Sunday 10 August 2014

July Open Thread: Summary

“Not to beat the horse too badly, but as others have said I think it should be up to the author. As this is all for-fun as opposed to for-profit, there isn't a need to try and please the majority.” SpikeTheGoat
“As an author I am always fascinated to know what other people like and don't like in their AIF.” Blue Satyr

When we do open threads that ask for general opinions (which have been most of them) people seem to split into two camps: A) let authors design what they want and B) let’s get a general feel for the community.

I think I speak for camp B when I say, this, nor none of the other open threads, is meant to serve as guideline or restriction for what authors should/have to design. I understand that it easily can seem that way given the rankings and strong opinions, but the idea isn’t to put peer pressure on designers, but to help those designers who want to know more about their audience opinion and/or just find the topic interesting.

I wanted to lead off with that because I’m now going to give an overview of how things came out once I added the rankings together. This isn’t meant to be a list of ‘here is what to include’, just a general summary for those who are interested.


When I put up the 1-5 system I never intended to add the results together, but as I was going to talk about each of the categories I figured I start from the ‘top’ and go down. Not going to spend a lot of time on comments, just some general statements.

Threesome+: Very few comments on this from people, but it had the most support. I guess this was just obvious.
Exhibitionism:  I would not have expected this to come out so high, but it was really helped by the fact that there were zero opinions ‘opposed’, with everyone being at least in favor with some strong supporters.
Masturbation: This was very strongly supported other than a lone ‘1’ opinion that kept it out of the top.
Lesbianism: For some this is a ‘must have’, others good, but not necessary.
Rough Sex: Another that I didn’t expect to see up this high. I think this was helped by a broad definition of ‘rough’, as two people’s opinion on what that constitutes might be very different.
Orgy: General consensus ‘good luck coding this’, but the focus here is what individuals would like to see, not necessarily how hard it is to do.
Dirty Talk: This was generally supported, but some talk about keeping things in the right amount, which probably varies from person to person.
Incest: I liked Thundergod’s comment, “with hesitation, because I think a lot of it is creepy and arbitrary. Give me a reason.” There were two replies that gave strong approval to incest.
Anal: Based on what actually gets put in AIF, not surprised by the support.
Spanking: A few people really viewed this as essential and no one listed it as something they were really opposed to.
FemDom: A rather strong showing. I expected this to be much more of a mix with some strong support and some harsh dislike.
Gangbang: Very middle of the ground, one 5, with only two 2s.
Virgin: More of a non-issue for many than I expected.
Non-Con:  Judging by the comments, it clearly turns some people off, while most others were in the middle.
Male-Dom: Definitely didn’t expect this below FemDom, but the reaction is that it just seems to be not needed.
Bondage: I thought we’d have more categories like this, either strong support or strong opposition. Some people really want more, some were very turned off.
Lolita: Given the content of AIF games, especially some of the more popular ones, surprised to see this so low.
Mind Control: Down towards the bottom; I wonder if the strong dislike is why MCGames have developed along a different platform (RAGS) then get used on “normal” games.
Feet: If BlueSatyr hadn’t come in at the end this would have been either dislike or don’t really care.
Pegging: Started strong before a string of 1s.
Beastiality: I remember seeing a lot of discussion about ‘unlocking’ the beastility scene in School Dreams 3 so I thought this would get a high score from a few people, but pretty much all opposed.
                An interesting point was brought up by a two posters that ‘dogs’ and ‘centaurs’ can create a different reaction. To me they are both about the same; not opposed, but that distinction may exist for more players.
Watersports: At the bottom, had the strongest ‘turn off’ factor.

Thanks to everyone who replied, I  found it very interesting to see people’s opinions on this.

16 comments:

  1. Obviously it is pretty rough to give any real judgement based on our teensy-tiny pool of voters, but still worth looking at.

    I, too, was a bit surprised at the high votes for FemDom. Other than that not altogether jarring considering.

    And hopefully you don't take my comment above too much to heart, Archer. Definitely enjoy seeing these things and learning what other people feel about situations. Whether it influences your writings or not, it is a great boon to see how the community feels and reacts to things.

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    1. I didn't mean to specifically call you out, your quote just fit best. I think it is a good point: authors shouldn't feel pressured to put in certain content. However, I feel like it gets brought up in every thread that discusses community opinion, so I just wanted to try and nip it before it started on this thread.

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    2. Not a problem at all, and I understand your position. Just wanted to make sure mine was known as well - I enjoy these sorts of discussions and learning about our community, and look forward to more.

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  2. I think the distinction between dogs and centaurs in the Beastiality category is down to the fact that one exists only within the realms of fantasy, where the player might be more accepting of non-traditional pairings and the circumstances that lead to them.

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    1. Good point. I also think it has to do a bit with sentience and the more human-like qualities. It's easier for people to think of a centaur as a human with the torso of a whatever creature, whereas a dog is a dog.

      I know I usually think of all the emotions, higher thought processes, etc. with the mystical creatures. Maybe that is why the minicomp game worked for some people that normally wouldn't like it. You played as the dog and and it showed the thoughts of the dog and how it worked. You were an intelligent creature and had a sort of personality of your own.

      A game where you were a person screwing animals might not have been seen with such favorable responses. Had it been a walking dog-person hybrid, it might be slightly more acceptable.

      Of course I could be off on both points =D

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  3. I said how much i disliked bestiality, yet forgot that i did like the centaur in gop 3. I think some of it is a matter of intelligence, and the fact they are fantasy, it did never clicked in my mind that it was bestiality at the time.

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  4. I completely agree that the difference -- for some, not everyone -- is between reality and fantasy. I generally liked the centaur scene in GoP because it was a fantasy setting with a fantastical character (and it was cleverly written), but the other horse-related scenes in that game I could easily have done without, and I hated the dog in SD3. Obviously, though, this was a kink for GB, and he probably would have written more of it if he'd thought he could get away with it. (Ref. SD2, for example.)

    As for MaleDom vs. FemDom, from my perspective the majority of AIF is somewhat inherently MaleDom -- there's a lot of younger girl/sister, a fair bit of female virginity, a lot of passive female NPCs -- and the stronger positivity for FemDom is a reaction to that. But that's just a guess.

    Lolita: again this is a guess, but I think of this as a description where the underage status of the female lust object is the greater part of the characterization and the narrative. I can certainly see how that can be troubling for some people.

    -- thundergod

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    1. The dog scenes in SD2 were incredibly unnecessary and kind of sick, actually.

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    2. There is a lot wrong with SD2. The mechanics are amazing, and it's certainly the most orgiastic, wall-to-wall sex romp GB ever wrote (including GoP3)...though I wonder what it would have looked like if he'd actually finished it as a fully fleshed-out game.

      But Molly is just gross in the game. Way too young, way too passive. Everything with her -- the entire point of the game, after all -- is creepy. And the dog scenes with Alison and Becky are outright rape. Thankfully they're optional, but of course point completists will feel compelled to try them.

      The greater problems with the game are mostly a matter of taste; the idea of Becky being so utterly perverse, for example. But Molly and the dog...really not OK. It's not the Lolita, and it's not the bestiality, it's that they're both so creepily written. As I've said before: the more difficult the subject matter, the more the writing has to earn it. And SD2 didn't.

      - thundergod

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    3. I completely agree.

      And yet it still won three Erins, so someone out there must have liked it.

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    4. Beast: I suppose this can actually be divided up into three categories. Intelligent creatures (centaurs), monsters (fantasy), and real life (dogs). A person may be like all, none, or a combination of the above.

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    5. And yet it still won three Erins, so someone out there must have liked it.

      I wonder if part of the reason is that games with lolita and/or beast have the ability to draw in players who generally aren't into AIF. Those into AIF are going to play it anyway, while people who don't see anything special about the genre might play a game if they hear it has a particular hard to find content.

      Just a guess.

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    6. Could be. I think a lot of it just has to do with the virgin/lolita/etc. setup less so than the beast. Though it might have been a draw for some, it really was a kind of 'side' thing.


      Gross enough for many, but you weren't at all forced into it, so I didn't care that it was in (though I just didn't care for the whole rest of the theme that was the main focus, either) I suppose some major fans of the stuff might have been pulled in just for that, but as it wasn't the main focus, I'm not so sure it had much to do with the awards so much as the rest of the game.

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    7. Well, I can certainly see SD2 winning Erins just based on the endless sexual content, some of which is essentially unknown in elsewhere in the genre, plus the aforementioned mechanics. Has there ever been DP/DPP/DAP (plus optional finger-insertion) in another AIF game? Unless it was in the first British Fox episode, I can't think where else it could have been. Add bananas, Coke bottles, and, well...

      I'd think that would be more than enough for it to be someone's favorite game ever.

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  5. "The mechanics are amazing, and it's certainly the most orgiastic, wall-to-wall sex romp GB ever wrote ..."

    I replayed SD2 last night (for the first time since the first time) and this is confirmed. The positioning mechanic is especially impressive. Sadly, the whole thing feels like it takes place in a mirror universe.

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    1. Well, dream...mirror universe...either way it's the same result.

      In addition to what I just wrote, I guess I can see it being especially appealing that, of all people, Becky is written as so utterly wanton. Unlike Molly in this particular game, Becky appears to have agency over her sexuality, but the things the PC (and NPCs) can do to her in this game -- the girl who was a virgin just one game earlier -- follow somewhat naturally from her progression in Camping Trip. I can see how, for some, this rather than SD3 would be the more natural/more interesting direction for the story to take.

      It wasn't for me, but I'm only one person.

      One of the many things I like in SD3 are the easter eggs referring back to SD2, actually. The magazines are still in the drawer, but they're entirely different. There's an NPC in one of the magazines, but it's not Becky. Alison's brother is still upstairs, but they're not having sex. And so forth. That's a somewhat clever way to make the game "exist" in the universe despite it being a dream.

      -- thundergod

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