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
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    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.

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        I’ve always felt that puritanical stigmatization of sex and sexuality have really fucked us up psychologically as a species.

        • Broadfern@lemmy.world
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          Puritanism comes down to “happiness is bad.“

          Not just sex; dancing, music, poetry, novels, games, decorations. Anything which takes joy in life and expression is forbidden.

          Suffering while alive is seen as the proper punishment for being born human - seeing people and nature as beautiful and divine is legitimately blasphemy to these people.

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          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.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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            Yeah, usually the stars are classically attractive still, but there’s a lot more space for other people in other roles. I think comedy in particular has a lot of stars who aren’t incredibly hot.

            However, probably a lot of people who are getting jobs as extras are trying to make their way in the industry. The industry, being dominated by attractive people, attracts attractive people. Ugly people fear they wouldn’t succeed, so it creates a selection bias.

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          Omg what an utter dogshit of an article this is. I bet a fat person expecting unnecessary sex scenes in action movies wrote it. Like go watch some BBW porn you whale.

      • baines@lemmy.cafe
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        japanese manga is a nice counter to this

        the media targeted to older readers has many well done stories that contain realistic sexuality (good and bad)

        and i’m not talking about the stupid shit like jacking it in the river gave me a half fish half man son

      • rapchee@lemmy.world
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        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
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      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.

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        What I do recall was one guy asking very specific questions about how much we would be able to customize genitals, and whether sex would be fully interactive with visuals of full penetration.

        And while none of those things are wrong per se, the general vibe of asking about all of those things was very weird and pervy.

        • HalfSalesman@lemmy.world
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          And while none of those things are wrong per se, the general vibe of asking about all of those things was very weird and pervy.

          Unshackle your mind. Reject the puritanism bonk and embrace the horniness tentacles.

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          Hm maybe my memory of the post is fuzzy but that is more pervy than I recalled. Still gets to the larger point though about how we talk about violence in graphic detail with no self-consciousness but can’t do the same for sexuality.

          • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
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            I was pretty surprised that they did have genital customization in the game, no on the other two questions though.

    • Carighan Maconar@piefed.world
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      And then you usually get “But the sex isn’t realistic!!!”… yeah? Neither is the violence, unless you are frequently the Doomslayer or something?!

      Like, how is that even an argument. How can violence in games be preferrable to sex?!

      • SparroHawc@lemmy.zip
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        Part of the actual answer to that question is that, while violence is often loud and public (and sometimes government sanctioned on massive scales), sex is something that is usually done in private, intimate settings without observers.

    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
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      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
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      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.

      • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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        Kinda funny to see it in Canada as well, especially when you throw Quebec culture into the mix (things seem a little more sex positive over there compared to other parts of the country, which is neat to think about sometimes).

  • ninth_plane@lemmy.world
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    The more people play and buy porn games, the better porn games will get, same as any other genre.

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

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    Not directly to your point but your overall experience just reminds me: we really lost something when the sexual liberation movement was largely erased. People so often dismiss it because we’re conditioned to dismiss taking sex seriously (outside of a very narrow and specific context) but there’s a lot we lose from that.

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      Tycho, of Penny Arcade, actually had some words on this subject around the time the PC version of Stellar Blade came out and people were up in arms about it. I’ll quote it here because I think it’s a good passage.

      I used to say that I grew up Christian, but I think it’s probably more accurate to say Evangelical, especially now that more people might know what I’m talking about. Sex was VERY naughty and we needed to be constantly on the lookout for incursions of this secular, demonic, but also somehow worryingly inherent force…? Breaking that pernicious notion down and enabling people to express themselves was the project I thought I’d more or less seen completed. Now it’s come around some weird bend, with precisely the same energy as before, except now it’s being done for the correct reasons. It can’t possibly be this dumb. And yet!

      It’s incredibly fucking boring to have the tail end of the revolution you saw win shame the tools that gave them victory, dust off a bunch of regressive shit, and then have the pluck to feel righteous about it.

      It sort of mirrors my own experience (minus the evangelical upbringing). I definitely recall a period of general sex-positivity that has now come around some strange turn whereby the very same voices are admonishing people for daring to enjoy sexy things.

      It’s very strange.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        It’s because both sides were always divided on sex. The “beer, titties, and jesus” crowd and the anti porn feminists had been the lesser voices of their side for a while. But in the fallout of the sexual revolution, in the 70s and 80s second wave feminism developed a really anti sex stance, especially towards deviant types of sex. This was the feminist sex wars, and its the era of a lot of the more batshit bits. But it did begin with reasonable criticism. There was fighting back however, from lesbian feminist sadomasochism groups like Samois to owned porn cooperatives where radical ideas wete tried like having the entire crew be naked so the performers weren’t the only ones exposed.

        People like to blame third wave feminism for the swing back, and I disagree. The third wave was the movement born of the critiques of the second wave, and the renewed push for sexual liberation in the 90s ans 00s was quintessentially third wave. And it got far, it did a lot, and it also left us with a lot to criticize. Whether it’s media criticism like Sarkeesian was harassed for daring to do, or it’s the unfortunately common stories of women being pressured into sex acts they don’t want with feminist language critiques had been mounting in the early 10s.

        The theoretical fourth wave is often called twitter feminism, and i think it’s best to consider that the first real thing it did that impacted anything was the metoo movement. I believe metoo was a good thing. It’s next to the Arab spring as among the few things Twitter ever did that are good. But it and the late third wave criticisms gave room for the sex negative side to return to prominence. That’s where we are now, but I dont think it will last.

        Because I think we need to remember that while there is an internal back and forth, there’s also the realpolitik of the fact that you can pull horny people if nobody else does. A chunk of gamergate is straight up that. Shining feminist media critiques through the worst possible lens to horny boys and men. Anyways the right has dropped their horny-prude coalition recently and is all in on prude, which is coinciding with chunks of the left getting tired of the dominant position of our prudes.

        Anyways free the nipple, and what 20 consenting adults do behind closed doors is their right to do.

      • nightlily@leminal.space
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        It has taken me nearly 30 years to undo that programming and it still affects me. The puriteens scare me.

  • I’ve always been open to adult only games, but for the vast majority there are only two basic types:

    • Visual Novels - Everything about these is fine. They vary from basically just a graphic novel to a full on RPG.

    • Nude Puzzles - Various cheap-ass puzzles with nude images as the prize.

    I want, like, a real game but with full adult only content. These exist, but are hard to find. And a lot of those I’ve found aren’t finished, never will be finished, and/or just suck. It doesn’t even have to be the focus. Just imagine if when you got a hooker in GTA or some other game where brothels might exist, you got to see more than a fade to black/car bouncing around.

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      A good H-game with more that 4 hours of content, good porn, and good gameplay are rare finds. Not to mention the pain in the ass of finding the decensor patches or using a non-Steam, non-English site to buy it.

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
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      That seems like a fair assessment of the current state of things, but I do want to stress how good Huniepop is as a puzzle game alone. One sparkling jewel in a sea of erotic sliding puzzle and jigsaw crap.

      If you removed everything outside the actual gem matching gameplay and soundtrack, I would still play it.

      And yeah, I started poking around and saw some of the more ambitious open world projects like you’re talking about, and they all looked like abandoned early access. But if they have the technical ability, why not show my character licking some Asari ladyparts in Mass Effect 5? Adults play a shitload of video games too. Make it an optional DLC if you have to.

    • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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      Last game I played that fit this bill was 7 Sins

      This was back in the 2000s and I was super into The Sims. I still think the gameplay holds up well.

      Its not graphic with nudity but definitely a adults only game.

      Edit:

      The entire concept of the game is experiencing the 7 sins. Greed, lust, sloth, anger etc.

      Gameplay link

    • Carighan Maconar@piefed.world
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      Yeah the exceptions are rare, and then many like HuniePop 1 and 2 or Subverse lean intentionally into overdone slapstick.

      (That being said HuniePop I can’t recommend enough, easily the best match-3 out there completely ignoring the porn parts)

    • Ashtear@lemmy.zip
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      Alicesoft is one of the major dev studios in this exact space, but their games range from having some non-con to outright featuring it. Not for everyone.

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    I wish there were more games that had NSFW stuff, but not as the main focus. BG3, Cyberpunk, The Witcher, etc all have nudity, but the sex scenes are short, cropped, and half assed because they are embarrassed.

    There needs to be quicktime events, better cinematics, and werewolves (BG3, Elder Scrolls, Witcher) during erotic scenes. Bring back A/O games. Many of these shouldn’t be even remotely aimed at anyone below 18 anyways.

    Hell, the last genuinely fun game with kink in it was Saints Row 3, and that was for comedic effect.

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    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.

    • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      people dismiss it for the sexual focus.

      I stand by this: porn is a largely untapped medium for insanely stupid comedy.

      I know we’ve all seen lemon stealing whores and whatnot, but like, we could have so much more than we do.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        One of the hardest times I’ve laughed my ass off was at a one of those semi surreal uncanny 3d porn games. Can’t remember what it was but it scared the shit out of my cat who was sleeping under my desk, have the scars to prove it.

        Also if anyone wants to look at porn games F95zone"dot"to is a pirate forum which is good for keeping track of in dev ones or just if you don’t want to possibly waste money on a porn game you may not like. Also the dot is in quotes cause I am not sure how the mods would react to me posting what amounts to a porn link.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        I’ve written porn comedy before. No I will not be linking it, but yeah I enjoyed it and the bad porn book club I was in over the pandemic enjoyed it too.

        I think part of the problem is that oftentimes once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye. Venus in Furs is porn, the word masochism is a reference to Sacher-Masoch who wrote it the same as sadism is named after the Marquis de Sade, but it’s also classic literature.

        I definitely do want to get back into writing porn comedy, but I haven’t been pissed off sufficiently stupid porn writing since that book club stopped.

        • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye.

          This definitely poses a problem. Er… depending on what we think a problem is, I guess. But the stuff I’m thinking of, it would be very hard to do this to.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            Maybe but like Story of O is on the verge (apologies as these are all going to be bdsm) by nature of it being old and remembered. The 120 Days of Sodom is likely mostly read by people not into it in a sexual way (mind you I think it’s mostly read by the edgy). 50 Shades of Grey is atrociously written and yet despite being a story existing to package soft core pornography that’s the dissenting opinion on it, not the mainstream consensus. Sunstone meanwhile is the inverse, soft core pornography to entice and enhance a story about bdsm. All of these except Sodom are edge cases where some people might be uncomfortable regardless of which box you put it in

            Though I’ll acknowledge it does get harder for much more explicit stuff with less non-sex content.

        • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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          Hit me up if you ever want to collab. I’m a shit writer with a sense of humor who would love to read what you have.

      • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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        And people are trying to shut it down. It’s a damn shame.

        Oh well, we still have the absolute chaos that is ammateur, self-published erotica.

  • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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    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

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      Man, you’re mean. You can’t recommend that without at least a warning of the box of tissues that you’ll need nearby. You’ll be responsible for water stains on desks everywhere.

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      Flipwitch is a fantastic little Metroidvania that I can’t talk to my “normal” gaming friends about.

  • Goretantath@lemmy.world
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    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
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      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.

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      I’ve still got the original visual novels sitting on my backup drive, somewhere. I played through the major first storyline, but hadn’t gotten around to UBW and… oh boy, heaven’s something? Definitely was a great read, even after starting with the anime.

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    If you’re open to a platformer, the only explicitly adult game I’ve tried is FlipWitch. The gimmick is that you can change your sex, with certain obstacles only able to be passed through by a specific sex. You also have clothing that can only be worn by each sex, and certain NPCs won’t interact unless you’re wearing certain items. It’s a solid metroidvania, and while it’s not going to blow you away, I still enjoyed my time with it.

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
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      Oh yeah, I saw that one earlier and threw it on my wishlist for later. It looks pretty good. I picked up Scarlet Maiden instead for now, which is also a pixel-based naughty game, but looks to be a roguelite and is supposed to have great gameplay too.

  • AnotherSmutAccount@lemmynsfw.com
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    When you got attached to the characters in Fetish Locator you should definitely not play Leap of Faith. It’s going to crush you emotionally.

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
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      Thanks for the warning. I’d started playing because I needed a distraction from some hard IRL stuff, so that’s good to know. It was nice that when I fired up Being a DIK from the same bundle, they straight out ask you at the beginning if you’re going through shit right now, and gently suggest the game may be rough for you if you are.

      • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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        Adult games give emotional support these days. Not all, but many understand and respect the player to a degree not normally found in games. And because all the right wing puritans aren’t playing those games, no one is complaining about other hot button topics like gender, equality, etc.

      • AnotherSmutAccount@lemmynsfw.com
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        LoF does the same mid game right before it hits the hardest with even offering to skip the scene entirely. However all characters are really likable, have some really good development and it is an overall (bitter)sweet story with lots of happy endings

      • Philokins@lemmynsfw.com
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        when I fired up Being a DIK from the same bundle, they straight out ask you at the beginning if you’re going through shit right now, and gently suggest the game may be rough for you if you are.

        Considering the dev’s previous game, Acting Lessons, that warning is worth taking seriously. That game has a fantastic story, but it has some rough shit go down. Although I will say that by the end of season 1 of Being a ΔΙΚ I don’t think there had been much “rough if you’re going through some shit” stuff. I haven’t played season 2 yet.

  • HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world
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    Literally, for the plot. Glad you where abel to expand your horizons and hope you enjoy more games for the plot

  • torqued_hog@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • nightlily@leminal.space
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      I just finished what exists so far for The Princess Trap last night. I have to recommend holding off on it till it’s finished so you don’t end up in as much despair as me.

  • Classy Hatter@sopuli.xyz
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    Modding is a way to add some adult content to some games. For example, Bethesda’s games have a very active modding community.

    • Lootboblin@lemmy.world
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      Sims 4 as well. When you download wickedwhims, nisa and basemental drugs and thousands of different animations from different packages, you will never play the vanilla again.

    • Apeman42@lemmy.worldOP
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      Oh damn I thought this was some “Fuck bitches, smoke trees - Abraham Lincoln” shit, but it’s a real quote. Nice.