In my absence, I played a lot of porn games. Probably not a massive variety of them, as modded Skyrim has proven to have close to what I'm after, and I'm quite happy playing that when I really want a porn game to play, but almost every game that crossed my path I gave a quick play of. And in doing so, I noticed something that seemed to be missing from most porn games, Shield High included, though I hope I'm at least a little better about it than some other games, that was kind of necessary. Every porn game just seems to assume you're already in the mood for whatever smut it wants to give you.
This is a problem because it puts your game into an odd spot. The purpose of a porn game is to kind of act as foreplay to...whatever it is you have planned beyond it. But some porn games act like they're the be all end all of the experience, like the foreplay was meant to come from somewhere else, and you're already going to want it. And that's a rather limiting attitude to have. At the very least, it limits the times people will play your game, or the ways it'll be played, and at worst it completely alienates you from certain audiences. A decent chunk of porn games I've played have been games about fetishes I didn't have, but was interested enough to see if the game would tempt me with them. The answer is generally no, the game just...presents it, and hopes I like what's being put out there. Usually it doesn't leave me curious enough to take up any of the optional content, and I simply see what a purity attempt at the game looks like. (The wonders and importance of purity runs is another topic for another day)
Ultimately the point I'm trying to make is that a porn game should seduce you. It should make you want what it's offering, or at least tempt you with it. Porn games have a very unique position to use this seduction to influence gameplay. A sufficiently sexy enemy might give a player pause in fighting it, make them weave in just enough self-sabotage to lose an otherwise easy fight, just to see what they'll do. The seduction is also a good way to draw your player into exploring the game in a way they wouldn't otherwise in a porn game. Most of the time I'm playing a game, I chase quests because I need money and experience. Sometimes I'm in a particularly roleplay-y mood, and so I'll chase a quest because muh character, or just curiosity about what lies at the end, but usually not. A porn game that knows how to seduce it's player however, has another tool to draw players into quests, or add another layer to the story by making a choice influenced in part by lust.
Another reason seduction is so important is for players such as myself, and some of my fans, who enjoy putting their characters through cruel situations. It's especially important for people who don't like having to self sabotage, to push them to the limits of wanting to. A good rule of thumb that I've picked up in my time away from Porn Games, during a brief stint engaging in ERP was that the threat of losing must terrify, but excite you. In a porn game this is harder, obviously, as a player can just turn off the game, savescum back to before the fight, or just start a new character, but even still, in the moment, it's a good feeling to strive for. If a player will play their hardest to avoid it, but not back out when they lose, then I think a game is perfect. Well, perfect at seduction. The fight has to be balanced to really make the seduction work. Or be poorly balanced, but entirely voluntary on the players part.
Which...is two other topics for another time, so I will leave it there for now.
A quick update on the Shield High front, not a lot has been added in the past week, it's been a slow painful slog through content, which as soon as I'm feeling better tonight, I will hopefully slog a bit further into. Either way, update on time confirmed.
Pudding Earl
Friday, 16 December 2016
Friday, 9 December 2016
Earl's Musings: Aspirations of Porn Games
Being that I'm working on Shield High just about every day, I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about porn games. I also spend a lot of time thinking about the world at large, politics and all that jazz. As I regularly mention, I'm writing a series of (rather unsuccessful) books on Amazon, and being that I've been thinking about politics, I've been weaving some of that into the themes of the books. Not a lot, not enough to make a statement on anything, but I have been trying to explore some ideas, a thing I haven't ever really done before with my writing.
And so the combination of these two factors has me wondering. Can a porn game be more than just a porn game? Obviously games as a whole have faced a similar question before, in the whole debate over if video games were art. Obviously, the conclusion that has been more or less settled on is yes, they are art. And a lot of that comes down to the fact that they can be more than just a game. They can tell a story, share an idea, make you feel something, or question a concept you never heard before.
But can porn games? It's a question I honestly can't answer. Porn games aren't like any other genre of games. Any other game really only needs to meet the criteria "Is it fun" to succeed. Others set secondary goals on that art front, but at the end of the day if they fail them, so long as the game is fun, people will probably still like it. Porn games however, have a different path to success. Before asking if it's fun, first you need to work out if it's hot. Does this game succeed at being porn? If yes, does it succeed at being fun? That dilemma is a whole other musing for another time, so I won't go into it in detail now, but it's a difficult act to balance.
What I think the question ultimately boils down to is, can a message co-exist with porn? Or does the porn cheapen the message? And this isn't just in the same scene. Obviously trying to share some form of political message while Jessica goes down on someone isn't likely to work out. Shy of characters who are a bit silly (I have a vague desire to have a girl who gets off on having "Taxation is theft" whispered in her ear during sex) it can't really work. And on those silly characters, it's really just making fun of something which happens to be political, more than anything else. But in the game as a whole, does having moments that get serious, well before, or after, the sex, and talk about something important. Does that work? Or would that just rob the game of some of it's sex appeal?
I'm certain it would impact the game's sex in some way, but I can't exactly work out how. On the one hand, maybe it would detract from it, maybe it would distract you from it, or disturb your mood. But maybe it would make it better. In my experience the sexiest things are the ones you really care about. To use an example from Fenoxo's latest game, TiTS, I don't care about 90% of the sex. But I swear to god when I get the chance to fuck my cousin, I'm going to jump all over it. Because that's something I'm actually invested in. And maybe, by exploring ideas beyond just sex, maybe it will make people more invested in the characters, and thus the porn.
I don't know, I don't have an answer. I'm probably going to wind up experimenting with this down the track in Shield High. Make the dialogue you can have with most characters properly deep, and give them something a bit more serious to talk about. On reflection, I realize some already were a bit serious, so perhaps it won't go too bad. Who knows? If it does, I'll replace it with something light and silly by the end release.
I hope it was at least a bit interesting.
Pudding Earl
And now to tack on a quick bit of news. I broke Shield High. I have since fixed it. There's now an extra menu to navigate on the interact button. I'm going to have to fix it to go green when you have a non-class interaction around. Almost all the interactions are for progressing through the game, but the changing rooms have the option to get changed or shower. Showering is getting a proper scene since it's been on my mind, and I kind of want to add *something* of content to this update. I'll be adding more options for interacting as the game goes on. After this, I think it'll be house keeping, and making sure that events are in place for next month's update, so I can cram in more content, and then if I have time after, preparing more stuff for the next month. That would be a nice change, being ready well in advance.
And so the combination of these two factors has me wondering. Can a porn game be more than just a porn game? Obviously games as a whole have faced a similar question before, in the whole debate over if video games were art. Obviously, the conclusion that has been more or less settled on is yes, they are art. And a lot of that comes down to the fact that they can be more than just a game. They can tell a story, share an idea, make you feel something, or question a concept you never heard before.
But can porn games? It's a question I honestly can't answer. Porn games aren't like any other genre of games. Any other game really only needs to meet the criteria "Is it fun" to succeed. Others set secondary goals on that art front, but at the end of the day if they fail them, so long as the game is fun, people will probably still like it. Porn games however, have a different path to success. Before asking if it's fun, first you need to work out if it's hot. Does this game succeed at being porn? If yes, does it succeed at being fun? That dilemma is a whole other musing for another time, so I won't go into it in detail now, but it's a difficult act to balance.
What I think the question ultimately boils down to is, can a message co-exist with porn? Or does the porn cheapen the message? And this isn't just in the same scene. Obviously trying to share some form of political message while Jessica goes down on someone isn't likely to work out. Shy of characters who are a bit silly (I have a vague desire to have a girl who gets off on having "Taxation is theft" whispered in her ear during sex) it can't really work. And on those silly characters, it's really just making fun of something which happens to be political, more than anything else. But in the game as a whole, does having moments that get serious, well before, or after, the sex, and talk about something important. Does that work? Or would that just rob the game of some of it's sex appeal?
I'm certain it would impact the game's sex in some way, but I can't exactly work out how. On the one hand, maybe it would detract from it, maybe it would distract you from it, or disturb your mood. But maybe it would make it better. In my experience the sexiest things are the ones you really care about. To use an example from Fenoxo's latest game, TiTS, I don't care about 90% of the sex. But I swear to god when I get the chance to fuck my cousin, I'm going to jump all over it. Because that's something I'm actually invested in. And maybe, by exploring ideas beyond just sex, maybe it will make people more invested in the characters, and thus the porn.
I don't know, I don't have an answer. I'm probably going to wind up experimenting with this down the track in Shield High. Make the dialogue you can have with most characters properly deep, and give them something a bit more serious to talk about. On reflection, I realize some already were a bit serious, so perhaps it won't go too bad. Who knows? If it does, I'll replace it with something light and silly by the end release.
I hope it was at least a bit interesting.
Pudding Earl
And now to tack on a quick bit of news. I broke Shield High. I have since fixed it. There's now an extra menu to navigate on the interact button. I'm going to have to fix it to go green when you have a non-class interaction around. Almost all the interactions are for progressing through the game, but the changing rooms have the option to get changed or shower. Showering is getting a proper scene since it's been on my mind, and I kind of want to add *something* of content to this update. I'll be adding more options for interacting as the game goes on. After this, I think it'll be house keeping, and making sure that events are in place for next month's update, so I can cram in more content, and then if I have time after, preparing more stuff for the next month. That would be a nice change, being ready well in advance.
Saturday, 3 December 2016
Where I'm at right now.
At the point of writing this post I'm currently procrastinating finishing up a text entry. I need to cap it off with a sentence. Or I might look at it, and decide it's done, I'm not sure yet. But, as I finished this text entry, I reflected on where my mind is in relation to Shield High. The past week has been a hard, painful slog of work. I'm doing cleaning mostly, adding in boring monotonous text entries that all need to be there, and that you, as players, will probably read once go "Neat" and then only skim the first line of to work out which one it is. I know cause I do this all the time. Thankfully, you'll also encounter these rarely enough that they won't feel dull and monotonous to you. I'm just writing them all back to back, which means they do, and it sucks.
I've been mixing up those text entries with entrance texts, which are equally painful to write, but much more likely to give you some positive feedback on the game. When I run around and test the game does feel a lot nicer to play because of them. However, in writing this one text entry, something sort of...clicked, in my head.
For the past little bit, while I've been getting back into the swing of things, I've been concerned my characters won't be interesting anymore. Karen and Samantha felt so...the same, in writing their texts for when you lose. They weren't, of course, they did different things, but I was still concerned I'd run out of ideas quickly. The monotonous text work has only made that worse.
But today something changed. I wrote a text entry for the gym, and mentioned some girls playing volleyball. I've mentioned groups of girls around the school before in these, but somehow being confronted with another one, similar, but distinct from the others, something settled in my head about how I always worked with Shield High. I think...I remembered that characters are meant to be a bit ridiculous. I'm meant to be exploring ideas that seem kind of silly but could maybe be sexy. Or ideas that fall into more fringe fetishes that maybe I don't even like. And for some reason, writing about these girls who aren't even in the game yet has made that sit better with me. I think maybe I'm picking up a bit more of my old passion for the writing that I lost. Up until now I've been running largely on the passion for the game-side of porn. (Which I have a lot of).
Now we just hope that said passion lasts, and this wasn't a momentary flash. I'll keep you all posted on that, and expect some stranger content in the coming weeks. Good strange, I hope.
Pudding Earl
I've been mixing up those text entries with entrance texts, which are equally painful to write, but much more likely to give you some positive feedback on the game. When I run around and test the game does feel a lot nicer to play because of them. However, in writing this one text entry, something sort of...clicked, in my head.
For the past little bit, while I've been getting back into the swing of things, I've been concerned my characters won't be interesting anymore. Karen and Samantha felt so...the same, in writing their texts for when you lose. They weren't, of course, they did different things, but I was still concerned I'd run out of ideas quickly. The monotonous text work has only made that worse.
But today something changed. I wrote a text entry for the gym, and mentioned some girls playing volleyball. I've mentioned groups of girls around the school before in these, but somehow being confronted with another one, similar, but distinct from the others, something settled in my head about how I always worked with Shield High. I think...I remembered that characters are meant to be a bit ridiculous. I'm meant to be exploring ideas that seem kind of silly but could maybe be sexy. Or ideas that fall into more fringe fetishes that maybe I don't even like. And for some reason, writing about these girls who aren't even in the game yet has made that sit better with me. I think maybe I'm picking up a bit more of my old passion for the writing that I lost. Up until now I've been running largely on the passion for the game-side of porn. (Which I have a lot of).
Now we just hope that said passion lasts, and this wasn't a momentary flash. I'll keep you all posted on that, and expect some stranger content in the coming weeks. Good strange, I hope.
Pudding Earl
Sunday, 27 November 2016
Public Release of 0.681
Well it's (technically) been a week since I made my Patreon release, and so here it is, 0.681 for everybody to enjoy. You can download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cq626zxb60ju01w/Shield_High_JS_0.681.7z
So what's in it? Not too much, largely because of the volume of behind the scenes work that had to go into it. First off, saving, it's in. It's in in a kinda shitty way however, I'll put in safeties for overwriting files in the next update, as well as probably provide some information on which file is which for you. I would've done that this patch but the content proved too time consuming.
So, what content is new? Only submitting to Karen stuff. First off, that actually does have an event tied to it now. It's a rather small scene, only two entries, but it's there, and it leads you on to a set of two(technically three, one will be removed eventually) new events. Which event you'll get is randomly selected, so after going home after submitting to Karen, but before going back to school, I encourage saving. It'll make finding both the events a bit easier. The first one is in the B-C Block, while the second is in A-Library. They've actually got a pretty broad amount of content to them, and I'm quite happy with them.
No, events like this will not make up the entirety of Shield High going forward. I've thought about it a bit, and I'll still make a number of set events, so you'll get your Stacy, and your Mistresses and all those big sorts of plots again, but instead of preset filler-ish plots like I had before between them, the goal will be to give you more freedom to chase the girls you want, or get into trouble with other girls wanting you.
And finally, what's next? As I've already said, next is a maintenance update. I've already half-prepared weekends, and I'm going to finish those up right after I get this new dialogue feature sorted. I've also added in a new feature of hover text on buttons, to let you know what they do/where they take you and things. It's only on maps, and in dialogue for now, but I might add it elsewhere later if needed.
Anyway, that's all I have for this week. Expect a musing on porn games next week when I update you on the progress.
Enjoy!
Pudding Earl
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cq626zxb60ju01w/Shield_High_JS_0.681.7z
So what's in it? Not too much, largely because of the volume of behind the scenes work that had to go into it. First off, saving, it's in. It's in in a kinda shitty way however, I'll put in safeties for overwriting files in the next update, as well as probably provide some information on which file is which for you. I would've done that this patch but the content proved too time consuming.
So, what content is new? Only submitting to Karen stuff. First off, that actually does have an event tied to it now. It's a rather small scene, only two entries, but it's there, and it leads you on to a set of two(technically three, one will be removed eventually) new events. Which event you'll get is randomly selected, so after going home after submitting to Karen, but before going back to school, I encourage saving. It'll make finding both the events a bit easier. The first one is in the B-C Block, while the second is in A-Library. They've actually got a pretty broad amount of content to them, and I'm quite happy with them.
No, events like this will not make up the entirety of Shield High going forward. I've thought about it a bit, and I'll still make a number of set events, so you'll get your Stacy, and your Mistresses and all those big sorts of plots again, but instead of preset filler-ish plots like I had before between them, the goal will be to give you more freedom to chase the girls you want, or get into trouble with other girls wanting you.
And finally, what's next? As I've already said, next is a maintenance update. I've already half-prepared weekends, and I'm going to finish those up right after I get this new dialogue feature sorted. I've also added in a new feature of hover text on buttons, to let you know what they do/where they take you and things. It's only on maps, and in dialogue for now, but I might add it elsewhere later if needed.
Anyway, that's all I have for this week. Expect a musing on porn games next week when I update you on the progress.
Enjoy!
Pudding Earl
Monday, 21 November 2016
Patreon release/question regarding some other content.
As the title suggests, 0.681 is now live for my Patrons. I'm mentioning this here in part to demonstrate that I am making it on time, but also to show that the blog release will be happening in a semi-timely manner too. I anticipate I'll be putting it up in probably a week's time. Don't expect that to be a consistent thing however, the wait will usually be longer to coincide with book releases when I'm making them. There's just no book next month, and since the Patreon is still young, I figure I should be putting out content a little more freely.
And now on to a slightly more pressing matter. Some of you from a very long time ago might remember I had an Earl's Musings sort of thing going on, where I made posts about the making of porn games. When I started it, I had a much more basic understanding of the matter. Now I've grown and my judgement on the matter has shaped a lot more, and so I'm curious if people would be interested in seeing that return. If so, I'd be making a weekly post on the matter every week I don't release an update, with the short weekly update on Shield High put at the end. Let me know in the comments if you're curious to read that.
Until next week.
Pudding Earl.
And now on to a slightly more pressing matter. Some of you from a very long time ago might remember I had an Earl's Musings sort of thing going on, where I made posts about the making of porn games. When I started it, I had a much more basic understanding of the matter. Now I've grown and my judgement on the matter has shaped a lot more, and so I'm curious if people would be interested in seeing that return. If so, I'd be making a weekly post on the matter every week I don't release an update, with the short weekly update on Shield High put at the end. Let me know in the comments if you're curious to read that.
Until next week.
Pudding Earl.
Saturday, 12 November 2016
The Final Update!
Yes, this is the last update before I actually post the update to Patreon. So, how is it going, I'm sure you're wondering. The answer is, not as well as I'd like, but well enough. I'm still stuck on the first plot of the four I wanted to make, but it's basically done. I'm literally down to trimming the final text entries of the plot to fit the screen, and then that's it, it's done, ready to go. The second plot line is a derivative of this one, so it should only take a few more days to program, since I can scab a lot of code and writing from the first one.
The big reason I haven't done as much as I'd like is a few bugs that ended up taking a couple of hours to find and kill. Most of them were dumb mistakes on my part, but each test takes 2-3 minutes and when you have to do ten tests with a few minor tweaks to code between each it adds up and the fatigue sets in. But it's done now, random plots select randomly, Samantha has all her dialogue and stats and AI and she's probably a bit too easy in my opinion but we'll see if I decide to change that or not later.
Regarding weekends, those are almost certainly not making it in this week, which is a shame because that means some of the possible content I want to end up making will require you to reload an old save instead of powering on through. However, I do have a quality of life improvement planned regarding buttons that should only be a day's work, so you can count on that. Next update will probably be designated as a maintenance update, to add proper combat text, more feats, more characters, weekend functionality and actual slave events(if only one per Mistress for now). I suspect I'll dedicate every 3rd release to maintenance, just to avoid falling behind in my bid to add content, as well as front load some of the more finicky parts of content-making into the release before I actually put out the content proper.
As a final point of news, my third book is out, it can be found here in case anyone is actually interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0A5F9S
Worry not, no book next month as I've slowed down my writing pace on that to keep up with Shield High.
Anyway, that's all the news for now. Hope it's informative and not too depressing.
Pudding Earl
The big reason I haven't done as much as I'd like is a few bugs that ended up taking a couple of hours to find and kill. Most of them were dumb mistakes on my part, but each test takes 2-3 minutes and when you have to do ten tests with a few minor tweaks to code between each it adds up and the fatigue sets in. But it's done now, random plots select randomly, Samantha has all her dialogue and stats and AI and she's probably a bit too easy in my opinion but we'll see if I decide to change that or not later.
Regarding weekends, those are almost certainly not making it in this week, which is a shame because that means some of the possible content I want to end up making will require you to reload an old save instead of powering on through. However, I do have a quality of life improvement planned regarding buttons that should only be a day's work, so you can count on that. Next update will probably be designated as a maintenance update, to add proper combat text, more feats, more characters, weekend functionality and actual slave events(if only one per Mistress for now). I suspect I'll dedicate every 3rd release to maintenance, just to avoid falling behind in my bid to add content, as well as front load some of the more finicky parts of content-making into the release before I actually put out the content proper.
As a final point of news, my third book is out, it can be found here in case anyone is actually interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0A5F9S
Worry not, no book next month as I've slowed down my writing pace on that to keep up with Shield High.
Anyway, that's all the news for now. Hope it's informative and not too depressing.
Pudding Earl
Friday, 4 November 2016
Further updates!
So, after the consulting, save files were still a bit broken. They're now fixed and working and all fancy like in my opinion. With that done, I've been working on the events again. The first plot I want to make is programmed. I haven't tested it yet, because I need to do the writing, and set up the game to search for a new plot, which is only half done, and there's just a lot of things not right yet. But they will be right in the near future, and once the first one is done, the others will roll out a lot quicker. So, I'm pretty confident we could be looking at four plots for when you submit to Karen.
Will there be anything else? Not sure, maybe. I might find time to do up weekends like I want to. I'll also be populating out the school with more NPCs (current count is 13) and giving them all descriptions and things. The descriptions are the old ones, I didn't really see any point in re-doing them. I've come to the conclusion in the process of adding all these NPCs, that it'll only get easier going forward. A big hurdle to my development right now is in addition to making the plots, I have to add the NPCs and add new features as needed to make plots work, and so on. Once these features are all in place, and the school is full of varied characters who all automatically fill whatever niche is needed for whatever plot I'm making, it'll all go a lot faster.
As a final point of addition we have Charm Checks! Dialogue options that test against your charisma. At present you gain EXP for passing them, since I want to make the socialite angle a viable way to try and play out Shield High. We'll see how it all works out, and I might change it if it proves too gameable.
Anyway, that's all for this week, more news next week!
Will there be anything else? Not sure, maybe. I might find time to do up weekends like I want to. I'll also be populating out the school with more NPCs (current count is 13) and giving them all descriptions and things. The descriptions are the old ones, I didn't really see any point in re-doing them. I've come to the conclusion in the process of adding all these NPCs, that it'll only get easier going forward. A big hurdle to my development right now is in addition to making the plots, I have to add the NPCs and add new features as needed to make plots work, and so on. Once these features are all in place, and the school is full of varied characters who all automatically fill whatever niche is needed for whatever plot I'm making, it'll all go a lot faster.
As a final point of addition we have Charm Checks! Dialogue options that test against your charisma. At present you gain EXP for passing them, since I want to make the socialite angle a viable way to try and play out Shield High. We'll see how it all works out, and I might change it if it proves too gameable.
Anyway, that's all for this week, more news next week!
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