This is seventh of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: Darling Demon Eclipse

In my experience playing erotic play-by-post chatroom tabletop roleplaying games, a particular text was passed around a lot, but never really used – the Book of Erotic Fantasy for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e was an artifact of fascination, occasionally a focus for the masturbation of TTRPG-playing perverts, but never really something we wound up playing. In a number of these play-by-post games, we’d grab bits and pieces and apply them to Dungeons & Dragons 5e, but we never fully used the Book of Erotic Fantasy. We all had the sense that it was too intricate and intrusive in its portrayal of sex and sexuality, that its many stat rolls and pregnancy tables were ultimately going to get in the way of the fantasy-fucking stories we were telling.

We were right that Erotic Fantasy was overelaborate, but for me this concession meant, from about 2017 to 2021, resigning myself to the idea that there are no erotic adventure TTRPGs to be played – I had heard of Let These Mermaids Touch Your Dick Maybe by Riverhouse Games and other great, erotic games that could be played as oneshots, but I wanted more and longer-lasting erotic games. After studying a lot of Powered by the Apocalypse games, I started working on my erotic communist fantasy heartbreaker Sapphicworld (which is still in development as of writing). The process of developing that game ultimately inflicted me with the curse that this essay is about.

Continue reading “I Only Want To Fuck The Dice”

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This is sixth of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: Kastel

I believe Amelie Doree has written some of the finest criticisms on adult visual novels. In accessible English, she integrates her queer experiences and scholarly research to discuss why erotic fiction is an authentic vehicle for artistic expression. You can see it for yourself on her YouTube channel – my personal favorite is her video on Suisenka.

But before she became a pioneering figure of our times, she was an ordinary trans woman who followed my ramblings on visual novels. While reading older visual novels and thinking about the historical conditions of their narratives, I joked on Twitter that I wouldn’t mind helping a video essayist discuss visual novels. Expecting nothing, I was surprised to see her reply on the next day, asking if I could help provide background information and translations on a then recently translated game, Dōkyūsei: Bangin’ Summer, a remake of a historically influential visual novel from the 90s. The ensuing video helped establish a long-lasting collaboration that persists to this day.

As a fellow critic, I am always curious about the way others formulate their thoughts and put them into words, especially under restrictive settings. Her answers below are a window to a mind who cares deeply about the meaning and place of adult visual novels. I hope you find them as insightful as I have.

Continue reading “An Interview With Amelie Doree”

This is fifth of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: Hunter M

Content warning: The games discussed in this article feature frequent non-consensual themes, such as harassment, threats, violence, and rape.

In the game Slash Cucumber XXX!! (second installment of the Lizzy series), there’s a moment early on where the player is flagged to see a Bad End scene. A girl is tied up, being raped by two boys. A fairly standard sight in this sort of game! You’re on a colorful, cartoony adventure, and the cutesy aesthetics set you up for the gutpunch of seeing some intense sexual violence. How horrifying! But there’s an unusual wrinkle here: The boys are flirting with each other while they do it. They’re making each other giggle, and teasing each other for the funny faces they make while having sex. This Bad End moment is surprising, and humiliating, but it’s not framed as a horror scene. It’s a silly gangrape.

That’s the weird difference the Lizzy games have, compared to other porn games with dark themes but cute aesthetics (your Degrees Of Lewdity, your LonaRPG). Other games use a facade of cuteness, to then let it slip and expose the darkness underneath. In the Lizzy series, the cuteness and the joy and the darkness insistently coexist.

Roksim (FurAffinity, Inkbunny, Tumblr, Itchio, Bluesky, Twitter , Newgrounds) is an artist and game developer I’m a pretty big fan of (I even contributed to the latest Community Art Collab!), and his Lizzy series is some games I’ve been trying to put over with everyone I know for years now. As soon as I saw the Fourdult Fournalysis Fournthology was announced, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to tell even more people about them.

But, showcasing an entire series of games in one short essay? I can’t just do that on my own! So, I figured… why not ask Roksim for help?

Continue reading “You Can’t Just Do That: Talking About Subject-Tone Dissonance With Roksim”

This is fourth of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: MxMorganic

For years, I grappled with the fascinating paradox inherent to NTR games: games are inherently defined by the player’s agency over what happens, and NTR is inherently defined by denying a cuck agency over what happens. Therefore, anyone intending to make meaningful progress through an NTR game where they play as a cuck must exercise their agency so they, through the protagonist, can lose their own agency. How the hell do we reconcile that?

Last year, reading Leo G.’s article in the previous Adult Analysis Anthology, I got the answer I was looking for: “a cuck chooses, a bull obeys.” Those six words and the breakdown that follow finally helped me make sense of my question, and if you haven’t read their article, you absolutely should.

But later in that same paragraph, Leo G. writes, “the player-as-cuck gets to choose if the NTRing happens. There’s almost always an alternate way forward where the relationship is saved.” True as that is, immediately I thought of my favorite NTR game, a game I adore precisely because of how thoroughly it rejects that idea: UROOM’s Dark Hero Party.

Continue reading “You Choose, You Lose: The Illusion Of Agency In Dark Hero Party”

This is third of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: Braden Liatris

Let’s start with a question: why do we play porn games?

By syntactic necessity, it can’t be because of the game part, so it must be because of the porn part. What is it about pornography that we find so compelling? That answer may seem obvious, but it still merits consideration. Erotica and pornography don’t just seek to inform or entertain, they aim to get a rise out of their audience. They stir our blood. They excite our humors. They make us wet. Therefore, we play porn games because we want to be aroused.

So what exactly do choices have to do with any of that?

Continue reading “Do Porn Games Need Choices?”