On the topic of things we’d like to see, one thing I’ve always wanted but despair of ever seeing is a game that takes a candid, realistic approach to romance for the purpose of demystifying it. I have no problem with escapist fantasy, but it’s not very useful for those of us who want to deepen our understanding, and I think interactive fiction could be a great medium for us inexperienced folks to explore these things in a safe environment rather than trial by fire in the real world. But perhaps that falls outside the bounds of what most would consider “romantic”.
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Either of those would be fantastic – but what I was asking is more easily achievable.
When surly newcomers to the forum raise the question “Why aren’t there straight M-F romance games?” like @Suunonian did above, instead of responding with some variation on “Good question! I agree! CoG, make erotica for straight men!” until Mary or Abby post the same explanation they’ve given you in the past, you could say something like:
“Yeah, that’s what I’d love to see too, and I’ve asked the same question myself. The answer is that CoG doesn’t tell writers what to write, it publishes what writers pitch, and it hasn’t got many pitches for M-F romances. If you know anyone who writes good smut, point them here, to pitch a CoG/HC if they’re published or write a HG if they’re not.”
This is a question with a known answer – known to you, in particular, because you’ve been in multiple conversations where it’s been given. When you see the question asked and have a chance to respond before a mod or staff member does, like on this thread, why not give the right answer?
Responding, “Well, that’s the $64m question,” instead gives the sense that it hasn’t been answered at all; for those of us who’ve seen the same conversation happen multiple times already, it’s like freaking Groundhog Day.
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Ah I understand now, well that’s a fair point. If I come across as someone who only stokes the flames by taking the ‘well why don’t they’ stance, it’s never out of malice or pettiness or anything like that. I might have possibly gotten passive aggressive about the question in the past though, especially when one of the mods gave the whole ‘I don’t know what it would look like’ response to M/F romance when it would presumably be like a traditional romance novel from the switched perspective of the male love interest (as writer of fiction have done successfully I believe with Mister Darcy, Edward Cullen and Christian Grey, not to mention reimagining Bella as male.)
I promise next time it comes up I will follow your advice though. 
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First thought upon reading that pitch was “how is a romance game with vampires not centrally about romancing vampires?” followed by “hey girl nightgown slips to reveal neck this prey suitable enough for you?”
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No, I’ve never read you as malicious or petty. You’re persistent and unafraid to express what you want, neither of which are bad things. But take what Abby said to heart:
The door is open from CoG’s side. If you can help explain that to others, or at least write your own contributions to the discussion with that perspective firmly in mind, it’ll be less discouraging for everyone involved.
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I will promise to try and give my opinion whilst relaying what has been said previously rationally and fairly and trust to everything else (whilst being happy something is actually coming and that’s good). 
(Did two rational people just agree something on the internet? Damn, there’s hope for humanity yet. 
)
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On the topic of customizing sex scenes for different genders, I will say, I think people sometimes overestimate how difficult it is. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t difficult - all writing is difficult - but I think people might find it more manageable than they expect if they tried it out. As an editor for COG and HC, I’ve seen multiple authors do it well, either by coding certain lines to account for the differences or by just keeping things general. Some of the games I’m talking about are still in development, but @HarrisPS does this very well in Noblesse Oblige. There really is still a fair amount of detail you can convey without getting too specific about the genitals.
This is something I wish we prioritized more in COG and HC too. I think we sometimes hesitate to ask for more trans-PC inclusion because authors without a lot of experience do get intimidated by it, but there are solutions for that. (One of which is having more trans authors, of course.)
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True! Though occasionally one wants to have better descriptions of said genitals?!
I will say having played the excellent Heart of Battle that handles sex scenes very well with good minimalist description without sounding specific.
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Re: power fantasies being “logically” for a male audience, it’s not like women and nonbinary people don’t enjoy them as well. The story of, say, Luke Skywalker is not an inherently gendered one. Genderlocking in a historical setting is one thing, but you don’t necessarily have to include gender norms in sci-fi/fantasy. Maybe some people would find the absence of such norms to be odd, but it’s not that different from suspending one’s disbelief about magic and dragons.
So I personally don’t get why those kinds of stories would have to be male MC-only. Having a variable MC wouldn’t take away from the fact that you can play as a straight man. But in all fairness, you can’t force the author to write something they’re not comfortable with.
Edit:
Sure, those are fair reasons for genderlocking. I was talking about stories where gender is not a major theme (not in a male-dominated environment for example), or something that would result in a different story.
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Why genderlock stories to female MC-only then? Maybe it’s something that focuses more on one sex’s perception of romance, maybe it’s set in male-dominated environment, maybe it’s an attempt to break romance norms established by genre conventions.
Genderlocked male protagonist and genderlocked female protagonist can work wonders if they’re done right and gender selection often feels a bit lacking in its response to protagonist’s sex. I don’t really mind it in some cases, but with CoG’s historical games it felt quite jarring to see no difference between male and female player character.
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I think it’s just nice to have soft and fluffy stuff for m / f. In my country it can be somewhat hard to find pleasant content with m / f that is actually akin to that, it’s constant domination, submission, man being emotionless and woman being hysterical… I think genderlock for something akin to classic romance novels would be nice to read, given the way it can break conventions.
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I agree that it would be nice to have stories like that. And those stories can include f/nb MCs too–it won’t change the fact that m/f will still be an option.
If you want to look outside of IF, you could try searching for role reversal stories. They tend to be less normative when it comes to gender roles (at least in my experience). Maybe that’s what you’re looking for? A bit off-topic here but check out Northanger Abbey. It’s a VN inspired by Austen’s work, and there’s an option to reverse the gender roles, Broadsides-style.
Yeah, I’ve found stories like that too. I usually drop them before getting too far. It’s a niche genre even in English so you kind of have to make your own 
(or support creators who are making them)
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I know such things exist, but they’re fairly rare in my native tongue, which is Russian. Maybe I haven’t searched enough, but even stories that claim to be reversals turn out to be the same stuff under a different coat of paint.
thank you, that’s so kind!
I don’t mention primary sex characteristics in Noblesse Oblige - unlike with Heart of Battle, which has a lot more anatomical specificity in most of the intimacy scenes - but the Noblesse Oblige scenes are definitely on the explicit end of what’s in CoG games. It was challenging but not really because of anatomy/flexibility about gender - those kinds of scenes are challenging no matter what. There’s a reason why the Bad Sex Awards exist! And ultimately not everyone is (or should be pressured to be) comfortable going into that level of detail, or for whatever reason it won’t be right for the pacing/characters/tone/story.
I do think when freed from a particular… expected format of how scenes should go, and what makes an “idealised” vision of such a scene, it’s easier to be flexible when writing. Interesting/intense intimacy scenes are more than “insert tab a into slot b”, or the specifics of exactly what piece of anatomy is doing what at which time. Not least because a large proportion of acts can be performed regardless of anatomical configuration without the need for much inventiveness. (and if you bring inventiveness into it, that opens up even more possibilities!)
In addition to what’s been said upthread about inclusion and giving a space for female protagonists, some of the female-MC-only games in HC do feel very gendered to me and the femaleness is baked into the premise. For example:
- A Pirate’s Pleasure: playing as a badass female pirate in a man’s world (a female-orientated power fantasy)
- Never Date Werewolves: playing as a single mother juggling parenthood, life demands, and love (a recognisable romance-novel setup, plus werewolves)
- Belle-de-Nuit: being a kickass swordswoman protecting a Parisian brothel (sword lesbians! (I know Belle-de-Nuit isn’t just lesbian - but still) also, a female MC protecting the brothel has a different tone to a male one)
- Scandal Notes: being a plucky female socialite/novelist at a historical time which resonates a lot with that MC role (immediately makes me think of the women of the Bloomsbury Group etc)
I’d also never begrudge games like A Player’s Heart or If It Please the Court for being genderlocked because queer-default games are so rare and should be celebrated (just as I don’t begrudge AWPW and Freshman Magic). I truly believe it’s important to give space to games with queer protagonists.
I’d love to see this too!
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Not specifically about romance, but one thing I’d say I personally look for when browing CoG games is more games where you play as a normal or underpowered person and it being about how you navigate that kind of scenario. For power fantasies and where you play as really powerful dude, I have a near infinite list of video games to pick from.
That said, I’ve seen plenty of complaints in certain CoG games about the protagonist being too weak, so that’s certainly a preference thing.
As for the whole gender thing, I’m generally fine with authors just doing whatever they want and 95% of games under the general CoG/HG/HC label altogether is gender choice, so it doesn’t even come up as an issue to me when an author wants to limit it more (even moreso for narrative reasons). Unfortunately, I think it being so ubiquitous with the games on here though does mean that you’ll often get a random reader wonder why that’s the case when one doesn’t do so though.
That is untrue. Quite a lot exist.
Search for visual novel in steam and you will see the huge majority of them are aimed at straight men.
Speaking for myself, the “action” games from CoG have been the best ones that made me feel more immersed, as it allowed me to fit into the more traditional male gender role.
But Creme de la Creme was fantastic too. It was written in a way that you could really feel you could be whatever you wanted. For example, my character has strong Spirit stats so her excelled in athletics but with low Flair he had to take dance classes with Max, so it fitted with the “Jock” theme I had in mind for my character.
The problems come when the game is clearly designed for a social role, like Choice of Romance. When your brother says you are both proper ladies now and the Queen thinks the child she carried for 9 months is not hers, then you know it wasn’t a game made for straight men.
And that happens a lot in the Hearts of Choice games. Several games make you express attraction for a gender you don’t like or is fall for the save problems of Choice of Romance. So far the only game that I felt immersed playing from HoC is Heart of Battle, and it was extremely well done!
I think it is people like having something catered to them. While it isn’t what is happening, it can make straight men players feel they are being excluded on purpose. And communication wasn’t handled the best in my opinion.
But I think the majority of the players would have no issue with a variable MC game, I think those are the most popular, but they need to be written well, like your game (thank you for writing that game it is really good and one of my favorites!).
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Sadly I am not up enough with Steam to check but I am certain you are right, the only visual novels I am aware of there is typically ones that are less conventional and different like Doki Doki (which of course is really a subversive horror game) and that one with the boy in a school with girls with various disabilities (forget the name). Consoles rarely seem to have any visual novels since I suppose most are seen to be too adult or something and either cater to a specific sexuality (Dream Daddy) or are more about capturing an era and vibe (Arcade Spirits games seem like that.)
I agree that some of the best approaches with straight male romance games will be to tick the action box, though I don’t see anything wrong with a nice slice of life game where the reader is a single father (as I keep saying Life Gives You Lemons SHOULD be a HC game) raising a kid (or I can call it the Pedro Pascal Simulator ).
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Great summary! I have to admit I have played Pirates Pleasure and Never Date Werewolves and loved both of them, so I like to think that it might be possible we can reverse that and have games with male characters that female characters will like to play too.
Likewise! Would love to see a game where we are basically a male love interest in a female romance novel and playing with traditions vs breaking them. I do think that different countries view gender and ideals on sexuality as a man and woman quite differently and we in the west often seem to forget that not everyone in the world beyond has the same hang ups. Manga and Japanese ideas on sexuality of various situations for example.
Try searching for acting lessons, I’m sure you will like it
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Has a cryptocurrency protagonist. 
Off to a great start then. I will have a nosey if I get the chance, though I get the impression in most of these Rempy based slideshow style games (even though they can look very pretty like this one) can be a mixed bag.