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Ok guys, being titillated and looking for story. Which comes first for you?


beerbrew

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Ok guys! When you look for something... ecchi, sexy, that sort of thing. What do you prioritize? And if you prioritize one over the other, how much does it take over the other (more like, how much do you tolerate it overpowering the other aspects of the game, such as the story, music, and graphics)?

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When I want H, I normally read H manga instead, but still, I'll play some nukige from time to time.

In normal VNs, sex scenes are just something for me to skip unless they have impecable timing and I just so happen to want to masturbate. 

I never look for both at the same time, and the mix is honestly kind of annoying in most cases, tbh. 

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34 minutes ago, Kaguya said:

When I want H, I normally read H manga instead, but still, I'll play some nukige from time to time.

In normal VNs, sex scenes are just something for me to skip unless they have impecable timing and I just so happen to want to masturbate. 

I never look for both at the same time, and the mix is honestly kind of annoying in most cases, tbh. 

Ahh.. Noted!

7 minutes ago, Ariurotl said:

I'm tempted to say "story", but really, when I feel like reading something H-heavy (not saying "nukige", cause I haven't read a proper one in years), I do just that.

When I want a story, I pick something plot-heavy.

When I want more moe in my life... well, you get the idea.

Gotcha!

 

So when you guys look for H stuff, you don't mind whether there's a decent story to go with the H, it should just be enough - even downright silly - to justify the existence of the suggestive theme of the H scenes?

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It really depends on what my aim is. I enjoy a good nukige more than most people here - Sexy Demon Transformation and Forbidden Love With My Wife's Sister are two of my favorite H games period. They know exactly what they are and don't pretend to be anything more. They set up simple characters you want to fuck and gets you there without wasting your time. The former gives you a fun setting with some wackiness that plays into anime sensibilities while the latter gives you a HOOOOOOOOT chick you can't help but want. I give both of them one boner up. :wahaha:

If I'm going to put 10-50+ hours into a game, I like for it to have H scenes with the characters. I'm not going to give some pretense - I'm a healthy man and I love women. If I like the character enough to go through a route with her, obviously I'm into her enough to want to H her. The downside with games that have it as a feature but not a focus is that you aren't always in the mood when the scenes come up, and sometimes you really are more interested in seeing the story progress than yet another H scene. That's what the scene replay function is for. As you can see in my VNDB I've been through an eroge or two in my time, and my willingness to sit through something that bores me for 20 hours to get to an H scene is gone at this point in my life. For that longer investment of time I need something worthy of that investment - interesting plot, fun characters, engaging gameplay (ala Bunny Black, Eiyuu Senki, etc.), something. The fact that it has H content with women I find attractive brings me to the table. Everything else it does well keeps me there.  

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2 hours ago, EcchiOujisama said:

It really depends on what my aim is. I enjoy a good nukige more than most people here - Sexy Demon Transformation and Forbidden Love With My Wife's Sister are two of my favorite H games period. They know exactly what they are and don't pretend to be anything more. They set up simple characters you want to fuck and gets you there without wasting your time. The former gives you a fun setting with some wackiness that plays into anime sensibilities while the latter gives you a HOOOOOOOOT chick you can't help but want. I give both of them one boner up. :wahaha:

If I'm going to put 10-50+ hours into a game, I like for it to have H scenes with the characters. I'm not going to give some pretense - I'm a healthy man and I love women. If I like the character enough to go through a route with her, obviously I'm into her enough to want to H her. The downside with games that have it as a feature but not a focus is that you aren't always in the mood when the scenes come up, and sometimes you really are more interested in seeing the story progress than yet another H scene. That's what the scene replay function is for. As you can see in my VNDB I've been through an eroge or two in my time, and my willingness to sit through something that bores me for 20 hours to get to an H scene is gone at this point in my life. For that longer investment of time I need something worthy of that investment - interesting plot, fun characters, engaging gameplay (ala Bunny Black, Eiyuu Senki, etc.), something. The fact that it has H content with women I find attractive brings me to the table. Everything else it does well keeps me there.  

Well put! So if it's with a story, you want to have the ability to go through the story if you want it, and go through  the H scenes any time if that's your thing at the moment? This observation's good timing as I'm going to program in a gallery section of sorts in our game (more like sexy time replay.)

 

@Kaguya - D:

... I'm going to judge you now!

J/k haha!

Do you enjoy your scenes animated, or static images?

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8 minutes ago, beerbrew said:

Well put! So if it's with a story, you want to have the ability to go through the story if you want it, and go through  the H scenes any time if that's your thing at the moment? This observation's good timing as I'm going to program in a gallery section of sorts in our game (more like sexy time replay.)

Yes, absolutely. If you want a perfect example of how NOT to do H scenes, give Haruko Maniax a go. I just...can't even with where those come from in the story. The Majikoi S routes that feel like they are 80% H scenes is a different example of how not to do it. 

Scene replay is a feature that is expected at this point, not just a picture gallery. Brave Soul is the most recent game I can think of that didn't have a proper replay function, and it's 15 years old. The biggest downside is that the feature normally isn't unlocked until you the clear the game once, and then all of the scenes viewed are available for replay. It would be nice to have scenes available for replay once they are viewed, rather than having to clear the game first. How often would I really use it? Can't say for sure, probably not much, but as with a lot of extras in H games, it's the thought that counts more than how much time I actually spend on it. If the standard features are completely absent, like they are in the Muv-Luv Alternative, I'll complain about it on principle. Even if I don't spend much time using the jukebox, CG gallery, etc. that doesn't mean it's okay to be lazy and not include them without backlash. 

And definitely yes on animated scenes. Given my location I'm sure you can figure out what I want to see bounce. :wahaha:

 

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I like games where ero is an integral part of the game concept, yet the ero-scenes themselves are only a small part of the experience.  Good ero-scenes require developing a bond between the player and the heroine, together with appropriate buildup of sexual tension.  The story and ero should synergize, not exist independently or be at odds.  School Days HQ is the example I'd hold up of this synergy of story-driven drama and erotic scenes in action.

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15 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

I like games where ero is an integral part of the game concept, yet the ero-scenes themselves are only a small part of the experience.  Good ero-scenes require developing a bond between the player and the heroine, together with appropriate buildup of sexual tension.  The story and ero should synergize, not exist independently or be at odds.  School Days HQ is the example I'd hold up of this synergy of story-driven drama and erotic scenes in action.

Ah! And how soon do you like your H scenes with these kinds of games?

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Sometimes, I feel like reading a nukige and will pick one up just for the H. I've played two at this point, and am currently playing a third, and I've found that them having a coherent and interesting plot and characters makes them vastly more interesting to read. For instance, I disliked ImoPara in many ways; would not play again. Even the wafer-thin plot of Ultimate Boob Wars put it head and shoulders above ImoPara. And I'm actually really enjoying Funbag Fantasy right now, which I picked up because I kinda felt like having another nukige under my belt, so to speak, and because people were saying the story is actually relatively interesting and humorous, for a nukige. So, basically, even when I'm playing a game nominally for the H scenes, I've found that the rest of the game being good makes it way more worth it.

Now, all that said, most of the time, I'll pick up a VN based on things like story, characters, and setting. When that's what I'm looking for, I'll usually play the version of a game with H scenes if given options, on the off-chance that they're actually worth going back to later (and I'll repeat what others have said: scene replay is fundamental, not just CG gallery, for the enjoyment some people get out of H scenes), but almost always I find they get in the way more than they add while I'm reading. There are rare exceptions. Sekien no Inganock is an especially good example of one, where I felt the sex scenes were a fundamental and worthwhile part of the story being told, especially in how they were essential to understanding the characters and their relationships. With Majo Koi Nikki, I'm kind of on the fence about whether they need to be there; the sex is fundamental to the story, plot-wise, but perhaps not the H scenes, since I don't know that they do much of interest to advance characters. So, arguably the sex doesn't need to happen on-stage, and it in fact does usually feel like it gets in the way of progressing the story while I'm reading it. So, I most likely would enjoy the game more without them, and they were indeed cut for a Vita release, probably to the benefit of the game experience.

And, yes, if you have H, animated H is a definite plus, IMO.

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9 minutes ago, beerbrew said:

Ah! And how soon do you like your H scenes with these kinds of games?

Timing of ero will depend on setting and plot.  Remember, the ero should serve the story and the story should serve the ero.  In general, I'd say there shouldn't be much full-blown ero until mid-game.  Sprinkle in fan-service scenes to help build the sexual tension.  You don't even need separate CG necessarily; even descriptions of the protagonist's viewpoint and thoughts can work.  Of course, if the game concept revolves around sex, then early sex scenes may make sense.  In that case, the early scenes should be setting up later drama.

I generally stay away from "nukige" that are a series of loosely-connected H-scenes.  Such scenes tend to lack the immersive quality--that attachment and emotional investment--that I'm looking for,

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2 hours ago, beerbrew said:

@Kaguya - D:

... I'm going to judge you now!

J/k haha!

Do you enjoy your scenes animated, or static images?

More than enough people do that, so one or two more won't be a big deal~

Images, mostly because animations tend to have low budget and end up taking away more than they give to me. 

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I hedge my bets by playing 2 concurrently. One nukige and one story based. I read the story based for as long as I enjoy it and if I feel the urge to see an H scene I'll put the story based one aside and load up the nukige which usually gives me what I need in under an hour. That said even the story based ones I will only play them if they have H in them as I feel empty if I do a long drawn out girl's route that I really like for there to not be an H scene somewhere, preferably close to the end. If they do have an H scene I'm much more happy to leave that girl's world and do another route or another VN entirely.

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I'm story-driven and a bit of a romantic, so usually I prefer plot-heavy VNs that focus on relationship development and the H is a culmination of the dialogue and events between the protagonist and heroine. And even then, I prefer it to be quick. I'm not really into drawn out sex scenes where the two ridiculously talk about cumming together and the heroine talking about the guy's dick magically getting bigger as the sex goes on. Though every so often I can have fun with something ridiculous, it just needs to be spaced out.

Nukegie does nothing for me.

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Like Kaguya, my tastes when it comes to H can be a bit dark, so I tend to like H-manga when I just want to be turned on, and rarely rely on VNs for that. I do like reading nukige, but mainly just because I find them entertaining in general. (Like Boob Wars, Beat Blades Haruka, XX of the Dead and other games which put serious effort into creating the game world, despite being mainly focused on H.)

Still, I prefer having H content in VNs, even if they are long, story driven games. Just like sanahtlig said, H content can be a good tool to show strong bonds between characters. This should be built up in the story, and it should feel relevant, (meaning 18+ content being put in a game after, simply because it can isn't really ideal. This can work too, but it has to at least feel somewhat relevant. An example being Eden*, which had H added in later on as a DLC type thing, and still made it work.) Sex is a completely normal, natural thing in human relationships, and it can be used in stories to achieve many different things without making it into cheap porn.

For instance, H can also be used for the shock factor, which can achieve a lot in building dark settings and stories.

As an example, (spoilers to Grisaia no Kajitsu:)

Spoiler

The scene in Amane's route, towards the end of her backstory, when we see the teacher and one of the students mating like wild animals in the forest, right as we learn they have actually been eating the other students. This scene is just so... with the lack of a better way to put it, fucked up. Everything in this scene adds to the suspense, the horror and the "wtf" factor, and in the version of the game where H content is removed, (the PSvita port,) I feel that some of the shock dies down a bit, as the CG has been changed to be approriate for an all-ages release. Instead of seeing these two people looking like animals, completely crazed, you just see a cut of their legs for a bit.

I could name a million different examples, but my main point is simply that H can be quite a good tool in even heavily story driven games, and it can achieve many different things, not just cheap fanservice. So in my opinion, H and story aren't mutually exclusive but can very often work nicely alongside each other.

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An interesting topic, in my opinion :)

Whenever I think about this question, I always get back to "Why did I start reading visual novels in the first place?" ...

Back in 2010 I didn't know what VNs were and I stumbled upon one randomly browsing on the Internet, looking for some games. And then on one of the pirate sites I saw a VN that looked like some hentai bondage anime and was genuinely interested in what it was all about so I decided to check it out. At that time I was already a casual anime fan and I liked anything that was presented in anime-style 2D drawing. And, oh boy, am I glad I did decide to try that VN out!

Looking back on it now, I think that VN left a major impact on me due to the circumstances in which I was at that point of time. I was still in Middle School and puberty was hitting me hard. I was thinking a lot about sex and being an idiot that I was at that time, by chance I was looking at some PUA stuff and later on I even decided to check out the occult mumbo-jumbo to see if there's anything that could help me score some chicks. Needless to say, all of that was in vain and I wasn't really into trying to even test some of the given solutions provided by either the PUA manuals or the occult mumbo-jumbo bullshit. But I still found it interesting to read even though I knew it doesn't help my cause in any way.

And all of that kind of left me in a perfect state to go through Bible Black. I never heard of Bible Black before that. I didn't even watch the H-anime of it even though I was into hentai porn at that time. The name of the VN just screamed to me "Play me!". I mean, it sounds very occult. It's Bible, but Black Bible which kind of sounds like an occult version of the Holy Book which kind of interested me a lot. I thought it was going to be some short flash hentai game (in that period of time I saw a lot of flash hentai games). But contrary to my expectation, it came in a format of a visual novel and I wasn't a heavy reader at that time so it kind of surprised me but I decided to go through it anyway.

Fast-forward to today - I think Bible Black is certainly one of the best visual novels that I have read so far (which isn't a lot by the way xD I think I read like 30 VNs at max, and there's like more than 100 in my wishlist, not mentioning the popular mainsteam VNs that I still haven't read). The story and the setting was just P-E-R-F-E-C-T to my case! I genuinely liked it for what it was, I still think Sei Shoujo made a masterpiece with that one even though it's widely regarded in the community as a plot-less nukige.

To get back on the topic of the thread, and why I have said all of this - Between the good story and good hentai sex (and/or ecchi scenes), my preference is always somewhere in the middle, it would be a perfect solution if it were in proportions of 50%/50%. Or in best case scenario - If the sex scenes are overpowering the story, they are somewhat meaningful and a part of the plot and they don't destroy the immersion in any way. And that's only if we are talking about nukige or fetish-sex oriented VNs. So yeah, for me it depends on that aspect mostly. But if the VN is not aiming to be a nukige - Then by all means it must provide a rather good story, scenario, characters and setting to make it entertaining to read through. Usually in this kind of VNs I don't find sex scenes interesting at all so I wouldn't even feel bad if they were somehow cut out (they could even imply in text that "it happened", no need for CGs and unnecesary stupid lines for sex scenes). For that reason, some of the early bishoujo titles that I have read didn't manage to amaze me like Bible Black did. They lacked in delivering that impact due to them being slow and at some points rather boring to read through.

That's why it's harder to create a good story-wise VN than a nukige. And it's hard to create a nukige with a decent plot. And with nukiges you even have many different tastes so it's hard to cater to everybody when developing one.

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I don't enjoy nukige at all really, and to be honest I find many H-scenes a bit of a chore to get through. Even when it comes to H-manga I find myself way more interested in the set-up and interaction between characters (which is why I like drawn out vanilla over anything).

So yeah, give me a decent story any day.

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2 hours ago, beerbrew said:

Eroge.. Nukige.. So I looked these up... I've been making a nukige all this time!? What's in-between?

Generally, a nukige is a game where the H is the main focus, and the story comes in second. You can find games that are a bit different, where the story is aided by the H, but the story is still the main focus, like Euphoria, which is not a nukige, despite what some people might think.

(Of course, you can also find many nukiges with good writing and story, that still retain the tag nukige for obvious reasons, like Boob Wars, which ridicules the story with silly elements like boob deities, land masses named boob-cliff etc, the main character's boob powers... you get the point. The game is a nukige, yes, but it actually has a fun and intersting plot alongisde the high amounts of H.)

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11 hours ago, ittaku said:

I hedge my bets by playing 2 concurrently. One nukige and one story based. I read the story based for as long as I enjoy it and if I feel the urge to see an H scene I'll put the story based one aside and load up the nukige which usually gives me what I need in under an hour. That said even the story based ones I will only play them if they have H in them as I feel empty if I do a long drawn out girl's route that I really like for there to not be an H scene somewhere, preferably close to the end. If they do have an H scene I'm much more happy to leave that girl's world and do another route or another VN entirely.

Haha looks like you got your bases covered there!

10 hours ago, Chronopolis said:

Being titillated is once. Being storied is forever.

For me, I think it'll be whichever one attracts me first. A good story drains my powers away from head #2...

9 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

I pop a nukige now and then, but besides that I read for like 98% story overall.

So you like your H separated too?

8 hours ago, Valmore said:

I'm story-driven and a bit of a romantic, so usually I prefer plot-heavy VNs that focus on relationship development and the H is a culmination of the dialogue and events between the protagonist and heroine. And even then, I prefer it to be quick. I'm not really into drawn out sex scenes where the two ridiculously talk about cumming together and the heroine talking about the guy's dick magically getting bigger as the sex goes on. Though every so often I can have fun with something ridiculous, it just needs to be spaced out.

Nukegie does nothing for me.

Something like an erotica novel perhaps?

6 hours ago, AaronIsCrunchy said:

I don't enjoy nukige at all really, and to be honest I find many H-scenes a bit of a chore to get through. Even when it comes to H-manga I find myself way more interested in the set-up and interaction between characters (which is why I like drawn out vanilla over anything).

So yeah, give me a decent story any day.

Duly noted! I like those kinds of stories too, especially the working professional, office lady kind of themes.

6 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

An interesting topic, in my opinion :)

Whenever I think about this question, I always get back to "Why did I start reading visual novels in the first place?" ...

Back in 2010 I didn't know what VNs were and I stumbled upon one randomly browsing on the Internet, looking for some games. And then on one of the pirate sites I saw a VN that looked like some hentai bondage anime and was genuinely interested in what it was all about so I decided to check it out. At that time I was already a casual anime fan and I liked anything that was presented in anime-style 2D drawing. And, oh boy, am I glad I did decide to try that VN out!

Looking back on it now, I think that VN left a major impact on me due to the circumstances in which I was at that point of time. I was still in Middle School and puberty was hitting me hard. I was thinking a lot about sex and being an idiot that I was at that time, by chance I was looking at some PUA stuff and later on I even decided to check out the occult mumbo-jumbo to see if there's anything that could help me score some chicks. Needless to say, all of that was in vain and I wasn't really into trying to even test some of the given solutions provided by either the PUA manuals or the occult mumbo-jumbo bullshit. But I still found it interesting to read even though I knew it doesn't help my cause in any way.

And all of that kind of left me in a perfect state to go through Bible Black. I never heard of Bible Black before that. I didn't even watch the H-anime of it even though I was into hentai porn at that time. The name of the VN just screamed to me "Play me!". I mean, it sounds very occult. It's Bible, but Black Bible which kind of sounds like an occult version of the Holy Book which kind of interested me a lot. I thought it was going to be some short flash hentai game (in that period of time I saw a lot of flash hentai games). But contrary to my expectation, it came in a format of a visual novel and I wasn't a heavy reader at that time so it kind of surprised me but I decided to go through it anyway.

Fast-forward to today - I think Bible Black is certainly one of the best visual novels that I have read so far (which isn't a lot by the way xD I think I read like 30 VNs at max, and there's like more than 100 in my wishlist, not mentioning the popular mainsteam VNs that I still haven't read). The story and the setting was just P-E-R-F-E-C-T to my case! I genuinely liked it for what it was, I still think Sei Shoujo made a masterpiece with that one even though it's widely regarded in the community as a plot-less nukige.

To get back on the topic of the thread, and why I have said all of this - Between the good story and good hentai sex (and/or ecchi scenes), my preference is always somewhere in the middle, it would be a perfect solution if it were in proportions of 50%/50%. Or in best case scenario - If the sex scenes are overpowering the story, they are somewhat meaningful and a part of the plot and they don't destroy the immersion in any way. And that's only if we are talking about nukige or fetish-sex oriented VNs. So yeah, for me it depends on that aspect mostly. But if the VN is not aiming to be a nukige - Then by all means it must provide a rather good story, scenario, characters and setting to make it entertaining to read through. Usually in this kind of VNs I don't find sex scenes interesting at all so I wouldn't even feel bad if they were somehow cut out (they could even imply in text that "it happened", no need for CGs and unnecesary stupid lines for sex scenes). For that reason, some of the early bishoujo titles that I have read didn't manage to amaze me like Bible Black did. They lacked in delivering that impact due to them being slow and at some points rather boring to read through.

That's why it's harder to create a good story-wise VN than a nukige. And it's hard to create a nukige with a decent plot. And with nukiges you even have many different tastes so it's hard to cater to everybody when developing one.

But easier to just focus on a specialty, which is usually the visuals and the H stuff of the game? Haha, Bible Black... I like the witch blondie. It's an odd theme for me, but very well executed alright.

8 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Like Kaguya, my tastes when it comes to H can be a bit dark, so I tend to like H-manga when I just want to be turned on, and rarely rely on VNs for that. I do like reading nukige, but mainly just because I find them entertaining in general. (Like Boob Wars, Beat Blades Haruka, XX of the Dead and other games which put serious effort into creating the game world, despite being mainly focused on H.)

Still, I prefer having H content in VNs, even if they are long, story driven games. Just like sanahtlig said, H content can be a good tool to show strong bonds between characters. This should be built up in the story, and it should feel relevant, (meaning 18+ content being put in a game after, simply because it can isn't really ideal. This can work too, but it has to at least feel somewhat relevant. An example being Eden*, which had H added in later on as a DLC type thing, and still made it work.) Sex is a completely normal, natural thing in human relationships, and it can be used in stories to achieve many different things without making it into cheap porn.

For instance, H can also be used for the shock factor, which can achieve a lot in building dark settings and stories.

As an example, (spoilers to Grisaia no Kajitsu:)

  Reveal hidden contents

The scene in Amane's route, towards the end of her backstory, when we see the teacher and one of the students mating like wild animals in the forest, right as we learn they have actually been eating the other students. This scene is just so... with the lack of a better way to put it, fucked up. Everything in this scene adds to the suspense, the horror and the "wtf" factor, and in the version of the game where H content is removed, (the PSvita port,) I feel that some of the shock dies down a bit, as the CG has been changed to be approriate for an all-ages release. Instead of seeing these two people looking like animals, completely crazed, you just see a cut of their legs for a bit.

I could name a million different examples, but my main point is simply that H can be quite a good tool in even heavily story driven games, and it can achieve many different things, not just cheap fanservice. So in my opinion, H and story aren't mutually exclusive but can very often work nicely alongside each other.

@dark stuff - I'm... judging you too! lol! Just kidding ;). I'll take note of these titles for future references! Thanks!

2 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Generally, a nukige is a game where the H is the main focus, and the story comes in second. You can find games that are a bit different, where the story is aided by the H, but the story is still the main focus, like Euphoria, which is not a nukige, despite what some people might think.

(Of course, you can also find many nukiges with good writing and story, that still retain the tag nukige for obvious reasons, like Boob Wars, which ridicules the story with silly elements like boob deities, land masses named boob-cliff etc, the main character's boob powers... you get the point. The game is a nukige, yes, but it actually has a fun and intersting plot alongisde the high amounts of H.)

Boob Wars? ... Ok, I'm gonna look for that haha!

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1 minute ago, beerbrew said:

So you like your H separated too?

9 hours ago, Valmore said:

Yes, although that does not mean I don't enjoy  the occasional sex scene. It's just that it isn't how I *prefer* it for titillation, since if a scene doesn't feel shoehorned then it has some culmination to it and plot relevance and thus isn't the sort of thing I'd want to pop out to play it whenever I want a wank

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