About The Anthology

Hello! I’m Bigg, the owner and lead developer of boutique adult game studio BP Games, award-winning makers of erotic visual novels like Opportunity: A Sugar Baby Story and the recently-released Monstrous Liberation. In 2023, I asked myself: where is all the good writing about adult games?

Video games about sex have existed as long as video games have existed, but you’d never know it by looking at the past several decades of video-game-focused journalism and criticism. Adult games are seen as lesser, their content shameful and sophomoric, embarrassing to even acknowledge – never mind write about. Advertiser prudery more or less guarantees that no large outlets will ever dedicate more than the occasional article to the subject of adult games, and what other coverage that exists on the topic amounts to little more than surface-level reviews of new releases on small-scale enthusiast sites.

And yet – there are thousands of adult games, played by millions of people. From dubiously-translated Japanese imports, to crass, high-energy Flash photo hunts, to experimental Twine explorations of darker kinks, to the current-day crop of Ren’Py-powered visual novels and RPGMaker offerings, adult games have shaped and excited our sexuality through countless experiences. Surely, within all of those experiences, all of that history, all of that craft, there must be SOME things worth writing about!

It was with this philosophy that I organized, edited, and published the first two issues of the Adult Analysis Anthology. These issues spanned nineteen essays, with subject matter spanning personal disaffection with queer-friendly porn games, reviews and retrospectives of popular adult games like Coming Out On Top and Subverse, and even scholarly examinations of the interactions between Bluetooth-enabled sex toys and game modding. This first two issues have received very warm reception – getting featured repeatedly in curated games writing aggregator Critical Distance, getting covered in popular gaming podcast Random Encounters, and even being referred to as a positive resource on The AV Club! Clearly, there is a great (and largely-unmet) appetite for this kind of writing, and I want to publish even more writing like it. Which brings us to this campaign.

Planned Essays

(Please note that these are summaries based on high-level pitches, and essay content may evolve between this campaign and final publication!)

– A defence by Zoquete of their decision to make lewd content an integral part of their top-down action/kinetic novel hybrid Deathblossom, in the face of reactions that presume this somehow sullies the work.

– A retrospective on the past three years of smash-hit erotic live-service turn-based battler Nu:Carnival by Amenyx, looking all features of the game including its story, characters, visuals, gameplay, and fandom.

– A piece on the experience playing adult games while asexual by MorganH, covering the simulation of sexual attraction along with the representation of asexuality in porn games like Course of Temptation and Aces High.

– A look at the idea of games having “core content” and “optional content” as it applies to HRPGs like Demons Roots, which largely segregates its sexual content outside of the main story, and the advantages and drawbacks thereof, by Eithi.

– An exploration of expressions of consent within queer erotic game narratives by marginalized developers, and the effect those expressions have on the perceived edginess of those games’ sex acts, by BáiYù.

– A series of interviews with players of chat game Bondage Club by Faye, a mouse, that digs into the relationship between adult games, adult game communities, and journeys of gender discovery.

– A history of the prolific (and still-running) Meet ‘N’ Fuck franchise of adult Flash games by Liz Alfos, from its standard-setting explosion onto the scene, to it evolution of style, to its influence (good and bad) on the landscape of internet porn games, to its legacy as a titan of the genre.

– A discussion of the tensions between developers of games that employ sex and eroticism in “serious”, “artistic” ways, and developers of explicitly-pornographic titles, and how under capitalism the difference between the two is much narrower than most people think, by Stanley Braxton.

– A reflection by MxMorganic on their experiences playing adult games where they found the gameplay just as compelling, if not more so, than the sexual content that they bought the games for in the first place.

– An examination by Mogs K of their own relationship to eroticized failure states in both intentionally-erotic and unintentionally-erotic games, and how this paradoxical reward for failing influences how players might approach these games.

– A deep dive by Leo G. into the porn game phenomenon of NTR games and their popularity with gamers and developers alike.

– A celebration of the often-overlooked power of content warnings to inform and titillate players by Lindsay Ishihiro, looking at the lessons adult games can take from fandom spaces and how content warnings can be used to support potentially-challenging subject matter.

The Essayists, In Their Own Words

– Zoquete is an artist and developer with a passion for all things lewd. They seek truth and beauty in horny fantasies about monsters and stuff, which is crazy enough it just might work. Their previous game, Deathblossom, is available for free on Steam and Itch, and you can find their links & info at zoquete.carrd.co.

– Ame (Amenyx) is a queer South-East Asian diasporic returnee illustrator as well as an avid visual novel, gatcha, jrpg and adult game enjoyer. With an obsession in these gaming genres going back a decade and a half, they aspire to share their opinions and passions through their art, whether through illustrations or creative writing.

– MorganH is an erotica writer and media scholar with a long academic interest in videogames, interactivity, pornography, and instances where the symbolic becomes the literal. As a fiction writer, Morgan is currently working on Acolyte of the Pleasure Goddess, an “Epicurean fantasy novel” that is the start of what will hopefully be a long series. Currently, chapters 1-9 (about 110,000 words) are available free on Literotica. Delighting in online anonymity, Morgan uses any pronouns.

– Eithan Rosemberg is a freelance writer based in Mexico City and majoring in history. You can contact him at eithanrosemberg@gmail.com and check out his work via Muck Rack. You can also visit his blog at https://eithiwrites.neocities.org.

– BáiYù is a disabled nonbinary trans masc game developer who more-than-occasionally dabbles in the erotic corner of the indie scene for self-proclaimed research purposes. While they’re still getting a feel for what their signature looks like in games writing, people have described his stories as having elements of “cozy existentialism” or being “kinky, cute, and safe.” You’ll often find him doing some sort of community organizing, complaining about capitalism, or yearning for more trans masc rep in media.

– Faye is a 30-something nonbinary transfem mousegirl writing fiction, creating narrative games, and streaming on Twitch under a few different names. Their website has links to their works under this name.

– Liz Alfos, aka ToulouToumou, is a French game developer and game researcher, with a hyperfixation on the history of Flash games. Since 2019 she has run the Museum of Screens, an online preservation project for Flash games and the history of the web.

– Stanley Braxton is a writer and narrative games dev making experiences that are satirical, horrifying, or queer, and sometimes all at once. He makes games for exactly 3 people to lose their minds.

– MxMorganic has been playing games for over twenty years now, and playing adult games for the last seven or eight. MxMorganic also has the sort of brain that refuses to ever shut off, and so they’ve done quite a lot of serious, analytical thinking about games, adult or otherwise. They consider themselves a storyteller first and foremost, and writing about how and why their favorite stories are brilliant is a primary focus of their writing – for instance, their MA thesis examined the ways that Supergiant Games’ Hades re-imagined and enriched the Greek mythic storyworld by creating one of its own. MxMorganic’s online presence is still growing, but you can find their fictional writing on An Archive of Our Own (username MxMorganic), you can find them casually streaming their favorite games on Twitch (username also MxMorganic), and you can find updates about both of these endeavors, as well as any other upcoming projects, on Bluesky (@mxmorganic.bsky.social).

– Hi, I’m Mogs K, and I’ve had a lifelong, intense, visceral relationship with games such that, at some point, they became the center of my intellectual and artistic curiosity. I believe the role of the “player” is a fascinating and unique form of art experience that fuses the more traditional artistic roles of “observer” and “performer” into something wholly new, and my primary aim is to refine how I engage with it which I indulge in by doing such things as streaming twice a week for my friends, listening to my girlfriend explain all the technical minutiae of genres I don’t understand, and having long, late-night talks about the state of eroge with my sister. I can most easily be found, for the time being, at mogsk.bsky.social and twitch.tv/mogsk.

– Leo G. is a programmer and writer that has been in tech for a decade running. As one half of Clown Control, they write the Field Report series chronicling the sexy misadventures of space-faring scientist Del Doppler. They’re also making a game! Joker’s Trip puts you in the shoes of a crooked dealer at a casino where the patrons can bet anything, even themselves. You can find them on bsky @leognyc.bsky.social, and on tumblr @leog4u.

– Lindsay Ishihiro is a BAFTA-losing writer of video games (I Was A Teenage Exocolonist) and creator of webcomics (Motherlover, How Baby) who revels in crafting emotionally-devastating reasons for fictional people to explore each other’s bodies. Cries in the presence of tigers. Bakes cookies when under pressure. No gender, all beef.

Costs

As with the previous issue of AAA, each contributor (including myself) will receive $75 USD for their work. Thus, our costs break down as such:

– $75 USD per essay, times 12 = $900 USD total

– $75 USD for my own labour in writing for, organizing, and editing the anthology

– 11% added for business income tax = $107.25 USD

– 5% added on top of that for Indiegogo’s platform fee = $54.11 USD

– 5% added on top of that to cover payment transaction fees = $56.82 USD

This brings us to a total of $1193.18 USD, or $1710.21 CAD, which has been rounded down to $1700 CAD. Any funds in excess of this goal will be split evenly between myself and all other contributors. Should we not meet our goal, essayists will be given the option to withdraw from the anthology, and what money there is will be split evenly between myself and all remaining contributors.

Perks

Our perks are very straightforward:

– Just The Anthology! You will receive a PDF copy of the final version of the third issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology one week ahead of its publication.

– The Anthology Trio! PDF copies of all three issues of the anthology! More than thirty essays about adult games!

– Special Thanks! Everything in the previous tier, but your name will also be added to the “Special Thanks” page of AAA #3.

– Buy My Opinion! Everything from the previous tiers, and I will also acquire, play, and write a minimum-1,500-word review of an adult game of your choosing (provided it isn’t already being covered by someone else), to be included in AAA #3. Limit one, so snag this one quick!

– Subverse Revisited! As a result of the “Buy My Opinion!” perk from the previous campaign, I reviewed Studio FOW’s Subverse for AAA #2. The review was 7,200 words long and largely negative, but at the time I was reviewing the 0.9 build of the game. Since Subverse is now on version 1.1, it’s entirely possible that many points of friction have since been smoothed out and I would find it much more palatable – or perhaps it’s just more of the same. However, I require a substantial bounty before I dive back in to find out. Limit one!

Risks & Challenges

Should this campaign not meet its goal, there is a possibility that the final anthology will be published with fewer essays than listed above. However, there WILL be an anthology published regardless of the success or failure of this campaign.

Otherwise, after the experience of organizing and editing the first two issues, I am very confident in my ability to bring you a professional-grade anthology of high-quality long-form writing about adult games. Should there be any delays or changes, I will communicate those changes to all contributors as soon as possible.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can’t contribute, sharing is still extremely appreciated! Thank you for helping us increase the stock of high-quality writing about adult games!

Once again, you can contribute to the fundraiser here! Every little bit helps! Thank you!