Thursday, October 6, 2011

Unsexed

Electron Dance has just made an incredible article on Polymorphous Perversity. Check it out:

Not Safe For Work

I'll admit, I'm mildly surprised about Harbour Master's take on the game, which is how it is psychologically affecting myself, and how people who commented on the article seem to sympathize with it.

My update on that is that I'm feeling way too much desensitized about the theme right now, and that's not a good functioning state for me to work on the game. I gotta horn myself up somehow.

On a side note, I got an e-mail from this very cool guy named Pippin Barr saying he understands how the lack of feedback is making me post less here, but "shouting into the the internet void" is a valid option. I'll try that. Let's see if I can keep the blog more active.

On another side note, somewhere in the comments of the article I mentioned above, someone named a game called Sexy Beach, which is some sort of porn game. I've read about it, and it sounds terrible. Apparently very boring, if not for the very explicit and easy (yet conservative) digital sex.

I wonder... do people really like games like that?

I also wonder... are good graphics more sexually-heavy than bad graphics with stronger sexual-content? Am I unsexing my game by using such low resolution?

Questions, questions...


23 comments:

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  2. I think how actively you post does eventually translate to more people paying attention. It takes energy and time on your part though.. I wonder what would happen if you took your posts to an established wider audience, like indiedb.com. Overgrowth is a nice example of building interest through constant community updates.
    It's also interesting to hear about how it's effecting you. We don't really know much about your process either.

    Low-res sexual content is good. Avoids and invites the right audiences (I think). Beautiful Escape evoked a strong sense of emotion and guilt etc, weirdly juxtaposed with an unfamiliar art style (for that content). I think there's certain environments that people adjust to, with certain behaviours: 3D games with overt violence or sexual content, or porn on the internet, is almost 'natural'. Taking them out of that comfortable space (into low res games associated with childhood/ upbeat themes?) probably has more impact, regardless of how explicitly they are being shown something.
    Don't know why I'm saying this, you're the psychologist haha

    Anyway, keep at it!

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  3. Interesting to hear you connection the aesthetics and the effect - it's definitely something very much in play with a game like this. As Aerozol says above, one option is that it makes it *more* affecting because of the contrast with a player's expectations based on the graphical style versus the content (the "Mario and Peach getting it on" effect, say).

    On the other hand, from a personal perspective I definitely find there's a reduction in impact due to the graphics - not only that they're lofi, but they're kind of adorable and cute. I actually found this with Beautiful Escape to a certain extent, too. I didn't exactly love what I was doing, but I did wonder whether some of the impact was blunted by the representation of the torture as a placing of tiles and the people tortured as kind of cute looking little things, even when they were being tortured.

    On the other hand, I may have played it in too blasé a mindset, too. And there's definitely a whole other argument here about "player accountability" - whose responsibility is it that the player "gets into" the game and takes it "seriously"? It's tempting to load it all onto the game (and thus the game's aesthetic), but surely we can also stop at a certain point and say "player, it's up to you - take it seriously or don't, it's your experience". How we could "train" players to be more accountable (myself included) is a whole other question. (I made a game just the other day called Trolley Problem with one approach to that on the ethics side: http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/)

    Anyway - glad you're blogging!

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  4. Having recently discovered the game via Electron Dance, I simply had to drop in and express my whole-hearted support for what you're doing. Quality porn is incredibly rare and even more so when it comes to games.

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  5. Well, some of the reviews on Beautiful Escape said the low resolution created a contrast with the theme, which may have increased the effect. To be honest, I don't think a very high resolution game with exactly the same gameplay would be more disturbing. There's this thing about people enjoying books more than they enjoy movies, because the lack of graphics and sound in a book forces you to use more cognitive skills, and that probably results in a stronger experience. Maybe the same could be said about low resolution games (as long as it's not a low-resolution story). But with sex it could be different... because sex, for many people, it's very visual. I guess it WILL depend on each person... I'm sure some people will just laugh at the whole thing, find it cute and retarded, or whatever.

    Pippin, I played Trolley Problem, it's pretty interesting, I will post comments on the blog.

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  6. @Nicolau Completely agree that some "photorealistic" version of Beautiful Escape (or this game) probably wouldn't be effective. I don't really know what the trick is on the believability/investment scale. Words have the same issues, of course - it's not like we buy into every single book, the way it's written matters a lot too. The Road chills me in a way that other post-apocalyptic fiction hasn't. I think you're in one of those situations where you basically need to pursue the aesthetic that feels right to you and then from there just see what happens - the key thing is that you *are making* this interesting and worthwhile game!

    (Look forward to your thoughts on Trolley Problem.)

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  7. I'll just drop in a confession then: the graphical resolution of Polymorphous Perversity was chosen out of laziness. I wanted this project to be made in short time. And I'm not skilled enough to do much better anyway. There are style choices that were deliberately chosen though, like the 21-color palette.

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  8. Hah. I completely sympathise with that line of reasoning - after all, it's the only way you can get things done sometimes. Particularly in the world of animations I'm pretty much locked into low resolutions too, I simply don't have the ability to animate more complex images. The palette does look very intended, though, so I think that works.

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  9. I actually worked on a sexually explicit game myself once upon a time, and because of that I've played a lot of them. I think the high graphical fidelity is more commonplace (though sometimes with some stylization to make things more abstract or relatable), but that depends on the audience. I personally like my titillation best if there's also a story and characters, and I like some stuff left to the imagination. A lot of people on the other hand are just in it to see unrealistic pictures of naked CG bodies.

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  10. Not sure what your restrictions are on audio, but if you're aiming for sexually stimulating, realistic/ erotic audio is probably a effective way to do it. Could be a nice combination with the 'leaving much to the imagination' graphics.

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  11. Ooh, I remember reading about this project a while ago on Rock Paper Shotgun, but I missed this blog until now. I've subscribed, am looking forward to reading the backlog of entries, and I'm certainly available for beta testing when it happens.

    Good luck!

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  12. It's great to see this project is still going strong. If it ends up anything like the game its promised to be, this should be a pretty big deal in games thought. Hope it isn't taking too hard a toll on you, maybe a break is what you need. A state of numbness is not one to write sex with. Good luck with the rest of the development and

    Enjoy Your Symptom!

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  13. I plan on ripping audio from porn videos. I'm saving this part for last though, otherwise the constant testing of the game would be too awkward, considering I don't live alone.

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  16. I definitely feel that it isn't completely about how a game looks when it comes to immersing a player into a game. What I find most immersing and, therefore, impacting on a psychological level is the feel of the world being created and the story being told within it. 3D graphics would make it so easy to pass something like this off as just more internet porn worth little more than some time spent playing with yourself before having it blend in to the amalgamation of masturbation memories over a lifetime; it wouldn't be distinguished.
    Something about this style of animation allows for a greater amount of art and uniqueness to be tied into the game and can amount to a real experience that will be remembered and, perhaps, even have an impact on someone's perceptions of themselves, others, and maybe sexual identity itself. If this game is heading in the direction I think it is heading then it could be a serious approach to human sexuality where other games simply poked fun at it or chose to overshadow certain aspects of it which made it more artificial. Humor is fine when it stands next to the truth and I expect a good deal of humor in this game. I also expect it to not shy away and, hopefully, to make me think...after I'm done doing...whatever else I'm doing.
    Keep it up.

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  17. chadverb your perception on this game is very similar to my own!

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  18. Be interesting to see what you do with the audio. To be honest, high-fidelity porn sounds might not fit in with the aesthetic look of the game. Worth a shot though! And it couldn't be worse than some of the high-res 3D "games". Oy vey. They take themselves too serious and yet with appallingly low production values.

    I like the style. A version of RPG Maker, yes? How have the technical limitations of the system you're using shaped what you've done to date?

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  19. For the type of games I make, RPG Maker is more than enough. There's a graphical limitation I could overcome with a newer verison of RPG Maker, but I'm not skilled enough as an artist to make it count. As systems go, I can make magic with RM2k3. It hasn't limited my original ideas much.

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  20. Hey, interesting to see the development environment come up - I've been wondering about this. I'd love to see you write/talk about the ways in which using a tool like RPG Maker influences what you end up creating. I've not used it, but I can only assume it pushes you toward particular choices for representation? Sex as fighting? Sex as dialog? Etc...

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  21. Well, not really. If you're open minded enough, you can make all sorts of games in RPG Maker. There are no battles in Beautiful Escape, for instance. The restrictions are mostly... graphical limitations, tile-based movement... well, not much. For reference on a clever use of RPG Maker, check this: http://rpgmaker.net/games/2868/

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  22. Oh great - thanks for the recommend, I've pulled that down and will check it out next time I boot to windows.

    I'm surprised, though, that there isn't some shaping of possibilities from a tool like RPG Maker (as opposed to a full-fledged programming language). I'll have to give it a go sometime to try to understand it better!

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