes from the act of killing.  You can do this in regular horror to depict a particularly nasty character, but it's a little trickier in erotic horror.  With erotica the purpose is to sexually arouse and titillate the reader.  If the reader is getting turned on by putting themselves in the shoes of someone killing someone else there is a real risk of feeding unhealthy fantasy.  Now, as far as I'm concerned, fantasy, even unhealthy fantasy, is still fantasy.  If it remains fantasy it's harmless, no matter how sick other people might think it.  The nightmare scenario is if someone indulges that fantasy, develops a liking for it, finds fantasy is no longer enough, and then - to try and recapture that same thrill - takes it into the real world.  With that risk, you can understand why a site like Literotica would not want to publish that type of story.

Then you get to my stuff.  There is sex.  There is death.  And while I do like to blur one into the other, the viewpoint is always from the victim, and the sexual arousal comes from the sex stuff the succubus is doing to them rather than the death stuff.  The death stuff is also nearly always supernatural in nature, and therefore impossible to copycat into the real world.  That to me is the important distinguishing feature between "snuff" and regular (even if extremely squicky) erotic horror - is there a risk someone might copycat this and cause a tragedy in the real world?

I didn't get a reply from Laurel (I imagine she's way too busy to be fair - Literotica gets a massive number of submissions every day), but as the story is now live it must have been given a second look and deemed okay.  This is an important thing to remember, if you're having stories bounced by Literotica, remember they get a ton of submissions daily.  Sometimes it's worth giving Laurel a (polite!) PM to check if a story got bounced by the filters by mistake.

I'm happy anyway.  The horror in erotic horror is still allowed at Literotica (although I should flag my nastier stories a little better next time!).

Hope you enjoy the new(ish) story!

Friday, August 23, 2019

Ideas for a Darkest Dungeon-esque H-game - Being the Warlock

Ok, here's some more random musings on the type of Darkest Dungeon-esque succubus H-game I'd like to see (because I don't have the technical chops to make it myself).

Last up, I talked a bit about the combat, which is going to have various smutty succubi and monster girls mucking up the standard 4-on-4 structure by jumping the bones of members of the opposing party.  This is where we have the excuse for lots of lovely and gratuitously xxx-rated pixel art (and hopefully some strategy to make the fights a little interesting as well).

The next question: Are we Team Succubus, or Team Succubus Bait?

I'll start with Team Succubus, as that's probably the most straightforward.

This is pretty much going to be like Iratus, but we're an eroge, so our banshees and vampires are going to be fucking the life out of enemies rather than spooping them to death.

The background setup is easy.  Perhaps a little too easy.  The player takes the role of a warlock or demon lord, and goes after the human realms with an army of sexy succubi.  From that starting point there is plenty of freedom with respect to humour, tone and lightness.  The Japanese games tend to push the slider towards goofy cute (although Monmusu Quest: Paradox can get very down and serious when it wants).  Personally, given that most of these games are fairly light-hearted, I think it might be interesting to try a darker tone – give our succubi some real fangs and an aura of sexy deadliness.  That would require some work on the main protagonist as goofball villain protagonists tend to work whereas deadly serious ones do not.

Maybe our warlock protagonist is the good guy, just using dubious tools to take down an army of corrupt and hypocritical shining knights.

There's also a fair bit of freedom with respect to the enemies.  Maybe they're your classic knights and D&D adventuring parties, but corrupt.  Maybe it can be a bit of succubus-on-succubus action.  While I think you probably want both sexes represented to appeal to a larger audience, this might necessitate extra work in the pixel art department as the monster girl may have different scenes depending on whether she's having fun with a man or woman.

I'd probably go with succubi vs knights, and start out with making the knights all male to avoid needing to multiply the art assets too much.  Then maybe adding female enemies to also attract ryona enthusiasts if resources allow.

One key difference to Darkest Dungeon is we'll want to hide a lot of those units behind some sort of unlock system.  In Darkest Dungeon all of the available units are pretty much available from the start and gated only by the RNG determining which ones show up on the stagecoach.  For a monster girl eroge, the focus is going to be on the sexy monster girls.  The lure of seeing new ones is what will (hopefully) keep the player playing, so we want to make them part of the progression system.  This then has an impact on balance.  The later unlocks should, in theory, be more powerful than the starter units, but then there's a risk of moving away from the finding synergistic parties aspect that makes Darkest Dungeon so damn good.  I think just making the later units more powerful than the starter units is back to the problem of boring combat mechanics.

Rather than more powerful, I think more strategic options might be a better thing to aim for.  Make the newer monster girls open up new options and new party configurations.  Just like Darkest Dungeon, the enemies are going to add more nuisance units to their roster, and that should prompt the player into trying out newer strategies to overcome them.

Another interesting consideration is whether we go roguelite or not.  Roguelite would have unlocks carry over into the next run (Iratus does this), whereas a more traditional RPG-type system would require the player to go through the same unlocking process with each new game (but, like a typical RPG, would only be playing one game rather than many randomized runs).

There's also the easy opportunity for more sex content.  One source of H-content is going to be in the battles as succubi "overcome" the enemies.  We can also have more conventional H-scenes of the succubi having fun with their warlock commander (i.e. the player) outside of battle.  Monmusu Quest: Paradox does this with the request scenes in the pocket castle.  This is also an additional form of player progression – the player raising affection with their monster girls (through levelling them up or maybe some kind of gift system) in order to unlock their H-content.

In general, I think the game would look something like this:

- The player plays a warlock/demon lord out to conquer various regions with sexy succubi/monster girls.

- There are different regions with different enemy unit compositions requiring different strategies to overcome in each.

- The player grinds short 'dungeons' in each region to unlock new units and strengthen existing ones (with the goal being to get strong enough to take down a 'final castle').

- The player unlocks new succubus/monster girl units.  New skills for the monster girls can be unlocked.  New H-content for the monster girls can be unlocked.

- The player has a 'base area' to develop with resources taken from the dungeon runs.

- 2D sprite strategic battles.  As we're an eroge, a large part of the strategy will be pulling enemy units out of formation or restraining enough of them so that they can be sexually drained.  Combat also has to always feel interesting.  There's going to be a lot of it, so the player needs to not feel like it's a massive grind.  Have different roles for each of the monster girls (but not too obvious and rigid).

So far, so vague.  But I doubt the various core gameplay loops can be nailed down until getting more serious about planning and development, and this tricky for me.  I have ideas, but I suspect I don't have the technical chops to take it all the way, so there's only so much time I feel comfortable to devoting to something like this.  I've always liked jotting down game design ideas, so maybe this is something I'll return to when I need a quick break from regular writing.

Thinking about this did remind me of a 2D sprite eroge that does do some of this stuff, but is real-time action rather than turn-based strategy – Attack it! Devil Legion.

Attack it! Devil Legion - Your demonic legions of... uh... doom.

I didn't get on with the demo, but did give the full game more of a try when I was thinking of existing eroge examples similar to the ideas above.  Attack it! Devil Legion does have some strategy in the form of various offensive, defensive and support roles, but it mostly feels a little too frenetic.  You control a little bat and can interrupt attacks and knock enemies over, but your monster girls and succubi mostly seem to do their own thing.  It does have an unlock system (but no H-content with your own minions - for good reason given the protagonist).

I'm not convinced on the real-time play aspects.  Most of the time you're too busy flinging your bat avatar around the screen to get a chance to enjoy your succubi double-teaming adventurers in various smutty ways.  It's still better than most of the other sexy monster girl eroges I've played recently, so I might give it the full Hentai Game Review treatment if it holds my attention long enough to complete the game.  The sprite artwork is really nice.  This, but turn-based was what I was thinking of as I wrote this post.

Hot succubus double team action.  I'm thinking this but where you can sit back and enjoy watching rather than trying to figure out where your bat avatar has been bashed to.

Maybe this will give some of you reading some ideas.  I'd love to see a game along these lines, but as I've said already, I doubt I have the technical chops to make it myself (or even organise a group of people that could).

Next up I'll brainstorm the other approach – Team Succubus Bait.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Thoughts (rough!) on how to do a Succubus H-game version of Darkest Dungeon

So where were we?  Oh yes, I was talking about Darkest Dungeon and sexy monster girl H-games.  Then I got side-tracked.  Briefly thought about posting something political (an urge thankfully resisted).  Then I rewrote a bestiary story to make it more of an actual short story (available to patrons now, but hopefully will be on Literotica later this week if it doesn't get rejected).

So, Darkest Dungeon sexy monster girl H-game.

First thing to clear up: if you're making a hentai game, the number one priority is the sex.  This is what people are going to be buying it for.  So that comes first – which means sexy characters, good art, hot scenes.

If everything is about the sex, is it even worth bothering with the game mechanics?

I don't know the answer to this.  Personally, I prefer to play hentai games that have a little more than a rudimentary combat system, but I might just be a weirdo.  I'm going to assume other people are weirdos too and write this from that perspective.  But if you are actually creating a sexy succubus H-game and have limited resources, put those resources into the sexy first, then start to think about adding clever game mechanics.

So, what does Darkest Dungeon-style combat give you over regular JRPGs?

Added strategic depth by making both party composition and character position very important.

Typical Darkest Dungeon combat - a party of 4 vs a party of 4 rendered in 2D

The basic JRPGs are very simple.  You have an attack(s), the enemy has attack(s).  Repeat until one of you is dead.  Damage goes up as you level up, but so does enemy toughness.  It works, but is bloody boring if it has no depth.

The standard way to add depth is to incorporate some kind of elemental paper-scissors-stone system.  With H-RPGs elemental is usually substituted with body parts, so the player character (or monster) might be more sensitive to boobs, kisses, sex, etc.  It's depth, but not much depth – find the weakness, hit weakness for bonus damage, rinse, repeat.

Adding a party adds more complexity, as the party members will likely specialise in different areas – healer, tank, DPS mage, etc.  Monmusu Quest: Paradox did this pretty well I thought.  It was fun trying out different monster girl parties as they all synergised in slightly different ways.

And this is also one of the major appeals of Darkest Dungeon – mucking around to find the party compositions that 'click'.

(Generally, the ones that don't click get savagely butchered fairly quickly – that game does not fuck around when it comes to difficulty.)

For regular RPGs, it's usually about putting the beefier classes in the front and the squishier ones in the back.  But then you get other synergies such as classes with skills that move them (or enemies) about or taking advantage of the 'marking' mechanic in Darkest Dungeon.

That's just for regular RPG combat.  We're looking at options for smutty H-game equivalents, which largely come down to: where's the sex?

Again, the easy option is to move it out to separate H-scenes, eg a Bad End scene if the player loses.  A lot of the monster girl hentai games do this.  You fight a regular battle and then, if you lose, you get treated to a nice scene of having 'fun' with the monster girl.

I think we can do more than that though.  Why waste the opportunity to create fun pixel art of succubi getting it on with hapless (lucky?) party members?

In Darkest Dungeon (and the other recent games inspired by it), you have up to four characters in your group facing off against up to four characters in their group.  Each character has a range of attacks that can only be used in the right position, and only target certain positions on the other side.  An example of this is Darkest Dungeon's Leper.  He's a tank with a big sword that can only hit the first two rows, and only if he's in the first two rows himself.  If he gets moved to the back two rows he's pretty much useless.

If we want to put a bit of snu-snu into our Darkest Dungeon-style combat we're going to need to break that 4-on-4 placement system and get the sexy monster girls in amongst the other party.  At first I thought about making it more complex with the characters being able to move freely through 8 to 10 slots and have attacks more dependent on adjacency than position.  I think that might be hellishly complex and move too far away from the straightforward 4-on-4 system.

An easier approach would be to make it possible for two characters to co-exist on the same spot.  That way the monster girl would either be jumping into the ranks of the party to jump the bones of the mage in position 3, for example.  Or a succubus/alraune would lure one of the opposing party to her position and then start having fun with them.  Darkest Dungeon already has some fights like this.  The Siren will steal a party member to fight on her side for a turn.  The Hag will throw someone in her pot.

As this is a hypothetical sex game, team monster girl grabbing someone is going to be a nice excuse to throw some pixel-art smuttiness in.  If anyone has ever played the FOBS game, that, but as part of a turn-based strategy game rather than a 2D platformer/metroidvania.

FOBS - picture this as taking a character out of combat

If a portion of the fight is going to be about party members being pulled out of the group or pinned by a monster girl within the group, then this might inform some of the combat gameplay.  Maybe neighbouring characters can help out pinned characters by knocking the invading monster girl off.  If a character is grabbed, then the focus can be about trying to pull them back from the monster girl group.

The other feature of Darkest Dungeon (and Iratus, but on the enemy side) is the addition of the stress bar.  Characters can be taken out via conventional HP damage.  Or they can be driven mad and stressed out enough to make them to succumb to heart attacks.

If characters are getting heart attacks in our H-game version, it's going to be of the overexertion-through-sex kind.

The stress system in Darkest Dungeon adds an additional layer to combat.  Stress attacks don't cause physical damage, but if you fail to manage the stress build-up, your party members will start behaving erratically and not follow orders.

It wouldn't make sense to use stress in a H-game equivalent.  But something like willpower or seduction would be a perfect replacement.  That way you'd have monster girls attacking with either physical or seduction techniques.  This could again force players to think about party composition.  Muscular types might be very good versus muscular monster girls, but very weak to succubi with strong seduction arts.  Generally, you want the player to be constantly thinking about chopping and changing their party composition in response to whatever the AI is throwing at them (whether it is monster girls or humans).

That's another interesting question.  Do you play as the monster girls (as a succubus-summoning warlock equivalent to Iratus's titular necromancer) or as the leader of a human squad trying to resist the unholy temptations of various succubi?

I think either would work, and I have ideas for both.  I'll detail those ideas in separate posts later this week.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Non-Hentai Game Look - Iratus: Lord of the Dead

Wait.  Non-Hentai?  What kind of heresy is this?

Iratus, a very angry necromancer

There is a point to it.  Honest.

Technically, Iratus has monster girls.  No succubi, as your forces are drawn from the necromantic section of the classic fantasy bestiary rather than the demonic, but you can recruit female monsters such as vampires, banshees (even ghouls) to your teams.  The developers are Russian, so they're still allowed to put boobs on their female characters.

The easiest way to describe it is – Darkest Dungeon, but where you get to play the monsters.

Combat might look familiar if you've played Darkest Dungeon, but does play a little differently

You play Iratus, the titular Lord of the Dead.  After being released from long imprisonment, he embarks on a journey to conquer the surface world.  The basic economy is body parts.  You craft your minions out of body parts and get more by slaying the various hapless miners, dwarves and high-fantasy D&D parties stupid enough to stand in your way.

Unlike Darkest Dungeon, there is a clear fail state.  Body parts are limited.  Lose too many minions and you will run out of body parts to craft more and will have to restart.  It is also very easy to lose minions as – just like Darkest Dungeon – the combat is fairly brutal and unforgiving.  Your minions are very squishy and while you don't have to worry about sanity (this is a reverse Darkest Dungeon, so you get to drive your enemies insane instead, although this isn't always a good thing…), there isn't a Death's Door mechanic, so enemy crits have a nasty habit of killing minions out of nowhere.

As with Darkest Dungeon you have a home base to update and combat consists of 4 rows of your team battling 4 rows of their team, where position is important and dictates what attacks can and can't be used.  Despite the similarities, it plays differently enough to be its own thing.

Combat is interesting.  You can choose to either kill your enemies with direct damage or spook them hard enough until their hearts burst from stress.  The direct damage is split between melee and magical, with both having different resistances.  How the resistances work is also interesting.  Defence comes in either armour resistance, which reduces incoming damage, or blocks/wards, which completely nullifies a hit at the cost of losing a block/ward (unless it's a crit).  This brings an extra tactical component.  Big, single-hit attacks are good versus armour resistance, but bad against block/wards.  On the other hand, smaller multi-hit attacks are great for chewing through wards, but can be countered by decent armour resistance as each individual hit doesn't do a lot of damage.

Overall, despite looking a lot like Darkest Dungeon, combat plays a little differently.  Enemies are a lot tankier, so it's difficult to nuke out a single target on the first turn.  Also, because of the block/ward system, AoE attacks hitting multiple targets are viable, whereas in Darkest Dungeon they tended to be pretty bad.

Exploration is a little similar to Slay the Spire

Currently Iratus is still in Early Access, so it's incomplete and there are a few balance problems.  The devs do seem to be responding to feedback and making good updates.  I like the change to show the whole enemy group when next to it rather than just a single unit.  It's a game where you need to form teams to counter various different parties and that tactical element is missing if there's no real way to predict what you might face.

It's definitely worth a look, especially if you're a fan of the original Darkest Dungeon.  The devs seem to have taken that for inspiration and then iterated upon it to make a game that is different enough to stand on its own.  Which is pretty much the history of videogames in a nutshell.

Okay, so why are you talking about it, Hydra?

With Iratus and another game, Vambrace: Cold Soul, it looks like Darkest Dungeon was successful enough to spawn a new subtype of turn-based RPGs.  And that usually gets me thinking as to whether that blueprint could work for a sexy monster girl game.

This time I thought I might as well put some of the ideas I have in a more public place.  Rather than write them down in a notebook, forget them, lose the notebook, yadda yadda.

So, I'll make that a little mini-series this week (or next) - my thoughts on how to make a Darkest Dungeon-esque hentai game.  As with most of these ideas, I'm aware I don't have the technical chops to pull them off, but it might inspire someone that does, and we'd all love to see more sexy monster girl games made!