Oh I see what you mean, I didn’t think of that meaning at all 
yes, not to imply that we are talking about Disney or AAA levels of investment here! I guess it’s more accurate to say “hits”, then. The big leagues. The big fish??
Edit: I cannot believe it took me that amount of rambling to remember the word “bestseller”. In my defence, I am sleep-deprived.
I think the problem with them is less the small world count and more what they try to do with said world count. They try to balance a big plot that quite often has multiple groups you can pick with the romance and to me it just almost always feel uneven which makes it hard to care about both the ro’s and the story.
They’re more Doorknockers than Blockbusters 
/jk
Personally, I am expecting Heart’s Choice to be concentrating on the relationship of the RO/s and the MC but so far, I find the HC’s ROs less memorable compared to the ROs in the HG and CoG line imo.
Well there are a Lot of HC games I like. But even If I like them, I too am disappointed in the “Lack” of romance this games have. When I read there would bei a Line focussing ON romance I really hoped the romances we’re Kind of deeper.
You still have them “milestone-like” , like the Ro, kiss the RO, bang the RO, living happily ever After. I really hoped there would bei more time for Dates, Meetings and such stuff, like oh the ROs birthday is coming Up, what could I get them, throw them a Party, or such Things. All this in a game, where No one complains that such dates are disruptive for the Story, because the love should BE the Story. A Lot more HC games could bei slice of Life, without a tight Storyline, Just time to get to know your Partner, moving in together and such mundane Things. I’ d Love to See something like that.
I agree that they always seem to tackle world ending type of events and then spread themselves too thin, thus all aspects of the game end up being underwhelming.
‘Brimstone manor’ comes to mind, which has a whole heaven vs hells war going on, and the mc, a babysitter nobody, gets stuck in between. The game fails to give this conflict the proper depth, and the romance scenes themselves boil down to ‘Do you like this ro yet? Answer yes or no’
Or ‘jazz age’ that had a good 4 different arcs that needed to be resolved but you could only do one per playthrough and the rest were left unfinished… All the while the romance left much to be desired.
Or even the new ‘Vampire’s Kiss’ which has a faction war that the player is thrown into, and given little time to care about.
People would forgive the bad romance if the plot was at least good. People would be even more willing to forgive a bad plot if the romance, which is the whole selling point, was engaging… but HCs rarely if ever manage to accomplish either.
Ultimately I agree with kirlett, we’re all here for the romance, and the romance somehow always seems to be an afterthought. Does it even matter that HC games always promise a ‘happy ending’ if you don’t even interact with the ros enough to care about getting it?
You put it a lot better then I did Kaelyn 
It feels like there is less romance in HC games compare to most romance vn’s despite most having a similar world count
I agree and this goes hand in hand with what Kirlett said; that something needs to change. I think most of the HC stories that I’ve read are trying to do too much outside of the romance, and the romance, while not the only thing that is suffering from that, is the main thing that people are there for and as a consequence is the most noticeable thing that is. And, of course, the disappointment is commensurate with that. I don’t think a lot of people are very happy with HC, but that’s because HC keeps not living up to even the most minor of the promises it is making.
Also, the pepper grading for spice levels…a) it’s off. Really. These things are only vaguely spicy for the most part. b) it’s starting to feel annoyingly juvenile. Like an outdated MySpace joke that won’t die. Can we maybe look at overhauling the grading system to deal with both things, please?
Honestly this.
I, at this point, fail to understand how the rating even works, you have games that receive 3 peppers for no other reason than mentioning the P or V word one time… in one sex scene… in a 200k words game… It really is just sad to watch.
@Kaelyn That would be interesting! I have found that my favourite HCs, while not slice of life, involve being able to get to know and get together romantically with a partner(s) fairly early and go through intense experiences as partners so there’s that sense of fighting on the same team together. (Obviously it doesn’t have to be literally fighting!)
I enjoyed the balance between romance and tension/plot in Their Majesties’ Pleasure and Heart of Battle, and although I haven’t played all of it yet, Changeling Charade seems very promising. I also hear good things about Scandal Notes which is focused on drama in a group of socialites rather than the more perilous drama and seems to have been well-received even while being on the shorter side of the catalogue. Honestly I’ve heard great things about Belle de Nuit too, and A Pirate’s Pleasure which is one of the more popular titles.
I do agree - Vampire’s Kiss, Their Majesties’ Pleasure, and All World Pro Wrestling are all at 3 but AWPW could be 4 or 5 and it doesn’t really make sense for it to be with the others because it is an erotica/porn game rather than a wrestling game with erotic scenes in it, and for me VK and TMP don’t quite feel equivalent to each other either. In places they use similar language and detail but TMP feels like more “romantic/sexy adventure plus magic and politics” where you can sleep with people many times, and VK does not have the same amount of opportunities to do that. VK does include kink opportunities and pretty detailed descriptions in places, which is why it has the three-chilli rating, but there is a bit of a sharp difference between the two for games that are marketed in the same spice category.
HC games just seem to not have much impact on the community, we can only speculate on how well they sell since we dont have acess to actual numbers (aside from number of Steam reviews), but very few people seem to care about them.
Hell, this official thread in an incredibly active forum hasnt had a single comment in 9 entire months, and barely 300 comments since 2019.
I see 2 reasons why HC games might not be as popular.
Not every game will “cater” to every person. HC games are more likely to be gender and/or orientation locked, so there’s a smaller audience for those games. Which is totally fine, you just need to accept that reality.
For games that are specifically romance, they don’t spend that much more time on the romances (at least for the ones I’ve read and what I’ve otherwise heard. Take this one with a grain of salt). I’m not sure why, maybe the overall plot is a little too time consuming, or maybe there are too many ROs? Either way, I feel like more time can be spent on building up the relationships
pretty much what I was thinking. The locked part is fine by me, since I just skip them if I cant play the gender I want.
But the most important thing that really feel like a puzzle is: If they are under the category of ‘Heart Choice’, well forgive me…but they lack the ‘Heart’ part.
I was expecting something like Harlequins Books. You know about those?
All the stories are about Torrid passion and Love and…kinda like ‘Melrose Place’, ‘Sunset Beach’, ‘Dallas’ Kinda of Tv show…who would fit under the category of ‘Heart’ because its all about romances, smooching, betrayers, cheating, wifes and girlfriends Ahoy and…etc.
which mean, there is an adventure…but it is less important than…the mc and the companion smooching a storm in between actions and cutscene…
At least that is in my opinion…
HC flop for me with rare exceptions because the romance might have an interesting premise, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s see, in Heart of Battle I romanced Ferrado. I am a brutal convicted soldier that is willing to do anything for his freedom and killed another man in an illegal duel, Ferrado is a man with the world at his fingertips and a lot, a lot of personal power who is forced to live in a world of constant intrigue and deceit despite his noble intentions and certain naivete. We have a conflict, we have an interesting premise and potential for growth at both sides.
What do we get? Worse than nothing, since all this romance boils down to is “noooo premade_name don’t romance meeee thats so power imbalaaance”. Potential for me to twist his naivete into cruelty and betray his noble intentions for personal gain, whatever the consequences may be? Nope, power imbalance. Potential for him to make my soldier believe into something more than surviving and lusting for power? Nope, power imbalance. I’ve seen CoG games with better done romance and they didn’t dedicate all of their screentime to it. Why does Heart’s Choice games ignore all the delicious dynamics available if the romance is supposed to be the whole point?
I know they can do them well. Raimundo in Freshman was pretty cool as far as romance goes, even if it felt a bit barebones, A Pirate’s Pleasure had pretty decent romance as well. All Stars Pro Wrestling did their romance pretty well and made customisation actually matter, which led to me creating an ugly bastard with eighteen inch dong and have great fun. If the whole point is romance, then the romance should at least make me feel something and not flop the good premise on constant repetition.
I was really surprised by the lack of spice in VK given the rating – while the language got more explicit, it felt like the amount of sex was 2-pepper at best.
I wasn’t totally sure what to make of the rating when I first played as I had one of the shorter/less detailed scenes for the character I was romancing - when I investigated, there were ones with a lot more detail. But yeah, it isn’t the same amount as the other three-chilli ones I’ve played (I lost count of them in Their Majesties’ Pleasure and AWPW, haha!)
I haven’t been keeping up with the HC label much for the last 2 years, mostly because I’ve generally been unable to play most IF games without my brain going: “go write IF instead of reading IFs u dumb-dumb”, but that’s offtopic, but I just wanted to clarify that I haven’t played the newest releases more than maybe one or two chapters or not at all.
So—with that said—
I love romance novels. I’m quite new to them, I’ve only read them for 2-3 years (unless the first Twilight book counts), but I’ve already read a lot of them (a lot), and I now feel like I know the genre well—
And most HC games, in my opinion, as a reader, do not feel like romance novels. Maybe they are not supposed to, that’s possible, but that was my expectation with the label. The only game that I’ve read in HC that feels like a romance novel is “A Pirate’s Pleasure”, and it is honestly one of my all-time favourite IFs. However, I would guess why it feels that way and why I like it so much because it is actually written by a romance novelist. As romance novels are the most profitable genre by far, I would think it would perhaps be a good idea to try and make the label more similar to this genre, if possible (again, just my two cents).
Personally, I am very fond of HC as a label and have enjoyed a lot of them (5 or 6 at least).
I find the happy end guarantee reassuring, less stressful if I know I will get one, and while I haven’t tried all or played everything to the end, overall HC announcements always give me a positive feeling.
It’s just a bit on the side maybe because it has its own site?
Also, I have the impression that many HC titles are created by first time IF writers even though they have written nonlinear fiction before.
That can add a kind of learning curve for those authors.
Maybe I’m just not critical enough but I had a good time with more than one title.
Could be because I like a bit of plot in my romance and, yes, there could be a bit more relationship building going on but it’s not a major disappointment.
I’m hopeful that HC will get better with every game published and that some author write another title.
Another plus is that I don’t have the attention span anymore for doing lengthy reading and other health issues going on so a shorter lrngth is fine for me as long as there’s closure.
Sorry but I cannot quite get all the negativity.
Personal preference but I think whilst there are some decent ideas under the genre HC should try to move away from most stuff being supernatural romance. Nothing against what we have but when a sizeable proportion of COG games in general involves Vampires and Werewolves (World of Darkness incoming) I find myself wishing to change the record a little Though if we got something with the cute style of Never Date Werewolves but with a quirk that isn’t supernatural based (and includes M/F stuff) I would be down for that.
That said I am definitely curious about Sentinel City Liaisons and that is going to be HC’s first foray into Super Heroes and that’s probably the other overused genre for COG so I am probably hypocritical.
Most HC game are pitched ideas so they get what people want to write.