If given the choice between a game that depicts weight gain at a realistically paced speed, or games that speed up the process via magic (or just a disregard for realism in general), what’s your preference?
I usually prefer games that have a mix of both. Certain characters gaining at a slow pace through the narrative, while others are transformed into fatties with cursed MacGuffins or science fiction bullshit. I’m a really big fan of personality shifts in addition to weight gain, and sometimes it’s fun to see a thin, athletic character instantly have their role switched into that of a lazy fatass.
But I also like the slow descent into gluttony and hedonism that a slower pace provides, and especially love those moments of no return where the character realizes how big they’ve gotten and how hard it will be to lose it all.
A lot of times I will find myself getting pretty impatient with games that really take their time with getting to the good stuff. Build-up is super important, but if it feels like most of the experience is just foreplay with a very delayed payoff, I usually end up pretty disappointed. I think the best games on this site are good at giving you exactly what you want relatively quickly, but then introducing more characters and scenarios that still keep your attention and make you excited to see through the entire experience.
I’m in the early stages of developing an RPG maker game of my own (real original, I know), and the first major weight gain scenario happens within the first few minutes of gameplay, but it’s revealed to be just a dream sequence. The intention is to give a taste of what’s to come, and hopefully grab the player’s attention right from the start, but I do worry that certain people are gonna be frustrated to have the main character’s weight revert back to skinny and stay that way for the next hour or two (or maybe more) of gameplay.
Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this topic!
Slow is cool for certain themes and settings, but I’m partial to fast. If it is a gradual change, I at least need it to be slightly sped up. A lot of games try to have hyper realistic weight gain, and I really don’t want to play for a month just to have a tiny bit of pudge.
Agreed. Especially if it involves a lot of grinding and repeated content. There are so many cool games here that have terrible pacing, and it’s such a death knell mistake IMO. I get wanting to provide a lot of gameplay time with updates to make it feel more worthwhile, but quality over quantity is so important.
For games that want to go for a very realistic tone, time skips are absolutely essential. Easy way to pace out your game with intentionality, and keep the player from getting bored waiting for incremental changes to become noticeable.
Slow is good as long as it isn’t realistic-level slow. Realistic-level slow is like watching paint dry. In real life (normal) people only gain 3-5kg in 4-5 months (which would be incredibly boring to play). Instant has to be pretty particular for it to be good but I’ve never personally been a huge inflation guy myself.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a “realistic” game inherently, but my biggest gripe with them everytime is they’re very bland and usually lacking in actual gameplay loop. It’s a lot of clicking and repetitive routines through areas, often with dozens of dialog/notifs you’ve already seen.
If you want gains to take in-game days into months (that aren’t automated or occasionally skipped), you really need intriguing content for the player in the meantime.
You wouldn’t ask someone to play a normal commercial 60 hour RPG or open world game if the story rarely progressed, you barely enter the combat, and there was little to find by exploring, right?
(Slow burn games aren’t usually that long to hit the higher sizes, but are also usually even dryer in that interim.)
Coincidentally, most fetish games with good loops are the ones with very fast gains.
I definitely don’t think this is dev oversight/incompetence or even collective preference though- The slower the gain, the more attention to detail you need, and the more content you need to create. It makes a really big pothole to fill. You basically take on carving a mountain alone unless you narrow the scope.
It’s tough to put my finger on, but I want the WG to feel like it “counts”. If it comes by a more realistic way, it “counts” more, and slower-paced is more realistic (unless some madman is making a slower-than-life WG game).
Here’s another way of getting at it: Watching a hydraulic press push aside air or quickly flatten something weak isn’t impressive or interesting. But give that press something with many parts which put up much resistance, and then you can enjoy seeing its power.
I think WG (and many other things) is that way; if the character gains weight and nothing but her appearance changes, I’m disappointed. Slow-burn games tend to show these exciting effects better, though I agree that they often get bogged down in the boring parts of life, and don’t have enough content to avoid repetition.
For stories, I like something slice-of-lifey with short timeskips. If a game can play like that, I think that’s good.
Any recommendations for the types of games you’re talking about, or which ones you think do it best? I definitely think there’s a lot of merit to what you’re describing, and I get what you mean that it feels more impactful if it’s gradual and you get to see the tiny shifts in both personality and figure.
I definitely dislike games where the only change is physical, and not even the character that’s getting fat seems to care or have any opinion of it at all. Strong characterization is so important for actually making weight gain hot IMO.
I know D.I.E.T. has a mixture of realism stories and magical stories that can fit what’s been described. I personally gravitate more toward the Kayla and blond-festival-girl stories (realism type).
I think the best examples are going to be not any kind of fetish or porn content, but literature and story-heavier games that are just straight-up good. I think it’s easier to add WG fetishism to good writing than vice versa. Buuut I don’t know that many regular stories and games, so here are three examples near to our neck of the woods:
Preggity. This is an MLP romance + stuffing+pregnancy fetish story. It helps a ton that the two main characters have very strong pre-existing characterization for the author to pick up and run with, but the author runs with it competently. Highly recommended, if you can get past the whole cartoon horse thing.
Succum Brewery. A story+economy-heavy RPG Maker corruption-lite game. Normally I wouldn’t go for or recommend the corruption genre (it’s so mean and they keep making the male characters ugly for no good reason), but this one is much more about the progressive sexualization side of that kink. The protagonist (Catherine) isn’t super fleshed-out other than what the game does to her, but the psychology of slipping into something one slice at a time is done really well. Arguably, our own forum’s Tramp is a better example, but I think it’s better to pull inspiration from outside this tiny community we’re in. Also SB has some really good little gags and references sprinkled throughout the dialog; it’s a fun read.
Growth Academy. I wish the art were more professional, the writing snappier, the development pace faster, and I can’t stand the WG character’s personality. And yet, the whole-ass premise of the game is that all the love interests have some kind of expansion syndrome and they’re all coming to this school in the middle of nowhere to learn how to cope with it. It’s very much “how tf am I gonna live like this?”, with highs and lows. I’d recommend Honoka’s route.
That’s something that came to my mind when i started developing my own game. I do share some of your opinions and often thought about how can i deal with that aspect and often look for ideas and comparisons with other games that are shared here or by playing “normal” games.
Realistic or not, the important part is to make it fun. Some games that i’ve seen that have a more “realistic” progession for the WG have the problem of trying to be a more inmmersive sim or life sim than anything and the gameplay loop gets too repetitive or straight up boring, and the progession is too slow and takes too long to get to the point. Games with “fantastic” WG is sorta complicated, i think the issue with this in some games is too sudden with no logical explanation and doesn’t feel impactful, it just happens and is almost meaningless to the in-game world and their characters. All of this i said doesn’t apply to every game shared here, obviously, but how the WG progression is handled is a difficult part and one should often make comparisons, look for advice or opinions or think more thoroughly during development.
When making my game, i opted for a fantastical approach but trying to give an explanation as to why everything happens and make characters react to the changes. I just hope i can be as good as other devs here.
One of the best games on this site, certainly one of the best written. I’m taking a whole lot of inspiration from that one.
Yeah. there’s nothing more disappointing when a character gains five hundred pounds in the span of two minutes and has absolutely no opinion about it or anything to say at all. Characters reacting to their gains, positively or negatively, is half of the fun.
My preference, well for a game I would prefer to have the general process sped up, make it quick but not so quick that you can’t properly enjoy the process. Watching them slowly but surely get bigger as pounds get added to thier frame with every pump.
If I was to use an example, I would say Fataclysim’s prisoner pump event, it allows you the time to enjoy the process of watching your chosen character to slowly gain weight until they reach immobility.
Personal opinion :
If it’s a twitch action game, aim for ~2 minutes between ‘normal’ and ‘head turning obesity’
If it’s a more traditional ‘dating game’ or life sim, I like ~10-15 minutes from starting to the visible changes (and, usually, the ‘reluctance phase’), ~45 minutes to the ‘Wow they’re fat’ stage, and less than 1.5 hrs to the end game bits.
I think ‘the trick’ is to juggle not just visible weight gain but the character’s attitude about it and some outside considerations - professional, familial, relational, etc.