discussion Games that Explore Alternate World Customs

[Maltinka]

I like how the worlds customs are executed on Desert Stalker. For something a bit more out there Twinewood is also really good on that regard, though I have some other issues with the game.

Desert Stalker was one of the best games in my opinion.

 

[lolquip]

The dialogue is a little bit too cringe for my taste but a more serious version of something like "How to Live a Healthy Hentai Lifestyle" comes to mind:

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It's basically anything goes, any time, any where, and with anyone. Just a complete lack of taboo. So I guess the kink I'd want to explore is a world where nothing is a kink.

 

[User_145270]

What kink elevated to a societal customs would you like to see explored in a game set in an alternate world? Normalized incest? Nudism? Free use?

What games have done an unusually good job of doing this already?

Note that alternate world could be a full blown Alt-Earth, or our Earth but in the past/future, or an isolated community in our reality where things have gotten interesting but no one outside has noticed.

The MC could be a visitor who doesn't know the custom, or someone raised in it.

I like the variant of this you mentioned where the main character is a newcomer. You get to explore radically different norms but for incest stories (which are my favorite) the appeal is the taboo. IMO you need the main characters to perceive the experiences as forbidden.

 

[alexxs]

We need a game playing in a world with freeuse cat girls!

 

[teldel335]

I like the variant of this you mentioned where the main character is a newcomer. You get to explore radically different norms but for incest stories (which are my favorite) the appeal is the taboo. IMO you need the main characters to perceive the experiences as forbidden.

yeah thats kinda the fun part, having different customs but still having a lot of kinky stuff be bad or forbidden is more interesting than "you can just do anything lol" which is only fun for a little bti
its even better when you mix the two and have like a completely slave character and other characters reaction to that and what you do with them is appropriate to the world

 

[BS3DX]

I personally like the coming-of-age ritual. When the person turns XX then it would be someone of the opposite gender would be picked to have their first time. This could range from it being one of the family to someone picked by the community or just a place the person goes on their xx birthday and they pick a partner. This could be expanded to their being their permitted sexual partner or even just married to them.

 

[jojoker1312]

As long as it's not too weird I'm down with alternate worlds too

 

[Johngawn61]

It sorta loses the appeal when the taboo is lost imo. I would really like to see more post apocalypse/zombie stuff that actually has a good story, I think 'Now and Then' was ok, but it really was very generic and the zombies didn't play a big role in it.

 

[jojoker1312]

It sorta loses the appeal when the taboo is lost imo. I would really like to see more post apocalypse/zombie stuff that actually has a good story, I think 'Now and Then' was ok, but it really was very generic and the zombies didn't play a big role in it.

i agree it is always better with a taboo

 

[rocketsheep]

To extend my earlier list of mostly real-life alternate customs, incest used to be considered normal, at least in some cases, in Southwest Asia (aka Near East or Middle East). The best known example is ancient Egypt. Both in myths among gods and in reality among pharaohs, there was a lot of marrying (and having children) going on between siblings but also between father and daughter. Apparently this became common even among the regular population when Egypt was under Roman control (1st to 4th century). Some specific examples, each of which could be the basis of an unusual AVN:

• You must be registered to see links
  : The goddess Isis and the green skinned fertility god Osiris were both siblings and a couple. Almost everything else is highly variable, but here is one of the most salacious versions: When their brother Set kills Osiris and usurps the throne of Egypt, Isis and a group of other goddesses (including her sister Nephthys) manage to find his body and defend it against Set and his followers. They turn the corpse into the first mummy to preserve and revive it. Basically a zombie. Isis has a son, the falcon-headed god Horus, with her undead brother-husband. Since Horus is clearly a threat to Set, Osiris must hide from him. (Already during pregnancy.) As Horus grows up, the goddesses protect him against Set. While Horus struggles with Set for the throne, Set sexually abuses Horus. Both men hurt each other by making them ingest each other's sperm, in one way or another. Finally Horus becomes king of Egypt after fight and/or through a ruling of some divine council. Set is killed, becomes king of the other half of Egypt, or moves to the sky.
• You must be registered to see links
  ruled over Egypt in the 14th century BC, but one of his successors erased him from history so thoroughly (even erasing his name from the inscriptions at the graves of random noble people) that we only learned about his existence because he built a city called Akhetaten in the desert as the new capital. This city was abandoned, and its ruins still exist as an archeological site called Amarna. His crime: He introduced monotheism in the form of a bizarre sun cult. Akhenaten's father married his own daughter, and Akhenaten himself probably married some or all of his sisters, as was probably usual for pharaohs at the time. Akhenaten's wife
  You must be registered to see links
  was his immediate successor and became famous much later because we know exactly what she looked like. (She may have been Akhenaten's sister, but more likely not.)
• The life of , the last Egyptian pharaoh, illustrates the political pressures leading to incest in ruling families. At times she ruled over Egypt jointly with her brother. But at times the two hated each other and waged a civil war. Cleopatra is of course much better known for her later love affair with Julius Caesar. After Caesar's death she had another love affair with Caesar's heir Marc Anthony, but this second attempt to become Roman Empress also failed. By the way, Cleopatra was known at the time not so much for beauty but for her sharp intellect. She was also the first and only of the culturally Greek pharaohs who learned the language of the people she ruled.
• The Jews were totally opposed to incest, but this was atypical for the region, and after the land where they lived was conquered by Alexander the Great, they got a ruling class without the incest taboo. The Greeks were succeeded by the Romans. (In this Greco-Roman era, the conquerors called the province Palestine after the Philistines, the Greek colonists who once lived on the coast.) The Romans elevated tax collectors in (the various parts of) Palestine and adjacent regions to kings. Most prominent was the Herodian dynasty. They originated in the region, but were not originally Jewish and had adopted Greco-Roman culture. Herod was rewarded by the Romans for being a particularly efficient tax collector. Although they nominally converted to Judaism for political reasons, they continued to practice incest. This, along with pressing the people for tax (a portion of which they were allowed to keep, but most of it going to Rome), made the Jews hate the Herodians. The most interesting case is . She was the nominal queen (client queen and tax collector for the Romans) of Judea in the 1st century and played a critical but mysterious role in early Christianity. It appears she had a sexual relationship with her elder brother Agrippa II, as they were inseparable. The two are mentioned together in the Acts of the Apostles, and there is reason to believe Berenice may have been the real person behind . At one point Berenice was engaged with the Roman general (the guy who destroyed the last Temple in Jerusalem after his father had become Roman Emperor) despite being 10 years older, and she moved to Rome (where she had property). When the population of Rome realized what was going on -- yet another attempt by a woman from the Egypt-Palestine region trying to assume power in Rome, after Cleopatra! -- they banished her and she disappeared from history.

Of course anything related to Egyptian gods basically asks for presenting them as humans with alien symbiotes/parasites inside as in Stargate and adding a space opera angle.

 

[impisi]

Upon reading the title, I wondered whether the OP meant customs like at the border. I.e. a game where you have to pay custom or other fees upon changing worlds. ;-)

"Trying to cross the border into Incestistan? Let's see your passport and sister-fucker permit."

 

[inaktiv]

Desert Stalker was one of the best games in my opinion.

I one hundert percent agree. This game was so well rounded and one could immerse himself in this world fully. I love it.

 

[inaktiv]

To extend my earlier list of mostly real-life alternate customs, incest used to be considered normal, at least in some cases, in Southwest Asia (aka Near East or Middle East). The best known example is ancient Egypt. Both in myths among gods and in reality among pharaohs, there was a lot of marrying (and having children) going on between siblings but also between father and daughter. Apparently this became common even among the regular population when Egypt was under Roman control (1st to 4th century). Some specific examples, each of which could be the basis of an unusual AVN:

• You must be registered to see links
  : The goddess Isis and the green skinned fertility god Osiris were both siblings and a couple. Almost everything else is highly variable, but here is one of the most salacious versions: When their brother Set kills Osiris and usurps the throne of Egypt, Isis and a group of other goddesses (including her sister Nephthys) manage to find his body and defend it against Set and his followers. They turn the corpse into the first mummy to preserve and revive it. Basically a zombie. Isis has a son, the falcon-headed god Horus, with her undead brother-husband. Since Horus is clearly a threat to Set, Osiris must hide from him. (Already during pregnancy.) As Horus grows up, the goddesses protect him against Set. While Horus struggles with Set for the throne, Set sexually abuses Horus. Both men hurt each other by making them ingest each other's sperm, in one way or another. Finally Horus becomes king of Egypt after fight and/or through a ruling of some divine council. Set is killed, becomes king of the other half of Egypt, or moves to the sky.
• You must be registered to see links
  ruled over Egypt in the 14th century, but one of his successors erased him from history so thoroughly (even erasing his name from the inscriptions at the graves of random noble people) that we only learned about his existence because he built a city called Akhetaten in the desert as the new capital. This city was abandoned, and its ruins still exist as an archeological site called Amarna. His crime: He introduced monotheism in the form of a bizarre sun cult. Akhenaten's father married his own daughter, and Akhenaten himself probably married some or all of his sisters, as was probably usual for pharaohs at the time. Akhenaten's wife
  You must be registered to see links
  was his immediate successor and became famous much later because we know exactly what she looked like. (She may have been Akhenaten's sister, but more likely not.)
• The life of , the last Egyptian pharaoh, illustrates the political pressures leading to incest in ruling families. At times she ruled over Egypt jointly with her brother. But at times the two hated each other and waged a civil war. Cleopatra is of course much better known for her later love affair with Julius Caesar. After Caesar's death she had another love affair with Caesar's heir Marc Anthony, but this second attempt to become Roman Empress also failed. By the way, Cleopatra was known at the time not so much for beauty but for her sharp intellect. She was also the first and only of the culturally Greek pharaohs who learned the language of the people she ruled.
• The Jews were totally opposed to incest, but this was atypical for the region, and after the land where they lived was conquered by Alexander the Great, they got a ruling class without the incest taboo. The Greeks were succeeded by the Romans. (In this Greco-Roman era, the conquerors called the province Palestine after the Philistines, the Greek colonists who once lived on the coast.) The Romans elevated tax collectors in (the various parts of) Palestine and adjacent regions to kings. Most prominent was the Herodian dynasty. They originated in the region, but were not originally Jewish and had adopted Greco-Roman culture. Herod was rewarded by the Romans for being a particularly efficient tax collector. Although they nominally converted to Judaism for political reasons, they continued to practice incest. This, along with pressing the people for tax (a portion of which they were allowed to keep, but most of it going to Rome), made the Jews hate the Herodians. The most interesting case is . She was the nominal queen (client queen and tax collector for the Romans) of Judea in the 1st century and played a critical but mysterious role in early Christianity. It appears she had a sexual relationship with her elder brother Agrippa II, as they were inseparable. The two are mentioned together in the Acts of the Apostles, and there is reason to believe Berenice may have been the real person behind . At one point Berenice was engaged with the Roman general (the guy who destroyed the last Temple in Jerusalem after his father had become Roman Emperor) despite being 10 years older, and she moved to Rome (where she had property). When the population of Rome realized what was going on -- yet another attempt by a woman from the Egypt-Palestine region trying to assume power in Rome, after Cleopatra! -- they banished her and she disappeared from history.

Of course anything related to Egyptian gods basically asks for presenting them as humans with alien symbiotes/parasites inside as in Stargate and adding a space opera angle.

Thanks for this interesting history lesson. You should become a teacher

 

[rocketsheep]

Thanks for this interesting history lesson. You should become a teacher

I am just glad someone liked it. (School would probably be too rough of an environment for me.)

While I am here again, I forgot to mention the paradise tradition. Everyone knows at least vaguely about the Jewish tradition of the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve living in it as the first and initially only humans. There is a special tree there, the Tree of Knowledge. They are not supposed to eat its fruit. When they do that anyway, they suddenly feel ashamed for being naked. The previous period of having neither clothes nor shame vaguely falls under alternative customs. But I have something more exciting from Egypt:

What happens if a king and/or queen with absolute power is an exhibitionist? Or when a powerful high priest is a pervert who wants not just to see his king and/or queen naked, but to expose them to the entire world? We don't know which of the two it was, but something like this must have been going on in ancient Egypt occasionally, during its thousands of years of existence. Because paintings of nude pharaohs survived!

One example is Nefertiti, the well known wife and successor of Akhenaten I mentioned above. As the mother of many of Akhenaten's children, she was identified with a fertility goddess and such had to be depicted naked. I don't remember if it was the same couple and can't find the source right now, but if I remember correctly there was also a pharaoh couple who were depicted naked together in a garden. There is speculation that this garden actually existed and that they actually showed themselves there naked -- presumably to the priests, the high nobility or a wider public. People sometimes do very interesting things if they can find a religious pretense.

Which takes me to modern religious sects. They often have interesting sexual practices. It is common that the sect leader has a big harem. If the sect later grows into a proper religion, this can become awkward for that religion's followers. For example, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism got himself a harem. A fact that his first wife wasn't too happy about. Then for some time Mormons imported pretty poor girls from Europe for the harems of important people in their church. Needless to say, modern Mormons aren't too happy about this history of human trafficking. If they find out. Most don't, because this is not taught among Mormons.

Going again further back in time, it appears that the version we are taught about Jesus' arrest by the Romans in the Garden of Gethsemane leaves out some salacious details. Everything else has been well extinguished from the record, but we still have

You must be registered to see links

. This puts the stories about Jesus loving one of his disciples more than the others in an interesting context. In the 20th century evidence for a secret Gospel of Mark was found, according to which Jesus was actually a homosexual. But the very old letter referencing it mysteriously disappeared from the monastery it was found before its authenticity could be checked. Which would make a lot of sense if it was a fake, but just as much if it was authentic.

 

[inaktiv]

I am just glad someone liked it. (School would probably be too rough of an environment for me.)

While I am here again, I forgot to mention the paradise tradition. Everyone knows at least vaguely about the Jewish tradition of the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve living in it as the first and initially only humans. There is a special tree there, the Tree of Knowledge. They are not supposed to eat its fruit. When they do that anyway, they suddenly feel ashamed for being naked. The previous period of having neither clothes nor shame vaguely falls under alternative customs. But I have something more exciting from Egypt:

What happens if a king and/or queen with absolute power is an exhibitionist? Or when a powerful high priest is a pervert who wants not just to see his king and/or queen naked, but to expose them to the entire world? We don't know which of the two it was, but something like this must have been going on in ancient Egypt occasionally, during its thousands of years of existence. Because paintings of nude pharaohs survived!

One example is Nefertiti, the well known wife and successor of Akhenaten I mentioned above. As the mother of many of Akhenaten's children, she was identified with a fertility goddess and such had to be depicted naked. I don't remember if it was the same couple and can't find the source right now, but if I remember correctly there was also a pharaoh couple who were depicted naked together in a garden. There is speculation that this garden actually existed and that they actually showed themselves there naked -- presumably to the priests, the high nobility or a wider public. People sometimes do very interesting things if they can find a religious pretense.

Which takes me to modern religious sects. They often have interesting sexual practices. It is common that the sect leader has a big harem. If the sect later grows into a proper religion, this can become awkward for that religion's followers. For example, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism got himself a harem. A fact that his first wife wasn't too happy about. Then for some time Mormons imported pretty poor girls from Europe for the harems of important people in their church. Needless to say, modern Mormons aren't too happy about this history of human trafficking. If they find out. Most don't, because this is not taught among Mormons.

Going again further back in time, it appears that the version we are taught about Jesus' arrest by the Romans in the Garden of Gethsemane leaves out some salacious details. Everything else has been well extinguished from the record, but we still have

You must be registered to see links

. This puts the stories about Jesus loving one of his disciples more than the others in an interesting context. In the 20th century evidence for a secret Gospel of Mark was found, according to which Jesus was actually a homosexual. But the very old letter referencing it mysteriously disappeared from the monastery it was found before its authenticity could be checked. Which would make a lot of sense if it was a fake, but just as much if it was authentic.

Thanks again! I think the thing with the harems is pretty normal for such powerful people as long as they don't get huge backlash. But the moment they want to gather a bigger crowd they lie about it or avoid it. The same happened with some popes in the medieval period.

 

[Yesmad]

One of my favourite kinks of all time is freeuse. Love to see it in games. Sadly games where that is generalized is usually either time stop shenenigans or some type of corruption which leads to submission, not a "normal" thing. Although, I will say that I do enjoy when a taboo remains a taboo inside a game, makes it feel special, y'know?

 

[careful_cube]

To extend my earlier list of mostly real-life alternate customs, incest used to be considered normal, at least in some cases, in Southwest Asia (aka Near East or Middle East). The best known example is ancient Egypt. Both in myths among gods and in reality among pharaohs, there was a lot of marrying (and having children) going on between siblings but also between father and daughter. Apparently this became common even among the regular population when Egypt was under Roman control (1st to 4th century). Some specific examples, each of which could be the basis of an unusual AVN:

• You must be registered to see links
  : The goddess Isis and the green skinned fertility god Osiris were both siblings and a couple. Almost everything else is highly variable, but here is one of the most salacious versions: When their brother Set kills Osiris and usurps the throne of Egypt, Isis and a group of other goddesses (including her sister Nephthys) manage to find his body and defend it against Set and his followers. They turn the corpse into the first mummy to preserve and revive it. Basically a zombie. Isis has a son, the falcon-headed god Horus, with her undead brother-husband. Since Horus is clearly a threat to Set, Osiris must hide from him. (Already during pregnancy.) As Horus grows up, the goddesses protect him against Set. While Horus struggles with Set for the throne, Set sexually abuses Horus. Both men hurt each other by making them ingest each other's sperm, in one way or another. Finally Horus becomes king of Egypt after fight and/or through a ruling of some divine council. Set is killed, becomes king of the other half of Egypt, or moves to the sky.
• You must be registered to see links
  ruled over Egypt in the 14th century BC, but one of his successors erased him from history so thoroughly (even erasing his name from the inscriptions at the graves of random noble people) that we only learned about his existence because he built a city called Akhetaten in the desert as the new capital. This city was abandoned, and its ruins still exist as an archeological site called Amarna. His crime: He introduced monotheism in the form of a bizarre sun cult. Akhenaten's father married his own daughter, and Akhenaten himself probably married some or all of his sisters, as was probably usual for pharaohs at the time. Akhenaten's wife
  You must be registered to see links
  was his immediate successor and became famous much later because we know exactly what she looked like. (She may have been Akhenaten's sister, but more likely not.)
• The life of , the last Egyptian pharaoh, illustrates the political pressures leading to incest in ruling families. At times she ruled over Egypt jointly with her brother. But at times the two hated each other and waged a civil war. Cleopatra is of course much better known for her later love affair with Julius Caesar. After Caesar's death she had another love affair with Caesar's heir Marc Anthony, but this second attempt to become Roman Empress also failed. By the way, Cleopatra was known at the time not so much for beauty but for her sharp intellect. She was also the first and only of the culturally Greek pharaohs who learned the language of the people she ruled.
• The Jews were totally opposed to incest, but this was atypical for the region, and after the land where they lived was conquered by Alexander the Great, they got a ruling class without the incest taboo. The Greeks were succeeded by the Romans. (In this Greco-Roman era, the conquerors called the province Palestine after the Philistines, the Greek colonists who once lived on the coast.) The Romans elevated tax collectors in (the various parts of) Palestine and adjacent regions to kings. Most prominent was the Herodian dynasty. They originated in the region, but were not originally Jewish and had adopted Greco-Roman culture. Herod was rewarded by the Romans for being a particularly efficient tax collector. Although they nominally converted to Judaism for political reasons, they continued to practice incest. This, along with pressing the people for tax (a portion of which they were allowed to keep, but most of it going to Rome), made the Jews hate the Herodians. The most interesting case is . She was the nominal queen (client queen and tax collector for the Romans) of Judea in the 1st century and played a critical but mysterious role in early Christianity. It appears she had a sexual relationship with her elder brother Agrippa II, as they were inseparable. The two are mentioned together in the Acts of the Apostles, and there is reason to believe Berenice may have been the real person behind . At one point Berenice was engaged with the Roman general (the guy who destroyed the last Temple in Jerusalem after his father had become Roman Emperor) despite being 10 years older, and she moved to Rome (where she had property). When the population of Rome realized what was going on -- yet another attempt by a woman from the Egypt-Palestine region trying to assume power in Rome, after Cleopatra! -- they banished her and she disappeared from history.

Of course anything related to Egyptian gods basically asks for presenting them as humans with alien symbiotes/parasites inside as in Stargate and adding a space opera angle.

This kind of stuff is why I think the Bronze Age would be a setting ripe for opportunity in these kinds of games, and am kinda disappointed there aren't too many about it. It was a brutal time with a lot of things we see as taboo being common practices and a lot of things we see as common practices being taboo. Lots of opportunities for different authors to add their own spins on things to tailor the settings to their chosen fetishes.

 

[mikeyk]

Would love to see more society wide free use games

 

[hangdangle]

What kink elevated to a societal customs would you like to see explored in a game set in an alternate world? Normalized incest? Nudism? Free use?

What games have done an unusually good job of doing this already?

Note that alternate world could be a full blown Alt-Earth, or our Earth but in the past/future, or an isolated community in our reality where things have gotten interesting but no one outside has noticed.

The MC could be a visitor who doesn't know the custom, or someone raised in it.

I'm a bit late to the party here but I like how Harem Hotel handles its world with implications on game play. It has a fantasy flavor to it but the world is modern and balances that well in my opinion. Normalizing slaves and letting you decide how to treat them.

I also like what The Headmaster does. Our world but alternate future. It's familiar but the setting lends itself to opening the door for the MC to pursue his "educational" goals.

 

[dartboy1]

just please dont make one that normalizes peeing in public. thats nasty