conflictofinterests said:
It also depends on the characters, and how comfortable they are with their own sexualities, and what they perceive sexuality to be in themselves and in their partner. If you're going to be mature and believable about these scenes, you're going to have to take into account people who are horrified by genitals, people who can't help but giggle when those parts are mentioned, people who get aroused at the slighted provocation, people who take some persuasion... These are dynamics that aren't even TOUCHED upon in games that aren't dedicated entirely to romance/erotica (and as I've never played any that ARE dedicated to that, I can't vouch as to whether or not these dynamics are touched on there or not). Different people react to different propositions differently.
You know, that could be turned into a pretty interesting game mechanic.
I mean, consider games like Morrowind and Fallout: New Vegas, where (during character creation) can take these kind of semi-psychological tests to determine what kinds of skills would best suit your character (like if you answer that you would steal something and sneak away from a situation, then the game would recommend that you start out with high stealing/sneaking skills).
Now what if a game had that kind of test at the beginning but more elaborate, and that the test governed not only YOUR digital avatars skills and proficiencies but also the way certain characters in the game world will look like as well as how they will act and react towards you?
For instance, the game might ask what sexual orientation you have, and you input that you're a male heterosexual. Then further down the game shows you two pictures of two different women and ask you which one of them you find more attractive (of course the game really wants to know a specific detail of the two pictures, like what hair colour in the opposite sex you prefer, or which one has the better looking nose, cleavage etc. but you aren't being told that specific detail during the test). And that information is then used by the game to shape and alter the physical exterior of certain in-game female characters that you (as a person in real life) would respond to in specific ways.
The same thing could be done could probably be used for mannerisms of in-game characters. For instance, if you know that you're a sucker for sexually aggressive and downright "slutty" women, then certain characters that the game expects you to respond to positively will act that way. But if you input that you feel more drawn towards shy/awkward behaviour in the opposite sex, then the in-game characters will act like that instead.
Of course, the stage where the game gathers all this information has to be cleverly constructed as to insure that the questions aren't too obvious (i.e if the game downright asks you if you prefer blondes or red-heads, then the sense of immersion or what the games expects you to do won't be as interesting when a sultry red-head or blond shows up making "just the right" propositions that you could see coming a mile away). So a more elaborate and subtle set of questions has to be posed and having a few psychology professors as consultants when trying to design that test would probably help a long way.
But if done properly, wouldn't the experience be kind of awesome and tremendously PERSONAl to each and every player? I mean, not only do you shape your own in-game character the way you want, but the in-game world itself actually changes according to who YOU (the player) are as a person and in ways that you yourself probably can't really guess.
- couldn't be said better tbh
