- Get 14 romantic visual novels while supporting Black trans folks - 13 July 2020
If you missed the giant Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality on Itch last month, you’ve got yet another shot at good games for a good cause. The Visual Novel Romance Collection for Black Trans Lives is precisely what it says on the tin: fourteen romantic games (several of which the RPS crew have quite liked) in support of The Okra Project . (more…)
- A Panel Shaped Screen: porn with plot in comics and games - 11 April 2019
A Panel Shaped Screen is a monthly column where Giada Zavarise explores how comics and video games inspire each other. And this time we’re going adult rated. WARNING: basically every single link in this article is NSFW. Duh. Remember being fifteen and desperately looking for porn on the internet? Perhaps you googled basic terms like boobs , like the protagonist of You Must Be 18 Or Older To Enter . Or perhaps you held on to familiar characters, and searched for Naruto hentai on Newgrounds to play wonky flash games. (more…)
- The Humble Hot Date Bundle is packed with dating sims and 'suggestive party games' - 26 March 2019
Looking for something to do tonight? How about a hot date? Or how about a Hot Date Bundle , the latest collection of "visual novels, dating sims, and suggestive party games" from the bundlers over at Humble? For $1, you can have Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro, Highway Blossoms, and Just Deserts—and no, that's not a typo, it's a "sci-fi action dating sim" about an alien invasion and the women of your dreams that takes place in a desert.    But that's a pretty cheap date. Bump it up to beat-the-average and you'll also take home the sex game stalwart Ladykiller in a Bind, the feline seduction sim Purrfect Date, and Genital Jousting, the popular party game about dicks. For a tenner, you'll get into the deeper exotica of G-senjou no Maou—The Devil on G-String Voiced Edition and Sunrider Collection, both of which are partially voiced in Japa…
- Priceless Play 23 February - 23 February 2019
**This week’s Priceless Play is NSFW!!!** Sex in games is certainly nothing new. There are, of course, the various moral panics — GTA’s famed “hot coffee,” for instance — to countless articles about the sex lives in SecondLife. Our Very Own Kieron Gillen wrote a primer on Sporn (that’s “Spore porn,” for the uninitiated) eleven years ago . Cara Ellison had a column, called S.EXE , here at RPS from 2014-2015. And now, for a brief second, this piece will be the very latest in adding to the conversation on sex in games. It certainly won’t be the last. Look. Sex is complicated. For those who have it, it’s a melange of vulnerability and tenderness and pleasure — or perhaps sex has become rote muscle memory. Maybe it is, instead, consensually brutal. Sometimes there are genitals involved in sex. Sometimes there are facsimi…
- The best sex games that aren't garbage - 5 October 2018
When I was a kid my neighbour had Sex Games on his Commodore 64, by which I mean a game that was literally called Sex Games. Published by Landisoft in 1985, it was all about waggling a joystick back and forth while two bright pink cartoon people went at it like joyless jackhammers. It was a terrible sex sim and a terrible introduction to the idea that sex was a worthwhile subject for videogames.  We've come a long way since then—quiet, you—but there are still plenty of games about sex that are just as bad in their way. The ones that aren't deserve to be celebrated. Sex can be playful and funny and exciting and those are all things videogames are also good at being. Especially these videogames. (These are all "sex games" rather than "games that happen to have sex in them", if that distinction makes sense. The Witcher 3 is an RPG dozens of hours long that has…
- Negligee: Love Stories will be one of the first fully explicit Adult Only games on Steam - 11 September 2018
This feels like a milestone – a sexy milestone. When Valve said that under their new content warning system , there’d be fewer restrictions on what could be sold on Steam, I was sceptical. Now it seems they were true to their word. If nothing goes wrong between now and its launch this Friday, saucy visual novel Negligee: Love Stories will be Steam’s first uncut sexually explicit game. Accompanying this, Steam now has an Adult Only section which is filtered from store searches by default. If you don’t want to see games with naughty bits, you won’t – not unless you ask nicely. (more…)
- The best visual novels on PC - 27 December 2017
Clichés dominate visual novels, but there’s so much more to this genre than just steamy romance or mundane slices of Japanese students’ lives. Over the past few years, more and more talented developers are creating experimental games, shorter novella-like experiences, and clever subversions of the anime tropes that started it all. Visual novels are finally cool. Choosing where to start can be intimidating, however. If you’ve missed the boat up until this point and want to catch up, we’ve put together a list of the best visual novels on PC, from the traditional Japanese games that kickstarted the genre to the more ambitious and unique takes on the format.  It’s by no means a comprehensive list of every visual novel you should play, and we heartily recommend you scour through itch.io for its hidden indie gems under the visual novel tag. But if…
- Ladykiller in a Bind v1.1.4 - 27 June 2017
Fixed a bug where an image in the credits would show explicit titty even when set to "safe for work" mode. With apologies to the Twitch streamer who discovered this. Fixed a bug where certain save files could crash the game. Put in a fix for an error in the fourth Beauty scene where the game would hang on a missing choice. Removed redundant auto-updater from the Steam version. Various typos and other small fixes.
- Ladykiller in a Bind v1.1.4 - 27 June 2017
Fixed a bug where an image in the credits would show explicit titty even when set to "safe for work" mode. With apologies to the Twitch streamer who discovered this. Fixed a bug where certain save files could crash the game. Put in a fix for an error in the fourth Beauty scene where the game would hang on a missing choice. Removed redundant auto-updater from the Steam version. Various typos and other small fixes.
- The Electronic Wireless Show IGF Special #3: Sex - 10 March 2017
Stop sniggering at the back. The RPS podcast of yore has returned, as you might have noticed, in which we are chatting to all sorts of interesting people from the makers of 90s cyberpunk thriller Quadrilateral Cowboy to the creators of political elbow-nudging Orwell , and so many more. In the third episode of this special #content we are talking to the visual novelists behind erotic adventure Ladykiller in a Bind and awkwardness sim One Night Stand . Yes, we’re talking to them about sex. …
- Quadrilateral Cowboy scoops IGF Grand Prize - 2 March 2017
Hacking heist ’em up Quadrilateral Cowboy has won the Grand Prize at the 2017 Independent Games Festival awards , taking home $30,000 (and another $3,000 for winning the Excellence in Design award). The ceremony went down last at the Game Developers Conference, with other winners including Ladykiller in a Bind and Hyper Light Drifter. The IGFs may no longer turn up many huge surprises but they are a handy pointer for some good games you might have missed. As luck would have it, Brendan’s first IGF episode of the RPS Electronic Wireless Show went up only last night, chatting with Quadlatcowbo creator Brendon Chung. The Game Developers Choice Awards were also last night , right after the IGFs, but tch! you don’t need them to tell you about the existence of games like Overwatch, Firewatch, and presumably other things suffixed ‘watch’. Pok watch Go etc. …
- Ladykiller In A Bind dev reworks controversial scene - 26 January 2017
Ladykiller in a Bind is an erotic visual novel in which you’re trying to win votes from former classmates on a transatlantic cruise while impersonating your twin brother. There’s a fair amount of sex and the tale doesn’t shy away from exploring elements of queerness, roleplaying and various kinks as well as having sections of dialogue which explicitly demonstrate people asking for and receiving consent. But one scene in particular seemed an uncomfortable fit for the game and provoked strong enough reactions from players that, as per developer, Christine Love , “The bulk of the scene has been completely rewritten and now has a different tone.” …
- Ladykiller in a Bind v1.1.3 - 23 January 2017
Due to strong player feedback, removed all sex from President's route. The bulk of the scene has been completely rewritten and now has a different tone. The original goal of the scene was to demonstrate a darker—certainly not safe IRL—fantasy to contrast with the safety of the Beauty's arc. But even after multiple revisions, clearly a lot of players were extremely uncomfortable with its presence, and still ended up being blindsided—I think I failed to account for the player's context, and I'd rather the scene be gone than make anyone else uncomfortable. My apologies to anyone who was upset by it. (In the interest of full disclosure, I've uploaded the full script of the now-deleted scene, so you can see what was removed.) Changed requirements for Please Destroy My Pussy requirement to compensate, and removed presidentday6 stat, as well as reset stats on day6 due to the major change. Fixe…
- Ladykiller in a Bind v1.1.3 - 23 January 2017
Due to strong player feedback, removed all sex from President's route. The bulk of the scene has been completely rewritten and now has a different tone. The original goal of the scene was to demonstrate a darker—certainly not safe IRL—fantasy to contrast with the safety of the Beauty's arc. But even after multiple revisions, clearly a lot of players were extremely uncomfortable with its presence, and still ended up being blindsided—I think I failed to account for the player's context, and I'd rather the scene be gone than make anyone else uncomfortable. My apologies to anyone who was upset by it. (In the interest of full disclosure, I've uploaded the full script of the now-deleted scene, so you can see what was removed.) Changed requirements for Please Destroy My Pussy requirement to compensate, and removed presidentday6 stat, as well as reset stats on day6 due to the major change. Fixe…
- Wot I Think: Ladykiller In A Bind - 17 January 2017
Content warning: this review discusses a rape scene. Sex in games is a (t)horny issue. Games are predominantly made for and marketed at men, and thus most games that attempt to cause a panic in your battlestations are normally pointing their hormone missiles at your throbbing periscope and not the, uh, hang on, there aren t any vagina analogues in this terrible, tortured metaphor. Look, Ladykiller in a Bind is set on a boat. A cruise, in fact – from Halifax, Canada to Southampton, England. For some reason, a bunch of incredibly wealthy, privileged teens are on this cruise. To Southampton . Obviously, the thought of going shopping in Southampton s glittering WestQuay mall (there s a Swarovski!) is enough to get these teens all riled up in their unwhisperables, and that s where you come in: a handsome, charming, absolute bastard of a boy ready and willing to do whatever it takes (se…
- Explicit visual novel Ladykiller in a Bind is coming to Steam, "uncensored and unedited" - 4 January 2017
Ladykiller in a Bind , "an erotic romantic comedy about social manipulation, crossdressing, and girls tying up other girls," promises "choice-driven mechanics, and lots of sex." Generally speaking, that's the sort of thing you tend not to see on Steam. But designer Chrstine Love has revealed on Twitter that it will in fact be released on Steam, early next week, with all its naughty bits intact. That's significant, because the description on Steam makes it clear that there's a lot more going on than just an occasional flash of skin. "Six nights worth of explicit, consensual, kinky lesbian sex... or live dangerously with four extra sex scenes with your brother's classmates who just want to fuck you up," it says. But even though sex is the obvious hook, Ladykiller's real strength lies in something deeper: As Kill Screen said in its review, "The game oozes a magneti…
