Sharks Lagoon as a game developer forum

[ExLibris]

I was mainly talking about text adventures because they're what I'm most familiar with from a design point of view.

Conversation in text adventures is mostly of the 'ask x about y' or 'tell a about b', so you ask (or tell) the NPC something and get a response. The response can be varied according whatever variables you like (and are willing to program), and, for example, you could also increase or decrease a relationship meter.

The problem with that model in my opinion is that it doesn't really resemble real conversation. The player is doing all the talking and the NPC is merely reactive.

The branching model of conversation, which you seem to be advocating, is good but it does have the drawback that it requires a lot of writing unless you don't allow the player to deviate very far from the main thread of the conversation. It gets more complicated too when there are variables that might affect the responses.

There have been a few text adventures that have used menu-based conversations, but they've been of the short variety (ie. about 3-4 levels/branches) which keeps it manageable.

As you've probably guessed, I'm a big booster for text adventures (or interactive fiction). I'm also a bit lukewarm about graphics, at least for storytelling. It seems to me that if you want a good story, you have to focus on the text. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but you can tell more of a story with a thousand words than you can with a single picture.

[Tjommi]

The downside of text adventures is that it's quite complicated to type with one hand.

To be a little serious, the game might got a good amouth of text in it, but allthough it doesn't have to be super hardcore in the graphics, the graphic games still works best for me. I don't know squat about programming. I started once back on the commodore 64 but I am no good at math so I gave it up quite fast, all I know it's a heck of alot of work. But I think that we all agree on that. So think we should take the focus away from what's easy and what's hard and over to what would be cool to play.

When it comes to flash games/browser games I gotta say that I like the various forms of dating sims the best, to not repeat myself over and over we just stop with that. Allright I am gonna repeat myself a little bit. There are other adult games that could be used as a source of inspiration, and to mention some :
- 7 sins
- Bonetown
- singles 2
- sim2 & 3 modded
- Oblivion modded
- sexy beach 3
- artificial girl

7 sins is as you might have discovered among my favourite adult games. I don't mean that these game should be copied, but there are many cool scenarios and ideas that can be harvested from the games that I have listed here, for example in 7 sins one of the women wants you to do her in the exhibit window out to the street in the cloth store. Bit's and pieces can be " borrowed " and slightly modified or put in another context and be rejuvenated.

But at the end of the day, the most important thing for me, no matter what category the game is, is that it is a game. To return to the opening post again, what ticks me the most off is playing games that leave me with the feeling that the author took the easy way off and released an unfinished product. The only thing I loathe more is dressup games and " interactive " movies that are released as games. I want to be entertained for more than 5 minutes.

[TheBrain]

ExLibris wrote :
The branching model of conversation [...] requires a lot of writing

Reading this I got a kind of weird but interesting idea. There's a lot of writing involved, but right now creating erotic games (or let's keep it to interactive stories, for now) still seems like an individual effort. The stories remain small or limited. I feel collaboration could result in larger stories, or to put it into context: more branches. Of course the difficulty of collaboration is that it requires a lot of extra effort in organization.

So the idea that quickly entered my mind was this: what if you create a wiki-like structure for creating an interactive story. Basically give anyone the power to easily edit the story and its interactions. Obviously such freedom needs groundrules and active moderation, but for now it's more the concept that seems interesting.

Even for the simplest interactive story model (a tree structure, no loops, no variables) I'd expect you could get interesting results because of the size and branching factor that a single person couldn't achieve (or not as quickly). That is, of course, if it works... Vandalism could be a major problem, but in a true wiki nature that should be reversible by anyone (although a 'history' is not as straightforward in a tree structure, where complete branches may have been deleted). Another potential problem is inconsistent writing, different branches written by different people may have characters acting inconsistently with the 'global truth' (for example, personalities).

Adding static graphics (like Chaotic's games) would be a next step, but to also make that a collaborative process would certainly have difficulties (for example, inconsistencies are much more apparent in graphics).

That said, it might be a nice experiment (even text-only). I'd love to hear thoughts on this (I might be motivated to conjure up a prototype), although a large discussion should probably go into a separate thread (for now it's just an idea I found interesting :P).

[coder]

Created a thread for discussion:

http://sharks-lagoon.aceboard.fr/215394 ... -model.htm

[ExLibris]

There seems to be general agreement that a good story is important, but I'm curious as to what people consider to be a good story in the context of an adult game?

Is it enough to merely provide a context for the sex? Or should the sex be 'artistically valid' and called for by the story?

[cruiser]

I´ve reading all,even Im not a ´hardcore`gamer....here my 2 cent

I think and answering ExLibris,the sex should be a bonus for finishing the challenge.Ofcourse an "Adult Game" is targeting on sex but it shouldnt be simple to earn it.I hate the easy way....like meet a girl and talking...." Oh hey,its a nice day...lets jump in bed"

A game should tell a good story with different ways to win or loose and if there good graphics it would be perfect.
And......it should be a bit moore than a 5 minute timekiller.

Plz dont understand me wrong.....I have no clue in programming and such stuff....but think it needs a lot of work and time to create a game .
And so at least....Thanks Shark and friends for your work

[Tjommi]

For me a good story can be compared to a journey. When you start of you might got a destination, but you don't need to have a spefic destination. For the sake of argument I am gonna dumb it down and not go into to many details, but let's say you are on a holiday, and you are backpacking.

The plan is that you are to go to Paris. There is a wide number of ways you can get there, but you decide to travel with an open european train ticket.You stop and see sights along the way. You might follow the schedule and end up in Paris, but you allso might meet some fellow backpackers that are going to Rome, and you decide to follow them instead. You go with them have a wonderfull time and go home with many happy memories.

A poor story describing the journey above : I started up wanting to go to Paris, but ended up in Rome. The end.

A good story perhaps tell us a little bit about the person going on this journy, it visualise the journey itself, and the people you meet along the way, and it get's you involved. It goes deeper into the descrpition of the people that you meet that makes you go to Rome instead, the events that take place while you are with them, and reveal that the reason you go with them is because there is a person that you are attracted to in this group, that shows signs of attraction to you as well. The story is no longer just about your holiday, it's about meeting this over person, and the shared experiences that you got, untill the unevitable hearbreaking goodbye, where you go home to your life and are left with painfull( in the sense that the journey is over and you are now alone ), but happy memories of a wonderfull journey.

What makes a story good or poor is subjective. You and I got different opinion, but the thing what we need to agree upon is that there need to be one. There got to be a setting, a plot. Take this over to the context of an adult game, in my opinion, there should be a beginning, a scenario that set the circumstances, a minimum of character development of at least the main characters of the story,( a name and a role, Anna=mother=hot body, got children not getting attention from husband, Tim=mailman, lonely or just plain horny and want to nail Anna. )Now here is where stuff get tricky.

A poor story let Tim go knock on the door and then nail Anna there and then on the coffee table beside the door. ( interesting enough when I think about it, but poor from a story context point of view. )
A good story Make obsticles,create a challenge for our hero to reach his goal. The neighbours are very nosy, the kids are allmost allways home, The family might have a dog that doesn't like the mailman, and most importantly Anna is not just gonna lie down and spread her legs, and Tim does after all have to finish his mailround, so he have to work on this perhaps over a longer period of time getting gradually closer to his goal.

Is it enough to merely provide a context for the sex?

Despite all that I have written so far, the answer to your question is Yes. Allthough I would choose my words a little bit different. A good story creates a setting around the event. Sex is the picture, the story is the frame. A poor frame is boring, perhaps rotten, breaks and you got just a picture. A good frame give the picture class and raise the value.

[GentleGiant]

To my fellow Lagooners,
I'm an all-time fan and reader and a first time writer.

Shark's Lagoon has come a long way as a community, not only made of erotic game fans, but also promising developpers of the genre.
Working myself in the video game industry, I know how hard, tedious, time-constraining and life-taking this line of work can be.

But wether you are working alone or with a team made of 5 to 500 people to create the next Grand Theft Auto, Hannah Barbara, flash web game, kid's or erotic game, I believe that the concept of designing and developping a game is pretty much the same.

Since we are talking about free-based games, I'll be happy to cut the Marketing crap I have to endure at work. Sure, graphics and animations help sell the game, but that's because that's all you can experience when you watch an advertising, a trailer and looking at the cover when it's on the store shelves.

Whatever the genre, the audience, the platform or the team you have, what you are creating is first and foremost a GAME. Take a look at your favorite games and what do you remember the most out of it? What made you stick to the keyboard/controller for hours? You might have reached at Final Fantasy for its next gen graphics and engine, but what made you keep the game, play nonstop and leave you wanting for more? It was the GAMEPLAY. Otherwise, you would have forgotten all about it today and you wouldn't be impatiently waiting for it's sequel to come out.

Now look at the game you want to CREATE. Take a blind eye to its visuals and animations. An erotic GAME it might be, but a GAME it must be first, not erotic.
Once you have shed all its skin and if all you have left is any of this:
[*]Choose between option A, B and C.
[*]Click the hidden spot.
[*]Click "Next".
[*]Trial and error. (Try, die, retry)
Then you might want to refine your game mechanics.
Note that even if your game fits one of the above descrïptions, it does not make a bad game out of it. You can still make it a very challenging, rewarding and fun experience.

I still have many things to add, but I think I'll leave it at that for now.

Don't forget, it's near impossible to create something entirely new and original. Don't be afraid to let yourself be influenced and inspired by other games, movies, books, tv shows, experiences, paintings, sculptures, architectures ...
You're creating art, don't you forget it.

[GentleGiant]

There are 2 very fundamental and important game design concepts that seem to be missing from most erotic games out there.

Guiding the player

The player must know almost instinctively what he can do, what his destination is, what his goals are. How he attempts to reach these goals are up to him, but he must know what and where they are. That also includes showing him the tools at his disposition.

Here are examples:

"The door is locked. You don't know it, but the key is three screens back the way you came, but you can't go back because the path is now blocked. Besides, since you didn't take the key when you had the chance, it must be because you didn't see it AND didn't know you needed one. Not only are you stuck, but you still don't know where the key is, so you keep searching without end where the key is not."

"In ArianeB, Ariane will not do certain things if she is not drunk enough. Well, since I don't have any background info on Ariane herself, I don't know about her inhibitions, how much alcohol she needs to free herself of them and how much she can take before getting sick. Which leaves me with only one course of action, Trial and Error."

It also involves explaining how the game works. Tutorials are always the easy solution. For very complex games, another method is more efficient. Introduce a first mechanic to the player and then let him advance through the game normally. Once he is acustomed to it, another new mechanic is introduced to him. Gradually, the tools are unlocked and the controls come natural to him.

The visual interface also must feel natural to the player. He should know how to play simply by looking at the screen. It is very frustating when you struggle with the controls and are trying to understand how the game works while playing.

"I didn't know I could use the phone in the small corner over there to order a pizza."

The hardest thing about Guiding the player is to do it just right. You must do it just enough so he doesn't get stuck and never needs help. But don't overdo it or the player will feel like we are not just holding his hand but shoving him in the right direction. It's a thin line between the two, but the right balance will make sure that the player never gets stuck and still enjoys a challenge.

Give feedback to the player

Newton's third law says: For every action, there is an equal reaction. (Short version)
Whenever the player attempts something, he is looking for a reaction. Generaly speaking, here is what happens in his mind:
[*]If nothing happens, it was useless and he will probably not try it again.
[*]If something bad happens, he shouldn't have done that and will never try it again. (game over, death, make your date sad)
[*]If something good happens, he will continue to use it.

The player may not suspect exactly what will happen before taking action. But he MUST know what the result is right after, right there and understand it.

"I just pulled a lever and heard a sound. I don't know it, but it just unlocked a door 3 screens further ahead. Not knowing what its use is for, I play around with the lever continually until I get bored with the sound it makes. There was a reaction to my action, but I did not understand it."

Feedback also involves the visual interface. If he has any use for them, these informations should be easily available to the player:

[*]His current status (life, mana, drunk, sick, etc)
[*]Any useable items (bought and found)
[*]All equipped items and their effects
[*]The time of day
[*]His current location and map
[*]Directions he can go
[*]Actions he can take
[*]People he can talk to
[*]Objects he can manipulate
[*]Obstacles and enemies
[*]Anything relevant really ...

"Oh, I didn't know there was a hidden inventory menu at the top of the screen until I accidently rolled my cursor over it."

"I offered a drink to my date, but I did not know that I could not afford it. Now I look stupid because she has to pay for it herself."

Don't forget: the player must be challenged by trying to figure out what he SHOULD be doing, not what he CAN do. A little bit of exploration is great, but not when you simply hide the player's options.

A challenging game is not the same thing as a difficult one. But more on that point later...

[erana]

Good one, GentleGiant.

Just one caveat: the "you need ot get Ariane carefully drunk, but not too much" is actually an example of "challenging", as opossed to "difficult", because it's reasonably intuitive (liquoring a date up is actual real-life behaviour, and so is puking) and because Ariane herself tells you about it in-game. In case you put t as example of "challenging", good work. If you put it as example of "dificult", it's a bad example, but that doesn't detract from the validity of the point.

[GentleGiant]

Yes, you are totally right Erana. Alcohol does have effects in real life and so should it in a simulation game too. It adds depth to the game and opens a lot of possibilities. But although Ariane does warn you about drinking too much, she does not always do, since some of the things she says are at random.

I realize that Ariane goes into different states when she drinks which open up new venues as she let's loose. As she drinks, I am not sure, but I think she goes through 3 or 4 possible states:
[*]Normal
[*]Loosened up
[*]Drunk
[*]Tired (The End)
She does need to eat first though or she goes straight to Tired.
Unfortunately, the game does not really hint the player about what state she currently is in except one: Tired, and that means the end of the date. I am not suggesting a meter in the corner that would show her state, that would be too easy.

In real life, there are signs showing when you begin to drink. Your cheeks become more reddish, you speak with more energy and louder, you loosen up, laugh more, etc. The more you drink, the stronger are the signs, until you actually speak nonsense, can't stand on your feet, your breath smells of booze, you get tired and sick, etc. We've all been through that.

I understand that in a game it is much harder to simulate. It's normal for Ariane to get tired and sick if she gets too much to drink. But there should be clues of her changes of state. Hint the player in the words she says, poses she takes and other behavioral changes that give clues to her state and wether or not she is about to get sick.

I remember Virtually Date Crystal in which there is a scene at the bar. You order shots once, twice and you can notice that Crystal is drunk by her speach and her face. At this point, you know that she's had enough and it eventually later opens up the striptease at the stripclub.

I refrained myself from saying this before, but I owe you all, including you Erana, the respect of being honest with you:

I really like the games of Virtual Date Girls, ArianeB and the like. They are original and unique in their genre, have great depth, include funny and cheeky events and have great replayability.
BRAVO! [img]kator/smiley41.gif[/img]

Unfortunatly, reaching the different endings is not really a challenge for me, but rather a frustration. I have to use too much of Trial and Error to reach the different endings. Meaning that in each scenes, I find 2 to 5 options that I can take, but almost no clue whatsoever as to which ones are good, bad or without consequence (except the quiz questions, of course). I have to try my luck (which mine is ungodly bad), get a Date Over screen, restart the game, try to remember all the steps I have taken to reach the last scene and try my luck again. And every time I restart, I just fastforward through all the scenes I played before, clicking fast on the right spots, without really enjoying them again and thus spoiling a bit of the romance.

I know some games, such as Hentai games, that have the same issue and try to resolve this by allowing you to save your game at any point so that you can just reload and try something else. Although it does remove any challenge from Hentai graphic novels, which have none in the first place, it might be a solution to your current games. But I don't advise relying on it too much in the future.

I do have a few insights for your future projects to help alleviate this problem, but I must review my notes on the subject first. It is after all an ongoing problem for all game development teams out there.
All of them.

[TheBrain]

GentleGiant wrote :
"In ArianeB, Ariane will not do certain things if she is not drunk enough. Well, since I don't have any background info on Ariane herself, I don't know about her inhibitions, how much alcohol she needs to free herself of them and how much she can take before getting sick. Which leaves me with only one course of action, Trial and Error."

I believe that trial and error is one of the most fundamental gameplay concepts in these dating games. Let's relate this to meeting a girl in real life: assuming that sex on the first date is the ultimate goal and the girl isn't a total slut, chances are very much against you. You might make some headway, but somewhere you're bound to make a mistake.
This is where the game comes in. And if you've seen the movie, you could call it the Groundhog Day principle (man relives one day over and over until he achieves his 'destiny'). Instead of making a mistake, going home and trying again with a different girl the next day, the game let's you relive the previous day and let you meet the same girl. But now she's not a total stranger anymore, you've learned from your experiences. And with each mistake you'll learn more and more, until you reach your goal.

To draw from the movie again (some SPOILERS, in case you haven't seen it :P), in some scene we see the main character being slapped over and over again (all his mistakes). He can even kill himself. In the end (an unspecified amount of times he relived that day later) he knows pretty much all about the people in a small town and what will happen, and starts convincing the girl he loves he is in fact an omnipotent God. (/SPOILERS)

Long story short, it's a good movie and more importantly a very appealing premise (who can honestly say he wouldn't want to relive some day without losing the experiences from before). In my mind these dating games buy into that premise and allow us to achieve something that would be almost impossible in real life.

Now of course in the dating games we are not allowed to reuse our previous experiences (I'll note something about that at the end though). But by trial and error we get to know the girl (and maybe a bit of the world she lives in).
An important condition though is that the choices we make by trial and error remain natural. Having a choice 'go left' and 'go right', where one of the two kills you, is not very appealing. It'd get better if the bad choice would be something like 'take a shortcut through a dark alley with a mysterious silhouette in it', you might take the hint to avoid it. But still, choices that end the game in 1 step are bad. The information we gain from a single playthrough should be more than choice A in the situation is bad. Rather, if we take the dark alley as an example (but don't get killed), we might learn the girl is afraid of the dark, which would be useful at some other part of the date (not even necessarily the current playthrough).
And step by step you'd become "omnipotent" about the limited world of the dating game. In light of that criterium: the good games would have you feeling you really 'know' that world. The worse games (not necessarily bad) will have you just feeling that you know the choices you need to make.
Sadly, none of the games so far really live up to the true potential of this (again, that's not to say they aren't good games). I'd say that right now, School Dreams 3 scores the best on this point.


Right, so one more random thought about reusing previous experiences. I'd say that copying the Groundhog Day principle could be a very good basis for a dating game, i.e. you play a character that relives the same day over and over, and you are allowed to use previous experiences. For one you give more credability to the fact that you play the same thing over and over. But you also get a lot more interaction possibilities that don't necessarily lead to a much bigger game in terms of development.
The most fundamental effect: the player is a lot less aware of when he has 'finished' the game, even an unsuccesful date (a situation you'd want to avoid) could give you more knowledge that could lead to a new situation (although you'd probably want a 'knowledge meter', to indicate how much you've 'unlocked').
Another possibility would be for the writer to include a path with garantueed failure the first time, after which something is unlocked that allows the player to avoid the failure (i.e. not only the player is aware of the failure, the character you play is as well).
You could even have the story start out to be almost uninteractive, you go about the day as the character normally would (as in the movie), with a few choices that decide what you unlock the next day. And this effect would cascade to open up a lot of paths.
Anyway, lots of possibilities, interesting idea, but somebody still has to do it...

[Arnulf]

Hi, GentleGiant amd The Brain, some of your points you told about dating games, such as especially ArianeB, need a comment of someone, who knows a bit about the inner conditions of the game. I am speaking of the updated fan editions of ArianeB, presently in the UP17 version.

First the alcohol: each player knows that in the original versions Ariane must not drink more than two drinks before dinner. And it doesn't need not much brain efforts to pay attention thereof. Then, you can let her take up to three or four drinks (depends) during the date, before she gets tired and kicks you out. This was the original concept of the author(s) and I admit, this was also educative in general. Then in course of the extended options of the game and mainly to open some new ways, the alcohol limit was lifted for technical reasons. The allowed drinks are directed by general variables in the game and according to the basic concept Ariane kicks you out, if such a limit is reached. You have a lot of such limits for dancing, for some foreplay actions, for swimming and so on. This makes Ariane rather similar to normal girls. And having a date with an unknown girl gives you also in realty a lot of challenges and it always can happen, that you are doing something quite wrong for your date, even in reality.

The main point of a game, compared with the reality is, that you can try again and again, every time, you are failing. In real life, you have one chance or two as maximum.........

In the extended versions of the game it was necessary to extend some limits in order to lighten playing the game and to make possible some extended ways of gaming. And with the new technical features, made by qbv8, you can check the state of the game at any point and you can also save the game before getting in glitchy situations. For enabling some more features, such as stargazing as a turn-point of many options, the stargazing normally is possible only once in the game, but with one of the first extensions in the very beginning, made by erana, the stargazing option was switched on again by taking one drink. Also the option to use the car was reactivated by doing some top-foreplay. This made it necessary to lift up some limits, what in case of the alcohol not really was educative.

It always was difficult to find the way between saving the character of Ariane as much as possible and to meet the player's wishes and demands for new and more erotic scenes.

Maybe the character of Ariane has made some doubtful changes, but on the other hand, you can see, that this game is widely one of the most successful games.

[GentleGiant]

I remember the Groundhog Day movie. I also remember dreaming about it happening to me and I can truly understand how this relates to the Virtual Date Girls, ArianeB and similar games.

I am not critizing the use of the Groundhog Day scenario, but rather discuss on ways to improve upon it and try to push its limits.

With that in mind, I would like to propose a thought exercise to everybody:

Groundhog Day movie. I can remember the lessons learned by the protagonist in it.

MOVIE SPOILER WARNING










Our self-centered and sour protagonist is reliving again and again the same day without anyone remembering a thing except him.
At first, he does stupid stuff, steal money and live it large as if there is no tomorrow. Then he decides to flirt with the pretty girl, using Trial and Error and is constantly being rejected. Although a tempting life indeed, it turns out to be a curse. Frustration and depression sets in and he eventually tries repeatedly to kill himself, again to no avail.

It is only once he tries to better himself and help the ones around him that he finally breaks away from the curse.










END SPOILER





Reviewing this, I realize that when I play these kinds of game, I personally feel the frustration of the character of the movie. Reliving through the entire day, doing the exact same thing, creating a repetitive routine and ensuring the same exact experience every day. Up until the moment where I blew it last time with the girl, to try something different.

If we take this a little further and exagerate things. Remember this is a thought exercise. You could actually apply the same to any single game out there, just by ignoring the save feature. The perfect game would be one that lasts about 20 hours, to simulate an entire day.

You'd have to play the game at the hardest difficulty setting. Whenever you die, you restart from the very beginning, no saves allowed whatsoever. Imagine yourself playing the countless hours, reliving the beginning of the game so many times that you can almost sleep through it, just to reach the moment that you last died, just to die again a few feet further, because you didn't know what was coming. And experience it all over again, and again, and again ...

End thought exercise.

Now, some games actually apply something similar, the Hardcore difficulty in Diablo comes to mind. One death and that's it. Although you can save to continue later, dying means losing everything, including the save file.

I would like to present to you the following games: Shenmue, Still Life and Indigo Prophecy. I would strongly suggest everyone to try them out, or at least look at their reviews on your favorite gaming site, along with a new upcoming game, Heavy Rain. These games play a bit like interactive movies, where the player makes decisions and deals with the logical and somewhat predicting consequences resulting from them. There are many endings and many different ways to reach each of them. Even failing a scene does not mean death and game over, but rather allows the player to experience a different path and not necessarily a bad one either.

These games are very challenging, but still allow the player to continue on and experience the game even if he fails. There are still ways to actually die, but that usually happens when you do everything the wrong way.

These games are adult-themed and even include some erotism and romance into the mix. Actually, I believe that they could be the basics for a new genre of erotic game.

[ExLibris]

I've not played Shenmue, but I have played Still Life and Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit as it was called here). Unfortunately my impressions of those two games don't quite agree with yours.

I remember Still Life as being a point-and-click adventure with rather intrusive puzzles and a very disappointing ending. As is true of most point-and-click games, you're more likely to get stuck than actually get killed, and I don't remember any points where the story branched in more than the most minimal way.

I agree a little more with your summation of Fahrenheit, as that was consciously designed to be like an interactive movie. The chief gameplay feature was the quick time events though (as with Shenmue according to my Googling) which mainly served the function of getting player to identify with character (Carla dealing with her claustrophobia being a good example). There was limited plot branching (the first scene being the best example, where the protagonist could achieve varying levels of success) and several possible endings. But I remember a lot more points where failure meant end of game.

Plot interactivity in games tends to be more cosmetic than anything else anyway. In part that's because of the extra work that implementing every possible branch involves, but I think it's also due to the nature of storytelling. Stories tend to be linear because of all the possible choices the characters could make, the author (hopefully) chooses those that produce the most dramatically satisfying events. Other branches would probably not be as interesting, which is why plot branching tends to be more a momentary diversion from the main path.

That being said, I'd still pick Fahrenheit as a model for an adult game over Groundhog Day. Maybe it's because I'm more interested in story/character than gameplay, but I don't find trial-and-error to be at all enjoyable.

If I have a point here it's that if there's sex in a game, I want it to have a context. That's sort of the case in Fahrenheit, where both sex scenes develop out of the relationships between the characters (although disappointingly the relationship between Lucas and Carla largely develops offscreen).

For some further reading, how about these two articles?

http://www.gamecritics.com/alex-raymond/women-arent-vending-machines-how-video-games-perpetuate-the-commodity-model-of-sex
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/112658-the-gleam-of-electric-sex-what-video-games-might-or-might-not-teach-/