Research for Game Making - What Do You Guys Enjoy about Otome Games?

[VoltageIncEnthusiast]

Hello everyone, so as asked, I'm trying to gain insight from the community about what they enjoy/like and look for when they play games (otome, visual novels, and interactive fiction (text-based or otherwise)).

I've been playing otome games and interactive games for years now, and it's inspired me to try my hand at creating games. What I personally enjoy about otome games and games in general is the ability to customise the MC (physically and personality-wise). What are things that you guys like about otome games? What do you dislike (or wish could be improved) about otome games? And lastly, what would you guys want to see more of in these games? This would help me out in considering what I should do when I create my own.

All responses are welcome, I'd just like to hear from the public what they look for when playing otome games

 

[ninnikuryona]

i like seeing cute girls in romantic situations with handsome boys! i love it when boys pamper the heroine and shower her with affection. but throwing her around and trying to kill her (affectionately) works too:D i just love this dokidoki sensation that otome games provide!! and i like seeing girls being happy..........
i dont seek out selfinserting, so i think customizable mcs in otome are not for me. rpgs are fine, but otome are ehhhhh. im okay with having an established design! im just gonna treat her as her own separate character for the most part anyway w, though i like dressups in games like degrees of lewdity, mainly because of how detailed it is. making up your own characters and roleplaying as them is very fun sometimes ! but i feel like it would be pretty hard to do in otome.. so having an established heroine is good^^

what i dont really like is when love interests interact with each other or side characters too much. some absolutely necessary plot-related interactions are fine, but id like them to be kept to a minimum! yes im petty. i just dont see much point in this stuff, you know? especially considering how the genre is treated by outsiders.. and even insiders sometimes D:!
also, i dont like it when there are some baity side characters that dont have their own endings. like, im not asking for dedicated routes, but at least a couple of fanservice scenes or even fanservicey endings should be fine, right? otherwise, why make them hot? at least kill them off if youre not gonna use them for romance:"3

good luck with your development! its so fun to experiment with stuff^^

 

[VoltageIncEnthusiast]

i like seeing cute girls in romantic situations with handsome boys! i love it when boys pamper the heroine and shower her with affection. but throwing her around and trying to kill her (affectionately) works too:D i just love this dokidoki sensation that otome games provide!! and i like seeing girls being happy..........
i dont seek out selfinserting, so i think customizable mcs in otome are not for me. rpgs are fine, but otome are ehhhhh. im okay with having an established design! im just gonna treat her as her own separate character for the most part anyway w, though i like dressups in games like degrees of lewdity, mainly because of how detailed it is. making up your own characters and roleplaying as them is very fun sometimes ! but i feel like it would be pretty hard to do in otome.. so having an established heroine is good^^

what i dont really like is when love interests interact with each other or side characters too much. some absolutely necessary plot-related interactions are fine, but id like them to be kept to a minimum! yes im petty. i just dont see much point in this stuff, you know? especially considering how the genre is treated by outsiders.. and even insiders sometimes D:!
also, i dont like it when there are some baity side characters that dont have their own endings. like, im not asking for dedicated routes, but at least a couple of fanservice scenes or even fanservicey endings should be fine, right? otherwise, why make them hot? at least kill them off if youre not gonna use them for romance:"3

good luck with your development! its so fun to experiment with stuff^^

Thank you so much for responding!

Okay for established heroines, do you have set personality traits that you prefer? Like do you want to be able to dictate how the mc responds to situations (friendly, intimidating, scared etc) or would you rather the mc has a set personality but different options of actions and dialogue to choose from but still within that set personality?


I'm thinking that for the mc appearance I might give the player an option to use a preset character (name and face decided already) and then also have the option for character customisation for those who want to choose a different name or appearance. It's going to be a lot of work but I think it will be worth it

 

[noch]

I like character customization too! I notice that most devs either put most of their efforts in the appearance (usually mc's sprite, not cgs) or the personality (lots of choices for roleplaying). I guess it depends on whether your strengths lie in writing or art, but I generally don't expect a game to have diverse character customization options AND many, frequent choices, unless it's like a triple a game that has the budget for it or you have a big team to split the workload with. If I had to choose though, I think I prefer having a customizable appearance. If it's hard to get a certain ending and there's many endings, having a walkthrough and also a screen that shows which endings we got, would be nice. I also like stat-raisers but not ones that are unforgiving and unintuitive. Having some gameplay in-between helps keeps me engaged, but I understand that some people prefer to just read

As for what I don't like, and this is specific to games made in ren'py, please please PLEASE consider accessibility and ease of playing. I've played way too many that abuse the nw tag (shows the next line automatically without waiting for the player to click; e.g., li "I should have just gotten rid of her.{nw}", mc "Sorry, did you say something?") or w tag (only partially shows the line and waits for the player to click to show the rest; e.g., mc "I-I...{w} don't know...{w} if I can do this...{w} a-anymore..." is an extreme example that requires four clicks just to show the next line) for the sake of atmosphere or realism or whatever but it's honestly a hassle to backscroll or look at the history to see what was said and it loses its effect when it's done too often. And sometimes this is done in tandem to other text effects like shrinking the text size or making the text wavy or glitchy. On that note, also please don't disable any of the functionalities ren'py has out of the box like backscroll and saving during choices. The biggest culprit for all of these are yandere or horror vns, but if you're not making one it's probably not going to be applicable to you. Oh, and also, "light mode" (aka bright, light-colored) gui are my worst nightmare, as I tend to play at night or in a dark room

 

[VoltageIncEnthusiast]

I like character customization too! I notice that most devs either put most of their efforts in the appearance (usually mc's sprite, not cgs) or the personality (lots of choices for roleplaying). I guess it depends on whether your strengths lie in writing or art, but I generally don't expect a game to have diverse character customization options AND many, frequent choices, unless it's like a triple a game that has the budget for it or you have a big team to split the workload with. If I had to choose though, I think I prefer having a customizable appearance. If it's hard to get a certain ending and there's many endings, having a walkthrough and also a screen that shows which endings we got, would be nice. I also like stat-raisers but not ones that are unforgiving and unintuitive. Having some gameplay in-between helps keeps me engaged, but I understand that some people prefer to just read

As for what I don't like, and this is specific to games made in ren'py, please please PLEASE consider accessibility and ease of playing. I've played way too many that abuse the nw tag (shows the next line automatically without waiting for the player to click; e.g., li "I should have just gotten rid of her.{nw}", mc "Sorry, did you say something?") or w tag (only partially shows the line and waits for the player to click to show the rest; e.g., mc "I-I...{w} don't know...{w} if I can do this...{w} a-anymore..." is an extreme example that requires four clicks just to show the next line) for the sake of atmosphere or realism or whatever but it's honestly a hassle to backscroll or look at the history to see what was said and it loses its effect when it's done too often. And sometimes this is done in tandem to other text effects like shrinking the text size or making the text wavy or glitchy. On that note, also please don't disable any of the functionalities ren'py has out of the box like backscroll and saving during choices. The biggest culprit for all of these are yandere or horror vns, but if you're not making one it's probably not going to be applicable to you. Oh, and also, "light mode" (aka bright, light-colored) gui are my worst nightmare, as I tend to play at night or in a dark room

Thank you for responding!

Yeah I've played my fair share of games like that, since some people tend to enjoy that vibe though I think I'll have a toggle option? Players can decide if the dialogue should move on it's own or if they want to control it by clicking.

It would be a bit ambitious for me to have the ultimate character customisation but I think I'll strive to at least let the player be able to customise the physical appearance of the MC. My biggest inspirations for character customisation has been GB Patch's Our: Life Beginnings and Always and Our Life: Now and Forever.

The in game help is something I will consider doing because I get how frustrating it will be of I give the players lots of choices but they still don't get their desired ending. I'll probably also toggle it too so that players who want to go in blind can do that. Maybe something like a heart or some symbols on certain choices to show you that your romance or friendship or relationships with characters will increase/decrease if you click certain choices.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'd want to go about managing endings. I don't really want to have "bad endings" in my games. Like there will still be consequences for your actions but I want the game to be an experience where you don't think you got a bad endings but rather you got the ending that was most deserved after all the choices you made if that makes sense.


Tbh I don't get why most games get rid of save options regardless of genres I don't like having to restart a game just because I made a wrong choice or accidentally clicked something. But if it's for immersion purposes I think I'll have to figure out a system where every moment is automatically saved for you and you just load the latest save of maybe I'll blend in the save and load icons into the game or just minimise them.

Thanks again for your input! If you have anymore gripes/suggestions please leave them here, this is great help