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Patron Input - Adult Content - An alluring pitfall or a smutty delight? (Patreon)

Published:
2021-11-12 07:34:15
Imported:
2023-02

Content

To all of the new Patrons, since my last post, very welcome! <3


From time to time, we have polls where you get to shape the game's direction as we advance. I'm happy to announce that this is one of those times.

 

Most of you know by now that these posts tend to ramble a bit as I share my raw, unfiltered thoughts with you, so here I go!

 

Adult Content. I've always planned to include adult content to Infinite Stars and have nude sprites for all of our characters, but now that adding the content is around the corner, I have some second thoughts.

 

Before diving into the issues, some things to address are that, like the romance elements we added, adult content will be entirely optional. I've envisioned the game to have a setting where players can choose if they want to see any adult content or not. This will be toggled to OFF by default, with any sexual scenes fading to black. I'd like to write these scenes in such a way that skipping them scenes won't make the story any less engaging but rather give players an optional opportunity to connect with the NPC characters. It's also not meant to be titillating just for the sake of it.

 

Adding the adult content to the game opens up our market to a whole new crowd of people, which is exciting. It potentially means more funding, which means faster development as I can commission more assets. It also has the potential to shift Infinite Stars into the "nett positive" domain, meaning instead of being a hobby I spend money on because I love doing it, it could become a hobby (or a job?) I love doing that pays me for the tremendous amount of time and love I pour into it. And lastly, I've written some Infinite Stars smut scenes that I haven't shared with anyone yet. While I'm SUPER self-conscious about them and anxious that it might not be any good, I did enjoy writing them. Implementing this will also allow all of you who are keen to start writing your own Infinite Stars scripts and stories to make use of these nsfw assets.

 

Adding sexual content will limit my marketing options for Infinite Stars, as most mainstream advertising avenues do not allow showcasing adult content. It will also alienate a small percentage of our players who aren't adults yet. Another concern is that it could have an impact on my professional career. While I don't share my identity freely, I also don't go to extensive lengths to hide it. Someone thorough with enough time will easily be able to connect the project with my professional persona. (Please don't go dox me!)


On the other hand, not adding the adult content means it will be business as usual, with the only real impact being we have art assets that we invested in that will now become obsolete. (And I'll feel a little silly for writing those smut scenes I mentioned earlier.)

 

I've been toying with the idea that adult content only be available to patrons. That way, it acts as a soft "age verification" check while adding additional value to all of you amazing people who support this project. A second solution would be adding the adult content as a DLC. This will allow me to market the game as usual and even bring in some additional income from DLC sales. (If I do go this route, the DLC will probably be free to Patrons.)


I feel Infinite Stars has been doing great as it is, and it's on a healthy trajectory with the month-to-month community growth. At the same time, I'm not content with it just being great. It's a passion project that I've been pouring my heart and soul into, and I want it to be the best it can possibly be...

 

So, over to you! Your feedback from the last Patron Input post was invaluable in helping me decide on a way forward, and I look forward to seeing the opinions, thoughts, and discussions!


Comments

Toastywafflz

I've always enjoyed adult content in story driven games as a way to explore the physical connections people make, both inside and outside of romantic situations. I think adult content has great potential to add another dimension/layer to the romances and let us interact with the sexual aspect of adult relationships through the main character. This potential is elevated by the way you've implemented choices as a way of portraying our character's personality; I can already see different nuances in scenes with different characters depending on what kind of Mah'Abeu the player has, between the nature of their training, their personality, and their relationships with both the romantic interest and other crewmembers that will no doubt have their own views on things as they develop. I also think sex, as a complicated thing that means many things to many different people, will provide another relationship-specific avenue of tension that can manifest in different ways depending on the aforementioned factors. The emotional and physical connection people can have can vary, and you also have another way to characterize the romantic interest (and the main character) through the act itself, as well as the discussions and ramifications that will no doubt come from it. Sex is a unique sort of thing from a social perspective, when we consider what it is between humans, and so there isn't much of a substitute; however, actually portraying that depth can be challenging. One could argue that it's still possible to do this with fade to blacks. I think to a degree that that is a fair argument. But that's why I think the best sex scenes (from a narrative perspective, setting titillation aside, though I do think it helps with titillation to) focus more on what the sex means for the characters involved, or otherwise focuses on their interactions and their response to the act, as opposed to the mechanics of it. That is to say, the scene in and of itself can say a lot about the relationship between two characters that would otherwise not be conveyed without resorting to awkward dialogue, or waiting until it would make sense for them to perhaps talk about it, which might be later than it actually occurs to an extent that might be confusing or jarring in some way. And I mean...there's nothing wrong with it being stimulating as well. I think you can certainly achieve both. In any case, one of the first VNs that comes to mind in terms of narratively relevant erotic scenes is actually Katawa Shoujo. I only did Lily (Blind Girl) and Hanako's (Burn Girl) routes, but in both cases the sex scenes convey a lot about the characters and their developing relationship. In both cases, being young adults, it conveys their awkwardness and unfamiliarity with their bodies in this specific scenario, and the intimacy of it becomes more pronounced as it comes with a dispelling of that innocence. There's a particularly good one in Lily's route that's really sweet, incorporating her blindness in a way that includes the main character in her own sensory experience and allows him to understand her better as someone who cannot see. I would also recommend Being A Dik, actually, and Becoming An Actress as well, both 3DCG VNs by Dr. Pink Cake. I love his work because he sort of takes collegiate/youngish adult shenanigans and really puts a lot of heart into them, and there's a lot of focus on character and narrative in what at a glance would be a smutty premise. The result with Being a Dik in particular is an incredible investment in varied and diverse characters who have their own problems and aspirations, and the sex becomes an extension of that and sort of lets you into the relationship more. There are of course sexual interactions that aren't as emotionally invested, but these too reflect the variable nature of human interaction, and how sex means something different to everyone depending on who it's with and where they are in their life. For some people, it's a light thing they do for fun, and for others, it's even a tool to be leveraged to get ahead in business or education (sadly). But in all cases it's couched in the diegesis of the narrative; the flippance of a particular scene would come not from it being lazily, carelessly, or pornily written, but from the attitude of the characters involved, and thus become a source of drama or subplots or understanding on the part of the reader. I also thoroughly enjoy Making Lovers, a romantic comedy with plenty of sex in it. I feel like the scenes in this one can be a lot more "porny" though, but it's still grounded at least in the main character's perspective. As in, the dialogue in these scenes are still expressive of their character and their relationship, even if they are geared much more towards being titillating. But I think that too can be meaningful unto itself, in its own way. Given that Making Lovers is a romcom, there are lots of jokes and humor in the scenes as well as a desire to evoke tenderness, so it becomes less about developing the narrative and more about immersing the reader in the feeling of that growing relationship while laughing along the way, and that has value too, though may not fit the vibe of what you're going for. But I like it and I think it's worth mentioning. With all of that being said and it must be obvious that I am in favor of adult scenes (and am probably a huge pervert. A wholesome pervert. But a pervert.) So then it becomes a question of implementation; I think the concern about alienation is a genuine one, and I think it's one that is answered well by gating the adult content in some way so that you don't have to opt into it if you don't want to (or really shouldn't be seeing it...) That being said, I would think about how to implement those scenes well without completely integrating them to the narrative such that they are integral to the story. I imagine it becomes a bit more complicated adding the social complexity of the base game to erotic content if said erotic content is intended to be removeable to some degree from the experience without missing much. I think there's value in making it an integral part of the experience, so the advantage there is that if you do commit to that then you can really plug it all the way in exactly the way you want to and easily engage with it as part of the continuity. If not, then you either have to have the game recognize whether the content is on and adjust continuity accordingly (which would probably be extra writing), or have the content not be integrated that way at all beyond a token reference that would apply regardless of whether the content is on, which I don't think would fit well with the degree of control the player has over how they engage with other players. I think sex scenes that could be ripped out from the story with no consequence tend to invariably be worse because that tends to mean they are more for the monkey brain and not so important to the story or experience; if there's no emotional attachment for the reader because they care about the romance or the experience in some way, then the importance doesn't go beyond porn, I think. So I think it might be challenging to figure out a workable way to semi-integrate the content, which is the main concern I would raise about the options you provided in terms of how integrated the content is. This is long, so to recap: me like sex scenes, and I think they have great potential to add to the storytelling experience, both from a narrative or character perspective and from an immersive or thematic perspective, and I think the sexual aspect of it that the monkey brain appreciates can be leveraged as a cherry on top of the other meatier aspects as a meaningful part of the narrative unto itself. By that, I mean that the sexiness can be a positive element of the story and not just something that feels added on. I think the best way to do that though would be to make it integral to the game experience, and that not going all the way risks diluting the potential to the point where it might be better not to, especially because I think including dialogue choices or actions within the sexual acts can add further to characterization and narrative possibilities. Sex is a real element of many adult human relationships, and I think even the question of whether it is important to our character and how other characters feel about it can lead to tension or catharsis before we get to the act itself, which can run the gamut of emotions from wholesome and romantic to confusing and tense to desperate or apathetic, and these all add to the story. Even if it is mostly fluffy, well, sometimes the reader wants to feel the fluffiness, or go "awwww!" And I think sex scenes are no less capable of making me go "awwww" or "dude what the fuck" or "finally!" or "this won't end well" than other types of scenes, you just have to probably be more mindful of how you handle them.

Nathanael Dugourd

i'm not against adult contents, but, (there are always a but ;)), i prefer and i want a rich story rich, yeah double rich cause we are worth it, we the players, we the creators and we this adorable pixels. I love this game and this story so far, but i don't want a porn pixel if we lose the story .... if you think you can, then do it, but don't overload yourself ;) Cheers !!! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3