Polymorphous Perversity

Death threats

2012-02-20T13:31:00.001-02:00

Today is February 20th, 2012, and it's an important date for Polymorphous Perversity. It's been exactly one year since I started working on this (which was supposed to be a 2 month) project.

There are basically two reasons why everything is taking too long. One, the game was supposed to be simpler, just a bland RPG with simple graphics and lots of sex. I got ambitious, and the concept evolved.

The second reason is that I noticed the process was having personal effects on me, and I decided that it was a good thing. Instead of shutting my mind to the vast sea of sexual weirdness presented in front of me, I chose to embrace it. From the beginning, I opened the game's doors to player contribution, asking for their sexual fantasies and experiences and even adding their voluntary naked photos on the game. I made my own contribution too. And let's just say that my research experience has gone past googling for stuff.

But taking too long to finish a game is a bad thing in itself, and it's even worse if you're forcing yourself in the process to think about a delicate (in lack of better terms) subject such as this one to inspire game design. I'm a perfectionist, and I'm stuck on some parts of the game because I haven't found the perfect way to design them. I think, I look for ideas, but it's making me sick. I think the best way to describe what I'm feeling is to imagine having a pervy ghost whispering fetishist porn in your mind all day long for a year.

What I'm saying is: I need to convince myself that the game doesn't have to be great, or I'll never finish it. Yeah, it may end up being great, it may end up being crap, but I don't care anymore. I already know I utterly failed on my (rather impossible) goal of representing every possible element of the human sexuality spectrum in the game. To be honest, I was only aiming at male sexuality in the first place, since I'm pretty insightless on female sexuality. I run the risk of making the game too shallow, too fast, too cliche, too cold, but I don't (can't) care.

Expect the game to be finished soon. And if it isn't, feel free to make me death threats.

A word about sex in media

2012-02-15T12:37:00.001-02:00

I just read Rich Stanton's piece Why Can't Games Do Sex?

Although I appreciate the insightful review on sex and video games, I have to disagree with the basic premise, which is: sex is a natural thing, so we should deal with it naturally. That includes, of course, having sex on videogames.

This has been discussed before in my blog.

I'll use myself as reference for my argument, but in this regard, I think I'm a pretty standard person, so I hope it's generalizable.

I've played a few Hentai games before... like True Love and Hentai Sim Brothel (which inspired Marvel Brothel). Though they're pretty ok games, I felt a little impatient while playing them. That is because, knowing I was playing a game full of sex and naked chicks, I wasn't really in the mood for stats management and talk-talk-talk. I like how Electrondance described Hentai Sim Brothel: it's a game that rewards masochistic play with hentai images. But it's not supposed to be really masochistic, as it's an interesting business simulator. However, when you're in the mood for sex, you're probably not in the mood for numbers.

My point is basically: sex change things. When I'm watching a movie that I know to contain a strong sex scene, I can't help but wait for that scene and get a little impatient with the rest of the movie. I mean, who likes the terrible acting and dialog of porn actors/actresses when they're not having sex? Same for games. Same for pretty much everything (dates?). Like I said elsewhere, having sex in a game is enough to turn it into a sex game. And sometimes, you just don't WANT to make/play a sex game. So if you're going to do sex, you have to do it right.

If you put a sex minigame in GTA, I have no doubt people will rush through the rest of the game trying to get to that as quickly as possible. They'll hack the game, if they have to. If there was actual sex in The Sims, I don't think people would treat it as "part of the avatar's basic needs" in a natural way, they would force and rush sex in the most bizarre ways possible just for giggles. So, yeah, blame the players. If you want to have sex in a game, make it a sex game, like that grotesque Sepe Cumshot... thing (I'm still washing my hands), on the risk that it'll be a horrible game if you're just trying to simulate actual sex as realistically as possible - because, you know, it's probably not as good as actual sex.

Premature ejaculation

2012-01-25T11:36:00.004-02:00

So the game is almost done, except for a few finishing touches and the two final scenes.

I decided to give it a full playthrough to get a good feel of the game and spot bugs. At first I just ignored all the side stories and ran straight through the main plot.

It was way too fast.

Then I went back and played every side quest and optional scene.

Still fast.

Of course I tend to go faster than other players because I know everything. But the speed still worries me.

I'm thinking about adding... stuff. I won't extend the main plot, but add more optional content, secrets, etc. Not much. On one hand, it'll give me the opportunity to add more of the things from my Bathroom Wall. On the other hand, it will delay the release of the game a bit. Not much.

Sorry about that!

Making progress!

2012-01-15T19:42:00.005-02:00

My break ends today, tomorrow I'm getting back to work on this game, full speed, promise.

I decided I should make some sort of cheerful post because the last one was too depressing.

I have to say, one of the things that motivated me and inspired me the most to work on Polymorphous Perversity again was playing an awesome indie game. And the game I'm talking about is Richard Hofmeier's Cart Life. This game is just so unique and brilliant that I have to be careful not to be overhumbled and give up on whatever I'm working at. If you want to know what it's about before giving it a go, you can read a great review here.

The worst thing about working on a game is that you get tons of ideas to work on OTHER projects, and you have to be really persistent not abandon your present one and start a new one. I know many many people who've started quite a few games, but never finished one. Polymorphous Perversity will actually be my first long finished project, since all my other ones are either unfinished or were finished in a short time.

Yeah, I am finishing this. I decided to put down a list of what's left to be made:

Mapping and coding the last dungeon/story bridge (it is already planned).
Planning and designing the last scene (whatever requires planning often takes more time).
Designing the really final scene (already planned).
Planning and designing three intermediate parts of the game.
Making opening and ending (already planned).
Ripping sounds from porn films and adding them to game.
Tons of small other things, but they are really small.

It's not much! I really have no idea how long it will take, though. If I had to guess, I'd say... end of March? Could be before, could be after. I'll chop off unnecessary fillers so I can finish this game sooner.

But then there's also beta-testing phase, and I expect it to last at least a month, because I'll need dozens of testers. So, sorry for not keeping my word about releasing the game at the end of January. I hope I'll make it worth it. At this point, I don't even know how ambitious this project is anymore, but even if it doesn't end up being an "insightful look into human sexuality", it's still going to be a fun game.

PS: There isn't really anything about the game or its theme that shocks me or disturbs me at this point. I can't tell the difference between being resistant and getting desensitized anymore.

It is ending

2012-01-05T13:40:00.001-02:00

The world is ending, so I need to finish this game soon.

Sadly, I haven't been physically or mentally well, so I can't get myself to do much for the game at the moment.

This is not a hiatus, not a possible cancellation or anything like that, just a break I need to take. A short one, hopefully.

There isn't much left to do, though. And if I feel a bigger urge to finish the game sooner, I'll just skip some non-important stuff and get it over with. I'll release this game, I promise.

Staying on subject, I recently saw this poll that asked people what would they want to be doing when the world ended. Over 50% said they want to be having sex. I'm puzzled. Why do they have to wait for the world to end?

Death and sex are themes that pop up together more often that I expected.

Shout out to Michael Hutter for some amazing art I stumbled across googling for "death and sex".

Update on player participation

2011-12-10T00:06:00.001-02:00

I talked about player participation once, and made a separate tab explaining how players can contribute to the game (make sure you read it!)

I'll say that the current level of participation is not as high as I wanted/expected, but that's ok. On the other hand, the impact that this participation is having on the game is big.

On a rough count, there are at least 7 scenes/events on the game that were directly inspired from things posted on the Bathroom Wall (like TD: I want to turn a man into a woman, and then into a statue.), not counting more general things that would be in the game anyway but were also referred to there, like BDSM and trannies.

I got a few photos of naked players by e-mail, and a few half-naked photos of friends who wanted a cameo, not counting pictures of unknowing friends.

There are a few direct quotes from people (friends, internet people) used in the game as well.

I got a few e-mails of people volunteering to testing, which is great, but nothing near the 100 testers I need. I have some ideas on how to get more testers, but I'll save them until I really need it.

My goal with this is adding another level of player interaction on the game. It is part of the game's concept. So, unless you're an unsexualized robot, please contribute!

Polymorphous Perversity should be complete within a couple of months.

Why so serious?

2011-12-01T12:00:00.001-02:00

When I first had the idea of making Polymorphous Perversity, I wanted it to be a simple somewhat-surreal sex themed RPG. It is about sex, it contains sex, and it is aesthetically sexual.

The first place I ever posted the game was in a French RPG Maker community called Oniromancie. I asked permission from the moderator first - not many places would allow such game to be posted. Initial reactions were mostly "lol" and "wtf". But at some point, I got annoyed that people were laughing at my game so much. I didn't think it was a comedy game. And when I complained, someone said something like:

- You have a penis for a HUD. How can you expect anyone to take that game seriously?

To which I replied "I am taking it very seriously". But of course I always expected this game to be funny in parts. For some neurotic reason, sex tends to be taken as a funny subject. Modern comedy resorts to sex themes often because, in case you're not creative or witty enough, just saying something sexual will make your audience laugh.

I do not think I'm making a comedy game, though. A comedy game is one made for the purpose of drawing laughs from the players. Though my game has its funny bits and some deliberate jokes, it's not a comedy game, as it is not the main purpose of the game. People don't have to laugh to enjoy it. People may not even laugh at all, and taking it more seriously could even add to the experience. It's like Marvel Brothel: people lolled at it, but it was not a comedy game. It was a business simulator. Polymorphous Perversity is not a comedy game.

What offends me even more is saying it is not a "serious" game. I think it is, since I'm taking it seriously. In my opinion, a non-serious game is one that the developer makes without putting much thought and effort into it. He doesn't really care whether it'll be good, it'll be fun, it'll be balanced. He's more like "lol I can mak gams". And I've seen too many of those, which only makes me angrier at the comparison.

I will not fall into the trap of saying my game is super serious in the sense that it is a serious approach to sexual issues. It could be. Right now, I'm torn as to whether my approach is more scientific or more artistic (a blog on that later). But it is very serious as a game.

I believe that when someone sees a dick HUD on the screen and laughs at it, it's sort of what happens if you see a naked guy running on the street and you laugh. It's not just "funny". It's more like a defensive way to deal with uncomfortable stimuli. People deal with that kind of thing differently, and that's the whole point of the game. Not comedy.

I will not deny that I sometimes resort to little jokes here and there. I want to make the game enjoyable in more than one way. But there's seriousness behind every joke.

Save-do-regret-load

2011-11-24T09:43:00.002-02:00

I've just stumbled upon an important design issue for this game: save points x save anywhere.

I always hated save points. RPG Maker 2003 lets you save anywhere by default. Still, lots of games made in RM2K3 have save points, which means they forbid you to save anywhere and force you to look for specific places to save. So, when you want to stop playing, you can't just quit and come back later... you have to look for a save point, which sometimes is not as near as you'd like.

It is worse when save points are badly placed. There are games with huge cutscenes before difficult battles that force you to rewatch the entire cutscene in case you die in that battle.

So, unless there are places in which the player may get stuck and you don't want him to be able to save there, I see no reason for not letting the players save anywhere.

BUT

Polymorphous Perversity is, in a way, a game about morals and choices. Will you pay the farmer to have sex with his daughter? Will you fist the tranny looking for treasure inside her? Well, some choices are important, some aren't. But in a game where you can save anywhere, it's very very easy to undo those choices. Just save-do-regret-load. I don't want this to happen. So, for the first time, I'm thinking about adding save points. But I still hate them, saving anywhere makes the game a lot friendlier.

What to do, what to do?

Player sexual involvement

2011-11-10T11:05:00.003-02:00

One of the main questions I raise with this game is how much can a player get sexually involved with it. Or even, can someone get sexually involved with the game at all?

Well, I can anticipate a yes answer to the second question. But I'm writing this post to remove some weight out of this assertion.

In one of the comments on RockPaperShotgun's piece on Polymorphous Perversity, someone said it would be too pretentious to me, as a developer, to expect players to learn more about their sexuality by playing a game like this. Though I never made such claim (that one could learn about his sexuality playing Polyperv), it could be true depending on the weight you put on that.

For instance, if you go to the market, try a fruit you had never tried before (like this), and end up enjoying it, you'll have learned something about yourself, won't you? That's as far as my pretension goes.

For that matter, there are many things you can do in Polymorphous Perversity that have very little impact on the game itself. For instance, once you learn the masturbate skill, you can use it anywhere (literally, anywhere). Though it has an impact inside battles, it's purely aesthetical outside of them.

Still, I expect players to do it. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But if they do it, it will be for purely sexual reasons.

Another example, based on things I've been reading about balloon fetish, I added some balloon stuff in the game. There is a balloon item that is somewhat difficult to obtain, and you can sell it for money. Or you can just pop it, which does nothing but visual and sound effects of a balloon popping. I expect some people will pop it. Maybe once, maybe twice, maybe more. Why would they do that?

There are really a lot of instances in the game where players can opt to do sexual stuff. Sometimes they have an impact on the story, or game mechanics, but most of the time they don't. Still, players will do those things, and it's safe to say, to me, that it's out of sexual reasons. They might do it without thinking, they might do it consciously, or maybe self-consciously. And then they may go "what the hell am I doing?", and that's the point where you can start... observing yourself.

I shouldn't be making a post about this, because it can bias player's behavior inside the game... like I was there watching, saying "told you so". But not many people have been reading this blog anyway, so... eh.

Difficulty

2011-11-01T14:37:00.005-02:00

Today my brother asked me a question: in games where there is some sort of progression (like gaining levels), do you actually get stronger over time, or do you just keep balanced with the enemies / challenge level?

If you think of traditional RPGs in which you gain levels and raise your basic stats, although you increase your power in absolute terms (higher numbers), it remains the same in relative terms, because the stats of the enemies increase throughout the game as well. So, although it works as a motivational factor, there's a certain illusion of progression in games like that.

It's only an illusion to a certain extent, because not only you get higher stat numbers, but different skills, more items, more party members, game options, etc., so there is an actual progression in the game. But the diversification of the challenge increases as well, and even though you get stronger and learn to play better during the game, the final parts are almost always harder than the initial parts of the game (i. e. enemies have complicated defenses, use tricky skills, etc.).

It's not really a flaw. I'm just writing this to introduce how I dealt with difficulty in Polymorphous Perversity.

First, I have to say I don't like hard games. I don't like games in which you die a lot and have to retry the same bits lots of times. I don't like it, period. And I don't make difficult games. If you played Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, you'll know it's an easy game. Very hard to actually get a game over. But though you can finish it with little effort, you'll need more thinking to get good scores.

I'm using a similar approach in Polyperv. With twists.

Disclaimer: I'm using the terms battle, enemies and damage because I am (and you probably are) more familiar with them. But like I said before, there are not actual battles, and they are not really enemies.

I described the battle/sex system in a previous blog. Finishing battles is fairly easy, as you can just keep using the basic fuck command and rest/use items to replenish stamina if necessary. Still, if your stamina reaches zero, you get no XP but you don't die either. The problem is: mashing the fuck command will probably get you a bad score.

Getting a good score involves some practice, and learning new moves. That means you're likely to get bad scores on all initial battles. Only later in the game you'll be prepared to get really good scores, even on the initial enemies.

For that reason, overall there's no clear increase in enemy difficulty through the game. Some enemies are harder (they have more stamina, use more skills, act more often, etc.), but the harder enemies are not necessarily at the final parts of the game.

My thinking is: finishing off battles quickly is so easy (and gets progressively easier) that players will start wanting to get good scores. Then they'll start thinking, and looking for tools to do it. And if they return to the enemies they fought early in the game, those same enemies will be harder... in a subjective way.

There's also a little problem: the main damage stat is potence, which determines how much damage your fuck attacks causes. As you increase your potence, battles will finish off more quickly... which is not always good. There are ways to reduce your own potence inside the battles, like masturbating, or repeatedly using the fuck command, etc. That's another element that makes the game harder/more strategical as it progresses.

There are bosses of course, and they are hard. But if you fail in them, it doesn't make a real difference story-wise (most of them).

There is a part where I went traditional though. Final parts of the game have a higher degree of challenge... not only with more bosses, but with less ways to rest between battles. If you fail a battle, your horny meter increases, and if it goes too high, you get a real game over. If you don't worry about good scores during the whole game, you'll get very little XP, your character will be weak, and you'll be unprepared to deal with the real final challenges.

That's not really an alternative way of increasing the difficulty of the game over time. This is my way of having the game be as difficult as the player want it to be. If you want it easy, easy it is. If you want complicated, there is fun for you too.

Gamey game

2011-10-24T10:27:00.006-02:00

So I've spent enough blogs talking about fetishes and sexual weirdnesses, but not enough talking about the game itself. Well, the game is full of sexual weirdnesses (and non-weirdnesses), but there's more than that.

Like I said in a previous blog, originally this game was supposed to be very simple and bland RPG with the focus on the content (sex). It was also supposed to be finished in two months (one can dream). But I quickly remembered a game should have more than a strong theme to be interesting. It is a game, so it needed to be gamey. Not everyone would be interested by ingame sexual weirdness, so I needed something to attract other players.

My decision was NOT to innovate in basic RPG aspects, and follow all the traditional formulas that have worked for classic games. So, apart from the theme, this is a very ordinary RPG in many ways. You can expect:

Semi-linear story structure
Side quests
Dungeons
Battles
Boss battles
Leveling-up
Simple character customization
Learning new skills
Items and shops
Treasure chests
Random talking NPCs
Minigames

Battles
One of the biggest difference to traditional RPGs refers to battles. Polymorphous Perversity uses RPG Maker 2003's default battle system (which is a replica of Final Fantasy's) in a modified version. There's only one character in your party, and your goal in battles is not to kill enemies, but to pleasure partners. There's a stamina measure that's similar to HP, and battles end when it reaches zero. Moves, apart from dealing stamina damage, cost a bit of stamina (and sometimes additional points called tricks, similar to MP). You can heal yourself, but partners rarely will. That means they slowly kill themselves as they attack you. Battles are often very easy, but the point is not just to reduce partner stamina to zero, but to give him as much pleasure as possible. Battles are scored in 4 factors:

Duration
Amount of pleasure given (each move raises it in specific values for different enemies)
Chain attacks (using the right sequence of moves, varying among different enemies)
Maximum damage delivered in a single attack (proportional to partner's maximum stamina)

At the end of each battle, this value is calculated and a score is given in a scale of F to A. The higher your score, the more experience points you get.

If you "die" (your stamina reaches zero before the partner's), the battle ends and you get no experience points, but you don't get a gameover. That is, you never really die in battles, there's no clear victory or defeat. The gameover comes from another condition. There is a meter at the top of the screen that says how horny you are. It grows with time. If you win a battle, it is lowered. If you lose, it is increased. If you fight a streak of battles, you'll probably begin each of them tired (low stamina), and your chances of winning is subsequently lower. If you keep dying, your horny meter will reach its maximum and then you'll actually die. That's your difficulty for ya.

Stats and level up
Once you get enough experience points, you gain a level. Each level you can raise one single stat. Each stat has a different function in battle.

Battles don't give you money. You can get money by item chests, or working. There are basically two jobs in the game: prostitute and miner. Mining is a completely non-sexual activity in the game. I tried making it a fun minigame on its own.

There is also a story, but I don't want to reveal much about it. You're a guy from the real world thrown into a bizarre sex-driven world, and you must find your way out, while understanding why you're there. It has to do with the Tale of a Flower.

I guess that's it. As for completion status, I have almost all the basic maps and scenes made, all systems working. Now I need to fill the final town, make the entire ending scene, and catch up with lots of minor details I left behind. I have no idea how long it will take, but I will finish it... promise.

Fetish Confessions

2011-10-21T23:54:00.002-02:00

I keep getting told of more and more strange fetishes and paraphilias... bug chasing, vore, balloon fetish... I don't know if anyone shares this curiosity with me, but what I really like is not just knowing that there is such a big list of fetish possibilities, but I like trying to understand and putting myself inside the mind (or some other organ) of people with such tastes.

I found a really cool text that discusses unusual fetishes and tries to understand what goes inside the mind of people who have them. I didn't find the full text in any reliable website, so I made a google docs file for it, and you can read it here:

Fetish Confessions

by Sandy Brundage

There's one particular part that got my attention:

"When I admitted that I still cringe whenever a balloon pops, Mike laughed. "I'm sorry. I'm still phobic myself. That's where my whole fetish derived from, that fear."

"It's like your brain's way of processing fear. It makes sense when you think of how people get scared and turned-on at the same time, like at a horror movie."

Fetishes derived from fear is something new to me, but it makes a whole lot of sense, as far as their origins go. A balloon fetish is as strange as a balloon phobia, and it's really not that strange to think that they may have a common denominator, or maybe they're even the same thing. That reminds me of a very annoying (and shall I say, suspicious) psychological study that states homophobic men are secretly homosexual. Psychoanalytically speaking, the base origin of every perversion is the repression of libido in its form or goal. Well...I'll have to put some more thought to it.

As for how the game development goes, I've been setting myself on a discipline of working on the game every morning, no matter how much other stuff I have to do. Progress is slow, mostly because of the time I spend spriting. But it's going well. Thanks to everyone who's been sending me pictures.

Crushed

2011-10-11T12:58:00.002-03:00

After a few months of open-mindedly researching sexual preferences, practices and tastes, I couldn't avoid the feeling of "I've seen it all", of being desensitized (like I mentioned on my previous blog). But I wasn't prepared for what I've just read on the Bathroom Wall.

Crush films: films depicting the crushing of animals (either small or large) used as fetishes, inducing sexual arousal.

... what?

After clicking some links, I found this story:

"the death of Bryan, 28, was related to his wife's habit of stomping rabbits and mice for sexual pleasure. (...) Stephanie did not deny that she drove over her husband, but in her own defence she released tapes to the police showing her stomping small mammals to death. (...) Such "crush" videos are sold to people who derive sexual pleasure from the sight of death, especially at the hands of a woman. (...) Stephanie contended that she was an unwilling participant in the videos, and had been beaten many times by her husband prior to his bizarre death. (...) As for her husband, his death under the wheels of his car was presumably a loving sex act between consenting adults."

... what?

Now I'll admit... I'm not a complete stranger to that idea. My game Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer was built on a very similar premise: love expressed through violence. Anyone with basic understanding of Freudian theories will acknowledge that sadism is a perversion of sexual gratification. In Beautiful Escape, Verge tortures the people he likes. His love affair is ultimately consumed in an act of violence. I knew I wasn't making that up, I believed that some people can derive sexual pleasure from that sort of stuff.

I'm very sensitive when it comes to animal violence (much more than with humans), and that's partially why this crush films thing scares me and crushes my open-mindedness a bit. But considering this Stephanie/Bryan story, it's probably safe to assume that the crushing fetish is animal-oriented only in the basis that it can't be easily fulfilled with people. But the crushing of people is probably... hotter.

I almost dismissed the entire thing as way too uncommon and rare to even consider it as something to be taken into account for the game. But then I remembered the popularity of Beautiful Escape, and how much people enjoyed it, even if such joy was sometimes hidden behind other feelings. Am I saying that there are many more sadists and "crushers" than it would seem at first glance? Yes, sort of. The whole idea of polymorphous perversity (the concept, not the game) is that human beings can take sexual gratification from all sorts of stimulation, though cultural and invididual factors shape practices and behavior to an extent.

What have I gotten myself into?

Unsexed

2011-10-06T11:26:00.004-03:00

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...

Quick update

2011-09-26T11:56:00.002-03:00

I haven't updated the blog for a while, and I wish I could say it doesn't mean I haven't been working on the game, but it does. This semester I quadrupled my work hours, so I've been busier.

But I'm organizing my schedule, and now I'm back on track. Still working on the game, and I one hundred percent promise I'll finish it. Hopefully by the end of the year.

Still, I'm not sure I will be updating the blog much two reasons.

1 - I don't want to spoil the game too much.

2 - I created this blog to discuss some game design issues. But since I don't get much feedback on the things I post... why bother?

I am gonna need 100 testers though. I have no idea where will I find them right now. That's why I wanted more people to follow this blog. But I have tricks on my sleeve I could use in case of emergencies.

Sex in video games

2011-08-11T23:48:00.002-03:00

I just watched this piece on youtube: Video Games and Sex by Daniel Floyd, taking a retrospective on how video games deal with and present sexual themes.

I also found out that there's a game full of graphical sex called BoneTown, described in its own page as follows:

In this funny sex game, you'll get it on with hot chicks, beat up dudes, and do crazy drugs. You are the town's only hope to keep The Man, Inc from "moralizing" BoneTown, but you'll have the help of BoneTown heroes like Jesus and Ron Jeremy and you're armed with mighty fists, tasty booze, crazy drugs, and a big cock.

I am happy to know that there are explicitly sexual games like this. I mean, they exist, and that's awesome. I am also happy to know that, even though there are more sex games than I imagined, none of them is remotely similar to Polymorphous Perversity. Good to know that I'm not rewriting the Bible.

On a side note, I'm not happy with the lack of attention this blog is getting. I'm about to use some very cheap tricks to change that.

Re: Sexual Video Games Are Good For Us

2011-07-29T18:24:00.002-03:00

On July 16th 2011, Leigh Alexander, curator of the indie video game gallery/arcade Babycastles hosted an exhibit of indie video games loosely themed around "sex" named Bad Bitches. I know this because one of my games, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer was there. That choice made me curious, as I'm not sure I would categorize the game as sexual. I mean, there is sex in it, but it's not a game about sex, or a sexual game.

Interestingly, the featured game of the event, Lesbian Spider Queens of Mars is not really sexual either, at least in my opinion. It's about a Spider Queen facing a rebellion of her slaves, and she must capture them back before they capture you. Oh, and everyone is topless. It's a pretty fun little arcade-style game, and there are definitely some light bondage references there, but... at this point of video game history, especially indie video games, it surprises me that there's so little sex in a game that represent games in a gaming event about sexuality.

Recently Leigh Alexander herself posted an article on Kotaku called Sexual Video Games are Good For Us, talking a little about the Bad Bitches event, and discussing sexuality in video games. She says she's always been fascinated about subtle sexual hints on mainstream games and always enjoyed writing about them while other people only seemed to be concerned about game mechanics. More interesting, she points how the subculture of video games has its space for fantasizing, escapism and its own kind of fetishism.

It is fascinating indeed, but not surprising. People are extremely sexual beings, and they find ways to match sex with everything (even chess?). Video games have grown to a degree of complexity that allow them to have a take on a lot of aspects of human life, and they certainly do occupy a huge part of many people's lives. So, yeah, sex is there.

What is more recent and definitely interesting is that people are explicitly addressing the issue of sex and video games, because it's always been there. My props to Leigh Alexander for doing this in Bad Bitches. It is also what I'm trying to do with the game... kinda.

But why are sexual video games good for us at all? I have no answer to that.

What I can say is that I am an appreciator of sex in video games (and movies, etc.), but strong implications with no presentation annoy me a little. I mean... the idea that the characters of a game have sex doesn't turn me on, it frustrates me... unless the sex itself is shown. And what pretty much every video game do is insinuation... fade-outs, blurs, sound-only, there's a huge effort on making sure you don't see anything. That's basically the reasons why I decided to make this game. Let them see.

Leigh Alexander's words made me wonder about one thing though... is explicit sex in video games actually more sexually enticing that the subtle hints games leave us? People may fantasize about watching some video game character, like FFX's Rikku, having sex for instance... but would watching it happen be more exciting than just desiring it?

I hope not, or Polymorphous Perversity may turn out to be extremely non-sexual.

I have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

PS: I lied, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is purely sexual.

Tale of a Flower

2011-07-11T14:17:00.000-03:00

What's in, what's out

2011-07-10T23:11:00.002-03:00

When I first started making this game, I thought I should try to include all kinds of stuff that might sexually arouse people. Not only paraphilias, but... stuff. Aiming too high, but still I should try.

So, one day, I was designing this female slave you can purchase to do things for you in your house, and I asked a friend: what would you like an ingame sex slave to do for you? Among other stuff, he said "I don't know, make you her slave". To which I replied... "nah". But I realized players could think that when playing - "I wish this slave could..." - and "nah" isn't the right attitude for what I was aiming for.

Then I realized... an "I wish" reaction from the player may have the same kind of effect as something that actually happens inside the game. Just the fact of thinking of something he would want to be in the game can be stimulating, can trigger the type of thoughts I want triggered. To the unconsciousness, reality and fantasy are complementary and have similar degrees of impact (would quote Freud here). That made be feel good about not having EVERYTHING in the game (But I will get close, promise).

In other words, I expected players to be stimulated by what they see/do in the game, and by what they DON'T see/do. We'll see.

I am not giving interviews

2011-06-20T11:48:00.005-03:00

Making this game has been a very interesting and weird experience. Researching sexual preferences, googling for pictures, spriting 24x32 sex, reading and writing porn, getting e-mails with naked pictures from players... it's all very weird. Fun, at first, but gets somewhat unpleasant after a while, and the feeling of numbness I'm getting towards the theme is disturbing.

Why I do it? Not sure. I could list a number of reasons, all of them true, none of them too important.

I'm past the point of enjoyment, and right now I just want to finish this and move on. Get rid of the karma. For this reason, I won't be willing to talk much about this game once it's finished. I'll be tired of thinking and speaking about human sexuality. So no interviews. Hope I don't sound arrogant.

Meanwhile, all my thoughts regarding the development process are posted in this blog. The answers to all questions can be found here. My thoughts about this game change all the time, so I post them fresh.

Player participation

2011-06-11T09:25:00.002-03:00

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, this is a game that needs player participation. There are a few ways in which you can help and participate, and I made a special page for them here.

Special thanks to Nightmare Mode, particulary Patricia Hernandez for helping me with this!

My relationship

2011-05-27T23:50:00.002-03:00

I had a very weird insight today: I treat my game like a girlfriend.

I'm in love with it and I want to show it to everyone;
Even when I'm not actively planning something or working on something, I'm always thinking about it at the corner of my mind - I do think about it all the time;
I feel bad when I neglect it for too long;
When I have the perspective of free time, the first thing I think is how am I going to use it to work on my game;
When things are going good with it (e.g. I'm making good progress and I'm satisfied with the results), everything else in my life seems to be ok or loses importance.
When I'm more involved with the game, I feel less interest in people in general and lose touch with friends a little.

Yeah, I know, weird. But the good thing is: it loves me back.

Developing rants

2011-05-19T18:25:00.006-03:00

People have no idea how tricky the process of making a game is.

This was supposed to be a game made in little time, with not much thought put into things. Some sort of "first thing that pops into your mind" game.

The longer you take to make a game, the less likely you are to finish. The more detail you put into things, the longer you take. So people who make games should never try to make everything as good as it can be. That's a lesson learned long ago.

So, I was making this ranch map.

This is an entrance to a ranch map. The real stuff happen inside the house. Here, there are just some people you can talk to. I think it looks fine.

One day, thinking about the game, I decided this map should be bigger, so players could get the feeling like the ranch is placed on a big land. It would improve atmosphere, setting, etc. So I double the map width, and started adding... stuff.

Took me about 3h to add stuff. And then I realized: if I go on like this, I'll never finish this game. And then I undid everything.

That's a thought I have to keep in my mind at all times. I've given up on projects due to excessive thinking before. Don't want it to happen again.

It's funny how my later maps look so much more like normal games (graphic-style-wise) than my first maps, which were supposed to be plain-looking and more unique. Gotta be careful with that.

I've also decided I'll never make an RPG again. There's just too much effort on details that don't have a concrete impact on gameplay... like mapping, NPC speech, minigames, etc. I mean, it is important, and I like games that are full of details that improve on atmosphere. I've just been lacking the patience.

Oh, and check for new screenshots!

Birthday post

2011-05-05T11:04:00.002-03:00

It's my birthday! Yay!

And that's actually the reason I haven't been working on the game for the past couple of weeks. Birthday preparations. Which means I'll go back to it strongly next week.

Coincidentally, this came out today:

Interview with Nicolau Chaud, Mind Behind Polymorphous Perversity

I was happy with this interview, because it allowed me to say a few things I hadn't said in any other context. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Don't forget to follow this blog and write stuff on the Bathroom Wall.

Conceptual issues

2011-05-02T22:39:00.002-03:00

The concept of this game has changed a bit in my mind, I thought I would share some info on the process.

I took a break from making games after Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer. But for a long time I had my next project on my mind. It's called Daddy, but I won't talk about it here.

Daddy was supposed to be a big project, and I spent a lot of time planning and preparing it. But it got me tired, and I felt like making a game for fun.

I wanted to make a game with sex. I always hated games and movies with strong sex implications and no sex scenes. Like... screen fading out (Fable), or just the faces of the characters showing (most movies), or mosaic censor on genitals (The Sims). Sex is cool, it gives space to many gameplay options. I wanted to make a game about something else (like high school kids with superpowers), and add sex in it.

I'm not sure how, but the idea eventually slipped from "a game with sex" to "a game about sex". I guess it's obvious that any game with strong explicit sex elements would be seen as a sex game anyway. So I decided to do this, and push the limits of the concept.

Hence, Polymorphous Perversity.

This project was supposed to be a lot like Space Funeral in terms of execution and gaming experience. I even asked for permission from its author because I expected the games to be very similar. I wanted a game that looked raw, that didn't require complex coding to make, that used custom simple graphics, with no focus on gameplay, no complex dialogs, just something very brainstormy that looked like a person's dream. I wanted to have fun making this game. I also wanted it to be done fast, so I could go back to Daddy.

It's coming nothing like I planned.

First, even making custom sprites with a limited color palette, my graphics don't look as raw. They just look 8-bit-ish. I guess I'm too stuck to my previous stiff spriting style. But I guess I still managed to make it look unique and dreamy.

Second, I was insecure about making a game with no attractive gameplay. So I changed from using a default battle system with no real spice (other than replacing regular attack names with sexual terms) to a more complex strategy-oriented custom battle style. I'm also adding Achievements and other stuff to make gamey-gamers enjoy this.

I still wasn't satisfied. So now I'm changing the final element: story. Initially, there was no real story. Just a story concept (you're a Joe thrown in a strange sex world) and minor plot excuses to make you go from A to B and explore the world. But I can do better. I'm still not sure what the story is gonna be like, but there will be one, with legitimate plot twists and some degree of depth.

I guess only now I'm satisfied with how this game looks like in my mind. Now it's just a matter of making it.

RPS feature and the hype

2011-04-29T23:52:00.002-03:00

This game was featured today on a very hip gaming website, Rock, Paper, Shotgun. So now it's officially overprecociously hyped.

I guess it's just safe for me to say that I don't know what people should expect from this game. It's not an educative game, it's not a game made to express a psychological theory, it's not a joke game, it's not an "OMG-shocking!" game, it's not an expression of my masturbatory dreams, like someone said (maybe a little), it's just a standard RPG full of sex, dicks, vaginas, tits, butts, cum, sodomy, fetishes and paraphilias. That's all. Rather not say "the point behind all this is...".

I know I can't avoid people having such different and extreme reactions to the concept. I mean, sexuality varies immensely among people. It reflects on things like that.

I will need some concrete degree of "fan support" for this game in many ways, none of which I can say right now. But I beg for people to subscribe to this blog (follow) and keep up to date with the news. I'll be asking for specific things from people often.

Another article, and words on this blog

2011-04-26T09:23:00.003-03:00

The internet is amazing... there is another article on it already, on a blog called Nightmare Mode.

It's kind of scary to see people creating expectations towards this game, since I'm trying to lower my own expectations because I'm not sure what I will be able to accomplish with this. Both those blog posts are slightly outdated in terms of game concept because I'm already a little further in development, and some things changed.

In this forum, I wrote a little about the game's battle mechanics.

On one hand, it's a good thing that this game is getting a share of attention while still in development, because I'll be able to set directions based on what people are saying and expecting. It's not that I'll shape this game to fit everyone's expectations, because frankly, I don't think people even know what to expect from it. I don't, fully, either.

There are some things about the nature of this game that will depend on external participations. I'll need a huge number of testers before releasing the final version, for reasons I shouldn't tell yet. There are other things that will require (or at least be improved by) the participation of other people, and for that reason, I'm requesting people to subscribe to this blog and keep track of updates, because if there are enough people following it, I'll be able to make some requests eventually.

Also, the blog is kinda empty right now, but that's because I'm lazy. I'll fill it with content in time.

First article on the game!

2011-04-23T17:22:00.002-03:00

I was trying not to talk about this game too much, since it's in its early stages of development... but this is the internet, it's not like we can hide anything.

Jordan Rivas wrote a very cool article about Polymorphous Perversity on his blog, and it's definitely worth checking out.

Now I feel pressured to finish this soon. I guess that's a good thing.

Polymorphous Perversity

2011-04-18T10:00:00.001-03:00

Polymorphous Perversity is a computer game created in RPG Maker 2003. It is a sex themed game.

Story

You are [insert your name here], a young male with an unknown sexual disorder captured by some mysterious agency and thrown into a bizarre parallel reality where everything gravitates towards sex.

You're set on a sexual quest to explore unknown lands, meet strange people, and learn more about your sexuality.

Concept

Polymorphous Perversity is an exploration of human's sexuality. You're set to learn about all dimensions of human's libido, every way in which a person can obtain sexual satisfaction, fetishes, paraphilias and perversions.

Polymorphous Perversity is a concept developed by S. Freud:

The ability to find erotic pleasure out of any part of the body. According to Freud, a young child is, by nature, "polymorphously perverse" (Introductory Lecturs 15.209), which is to say that, before education in the conventions of civilized society, a child will turn to various bodily parts for sexual gratification and will not obey the rules that in adults determine perverse behavior. Education however quickly suppresses the polymorphous possibilities for sexual gratification in the child, eventually leading, through repression, to an amnesia about such primitive desires. Some adults retain such polymorphous perversity, according to Freud.

So, though some people find sex funny, this is not really a comedy game. It's a sex game.

Features

- All kinds of sexual activity and sexual partners.

- Reduced color palette, warm colors.

- RM2k3's default battle system adapted to "fuck" instead of "attack". More skills to be learned.

- Horny meter. Many things make you horny. You can reduce your meter by having sex (battling). If the meter grows too high, you die. Horny meter grows with time too.

- Game responds to your performance and sexual preferences.

- Facesets don't show faces, but other parts of the body.