First of all, I'd like to welcome longtime fan Daishi to the Harem Collector team. Daishi is one of potentially two people who will contributing writing to the game, increasing the quality of the game for you and freeing up more of my time to make more awesome game stuff.
Anyway, I was going to write about something completely different today, and I had actually wrote the entire blog post out in advance (a first for me). But after hearing Nekochan's comments on it, I want to make sure it gets reviewed by a couple more friends of mine before releasing it into the wilds of the interwebs. It might come out next week.
But this leaves me without a topic for this week's post. Mental Note: prepare a blog post to keep saved in case I have to do this again.
So, this week isn't about me, it's about you.
So in the comments below, tell me which of the Harem Collector girls is your favourite and why, let me know who like and why you like them, and what kind of sex scenes you'd like to see them in. Do you have a couple girls you'd like to see paired together? Is there a fetish you have that you'd like to see a girl used to explore?
I'll be paying extra close attention to the comments this week, making notes for possible future game content and just reading with interest what you guys think.
I find Chimei's magic protection very useful, and I'm eager to see more of her now.
ReplyDeleteI so wonder why even if I collar her, Therese still shows enough personality that she helps out the old man with the backpain in the slums. You'd think if you brainwashed her she wouldn't be able to do that. Or maybe that can be developed as a storyline where she fights the collar less and less and because of that her personality returns, and something of the same can be done for Larelle...
Fetishes include mind control, maid and schoolgirl. At this point, any girl used to explore these will do.
No, it's not meant to me anything, I just forgot to make that event check to see if Therese is brainwashed.
DeleteFavorite girl is Yamamaya. I really like that she's a dominant monster-girl that is subservient, to a degree, to the player. I'd like to see scenes with her initiating service for the player.
ReplyDeleteFor unexplored fetishes I'd like to see sex as part of an evolution ritual for Meline(angel) and/or Larelle(succubus). If both I'd like to see them paired together in a scene after they've transformed.
For pairings I'd like to see Therese paired with Doll or Larelle. With Doll a "this is how you should act" scene, with Larelle a "I know you don't like her but I said so" scene.
Hope this helps, I'm really enjoying the game.
Yamamaya's been really popular lately. There are two sex scenes featuring her in the next update, hope you like them.
DeleteAlina is my favorite girl. Followed by Yamamaya and Therese.
ReplyDeleteWell, my favorite girls right now are Alina and Therese.
ReplyDeleteAs for potentially interesting, I'd say Elaya, Meline and Larelle, depending how you develop them from now on.
Even though I like this game quite a bit,I have a distinct liking for deep storyline and interesting personalities. So obviously Alina and Therese are my favorites, as they are the ones that right now are the most developed regarding personality and personal story. Simply put, they are the most fleshed out right now. Alina with all the interactions about the quests and your home, and Therese with her personal desires for the main character which are opposed to the view of the church, her faith, the raid and her powers (which remains untouched even if you "court her" with gifts, at which point she decides to work for you).
Of course Elaya has more banters, and Meline speaks quite a bit, but they are rather... bland interactions for now, at least in my opinion.
Elaya mostly speaks of her ex-husband (a topic which frankly I do NOT like) and comments your actions a bit, while Meline is basically just talking about sex all the time. There are no conflicts in their personalities, I find them quite linear for now.
Still, Elaya, Meline and Larelle could become interesting in my opinion. You will notice they are all girls that have a developed story and/or quite a few appearances here and there. As such, I realize that I am biased in their favor because they do not feel "flat"
So, apart from listing names, in general what I like in the girls is depth of character, interactions and a precise story. I do not know what you plan exactly for this game, I understand that there's plenty of girls and that extensive appearances for all of them is impossible. I also understand that many of the people who play your game are probably not very interested in this, but more in the sexual part. But I DO hope that you will develop the girls as much as possible, and show us what they think and how they change (eventually) because of what happens in the game.
As you can easily imagine I will never, ever, ever collar a girl, as it goes completely against my interests. For the same reason, I will never torture a girl into submission, as I want to see as much as possible how you make them interact with the world and the story without having been beaten into submission (unless you put some strange twists which could actually encourage me into that, like a girl who has been brainwashed before and so NEEDS to be changed by force...). I will always try to see how their personalities change, and so will mostly resort to courting them with gifts, quests, and words (if it becomes available as an option).
Now, for fetishes, I really do not have any in particular. Strange as it may seem, I'm more into the whole enslave/conquer/court/persuade/own the girls rather than the sex scenes. Let's say I'm more interested in the mental part of the girls rather than just "show me some sex". If I just wanted that, there's a ton of porn available online. So, I'm fine with whatever as long as sex scenes go.
But I do have one small request of sort. I'd like to see the protagonist become a bit... possessive and jealous towards the girls. What I mean is that right now, perhaps because there's not much interactions, dialogue and such, he seems a bit ambivalent towards them, kinda like considering them "just another girl to fuck". I'd like for him to become attached to them in his own way, at least to the ones he courts/beats into submission. Something like: "I know own this girl, she's mine, and nobody is going to mess with her" or such. Or maybe even caring about them, I don't know.
Which brings me to one question I want to ask. Have you planned something like different paths regarding morality? A possibility of being "evil", "good", "selfish" or "kind" in the various storyline choices of the game? (Compatibly with the fact that you ARE enslaving women here...)
That was a very long and well-thought out response, so, thank you.
DeleteI'm sorry that you find Elaiya's discussion of her ex-husband distasteful, but I also didn't want this to be the kind of game that just uniformly features virgins.
Currently I'm working on fleshing out the harem girls a bit more. As you've captured Therese I know you did the manor invasion event, and the point of that was twofold- to shine a light on the hero's interactions with some of his girls (Comforting Meline at the beginning of the event, for example) and also to show that the hero actually has charisma and is a capable leader (How he gets Yamamaya and Larelle fired up for battle, for example). As I've said elsewhere, the big part of the next update is a revamp of the relationship system, which will feature more unique conversations. The banters are also a fairly new feature which has been pretty positively received and will be expanded upon in the future.
I do understand where you're coming from in terms of the depth of character and possibilities present in the story. I know very well and if you just wanted to look at people fucking there are other, better places for that. I always strive to strike a balance between erotica and gameplay, which is why I've tried to set the game up to consistently reward the player with more porn.
In terms of the hero becoming protective and possessive of the girls, yes the Hero eventually gets like that, with the reverse being equally true. Another thing to consider- since you control many of the hero's actions, the act of gifting the girls demonstrates that attachment. After all, if the hero didn't care, you wouldn't waste your resources like, right?
With respect to the collaring thing, it's fine you have a preference. You're never going to be forced to take a girl's mind away like that, and the collaring mechanic is to cater to a large segment of the game's fanbase that is into the mind control fetish.
There are going to be several path choices in the game, but there is nothing to track morality and I don't intend to ever put one in. I don't really like linear morality systems and while I do have a design document for a more complex morality system I don't think it would be appropriate for the Harem Collector universe. Take the hero's statement of morality- that he is "chaotic neutral"- to be exactly that. He doesn't adhere to a code and is capable of anything without reference to past behaviour or actions.
However, that isn't to say that the world won't react to your choices appropriately. Some things are going to be like the Cannery quest- a binary choice that appears to be decided between good and evil but occurs in relative isolation with one side being strictly more beneficial to the player than the other. Other choices will not take place along moral lines but have a greater impact on the game's story. I spoiled some things about the elf village questline on the LoK forums so look there in greater detail, but the culmination of that questline will be a choice between thinning the bloodline of the elven race by making them breed with humans (and thus losing their immortality and inherent magic) or by using magic to propagate their bloodline (by putting them in the care of the magic university, which will slowly erode their unique culture). You'll be asked to make a judgement call on what is more important to the elven race- is it their physical attributes or their culture that makes them "elves"- and it's an example of a binary decision that carries tremendous weight and consequence but one side isn't more "evil" than the other.
So, in short, there won't be any sort of morality tracker, but there will be times where you decision affect the game world.
Thank you for the detailed answer.
DeleteA couple of clarifications regarding relationships first. About Elaya, it's not that I have a problem with her being a virgin or not, but rather that she keeps talking about her husband. Kind of like if you had a girlfriend who keeps talking about her ex while you are with her. I understand that this is just my personal preference though, so no problems here.
Regarding the manor invasion instead, I missed quite a bit of what you said. Simply put, with every new version of the game I start playing anew, and I had the manor invasion event very early. I didn't have yet at least half the girls, if not more, and so I missed those interactions you talk about (and yes, it was kind of hard with my few low level characters...). I would imagine most people import old saves instead, and so they saw that with all the girls at their disposal... Just something for you to think about when planning events I guess :)
Regarding the morality system, it's not really a problem if there is not one, I was mostly curious. If the hero does get attached and possessive of his girls, and if your actions influence the world, I'm good. Though I do hope the influence will be rather significant, at least for some quests.
Finally, a small request/suggestion. Since you already plan for sequels, you could make it so your actions influence the game world a bit. I have no idea if you can somehow import savegames in the sequels in order to know what choices were made in the game. Even a plain text file, written by the game on completion and the read by the next game through parsing or such would be enough. If so, it would be cool if something reflected your previous actions. For example: the girls would remember how the relationships were (love/submission/collared etc). Someone could search for your help "Because you saved the elven race, though they are now breeding with humans". Even a small cameo book here and there would be nice, "About that guy who repelled the zombie invasion".
If savegames cannot be imported in order to parse your previous choices, it could still be done though with less details (For example, simply "about that guy who saved the elves" without explaining how)
Anyway, thanks again for everything.
I am considering a couple methods of importing save information. One would simply be importing your save to the new game, which automatically "corrects" the data to suit the new game. There are a lot of technical challenges for this, though.
DeleteAnother is the use of a KotoR2-style survey at the beginning of the new game.
The most likely option is to have the game generate an import code at the end of the game that preserves a select handful of choices to be entered into the next game.
There is a way to "control" when the Manor Assault occurs so you see how other characters react to it. I won't say more cuz I'm not sure I have permission to. =P
DeleteI would have to say Therese and Alina.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I would like to see more in the game is a bit more bondage and the ability to actually put any girl in the dungeon as punishment and the ability to refuse when Therese and Larelle offer to collar then be able to break them further (but maybe add something like a penalty to their abilities if you take it too far and such). Also another aspect could be something like corruption where the girls become a bit more demonic/or start gaining new powers but lose their sanity.
Also would be interesting if you could appoint one girl to actually be something like the slave overseer which would cause random scenes in which you walk up to her punishing the other girls for not doing a proper job or because of lack of discipline. But make ot that you can actually tell her how much she can actually enforce it before there are some kinds of penalties in either stats dropping or the girls actually rebelling against you.
You will be able to discipline any girl in the dungeon and earn a small scene for it. In the next release you should be able to do that to Meline, Violet (who will have a separate scene from Lilac this time), and Yamamaya.
DeleteIn terms of "corrupting" the girls, that might be a possibility for one or two of the girls but I don't see it being an across-the-board option for every one. As for the girls losing their sanity, I think that kind of material is a little dark for this kind of game, and it probably won't happen.
There will be a quest later in the game where you will have the option of changing who your house steward (and thus, informal slave overseer) is. Restricting how much she can enforce discipline and related penalties and bonuses probably won't happen though.
I hate saying "never", but please understand that "sliding scale" sim elements like that you described are very hard to work into a game after the initial design steps, especially considering the number of events that already draw on dialogue with the girls that I would have to make an exception for in every instance of possible change.
For instance, a couple months ago I instituted a change that made it so your party is set whenever you leave one of your houses- that is, your character only brings three slaves with you from home and the rest stay there. That means I have to find every piece of dialogue that only checked if you earned a given harem girl, and made it check your party for that girl instead. That was a lot more complicated than it actually sounds, and I'm still playing catch-up on that aspect of the game. So introducing game mechanics that have large sea changes on the way the game plays out probably won't occur at this point.
Thanks for the reply. And yeah I know it is damn hard to pretty impossible to add things like what I said above when the game has the mechanics already in place(used to mod Oblivion and Fallout 3) but was wondering if you had anything like that in plan. Also one more thing, will there ever be something like a cg gallery that can be accessed from within the game too look at the scenes you already unlocked?
DeleteI'm looking into a potential CG Gallery, yeah. It's one of the most-requested features.
DeleteMaybe some lesbian acts? Or even, some spells or potion that will turn your slaves into a futanari for a while (or permenantly if it can be chosen) a give a bukkake to another girl?
ReplyDeletemy favorite girl is doll (who i rename grace because doll is a stupid name). she's the only one who legitimately acts like a slave and she's adorable. the whole "i will protect master" thing just resonates with me.
ReplyDeletewhen my choices for party members were all people who were significantly stronger combat wise i cheated her stats to keep her releveant. i hope she can get some decent power ups so i don't have to feel like im cheating the game just to keep using my favorite girl :(
Well, keep in mind Doll's purpose is to soak a lot of damage and keep going, she's not meant to be a damage-dealer on her own.
Deleteim not askin for damage boosts. she just fails at damage soak when she has to use an ability that only protects people who are 25% health or less. when my team was hero, grace, elaiya and meline the last 2 would literally die to most of the attacks that i wanted grace to protect them from. 25% of 550 hp is diddly dick.
Deletethe powerups im askin for is upgrades to make her skills less of a joke, since her damage output is a joke. since i don't know how to add new skills or change current ones i had to settle for stat boosting.
I would like to say you are doing an amazing job in actually doing a very thorough job with this game in asking the community about what they would like to see next. I would also like to say thanks for making this a game that is enjoyable to all who play it too.
ReplyDeleteFor me I would definitely say I like Alina and Kyrie because of just mostly their personality and character model. For my fetishes I would definitely like more bukkake scenes for just about all the girls and it would also be great if you included gangbang scenes. Well those are my fetishes and thanks again for asking people what direction they want to go that will hopefully impact the game later on.
My favorite girl would have to be Meline. I usually dislike characters whose personality revolves around sex, but her dialogue when she speaks to the angel made me like her. It also helps that she is quite cute.
ReplyDeleteI also like Shally the bartender. Her interactions with the Hero are always rather entertaining. If possible I would like for her to join the harem.
The two girls I would like to see together would be Meline and Larelle. I figure a scene with those two would be really fun.
I don't posses a sexual act fetish, so there isn't really a scene that i would like to see. But I do have an interest in mature woman. So I would like to see more woman who are more mature than the Hero in the party.
i think the next update have a quest box in option so there have a description for clue,,,,,
ReplyDeleteand more woman of course he.he
My favorite girl are Alina and Meline. I also like Larelle.I hope too to see Shally join the harem!
ReplyDeleteAnd for the sexual act fetish, I like footjob.
I love your game Noah Moshing! I have more or less 200 hentai games (I know, I am a pitiful pervert) and Harem Collector is easily in my top 3. Continue your great work!
Thanks for the compliment! I hope you've found Meline's footjob scene in the last update, then.
DeleteAnd on another note, don't get down on yourself for how much you like H-games. Harem Collector wouldn't exist and my life would be a lot less interesting if I hadn't come clean to my wife about playing H-games.