My Next Project: What will change and what won't

This is going to be an insanely long post, but you can just skim the bolded stuff.
I'll list my new story ideas in the next post immediately, which will also be insanely long.

I have a lot of work still left to do on LLRR, but this is the time where I should start putting at least some thought and effort towards the next project in tandem. So I'd like to share my plans and intentions with you.

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It can be a little scary whenever a dev finishes a project and begins something new. What if the dev goes in a new direction, or what if a large chunk of fans simply hate the new execution or new idea for the next big work? I'm sure this is part of why many NSFW devs like to just work on the same game forever and ever.

But respectfully, fuck that. I have a lot of ideas in my head, ideas I'd like to manifest and give proper endings to.

So this post is about transparency. I'd like to list out all the notable elements of my work, and organize them into 3 categories:
Things that will definitely stay the same
Things that might change
Things that will definitely change

In general, the closer it is to the top of the list, the less likely it is to change, and vice-versa.
I'm going to rant and talk about my personal tastes a lot here. The intent behind this is so you can more clearly see where the lines are for me, and perhaps have an easier time guessing what my stance is on things I didn't address.
I'd like to be clear, nothing I say here is meant to bash or disparage anyone's tastes. I have some niche preferences, and I acknowledge that. If you're here, hopefully that means we happen to have a lot of the same tastes, but it's unlikely to be 100% overlap. And that's fine! I'm always going to make content that I personally love because I just don't see the point in being a dev otherwise, but it doesn't mean your tastes are any less meaningful or valid and hopefully you already know that.

Let's dive in.

Things that will definitely stay the same:

Hesitant Cheating involving the Protagonist
My work will always involve cheating. That cheating will always either be Netori (stealing women from other guys) or the protagonist cheating on his girlfriend/wife, or both. Nothing else.
Love interests will never cheat on their loved ones with anyone other than you, and in fact, the guys you steal from will never cheat on their loved ones either (because in my opinion, when you justify the cheating, you kinda kill the whole point).
To put it another way, "if any cheating sex is happening in the story, the protagonist is always directly involved."
In addition, the cheating will almost always be between two people who are relatively good-natured and kindhearted. The whole allure of cheating, to me, is the idea that there's this internal torrent of lust, both physical and emotional, between two people, and BOTH of them are holding back, and BOTH of them are giving in. I don't really dig "guy pushes, girl resists." I much prefer both of them haplessly struggling to stay loyal before giving in.

Emotional Connection
I don't want to feature shallow, emotionless, casual sex. I'm not 100% opposed to showing the classic "husband having semi-okay sex with his wife" bit of sex (long as it's very brief), but that's the edge of the line for me, and I wouldn't call that casual sex anyway.
For me, sex is not erotic at all if it is not backed by some level of genuine emotional connection. It's one of the biggest problems I have with a ton of erotica.
Tied into this, I prefer to depict protagonists who are having their minds blown by the sex. I'll never understand how seeing a completely vapid guy talking on the phone about business while he gets his dick sucked is supposed to be erotic. But a guy stammering as he talks to his girlfriend on the phone while he gets his dick sucked, and he's making obvious indications that it feels ridiculously good? That's good stuff.

Busty Beauties
Another thing that will always be constant in my work: the hyper-voluptuous anime supermodel hourglass figure. So in addition to the honkin' badonkers, this means thicc ass/thighs, flat stomach, slender frame/arms/neck. Only one sole exception: If the main character has a girlfriend/wife, she will probably always have a more modest/realistic/sane boob size because I really like the whole "cheating because she's hotter" thing and I just think bigger boobs are much hotter.

Youthful Milfs
If there is a milf in the work, she will always have a slender frame and generally look like she's in her 20's instead of an older age that makes sense. It's a sexual fantasy, I get to do this.

Straight Male Protagonist with a Personality and a Face
Generally, I do not care for blank self-insert MC's very much. Whether it's the writing or the visuals, I like to have a strong read on the male character in the scene. I like him to have clear-cut goals, and while I will play it a little safe with him generally being reasonable and good-natured, I still want him to be a character in the story.
And related to that, you're gonna see the MC's face, and you're gonna see it a lot. I do not care for the whole "hair covering the eyes" thing nearly all Japanese visual novels do, and plenty of western ones insist on camera angles that block him out as much as possible. Guys, this is not conducive to kissing or eye contact. And I love kissing and eye contact.
But it's also more than that. I've got a narrow view on what sexual scenes are erotic to me, and it's seeing a hot dude and a hot chick get it on. So while I'm at it, I'd like to clarify that there will never be any yuri, yaoi, futanaris, or ugly bastard MC's. Nothing wrong with any of those things, and I know the yuri thing in particular might be surprising to some, but it just doesn't get me goin'.

Face-to-Face Sex, Tons of Missionary
I know I'm likely more alone in this one, but so be it. Over 95% of the sex images I ever make will be face-to-face (missionary, reverse missionary, cowgirl, and lotus) and a notable majority of those will be missionary. That's just the way it is 😅
That doesn't mean I'll never do other positions. You've seen, I've made some doggystyle shots and similar. I'll still do those on occasion. But the simple truth is those positions only kinda get my motor running, and I can't work if the motor isn't running.
Also, I'm sorry about this, but no 69-ing and no anal. It's just not for me.

Kissing
It's the best. I'm partial to lip-locked kissing, making the faces press so hard together that it forms a strong curve. The open-mouth tongue stuff is fine now and then, but way too common in other works imo. Anyway, there will always be a lot of kissing.

Softcore Tone
I'm putting this one last because some of the changes I'll discuss below might push my work a little into "mediumcore." But I will often count on your imagination to help cover some of the visual workload for me. And there are certain...aspects to hardcore erotic work that in my opinion are grotesque, which I will avoid.
Chief among them is CUM. I don't really plan to depict cum in my work, and if I ever do, it will look very, very watery (slightly milky, sure). Seeing cum is not arousing to me, and the thicker it looks, the more turned off I get.
So maybe here is the place where I'll also say that the dude will always cum inside, though whether or not condoms exist will be discussed further down. But also, no buckets and buckets of it spraying everywhere even while releasing inside, I can't with that, man 🤣
I will discuss the whole nipples/genitalia thing (separately) further down, but I believe that my stuff will always have some softcore feel.

Things that may or may not change:

Renamable Player Character
I really like knowing the name of the protagonist when I'm writing dialogue. It makes it easy to write things like pet names, jokes making fun of names, name screaming during sex (imperative, I will not bend on this one), and generally just feels more freeing as a writer. I also don't really give a shit about sharing a name with the MC in a story (you wanna know what me, Walter White Jr. from Breaking Bad, and Eugene Fitzherbert from Tangled all have in common? We all thought "Flin" was a cool new name to adopt, spelling notwithstanding lol. What I'm trying to say is that Flin is not my real name).
Regardless, I've come up with a system in my head that I believe I could code, which would allow for a player to enter in a name and have it automatically spin up like 10 different use-cases for that name you could edit. For example, "Dave" might become "Daaaave" if someone's feeling exasperated, or "DAAAAAAAVVEEE" if someone's screaming that shit. "Davey" might be a cute pet name the girlfriend calls you.
I would have "Flin" as the default, with examples in each version so people could edit it.
But, I dunno. I'm not sold on this being worth it. A lot of people will just skip any VN they see where you can't choose the name, but I dunno if I care to cater to such a mindset. It's important to me that the MC has an identity, and that is easier to do with a known name.

Game structure
Do I want to use the exact same game format I invented for LLRR (by that I mean, break the story up into chapters, randomize the order of events within each chapter, have light sandbox elements and minigames to increase a random chance at a sex scene in a given chapter...), or do I want to try something new?
Or do I want to try something old, like a more standard visual novel experience?
It really depends on what story I decide to do next. I'd like my next game to be notably shorter than LLRR as a sort of "trial run" of new workflows, so it might just be a pure choice-driven visual novel. I'll discuss this more in a later post.

Sound
Mainly, I'm just wondering if I should simplify the sound implementation a little, both for music and sound effects. I really like the track fading, but it gets tedious to code.

Starting in a Relationship
For most of my current story ideas, you're in a relationship at the start. But some of my ideas involve a protagonist who is single at the start of the story.

Not Showing Genitalia
Hoo boy, the big one. Well, "Not Showing Nipples" is the other big one but that's further down (because it's more likely to change).

I want to be really clear about something: I still dislike almost all porn that's out there. I have...sheltered sensibilities, and my work will always have a "hard softcore" slant to it. Even if I showed genitalia, I'm sure you'd notice a huge difference in visual tone between what most people like to make and what I like to make.

But I will say this: I would rather not make another story in which I simply hide all genitalia. It made it too difficult to do certain types of shots that I would have liked on occasion.
Censored genitalia, I can get behind. But many people feel differently 😅
There are two common types of censoring I've seen. One is mosaic censoring, common in Japanese VN's, where the region is pixelated. The other is what I call "whiteout" or "white glow" censoring, common in Korean erotic manhwas (basically Korean manga, they're webcomics). I definitely prefer the Korean method of doing it, because shapes are still cleanly defined. It would also be the way easier method of the two, given that I use 3D models and I could just give the dick a pure white emission material. I wish I could give an example but I'm making this a public post.
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OR, I could...not censor it (cheers from the crowd).
But for me, it comes down to how well I can depict those areas in a manner that doesn't...repulse me. I've seen it done, but it is uncommon. And it would be a lot of work, for something I don't feel strongly about.
I would also like to stress that overall, the genitalia would still wind up being hidden a LOT of the time. I still like softcore camera angles, and I don't feel this burning need to see penetration.
Anyway, all this to say, I'm gonna TRY and see what I can do and promise NOTHING, and it is entirely possible I wind up just going with the whiteout genitalia route and still lots of softcore camera angles.
Oh yeah, but no pubic hair, male or female. It's extra work and I don't care for it in the first place.

In any case, we'll probably revisit the genitalia thing in a later post.

The Existence of Condoms
Look, for me, a creampie is simply the hottest way a sex scene can end, and my philosophy going into this game was "just always make every sex scene the hottest thing you can possibly imagine every time." I didn't necessarily succeed, and it invariably led to a lot of overlap between my scenes, but when every scene was something I really really enjoyed, that didn't matter.
However, I will not deny that condoms have certain arousing connotations, especially in the softcore realm. A woman grinning at you as she holds a bunch of packaged condoms in one hand saying "you're mine tonight," like, that's hot. A tied-up used condom sitting on the nightstand in front of the marriage photo, that's hot 🤣
A room being littered with used condoms as the sexy couple gasps for air, that's hot. It's the closest I'll come to understanding how seeing cum can be arousing.
So I MIGHT try acknowledging condoms in some of my works, but there may be some disconnect between that and not always acknowledging the risk of pregnancy. Though in my defense, completely safe days are WAY more numerous in reality than high school sex education (or porn) would have you believe.

Pacing
I'm gonna try to slow down the pacing at least a little. I really like slow burn stories (if I happen to know that they'll eventually lead to content I'm going to enjoy), and I really like scenes built around edging. But slower pacing is harder to guarantee because I have different story ideas and some may be easier to slow burn than others.

The Gallery
FUCK the gallery.
...I might still include a gallery. But it's right on the fence, man. What an overrated, unnecessary waste of my time. I just won't encrypt the game files next time, boom, easy. There's your gallery.
EDIT: I just find the above section fucking funny because I know I wrote this while working on the gallery after getting really frustrated with it 😂

Things that definitely will change:

Not Showing Nipples
If there is one thing I felt the most alone in during the ongoing release of LLRR, it was my stance on not caring about seeing nipples. I'm convinced that if my work had nipples, my audience would be twice as large.
Now, I've always maintained that I don't really have a problem with showing nipples. I'm just very picky, and there are many works out there that turn me off with how the nipples are depicted. However, there are also plenty of examples of drawn nipples out there that look completely perfect to me (basically any AAA Japanese visual novel or Korean Manhwa), and if I can properly mimic those art styles then we're golden. I just wasn't convinced I could do it back when I started LLRR and I truly did not care enough to try.
But I care enough to try now.
Still, full disclosure, if I can't succeed at getting good-looking nipples in my new art style, I WILL go back to depicting nothing. I'm going to try very hard, but in the end, showing nothing is better than something that weirds me out (for me). I'm 90% sure it'll be fine though.
One last thing, if the lady is wearing clothes, I'm not gonna do the thing where her nipple outlines are poking up from under it all the time. I like the smooth look that a bra enforces, and I'm gonna stick with it.

Spelling of the word "Cum"
"Cum" as a noun is always spelled cum. But the act of ejaculation as a VERB can be spelled either "cum" or "come." I looked it up back when I first started writing LLRR.
I intentionally went with "come" because, frankly, it felt less vulgar. But I've since decided that spelling it "cum" is more clear and distinct and the mild extra vulgarity is fine, maybe even hot.

How good MC looks vs. how good other dudes look
Near the end of LLRR, I've realized I'm not quite as into Kelly as I used to be. I believe there are two reasons for this. One is because I think I coulda made her hair a little "girlier" (literally by just making it curlier). Two is because cucking Eric didn't feel as satisfying to me as cucking David, largely due to the fact that Eric was a perfectly fine-looking dude. In fact, early on I decided to experiment and was like "you know what, maybe Kelly's reasonably happy with Eric. In fact, maybe his dick is only a little smaller than Flin's instead of like half the size."
My thinking on this was, I like the people cheating to still be relatively happy with their relationships. At the very least, in love. Betraying the relationship needs to be a big deal.
Regardless, I found Kelly scenes to be less satisfying than scenes with Julie on cucking David. So in the later scenes I had Kelly start claiming Flin's dick was WAY bigger and that got me more into it again.
I need to be sold on the best friend's girlfriend's motivation to cheat, and I want physical lust to be there in equal strength to the emotional lust. If the girlfriend could "almost go either way," I guess that's not that fun to me.
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I know some people hate when the male protagonist is the only good-looking guy on earth or one of the only guys on earth, and I get it. Immersion helps with eroticism and we all draw that line on "realism vs. fun" in different places. Why would an ugly dude be in a loving relationship with a hot girlfriend/wife before you come along to steal her?
But what can I say, I tried it the other way and didn't love it. I'm not gonna make all the dudes a bunch of fucking troll goblins, but just...a little subpar in some obvious way or other.
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In addition, I'm definitely going to put more work into the protagonist's model. A lot of male devs like me end up putting a LOT more effort into the design of the female characters versus the male characters. And I get it, we're here for the hot chicks, not the dude.
But I still really think the MC's design matters a lot, so I'd like to do a better job making him more obviously athletic and attractive while still using a more slender frame. "Strong swimmer's build" is kind of the gold standard for me.

The Art Style
I'm going to make an entire separate post (or posts) dedicated to this topic in the coming months. But suffice to say, I desperately need to revamp the art style completely. I expect this to bring in a lot more people if I can nail the style, and to be honest the prospect of a much larger audience scares me a bit, but I gotta try to improve my skills.
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When art styles change, people have strong opinions. I'll make my direction clear: from the beginning, I always wanted to do a typical modern anime art style ("Azur Lane" the game is pretty much the gold standard if you wanna look it up, but there are plenty of simplified versions of anime art that I'd love just fine).

Now, I'm a 3D dev, not a 2D dev, and that means my work will never look as good as Azur Lane. But that's the general direction I'd like to aim for, or something similar.

On the subject of art style, I currently don't intend to use AI in my workflow.

I will discuss this more at a later point, because this will devolve into a rant if I'm not careful. For now, these are the main points:
I didn't arrive at this conclusion lightly. I've experimented with AI tools a LOT and I don't enjoy using them except for shallow things like concept art.
I think AI tools have a tendency to breed detachment from one's own work. The less you care about what you're making, the more you'll like the AI's output.
Finally, there are things I've made in Blender that I simply can't figure out how to make using AI tools, and while I understand LORAs and ControlNet posing and stuff like that, I believe AI art fundamentally suffers from important limitations.

There are more reasons, but let's stop there. I've considered some very narrow use-cases for AI that don't rely on spitting out a complete visual product, but we'll revisit this at a later point.

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Phew! I ramble so much.

I'd like to list out all my story ideas in the next post, which I will release right away.