The Spodcast #14: Star Trek And Erotic Questions

I’m surprised none of you have tried HunniePop which is essentially a dating sim with match-3 game play. It does have the usual issues with being male-gazey and slightly misogynous, however, I specifically remember thinking of Chris in that it’s an excellent example of ludonarrative consonance. When you are pitching your woo with the available potential dates the match-3 play is untimed and strategic, but when you’re spending the night with your date, the game play encourages you play quickly and focus on match-3 plays which are tailored to the specific woman you are encountering to have her reach a climax via your game-play. It’s a light, fun softcore game.

I kind of want at least one of you guys to give Corruption of Champions a try. Not because I think you’ll like it, I think that takes sort of a particular kind of person, but because it’s pretty different from your picture of what most of these erotic games are like.

For one, it’s all text, and it’s verbose, but it focuses pretty sharply on just being about bizarre porn, not on beating Russian classics at their own game. (That’s why I’m recommending it instead of the same team’s more recent work Trials In Tainted Space, btw – that game’s a bit of a sprawl.)

For another thing, I… don’t really know whether it’s male-gazey. I can tell what I’m looking at with all these anime VNs on Steam with boobs in every shot, but CoC is kind of just pansexual, and that “pan-” goes far beyond “well both guys and girls are fine”. I would guess the player base is mostly male, yeah, but it’s definitely not a game for the frat stereotype.

For a third thing, it’s successful. Or at least it was the basis for Trials in Tainted Space’s success. Check Fenoxo Fenfen’s Patreon sometime. (Fek, who gets almost the same amount of Patreon income working all by himself, impresses me even more)

Also! TFGamesSite came up, and I have just one thing to say about that: I wonder what kind of effect it’s going to have on adult gaming in general, because while it’s one of the more healthily active sites for small-time erotic game developers around, the people on it also *really* like male-to-female transformation. As in, most commonly, games where your player character goes from male to female over time, pretty often by magic or high-tech means. I think most of the people there like it for fetishy reasons, but I know there are some trans women on there who just enjoy the fantasy of transitioning being easy. Basically, I wonder how many games there are around whose authors aren’t into MtF themselves but put it in their games because TFGamesSite loves it so much.