Usk Productions Blog

It's time for Strawberry Jam 7! This is a yearly game jam hosted by Eevee with a focus on making horny games. I'm super excited to be participating again. I've participated the last 3 years, and it's always been a lot of fun.

These are my previous entries:

• Queen of Hearts, a dating-sim deck-builder.
• Taking the Tower, a real-time roguelite.
• Heat It Up!, a polterguist simulator.

This year's jam doesn't officially start till Wednesday, so all I've done is set up my standard template Godot project with build scripts, etc. No actual game dev.

I'm not sure how the project is going to go yet, but the idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a long time is a game that puts you in the shoes of a game master for a tabletop RPG. You design adventures and run players through them, with equal parts planning and improvisation. You have to account for the likes and dislikes of your players -- maybe one wants to have a freeform sandbox and another wants to just find the plot hooks and follow along with the story's rails.

How do we make it horny? I'm thinking that each player could have a set of kinks, and as you introduce them in the plot, the player would get more and more hot and bothered, eventually leading to sex scenes both in the world of the RPG, and at the gaming table.

I'm not exactly sure how much to systematize all this stuff. Do I have a few prewritten players and make this basically a visual novel with some interactive stuff like planning out the dungeon and running combat encounters? Or do I go for a more simulationist approach where players are procedurally generated piles of stats and fetishes? I feel like the latter makes it more like a "game", but also loses a lot of the charm. I'm not good at prose, and designing a system for generating procedural personalities and character interactions seems like it would be super difficult. So either way it's tough.

I guess a basically-prewritten plot with fake life-sim elements could work. The game moves at exactly the pace the writer intended, but you still see stats and other RPG elements. You go on a date with a romantic interest, and then you see "Relationship Level +1" afterward, even though there's no system that ever actually measures your numerical relationship level and uses it for anything.

This weekend I've been trying to think of a few different character archetypes for this thing. People with different interests, both in gameplay and in sex. I've got a few in mind.

The most fleshed out character archetype so far is the Power Hungry. This character likes numerical character progression. They want to win fights because their stats are better than the enemy's. They like being able to shrug off enemy attacks without having to dodge, and it's a huge thrill to one-shot a monster that once posed a huge challenge.

These same interests hold outside of combat. In social interactions, they like persuading NPCs with a single successful charisma check. They love the feeling that they can bend anyone to their will through sheer force of personality. They also love acquiring gold and property. Passive income is a very appealing prospect.

They need constantly escalating stakes. They want to feel like they need to keep getting stronger in order to take on bigger foes.

Their character is probably a heavily-armored type who wields a gigantic weapon.

In terms of erotic fantasy, they love the idea of being able to meet a complete stranger and convert them into a devoted lover over the course of one conversation. They are interested in building a harem and enjoy feeling worshipped.

I'll explore additional character archetypes in future posts.