Update on player participation

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?

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

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

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

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

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:

1. Duration
2. Amount of pleasure given (each move raises it in specific values for different enemies)
3. Chain attacks (using the right sequence of moves, varying among different enemies)
4. 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

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.