I’ve never really played any porn games more hardcore than Baldur’s Gate 3 before, but you remember a couple weeks ago when GOG gave away those NSFW games, as a direct response to the whole thing?

Well I claimed the bundle just to boost their numbers (because censorship is bullshit), but recently I needed a low-difficulty gaming distraction, so I checked a few of them out, and… some of them are kind of good?

Like first off you have to be okay with visual novels (usually), but if you’re cool with that, some of them actually have some compelling characters, and occasionally even good gameplay in between all the fucking and whatnot.

Leap of Love is amusing, kind of adorable when it comes to the not-sex stuff, and charming. It is also a game where you (a former frog) can marry and simultaneously bed 3 princesses and their stepmother after deposing of the evil king. My brain is still trying to reconcile this.

Huniepop is one of the best match 3 puzzle games I’ve ever played, with a chill as hell soundtrack. Also a scantily-clad foul-mouthed love fairy wants you to fuck every woman in a 5 mile radius who can fog a mirror.

And Crom help me, when I finished… sigh… Fetish Locator Week 1, I actually cared enough about some of the characters to buy the next one.

The point is, some of these games have more depth and value than I’d been led to believe, and I wouldn’t have known that if the censorship thing hadn’t started that chain of events. So congrats censorship people, and honestly thanks, I guess? Completely the opposite of your intended effect. Task failed successfully.

  • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    94
    ·
    14 days ago

    One other side point that came to mind after the main post.

    We’re so conditioned to think realistic violence in games is fine, but realistic sex in games is “wrong” or “sad”. But honestly, I realized I played through 3+ games without doing any violence* and had a blast, and that was actually really refreshing.

    *okay, no non-consensual violence. I may have slapped Lyssa’s dick around, but she requested it.

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      77
      ·
      14 days ago

      We’re so conditioned to think realistic violence in games is fine, but realistic sex in games is “wrong” or “sad”.

      Not just in games. In all media. You bring to mind a great quote from George R. R. Martin.

      “I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.”

      • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        I remember a quote from a famous porn actor “nacho vidal”.

        “I’d rather have my kids playing with “fake plastic penises” around the house than playing with fake plastic firearms.”

        I’m not comfortable with the idea of kids playing with sexual toys. But it makes me feel something weird that I’m not more weirded out by kids playing to kill with fake guns.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          13 days ago

          I didn’t expect a media critique article to make it click why I don’t find “ideal” body types half as attractive as a chick with a realistic belly (of any size sans starvation) and a flirtatious smile.

          But yeah, media and culture have become largely sterilized in regards to sex.

        • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          14 days ago

          And this isn’t just the lead and the love interest: supporting characters look this way too, and even villains (frequently clad in monstrous makeup) are still played by conventionally attractive performers. Even background extras are good-looking, or at least inoffensively bland. No one is ugly. No one is really fat. Everyone is beautiful.

          Heh, this reminds me of this scene in Last Action Hero (Just watch until 1:34 or so for the scene I’m referring to.

          Honestly though, I think this might be starting to change. Looking at shows like Resident Alien and Wheel of Time, for example, there are plenty of casting choices that go against that trend. Now, I’m not saying anyone in these shows is ugly or anything like that, but there are a lot of folks being cast who are not “classic Hollywood pretty” and it’s very nice to see. I like seeing people playing the everyday Joe art who actually looks like an everyday Joe. It really breaks immersion for me when the “ugly girl” part is played by someone who is beautiful dressed in a frumpy outfit.

      • rapchee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        14 days ago

        well tbf one of the detailed sex scenes (in the book) is between a 30 yrs old khal drogo with a 13 year old daenerys targaryen, and it’s being depicted as a good thing, he’s the first guy that cares about her

    • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      Leading up to the release of Cyberpunk 2077 there was a relatively innocent post about whether players would be able to romance anyone and sleep with them. The absolute mockery and scorn OP received was shameful. It really struck me because it was so clear how we’ve been conditioned to reject sexuality while at the same time being ultra-desensitized to violence.

    • SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      14 days ago

      You know that even fantasy sex is a problem to the puritan mind, even mild representations of sex like activities becomes weird. Well in the Western society that is. I found out that some temples in India are finely decorated with more or less explicit scenes. In certain societies sex is seen as an engine. The issue with violence is that it isn’t just highly but it’s nearly a constant in our western society. Go back to the middle ages, how many people whacked each other in popular imagery. Even recently we have seen more violence than ever. Gore doesn’t do much any longer for many adults, but it’s supposed to elicit a strong evolutionary reflex of disgust and fear. I feel we’ve been overexposed to these things, but not others.

    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      14 days ago

      It was wild being raised by my mother who didn’t mind if I saw consensual sex, because I should eventually have sex, but restricted all violence because ideally I’ll never see violence in person.

      I have no idea how good this is a philosophy for raising children. Sample size is too small.

    • Strider@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      14 days ago

      Please note that this is mostly an American thing, in European TV and books we have naked people and (not too explicit detail in TV, books differ) sex.

      Some of us are always wondering about this. Something 18+ might be sex or gore related.

  • ninth_plane@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    14 days ago

    The more people play and buy porn games, the better porn games will get, same as any other genre.

  • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    14 days ago

    I never paid attention to adult games until all this controversy happened. The Streisand effect must be doing its thing on people.

  • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    Your post made me want to check these out. I only ever played one with a friend for kicks. It was a fun, cheap activity, easy to make a drinking game out of.

    It’s like how erotica can still be literature, but people dismiss it for the sexual focus. But I’ve read erotic stories that had me hooked, made interesting social commentary, had nuanced characters and were just a fantastic time.

      • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 days ago

        I wish.

        I’m terrible at bookmarking, and most of it’s random stories on the internet. My favorite was about a girl, raised by wolves, who meets a werewolf, found on DeviantArt when I was a teenager when I didn’t know what erotica was. Must be gone because I haven’t been able to find it. But had a hell of an impact since I remember it, vividly.

        Literotica has fantastic writers. I’m in a discord server with other amateur/professional writers, too. 9/10 are bad to meh, but that one in ten can rattle in my brain for days.

  • Goretantath@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    14 days ago

    Welcome to the club! Theres tons of Japanese eroge that became anime like Fate. Just because theres sexy time, don’t mean the story aint a banger either!

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      14 days ago

      Oh right, I have actually heard that about Fate. I never played any of the games, but I caught a lot of Unlimited Blade Works when my wife was watching it, and it seemed pretty solid.

  • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    14 days ago

    For vnovels, check out Katawa Shoujo. It has a great storyline and characters, and it’s free!

    If you’re looking for a platformer I’d recommend Flipwitch - Forbidden Sex Hex

  • torqued_hog@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    13 days ago

    Some of these games have incredible writing. Personally, I’d recommend trying Eternum. It’s not finished yet but there’s already a ton of content and the writing is incredible. Another game by the same person called Once in a Lifetime is also really good but shorter.

    Besides those two, I’d really recommend The Princess Trap. Also unfinished but still lots of content. This one is definitely a bit more niche and might not be for everyone but the drama and mystery in it is really incredible.

    All of these games are pretty slow to get to the sex stuff to be honest (especially The Princess Trap). But every moment in-between makes it so worth your time.

  • HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    14 days ago

    Literally, for the plot. Glad you where abel to expand your horizons and hope you enjoy more games for the plot

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    My recommendations:

    • Aurelia is an adventure point and click where you move to a cozy fantasy town. Beautiful art and presentation and just good erotica all around with reasonable puzzle and rpg gameplay.
    • Third Crisis is an ultimate gooner game. It really goes out there and if you’re into that sort of thing and it’s really well made.
    • Kaiju Princess lets you hang out with a girl who’s secretly a kaiju monster

    Most steam erotica games started out as poor quality visual novels or clone games with titties but the scene is really shaping up to something much more interesting!

  • Lootboblin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    12 days ago

    Same here (edit. I have played modded Sims 4 wicked whims though before) and I have bought now many avn/adult games on gog and steam during sales. I just finished Fetish Locator week 2 and I don’t remember last time when I have laughed so much playing a video game. I would also recommend ”Love & Sex Second Base”, that game has tons of content and plenty of characters and some nice humor as well. And it’s from the same dev as ”Leap of Love”.

  • TipRing@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    On the m/m side, the visual novel Coming Out on Top is a remarkably well-written, if saccharine, dating game about a college guy figuring things out. I don’t usually like VNs but this one was worth playing. It’s has a lot of gay sex in it, that is literally the entire point so, you know, be aware of that.

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      13 days ago

      Nice. I don’t typically go for M/M unless femboys are involved, but it’s what my wife likes, and that’s one of the ones I linked her when she asked me to research a few games for her to try.

      • TipRing@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        13 days ago

        Femboys can be hot too, though often authors seem to mix up femboys with trans women and that ends up being frustrating when I try a CHOYA game marked as m/m and it doesn’t have any actual m/m in it.

  • cccrontab@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    14 days ago

    I too claimed the games to support the cause. I randomly chose Treasure of Nadia to start and found myself really enjoying the game and story. I just finished it last week and went on to buy the developers other titles (⁀ᗢ⁀).

    I’ll have to give the other titles a try soon!

  • Soupbreaker@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    13 days ago

    I was disappointed by Fetish Locator; I wasn’t into any of the included fetishes, so I rapidly got to the end, and missed all the content. Got an ending screen suggesting I should go back and try something, but like, no thanks! Still, at least it was free!

    • Barbecue Cowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      13 days ago

      You do kind of have to buy into it. Most of the engagement of the story is locked behind the various options there, and it can really be surprisingly good beyond the adult content.

      Maybe don’t explore anything that’s a full on ick, but I would second that, if there’s something you’re at least neutral on I’d recommend giving it another shot.