I think there’s a conflict between wanting to write safe, inclusive romance stories when the stereotypical Romance Novel tropes are almost all somewhat “problematic.” The taboo student-professor romance, the domineering billionaire, the rough and tumble bad boy who’s too overprotective, etc.
This isn’t me railing against safe spaces or saying that it’s impossible to write more inclusive romance novels. Just that for people who are looking for romantic fiction are often looking for something a little messy, a little taboo, something that they understand is bad in the real world but is attractive in a fictional one.
I would’ve loved for Ferrando in Heart of Battle to have a little more edge, to play a little more with the messiness of them sort of buying you while also being genuinely attracted to you and how that’s inherently pretty fucked up. But at the same time I’m sure plenty of people would be upset at a book attempting to paint a slave owner in a somewhat sympathetic and “hot” light.
I would’ve loved for Alex from Vampires Kiss to be more hesitant and put off by the fact that you’re a undead predator that got them wrapped up in a life or death battle. They should view you trying to sleep with them as pretty messed up for the situation. But if you stare too hard at the inherent power imbalance between a supernatural apex predator and its literal food consent starts to get pretty murky. So instead she’s totally chill with vampires being real and gets over you being undead and using sex to manipulate her real fast.
It’s understandable that the more toxic and problematic nature of romance stories gets smoothed over to be more inclusive to a more diverse audience. It’s just that if everything is smoothed out then everything gets pretty bland.
Most of the HC games are well-written. Some I can vouch for:
If It Please the Court
Belle-de-Nuit (Plus)
Scandal Notes
Their Majesties’ Pleasure
Forbidden Magic
Vampire’s Kiss
Given that limited selection, it’s already impressive.
Moreover, Heart’s Choice can’t be a dampener if there have been positive vibes about most pieces.
However, since the HC website is not directly linked to the CoG website, it can be a little difficult for newcomers to break into and get used to. Had there been a link, the potential viewership could very well increase.
Also, there are some other hurdles for HC to overcome. People may be discouraged by the shorter word count. Or perhaps the gender and romance restrictions. Basically, you can’t have a game that can appeal to everybody. Different people have different interests. The two abovementioned factors may be what causes people to have negative impressions of such games.
The main thing that HC has for it is: romantic happy endings, a unique style. Not every game is a heavyweight. These ‘lightweight’ ones have a market too- said market is usually quiet. More romantic depth would be nice though. And not everything needs to be plot of epic proportions. Some like Vampire’s Kiss are. But romance is still the main focus.
That’s been my main problem with HC games. Until Their Majesties’ Pleasure, I was completely unimpressed with the ones I tried. They certainly didn’t feel like romance stories, more like a romance was tacked onto the story, which is how most CoG games feel, anyway (you meet, you kiss halfway through, you bang or just seem like you’re together, and it’s so damned boring). HG games tend to have more satisfying romance paths, in general. So TMP was a nice surprise.
I bought Vampire’s Kiss but haven’t sat down to play it yet. I avoid the F/F stories because they hold no interest for me, and the ones that were touted as being great for F/M, like A Pirate’s Pleasure, were just kind of meh to me (the pirate game, in particular, was kind of lame as romance goes, at least in my run).
I just think the HC games should have better (and more satisfying) romances than they do, and ROs that aren’t so damned bland. TMP did both of those things well, I thought, well enough that I will go back and play it again.
My feeling is that romance is not just a different genre from the typical CoG urban fantasy or slice-of-life story, it’s nearly a different craft.
There are just certain beats you have to hit, and a whole different lens for the plot. The objective of a romance story isn’t to save the world and maybe find some love along away, it’s to experience a thrilling romance and maybe save the world together while doing so. It’s a story where your relationships should really determine the endgame, more so than your strength or dexterity (but lol probably excepting games like All World Pro-Wrestling).
It’s an unusual lens for many writers used to working in other genres. It really snapped into place for me when reading A Pirate’s Pleasure, which is a rip-roaring pirate yarn where you don’t have to necessarily romance anyone, but the endgame is directly determined by which of three characters you’ll throw in with, if any. Like, ohhhhh THIS is what a romance game should be. The relationships ARE the plot, basically.
So it’s not surprising that authors from outside the genre don’t necessarily know to do that. From what I hear, romance is quite a bustling and lucrative business still in the static fiction world, so it’s also not surprising that successful romance authors may be too busy cranking out static fiction to write a 300k+ piece of IF that needs debugging and beta testing. So there might be bit of a pipeline issue. I’d highly encourage any prospective Heart’s Choice author to read A Pirate’s Pleasure and glean as much as possible from it.
I think Heart’s Choice could be a very successful imprint for CoG, but I think there’s still a bit of learning curve left before we get some consistently relationship-focused stories.
(Edit: I’ve read several Heart’s Choice titles and they’ve all been very good games in their own right, but they’ve definitely had a spectrum of focus on the relationships. And whether or not the story or romance in A Pirate’s Pleasure appeals to you is a matter of personal taste, but no one could honestly say it’s not a romance title.)
I quite enjoyed A Pirates Pleasure, even as a guy! Sometimes thought that if I could do a HC I would do a M/F focused game with a similar style and a few but nunanced romances under a space alien planet on the edge with inspiration from Star Wars, Star Trek and Borderlands.
You said it so well I just had to comment—this is precisely how I feel!
The genre romance novel is quite particular in many ways, and it’s not just “quite a lot of romance”; the romance and the connection of the protagonists should be almost constant. Anything else is secondary. And then there’s a few extra requirements ofc, like Happy ever after is an argued requirement.
I agree, especially since this is a high-growth audience who will be trained on traditional tropes, genre expectations and plot points.
To succeed in this field will require skills and focuses that differ than the traditional IF that we are used to; even titles that approach “romance” as successful CoG and HG titles have in the past.
There are a lot of very fair points being made here, and for the most part as a COG/HC editor I’d rather observe this conversation than get too deeply involved in it, but I will say: most of the people applying and writing for HC are romance writers. To the extent that adapting to a new process is involved (which I agree is difficult, both for authors and for us as editors), it’s much more romance writers learning how to write games than game writers learning how to write romance.
It’s my understanding that many or most HC authors are experienced romance and/or erotica writers, but I wonder whether some of the perceived gaps come from less experience with playing or writing dating sims?
Edit: this, basically:
Are there others as well as A Pirate’s Pleasure which felt especially romance-game-like to those who have completed them? I felt that Heart of Battle and Their Majesties’ Pleasure were good examples of more plot-heavy but relationship-focused fantasy games. All World Pro Wrestling is clearly an erotica game.
Some which I haven’t played all of also gave me the sense of being strongly relationship-based. Changeling Charade feels to me like it will combine a strong romance focus with plot and magic intrigue; If it Please the Court has a solidly queer historical romance feel; Brimstone Manor feels to me very much like an urban fantasy/paranormal romance straightway.
I feel like Belle de Nuit is also pretty strongly relationship-focused, in addition to feeling sexy/exciting/lovely/fun. It doesn’t feel as head-on direct-hit for the genre as Pirate’s Pleasure to me, but definitely deserves to be in Heart’s Choice rather than the main line.
One thing that I’ve wondered what it’s like for writers to get used to is writing one romance with several different love interests, which means that each of them has to be written as an intriguing and appealing character without immediately taking on the qualities of The One True Love. If there are four ROs, there has to be some quality time dedicated to each of them without the PC immediately going weak at the knees. And that’s going to be one significant structural difference in most interactive romance: if there are going to be multiple ROs to choose from, and they’re all going to be integral characters in the story rather than feeling tacked on, the PC is necessarily going to be spending more time with people who aren’t their love interest than they would in a non-interactive romance. Even setting aside the character development necessary to establish that the PC has a full life and sense of self outside the budding romance, it’s going to be a lot harder to maintain that steady sense of connection to one specific person.
We haven’t seen any HC games yet with a single designated love interest, and of course if there were such a game there would be readers complaining about being forced to romance so-and-so instead of getting a choice - but I wonder if that mightn’t better satisfy reader expectations about how a romance novel should feel. If I remember correctly, the original plan for HC was to have 1-3 ROs per book to allow for greater emotional intimacy, but the norm in practice seems to be four or five.
I think one thing I might have to reflect on is that, as a writer, I see the whole work at once. I can play the game as a test, but I can’t unsee that whole work. So I look at the work and see all romances simultaneously, with all sexual options simultaneously, and all gender variations simultaneously, and think ‘that’s a lot of bonking’. And I should have taken on board that the reader doesn’t see that.
Same here! I only read the code, so there have been a number of times where I’ve thought “wow! That’s such a cool game!” when players don’t feel the same, because their first playthrough wasn’t enticing enough to get them to replay and discover more parts of the game. Such a strange and delicate balance, making players happy!
Maybe that’s something that could be explored more in beta testing. Maybe the testing directions for HC games could specifically ask testers to state if they felt satisfied with the amount of sex and romance, and if not, what they would like to see changed. If multiple reports were coming in saying “I really thought this game needed a third sex scene” or “I thought so-and-so had too little screen time compared to the others,” the author might want to give that some serious consideration.
It’s not that simple. Branching the entire game means several times the amount of work for the author - and then readers complaining the game is too short compared to the stated word count.
If any of this had a simple solution, it would have been solved already. The sooner we accept that everything is a trade-off and no game can be all things to all people, the better.
I think this is a problem with romances in these games, in general. It’s easy to look at it from an author’s perspective of, “that’s a lot of romance interaction!” (in addition to the “lots of boinking” thing) when you’re looking at it from having several ROs in the whole thing, but when you get 2-4 “romance” interactions in the game, it’s really not much when you’re playing for the romance, especially when some of those are minor flirt scenes that really go nowhere. Same for the boinking.
Not saying this directed at you, by the way, just in general.
I never said it was “simple”. It’s a different structure to assuring every RO fits the same plotline and giving all of them enough screen time and involvement, and it would need to be adapted to what IF audience likes (such as flavour text and the ability to roleplay).
But it exists. Visual novels, especially dating sims are made around big branches which makes the few choices you get significant and focus on relationships.
