Does anyone else like very naughty themed VN's or very bloody / gory ones?
I know this is a specific niche but I'm seen to be doing well in some places ( Thank you Germany!)
Drop a reply and let's start a discussion about visual novels!
this is a specific niche
Hmm. While only 1 in 4 of the vn here is adult, about 2/5 of the adult games here are vn. 1/8 of the vn are horror, but vn tend to go for the psycho horror. Prime offender is doki doki literature club. Only about 1/100 are tagged gore, but that tag is not popular to begin with. Some people do not even know what it means or use horror instead.
I do not like linear or kinetic visual novels very much. Too much like reading a book or watching a movie. Nothing wrong with that, but if I play a game, I want to play a game, not play as in play a movie.
Gore or naughtiness does not really add much to a story. It is a setting or style. It has to fit the rest of the game to add to the story and you can easily overdo it or botch it and appear cheap or distract from the story.
But basically, every "nieche" has it's audience. Violence and romances are just prime motivators for any kind of plot, so they are used so often and in so many variations. A visual novel about stamp collecting might be doable, but unless you make a pokemon collector game variant out of it, I do not think it's audience will be very big.
I totally get where you're coming from! Linear and kinetic visual novels can sometimes feel more passive, like you're just along for the ride instead of actively involved. Some people enjoy that book/movie experience, but if you're craving interaction, it can definitely fall flat.
And yeah, with gore or 'naughtiness,' it's all about balance. If it doesn't fit naturally into the story, it can feel out of place or like it's trying too hard to be edgy. It needs to serve the narrative, not distract from it.
You're spot on about different niches having their audiences, though. People are drawn to familiar tropes like romance or violence because they evoke strong emotions, but yeah... a visual novel about stamp collecting? That might be a hard sell unless it's got some unique twist to make it engaging.
That's what I'm saying there is an audience for them but there is very few of them. I've tried to get people together to make one but with no success so far. I've mentioned before if someone wants to make one I would be happy to provide the image assets free of charge. I have an extremely large collection of NSFW game assets already, also I'm constantly increasing my collection and posting them on my profile here or on deviant art. Anyway shameless plug for my game assets but I would be more than happy to provide support for a VN that fits this underground criteria.
Are you guys serious? Is Itch really that hard to navigate?
Enable adult content in your settings, go to top-rated or top-sellers, or even regular popular and tick the box to the left where it says genres and select visual novels. Most of the top pages of vn are adult games. Yeah, only about 1 in 4 of all vn here are adult but they are very popular and therefore easy to find.
an extremely large collection of NSFW game assets AI images. While you might use them as assets, they are AI made. AI is not popular if you check the top pages of the popular vn. Oh, and AI content has to be clearly described as such on Itch (If your project involves automatic or AI generation, make sure it’s clearly stated in your project description).
Please do so. Any of your customers that is naive and does not recognise it as AI is basically scammed. And also risks bad consequences, since in turn, the game your customer makes must also be described as having AI content.