I have been scavenging through site after site to try and find any worth while otome or dateing Sims . And came up with nothing worth while and on my search I found this site , which has some romance based games but need more for both audiences. I have been conversing with my friend for ideas but have been stuck at every turn .so I went straight to the source, the choice of games public.I will try and keep this short but a would really appreciate the ideas and opinions of the users of choice of games. So post what you would want in a dating sim!
Something diverse; dating sims are usually only targeting one audience. I.e. girls, guys. I think they should be more inclusive; it is the 21st century, I’m sure a lot of people would have no qualms with a dating sim that would allow for the gay/lesbian community to equally enjoy the game without targetting the game primarily at that audience (let the player choose their gender/romance partner). That way everyone’s happy. Besides, I’ve noticed that published choice games have strived to do just that. But as far as dating sims go, that diversity has yet to be seen. And besides CoR, there is no choice game focusing solely on romance (i.e. maybe a modern-day high school or college romance game, or something to that effect).
Just my two cents.
I was gonna diversify from just straight romances from the beginning but I’m not gonna railroad the players into it . They will have to earn the character’s heart though. So what do you think would be good for a plot of a game?
I go more to the survival think the world goes to hell with a pretty aliens attack i had a idea of a good game i think. 
Suddenly only girls start to grown at the earth and strange mass suicides happen in weird places. …
You are the last girl who can breed boys you have to choose a viable male to continue the specie and discover what happen .
If you’ve been searching for dating sims you likely know this already, but have you checked out the Lemmasoft forums (http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/)? There are quite a few English-language dating sims, and romance visual novels of all flavors, available there.
As far as personal preferences, I’ve played a few dating sims and only find them mildly amusing - while I like games that have strong stories and a focus on character interaction, most dating sims have incredibly shallow plotlines and are mainly interesting for pretty artwork and the time-management strategy aspect.
I want to create one so , any interesting supernatural characters you might have seen?
Which is a good thing, it would be a turnoff to other players if they were railroaded into such romances/arcs.
Hm…Player character is:
•Some type of spy or government agent; I’m guessing you could implement romance in various ways (i.e. already with someone keeping secrets, who they work with, people they’re “spying on” - there’s a lot of room for the imagination.
•Realistic high school romance game chock full of classes, who’s dating who, cliques, and of course romances.
•Something similar with college, mirroring the aforementioned school troubles with romance while trying to make it doing whatever a person is trying to do.
•Something in the sci-fi genre
•Maybe something focused in on Hollywood - the player could be a behind-the-scenes kind of person and fall for a celebrity, a fellow co-worker.
And it goes on. I’m not sure that any of that was at all helpful, but that’s what I could come up with a the moment.
A high school freshman or a college freshman. Basically someone trying to find their place. If you’re going to have straight and gay romance options I’d choose high school. To make it more realistic not everyone can be bisexual and there is a lot of homophobia in high school so you can’t leave that entirely out. As in religious teacher that takes away from your grade because they don’t agree with your orientation. Things like that. It doesn’t even have to have that at all but try to make it more like real life. Don’t make everyone picture perfect.
But that would forfeit a level of escapism. Games are really for escapism; you’d have to ask yourself how much realism you’d want and strike a balance between the two. I honestly don’t see a problem with the “everyone’s bisexual” route that DA2 went, it’s the highest form of inclusiveness. A game doesn’t necessarily have to mirror real life. And it doesn’t take away from the storyelling, no one is forced either way to romance an NPC. Just my thoughts on that little unrelenting debate.
Merril try to kiss my hawk and i never talk with her ajjj she was ugly and isabella never try when i try all
There are too many sci fi games already, I want to do something different that will stand out . From the other games the school would be good but I will be out shined . I like the idea of a government or a secret facility.
Yeah secret facility seems cool for me
@Batinthehat I didn’t think anything was wrong with that either but most people seem to have a thing for realistic sexual orientation. I don’t really care as long as the story, romance, and writing is good. I mean curious straight girl/guy is one of the romances that could be possible. Teachers, principle, bestfriends mom/dad and ect. That gothic person, the “nerd”, the person who’s always high…Any of those are fine with me as long as the characters are interesting and well written.
@Roslyn_samalt06 Yeah. That could be interesting. Maybe a bunch of teenagers trained to be assassins in a secret branch of the government?
What about a action super natural? Sound interesting?
Love the idea of more dating games. How about a business person who’s focus was on work but now needs more. So you wouldn’t have to worry about money spending, so if you chose to take them on a cheap date, your just cheap. Could have the options of where you’d look for potential partners- work, friends you already have, dating sites, the clubs. Wether you decide to get serious with someone, or play around on them with multiple people? Endless options
That sound like it would be something abc family would broadcast because of the drama opportunities.
Drama would keep a player engaged. Oh, how about you combine the government agent idea with the businessman/woman idea. To keep up appearances the player works in business, but that’s not their “real job”. CEO by day, agent by night. Or something like that. Lol.
And just to add on to the list of plot possibilities… you know those shows where they have a person who has a bunch of girls live in a mansion together and then take them on dates either as a group or one on one and after a certain period of time they choose one person to leave? The pc can be a rich bachelor who’s looking for someone who doesn’t want them for money. The can romance the camera crew, the director…basically anyone behind the scenes. Friends that they already know. Someone that they meet when they’re already on a bad date, a stranger they bump into on the street… anyone.
I rather like that idea.
@Rosyln_samalt06
“try and find any worth while otome or dateing Sims”
Hrm… You are particularly well versed in the otome VN genres and the other stuff that comes with it? Speaking of both the eroge and non-eroge genres of VN’s available in English btw…
Anyway the key if you’re going to produce an otome or a dating game is to move with the modern times akin to what most Japanese-side Visual Novels will produce in this day and age. For example, please avoid anything Ganguro girl style, that type of game drives me up the wall and is really just a stat min-maxer type game.
The old classical games, like True Love / May Club et al (and yes I’m aware they’re adult games) kind of did the format very well, a mixture of statistical ability combined with random events and storytelling. Unfortunately I don’t think they hold up very well in modern gaming because, True Love for example was so “random” it was almost painful without a guide.
Admittedly not many otomes are flying about that I’ve played recently. The most recent is probably Yo-Jin-Bo The bodyguards - a bloody hilarious parody, breaking the fourth wall, action-drama and yet serious story all in one - It is, one of the first otomes I’ve played that perhaps didn’t challenge my suspension of gender belief, i.e. I’m a guy I have no idea why women fancy some guys in games and I’m sure its likewise but for once in Yo-Jin-Bo I actually didn’t register the whole gender issue because it was such a splice of every type of game style over the years all in one nice snuggle bag that I heartily suggest everyone tries out. (The english patched version is available if you look around.)
////I have been conversing with my friend for ideas but have been stuck at every turn .so I went straight to the source, the choice of games public.I will try and keep this short but a would really appreciate the ideas and opinions of the users of choice of games. So post what you would want in a dating sim!\\\
Anyway to tie back to my point, I suggest playing some of the modern otomes/dating sims and maybe going back and trying the older ones. See how they’ve developed and see how they direct their ‘story’ so to speak. You’ll find most ideas will sprout from inspiration from some of these games themselves, or their mechanics or style that you can utilise and modify to suit your own needs.
As for me, I cannot stand any type of dating game that has an idiot ball protagonist. I’m a hearty fan of the adoring best friend cliche that every game has (though that’s probably offensive to the poor girl since she’s always the ‘you lose’ option isn’t she…) and I’m not a fan of romance for romance’s sake and herein lies the difficulty; if you’re going to write an exclusively romantic style game it’s going to be difficult to tailor a faceless protagonist with a dynamic type of romance that allows for a strong story.
Most games that try to do that end up hitting the plot with a sledgehammer to get the ‘couple’ working, it kills the game and it kills the story. The issue is if your reader isn’t feeling what the protagonist is feeling at ANY point in ANY scene you’re writing, that’s it, game over.
In my experience the best romances are those that creep up on you with subtlety. A strong core non-romantic storyline that needs to grow throughout with the romance as a sort of minor part that can be major if need be, interaction with the ‘romantic’ partner so to speak has to be very neutral (for the player character) to such an extreme that its the reason I think most ‘dating sims’ imported in from the East tend to be very route-driven, the player picks a girl/guy/whatever and the story centers around that character with early ‘opt outs’ available just in case you realise you picked someone you don’t really like.
If you get that nailed down, you’ll have a very good game on your hands in my opinion. =)