Lately I've been pushing myself to try some of the common types of games that are around at the moment. The things that have a million clones, advertised everywhere, always "hot" in app stores, etc. And the latest genre to get my attention is kind of "harem" or "hentai" games. There seems to be dozens of these using variations of the same mechanic, and to me it seems really counterintuitive. (I know there's many other types of H-games, but the market seems to be saturated with clones at present)

(sorry for the ranbling; no idea where to post this stuff. It's kind of game theory rambling, focused on some games I've seen ads for lately. Stop reading here if you're easily offended and didn't see the NSFW warning above)

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So to me, I started wondering ... if the player character is (for whatever handwaved reason) collecting a harem of anime girls, and then indulging in "battles" against another harem to prove who is the better lover ... what would be a simple mechanic that actually makes sense?

I really think it seems dumb to have "attack" and "defense" stats, regardless of what you call them. One common bit of fluff is to have a health meter called "Ego" or similar, which is damaged by your opponent's performance. Okay, that makes sense, kind of. But then, having skills in different types of acts (rough/sensual/imaginative or similar), and defense stats against those kind of things, seems weird. It looks like physical/magical attack/defense in a more typical RPG system; but I don't see why being particularly good at one type of activity should mean that I take less ego damage from seeing someone else do it.

So my brain comes up with something like this. You're competing to show that you're better than some other guy, who has his own girl(s) there; as that seems to be how it works in all the games I've seen. So; you give the woman three "excitement meters", corresponding to 3 elements. "rough/sensual/imaginative" seems fair enough. Each of these meters is a different size, based on what she likes most; and might change as she levels up. Your stats, on the other hand, change the rate at which you can generate energy of the three different elements. Once one of the meters is full, it "overflows" into moaning and other obvious signs of pleasure; which starts to damage the other guy's ego. When all three are full, the big "orgasm" icon flashed over the girl's head, and the meters empty again, converting into a big surge of damage for your opponent. You also have a "stamina" which you spend to use different positions etc (which act as a bonus or multiplier for different elements). If your ego damage exceeds your stamina, you can't continue and you lose.

Yeah, I know it's a weird thing to be thinking about. I just see the same thing in so many games, and I wonder what they're thinking about. An att-vs-def mechanic doesn't really fit; it makes me wonder if they've taken the engine from the same company's generic RPG offering and just changed the labels.
And yeah thinking about another way to do it has made me want to design one of these games. But I don't think something like that would work without the flashy graphics, so shrugs. I'll go back to something more rational.

the mass clones, is because of people new to game making and coding, and of the few really good/popular adult games use this game design, and thus the mass of clones... as amatuers try making their own dream porn game, as good as the very very few actually well done porn games... and of course fail hard.... mass of crappy clones...

(as you got to be an already good game maker, to make money, to then use to pay for whatever you need, programming/graphics/marketing/etc, to make the game into a huge success, which is very very rare, and thus why there's so few actually good porn games: literally the cough cough "big two" successful amatuer porn games cough cough, one using RPG maker and the other using 'flash / like adobe flash or whatever' software/code, cough cough)

(I'm not talking about the professional world/companies of/that-make porn games, talking about amatuer world of porn game makers)

it's more that... combat is just a very fun mechanic/experience with gaming in general... and then you got the porn aspect of of the game...

RPG mechanics are fun + (especially males in regards to games/art/graphics/vids) love porn/sex (though there's some females as well too of course, but still it's mainly a male thing)

(fun) work (combat, either as sexually described/termed combat system or not: normal/non-sexual combat described combat system) -> reward (if win): porn

there's not really any relationship between them and/or game theory/design going on...

see this post of mine... (I'm basically just describing an RPG, but this is why RPGs are so loved by lots of people):

http://textadventures.co.uk/forum/design/topic/3877/make-your-game-worth-playing (the thread)

and here's my post specifically:

http://textadventures.co.uk/forum/design/topic/3877/make-your-game-worth-playing#25963

I'm just a RPG-loving gamer, but am totally a noob to game making and game design (and know nothing on/about 'game theory'... aside from having to be good at math/economics for resource/RPG games, which I like, but which I'm not good at math/economics, lol, sighs)

Hehe, there's also the problem that 99% of porn games never get finished. They get started, the author works on it for a month or two, maybe it gains popularity, maybe it doesn't and then the author suddenly loses all interest. After that, they are onto the next porn idea they have. I have a couple of theories why most porn games fail. (I apologize for my sloppy sentences I'm exhausted atm).

1. They over-saturate the game with porn. I see it like the horror genre. If you keep it TOO intense or TOO jump-scary then eventually the audience becomes immune to it and they no longer get affected by it. The same thing happens with porn. If your game is entirely porn then it'll gain interest from people briefly and then it'll become old for like 6 months to a year before you try it again. Cycle repeats but they don't give a damn about the story, just the porn parts they like. I just talked with someone a couple of days ago about a porn game that's been out for years and years and they don't even remember the main villains name despite playing it for that long. I think all games require balance.

2. The author is too ambitious---they want this, and this, and this in their game and then suddenly they realize once they get started writing it, holy crap that is a lot of work! But it's too late because they've trapped themselves so it's either do it or give up. They normally choose the easier option. Not to mention all the backtracking you have to do when you add a new system or change something about an old system, or even when you think of a better way to do it and you have to delete that system and all traces of it from your game.

3. They get too popular too quickly. Suddenly, developing their game is a business that is making them a lot of money. But why work on your game when people are paying you 8-10k a month for the current version. Suddenly, you sit back and rake in the money each month making vague promises of a good update but it's really just the author milking the community. Unfortunately, this happens way too often. Next thing you know, they've lost interest in their own game because they haven't worked hard on it for several months --- which kinda leads into problem 2 but also some of problem 4.

4. Part of problem 3 --- they start getting a "team" together and then when relationships in that team go south for whatever reason, the team breaks up and the game instantly dies because everyone is claiming a piece of it. The author doesn't want to have to start over and salvage the wreckage.

5. Their game doesn't get enough attention because as Mr.Angel said their game uses the same mechanic(s) that a million other porn games use with no distinct variations so it basically gets lost in a sea of; why make my game when I can just play the one that inspired me to make mine and/or I'll work on it later, I'm too busy playing this other new porn game lol.

6. Procrastination!

That's my take on all the new porn games xD As for the mechanic of the girls fighting what about some kind of dedication tracker. Like the more they pleasure the main character or something or treat him/her right, the more drive they have to fight? Maybe they get rewards in combat for have a certain number of dedication points or something. I dunno ^_^ That's just off the top of my head!

Sorry about the rambling!

Anonynn.

It just bugged me that the mechanics don't make any sense.

I mean... you settle all disputes by a "sex duel" where you and three of your girls go up against the bad guy and three of his girls. The better you "perform" the more damage to does to the other guy's ego. Fair enough, that's the conceit of the game.

So then... why is the ego damage equal to your attack stat, plus your girl's attack stat, plus her skill in that position, minus the enemy's defense and his girl's defense? That's just ATT-vs-DEF combat; sex doesn't work like that. I think it'd make more sense if satisfying the girls in your team was the objective, rather than a bonus. Like, your basic attack stat determines how quickly you fill the girl's pleasure meter, that then "overflows" and damages the opponent's ego. After you've both done all three girls, whoever performed best wins. Or if your opponent's ego hits zero, or you can satisfy three girls while he's doing the first, maybe you can do one of his girls too for bonus points… that seems a reasonable way to "win" some of his harem as a bonus prize, rather than "you get one of his girls after beating him 200 times in a row".

It just kind of breaks suspension of disbelief for me when a battle is over in one turn because your attack is too high. I mean like, one thrust and the other guy collapses in a corner because his ego can't stand seeing someone so much better than him. And then you're like "okay, the other guy gave up, let's stop", and the girl whose pleasure gauge is at 31% doesn't have a problem with that?