Variable Geo Series

[Blade]

I came across this in my research on Erogames for a project I'm chiseling out, so I wanted to ask you guys if you knew anything about it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Geo

Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPWTcX1Gwes

Truth is, I've been thinking about making a game that's something of a mix between a Fighting Game (nothing too complex), Poke'mon (growth elements/competing elements), a Custom Dating Sim/Hentai Sim where you create a custom girl and have her battle other girls and stuff plus having dating and ero elements on the side. You'd be able to import DLC custom costumes and other things and battle friends online.

I dislike the notion of visual novels since it's all reading, so I wanted to do research on different types of games and see what works and what doesn't. Obviously Variable Geo is mostly a fighting game, but it had other elements to it and I was curious.

If some of you guys have more knowledge of ero stuff or visual novels and what's good versus what's utter crap, I'd like feedback.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who actually play this game, you can talk about it here too.

[SolxBaiken]

The game you want to make sound like a mix of Robopon and Sakura Taisen, also let me state that while visual novels are very story focused and thus requiring alot of reading (or listening in VO cases), visual novels have evolved alot and can be pretty much integrated into ANY other genre. Many great titles incorparate visual novel elements such as the Guilty Gear series (X+ and up), BlazBlue, Sakurai Taisen, Persona 3 and 4, ANY NIS game, Super Robot Taisen, etc the list could go on.

The genre "Dating Sim" actually stemed from the visual novel series and the best example of this potential great system is in the PSone classic (at least for me) Thousand Arms. You also must understand that while "Ero" and "visual novel" are often treated hand-in-hand not ALL visual novels are Eroge, and most of the GOOD ones that are use the erotic content in a tasteful way that makes logical (most times ~.~) sense with the story and not just doing it because the can. Great Eroge I would reccoment include Saya no Uta (or Song of Saya), School Days, Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and Utawarerumono.

Actually if look at the roots of many great anime/manga series you can see that alot are adapted from novels and Eroge, but I digress :3

Saddly I haven't played Variable Geo (which is also based from an Eroge) but I saw the hentai and anime (essentially the "clean" version of the hentai) once. I might try looking for the game to add to my data gathering for my own game (which will be a fighting game/visual novel hybrid).

Lastly 2 questions; you say there will be "custom" girls? So are they like androids or like dolls/toys (a la Angelic Layer or Buso Shinki), and how will you handle said customizing as that'll require some serious dev time depending on how you go about it.

[Wirya]

Blade, you are an otaku.

LOL I kid. (but I've been wanting to say that to someone, instead of someone says that to me )

Good visual novel = good story.

Hentai contents are okay, as long it don't interfere with the story. This can be quite tricky. I played a visual novel called Snow Sakura (anyone know this?). The story was great. The hentai scenes were... uh, okay. But sometimes a hentai scene appeared at just the WRONG FUCKING TIME, destroying the mood of the story. I saw that a lot of players didn't even recognize the bad timings of some of the hentai scenes (because they're too busy enjoying it? ), but I very very very fucking recognized it. It annoyed me like hell.

[Blade]

Hunh...okay.

Well, it's a tough idea to balance out customization with combat elements. If I were to describe it best, I'd say it'd be a mix between Soul Calibur's Create-a-Soul, a kind of fashion-oriented generator (with stuff you can import yourself like tatoos, makeup, jewelry, clothing, or dress designs or hair style and body types), elements from "Artificial Girl" series (though I hate their designs as it looks TOO artificial, lol), and something akin to a psycho-religious alignment system (that is to say, a person's sign and birthday or their personality affect their overall abilities including things like likes and dislikes based on genre of taste).

A more elaborate way of saying it would be, the emphasis is on designing your ideal girlfriend, from clothing to personality type which ultimately affects her growth and abilities. For example, she could be introverted/extroverted, active/passive, optimist/pessimist, idealist/realist, and you could adjust things like how sensual or reserved she is, formal or perverted, open or secretive, domineering or submissive, and depending on your settings that affects her growth and talents in certain areas, while things like her sign, likes and dislikes affect how well your interaction with her will be on certain events.

And how well she gets along with you will determine her strength and ability growth (somewhat like Nintendogs has you looking after a pet) in various areas, as well as things like hidden talents (such as singing or the like). Also making a girl who has a wide variety of personality range would create mood swings.

Certain clothing would boost her personality attributes and parameters like equipment would, as well as her relationship with you.

Lastly, there'd be four key events that further boost the relationship or are detrimental to it:

--Dating Events: Could be stuff like watching a movie, giving her a gift, celebrating a holiday, or going someplace like a restaurant or concert.

--Battle Events: Where she actually has to use her powers in conjunction with your control of her abilities. It'd be something akin to a 3D battle system most likely, like Power Stone or Smash Bros, with elements of KOF/GG/BB perhaps. This is where you could possibly play your friends and compare girlfriends. There'd also be action game and story elements in these type of events to further the main story. Think GG-Boost-like. Oh yeah, and things like equipping certain weapons would affect their fighting style.

--Challenge Events: These can appear anywhere in the above two events usually, or anytime you want them to. Things like drinking/eating contests, beauty contests, task challenges. Basically a large group of unique minigames, possibly something as spread out as Wario Ware.

--Passion Events: These would be locked at first, but as you progress, you'd be able to unlock them, and by doing them sometimes unlock a special ability or gain a large stat boost. Somewhat like Challenge events, but not entirely based on your performance in the challenge, hehe.

Anyway, that's the ideas I'm working with...I'd go into further detail about the level of customization I'm thinking about, but it's a huge list.

One more thing: about the premise for this game...it'd be something like a magical girl (but with somewhat darker elements) who needed the power of her boyfriend to fend off evil or something...yeah I'm corny like that.

[Wirya]

I'm thinking that it can be fun if the girlfriend is controlled somewhat undirectly in battles. Maybe like in Monster Rancher. The battles get you to play the role of a coach and not the monster itself. The monster may or may not follow your commands.

If you want the girlfriend to be controlled directly (especially if it's gonna be a real fighting like a real fighting game), well... I think you have to think of some believable backstory that explains it. That is because directly controlling your girlfriend is just... a bit fucked up. Some people will see it as a fucked-up-ness that turns a human girl into a mere toy or something like that.

She's not just a robot or girl-like monster, she's the player's girlfriend, yo. The player even gets to date her. You don't normally date a girl you directly control like a doll.

[Blade]

Yeah I know. Chiseling this out takes time. It's not fully formed yet. And who knows about the code. However, understand, this is for people who like to micromanage everything, especially the whole master>handler relationship. And the core fun is the customization I have in mind.

[SolxBaiken]

Hehe this shouldn't have been named the "Variable Geo Series" thread x.x of which I found a PC copy of Advance Variable Geo and will hopefully be buying it next week (or the week after for sure) so I'll definately give my impressions then.

Hmm judging from your last big post you should also look into a game called Love Plus (and it's soon to be released sequeal Love Plus+) as alot of the relationship systems you described are very similar to that game. And pretaining to the mini-games you should look at the XY/XX series (Feel the Magic and the Rub Rabbits) rather than WarioWare as this series has the same amount of diversity in it's mini-games, but they are geared toward building a relationship/trust with your girl friend (in some zany but fun ways :3)

Honestly this seems like a really great idea but it would be a programming nightmare @.@ you'd need like 5 teams working on the project at once, but if you can have 100% dedication from your fellow teammates than this could go down as one epic title.

If you have any other ideas/details you want to throw out there I'll be happy to analyze ^-^ Hmm maybe I should start a thread about my game, I do have some material to show...

[Cloud_1one]

i've played a lot AVG2 and i have to say that i love it:kitty:, is pretty fun actually (except for some Kaori's infinite) good combo system (gatling, otg,cancels and overdrives cancels), good graphics (for the time that i played it , they were good)and story mode were interesting with all the anime scenes.

I play Chiho Reimi, Material, Jun, Yuka, Tamao ... well almost every character XD, except Miranda , I hate her, Chiho almost died because of her.

I played a lot some years ago (like 10 years actually) with some friens but now no one knows it XD, so just play against the CPU.

I would love to see something new about ir or just some kind of online play but... that's just a dream that will never come true, sadly.

Here's the opening theme Endless Life, i love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq0dDgvkNa0&feature=PlayList&p=EDD8F4BBE427176D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=30

and about your idea of a game... that would be interesting.

[2nd_God]

Hmm... This thread is misleading.

I guess a few points I could spew about..

1.Variable Geo is really fun~! (and it's characters are surprisingly pretty hard-core in mugen:make your own fighter)

2. Your game about building a girlfriend and having her strip/fight for you sounds kind of interesting.. I'd have to see screenshots before I made my decision as a consumer however..

uhm..

3. I don't think comparing Nintendogs to a Hentai game.. Is a very responsible approach when referencing engine design. At least from an ethical stand-point, however.

[Poseidal]

I've only played the Playstation one (Advanced VG 2), which wasn't an H game. It seemed pretty fun, if a bit standard as a fighter.

[SolxBaiken]

I've only played the Playstation one (Advanced VG 2), which wasn't an H game. It seemed pretty fun, if a bit standard as a fighter.

Actually is was just a port of said PC title with all the hentai content removed, the only console versiion that maintained the H content was one of the first SNES ports (which was removed in the Saturn port of that game).

VG has always been an H fighter, just one of the few good ones that actually improved on the quality of it's actual game :3

But yes Advance VG2 is awesome ^^ (got the chance to play it at a friends) and I'm sad I can only find AVG1 >.<

[Orange-kun1]

I <3 the whole VG series (at least the ones I've been able to play) especially AVG2 since it felt more like an actual attempt at a fighting game as opposed to a gimmicky attempt to sell erog. Was massively disapointed when I heard VG Neo was just going to be a traditional storybook H-game instead of a fighter :'(

@Blade I agree with your first post man a game like that would be dope XD

[BZ Choy]

I hope bumping a 4000 years old thread won't get me a warning, 'cause I ain't seeing it mentioned anywhere in the rules.

 

I would love to see something new about ir or just some kind of online play but... that's just a dream that will never come true, sadly.

 

You know what? The dream is real. It's actually possible to play AVG2 online. It isn't widely known yet but it does exist. I just tried it and it works. You have a bit of work to do to get your emu config right though, because one single step skipped and online goes to shit. Follow all the steps described in the following link carefully and you'll be able to play online: http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/comment/10089606/#Comment_10089606

 

PM me so you'll know where to get the version of the game we use (it's the SuperLite 1500 re-release, SLPM-87226.)

 

There's a bit of info for combos and basic mechanics in that thread as well.

 

And this is what I call the Holy Bible: http://www3.atwiki.jp/avg2/ (all the stuff you need to know to play competitively, it's in moonspeak though.)

 

And "Endless Life" is just pure 90s HYPE.

[Neoprime]

Other erogames that I can think are Vanguard Princess dir cut, Stripfighter, and Lace-n-metal/mace?(can't remember name).

[BZ Choy]

I uploaded a bunch of Japanese match vids from Nico Video if anyone wanna take a look at competitive Advanced V.G. 2:

 

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6hICZAfu72SpIkOT4picOaiMglzR4PUU

[TAI-X]

Strip Fighter II is the only fighter I know of with a regular special move that results in a guaranteed dizzy every time, lol.

 

The Advanced V.G.s are okay general purpose 2D fighting games, with nice graphics by the standards of console-exclusive 32-bit fighters. I see the series as a sloppier and sluttier version of Asuka 120%.

[BZ Choy]

Sloppier than Asuka 120%? Wooah, surely you're not talking about AVG2. That game is solid. Besides, all the h-scenes are removed in the PS1 version (and AVG2 is only on PS1.)

[Keo-bas]

Strip Fighter II is the only fighter I know of with a regular special move that results in a guaranteed dizzy every time, lol.

 

The Advanced V.G.s are okay general purpose 2D fighting games, with nice graphics by the standards of console-exclusive 32-bit fighters. I see the series as a sloppier and sluttier version of Asuka 120%.

whoa what / ah yous sure you don't have the two mix up? Advance variable geo  series had some rough start but polish it self near the end. Advance variable ge 2 is pretty good.

[Blade]

I hope bumping a 4000 years old thread won't get me a warning, 'cause I ain't seeing it mentioned anywhere in the rules.

 

...Dammit, I'm not that old!

 

Still, this was a half-baked half-inspired idea of mine, sadly.

[BZ Choy]

Should I do another thread specifically for Advanced V.G. 2? This one and the OP are misleading. I just hope mods won't merge them.

 

I got combos like Reimi's loop that I can't do to save my life, mechanics, some frame data and infos about how to set up ePSXe for netplay. But I feel like a new thread would be necessary if I want people to see them quickly so they'd know it's time to talk about AVG2.

[Keo-bas]

yeah I think You should. This thread is seem to be variable geo series as whole when you want to focus on specific one.