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”