Hey guys. Kinky is on break this week for some personal reasons, so I’ll be stepping in. You may have seen me around before, I’m his friend, Imaginary.
This topic has been in my head a lot recently. If you’ve been following my game reviews on the blog, you know that I’m no stranger to handing out average scores. Almost all entertainment avenues follow the normal curve and any reviewer who constantly tells you otherwise is probably exaggerating or underestimating the quality of whatever projects they are reviewing. But lately after playing Kindred Spirits on the Roof and Crimson Gray: Dusk and Dawn I’ve noticed that a trend is occurring that’s causing me to take off points across a wide variety of visual novels (not trying to harp on those games, there have been plenty of others too but they’re recent). And it comes down to the what matters most: the sex.
Listen up everybody we’re gonna learn something today. A sex game isn’t really the same as a game. We wouldn’t put “sex” in front of it if they were meant to refer to the same thing. The focus shifts. A game should have great gameplay and a sex game should have great sex. Make no mistake, there are a huge amount of overlaps. Both can have great music, fantastic animation and artwork, good stories… okay well the last one’s pretty fucking rare for porn games but the point remains. The point is that while several other aspects can and should exist, the core of a sex game should be the sex. Nobody wants to play through a sex game, cock on the edge of glory, only to be let down at the end.
Real-time capture of my face after my cock was left on the edge of glory.
So how do these sex games fuck up? They play out more like games with sex in them. Like a story that has sex thrown in because it helps to sell the product rather than because it feels natural or needed. Let’s back up a second, I don’t mean to imply that porn games or porn anything for that matter should feel natural. Writing a realistic depiction of a sexual encounter that includes some interesting kinks can be near impossible, and for some kinks, downright impossible. What I mean is that some special attention should go into the sex to make it feel like a part of whatever its in, rather than something shoehorned in at the end for clicks. I personally really enjoyed both Crimson Gray games, but did I give a single fuck about the sex? Hell no. It was written well from a descriptive standpoint, however it did nothing to stand out or demonstrate what sex would be like with a yandere (where a grounded relationship with a yandere is the game’s main focus).
This disconnection between the rest of a game and its sex is what I believe is responsible for a great many number of scenes feeling generic and pointless. How do we resolve this? The unique aspects of a sex game are typically the story and characters, so when a developer fails to include those elements in the scenes in some fashion, you’re left with the barebones result. Somebody and somebody are fucking, and they are enjoying it. Who cares, I’ve seen that a thousand times. If I told you a new Raven and Beast Boy visual novel was in development, why do you care? On some level you probably think Raven’s hot and that excites you. But you’re also likely to be excited at seeing those personalities clash. Will Raven criticize and berate Beast Boy the whole time? Will his octopus form be too pleasurable to the point where she breaks her emo shell and loses control? Those concepts could instantly make the scene stand out and feel like those characters actually got horny one night and had a little fun. Much more so than “Oh fuck… Beast Boy.. that’s so hot… I’m so warm..." "Beast Boy was fucking her good alright. She loved the pleasure.” You could substitute any fucking name in the universe into those bad writing examples and it would work because those sentences are cookie cutter garbage and don't feel connected to the Teen Titans world or characters at all.
If you manage to write a lame scene with these two, it's time to re-evaluate.
What I’m trying to say is, there’s a lot of porn in the world, and a lot of it is mediocre and unmemorable. And from my experience so far, generic scenes are always going to stand out and hold back decent sex games from becoming great sex games. You don’t invariably need to explore crazy kinks or dialogue during the sex, but it should at least match, compliment, or build upon the other elements of the game.
What makes sex great to watch or read? What do you like about your favorite sex scenes compared to others? Let us know in the comments below!
