Howdy!
I tend to have a lot of doom and gloom on this blog post, and I’ve been thinking about this subject lately, so let’s lighten it up a bit! I believe yiff games have a long way to go still, but there are absolutely some standout games in the field regardless. I want to cover a few here!
Obviously I have not played every yiff game, and I’m going to be skipping visual novels - they’re not games, they’re interactive media. I will be going in no particular order, but I will be starting with three really obvious ones.
In fact, if you read this list and say “why didn’t he mention XYZ”, I probably haven’t played it, and you should email me a link to it ;o ;o ;o ;o ;o (regentenxing [at] protonmail [dot] com)
It’s Rack by fek. It’s the progenitor of actually-decent yiff games. In my mind, it’s still the best merger of gameplay and yiff - without being a visual novel or interactive VR type situation. It’s a game first and foremost, and the context of that game happens to be smacking cocks around. It’s ancient at this point, and it runs really poorly at the end of it, but it’s still worth a look, even if just as a history lesson.
Obligatory statement on how Rack 2 will never get finished yadda yadda whatever. The minesweeper minigame in it is really good.
Argon Vile is easily my biggest inspiration. He’s been going for almost 20 years at time of writing, and everything he’s put out has been for free. I am in awe of the will this man has, and I have so much respect for him.
Monster Mind? It’s the Mastermind board game, and winning lets you fiddle with with Pokemon. I am a big stupid idiot so the Mastermind part fries my brain, but the interactions are really well thought out, and feel very alive. It’s easily the weakest fusion of yiff and game on this list; the Mastermind and interaction sections are completely separate, and have no shared context or effect on each other. A Pokemon shows up, says “solve some puzzles for me”, and sits in the corner until you figure it out (or don’t in my case). And yet, here I am talking about it! The interaction system really makes this one what it is.
I have a little bit of bias because I worked as the programmer for HeatVR in 2022, but I do think it’s one of the most polished yiff games to come out in the past few years. While Edef really doesn’t need another person to sing the praises of Heat - basically everyone who’s seen or played it “gets” it, and it has an absolutely gargantuan following - I would like to at least mention it here. It is more of a toy than a game, but it’s a mighty impressive toy.
Weed Eater’s been mentioned several times on this blog so far. Hans sent it my way ages ago and I was impressed even then. Like Monster Mind, the game-game and sex stuff are less entwined, but this one’s not nearly as disconnected as the former. Drilling underground gives you materials to upgrade your base and purchase items, some of which add sex stuff to your interactions. More positions are unlocked by increasing your affection with the girls in the caravan.
I am a fan of games that accelerate over time (like Civ 6), and this scratches that itch while providing fat tits. Highly recommend. It’s technically free, but c’mon, give the guy a few bucks. He worked very hard on it!
This one is not done and it never will ever be. Regardless, I thought the mechanics were really interesting here.
It’s a card-based battler, and if you really wanted, you could re-skin it as a sci-fi cyber-themed game. Entities in the battle build up arousal, before you “commit” it to their health permanently. This creates tension when your arousal is high and you don’t want to use a “commit” card, because it’ll damage both you and the enemy. Wrangler had a similar idea of “using-sex-moves-affects-both”, but this game realized that idea much, much better than I did.
I’d love if this creator would finish this game, or even make another mechanically interesting game, but only time will tell. They clearly have some good game design ideas!
Bramblestone was absolutely robbed at Strawberry Jam 8. Of the submissions I tried out, this was easily top 3, not top 5!! Jokes aside, taking 5th place among 28 submissions is still no small feat.
Bramblestone plays like a modernized Link to the Past, with one or two mechanics to give it a different game feel. All the enemies are simulacrum to get around the violence-in-porn-games issue. The game has casual nudity rather than outright sex scenes (minus a couple scenes where your character jorks it), and I think that’s totally fine. In fact, I appreciated the casual nudity, because it didn’t get in the way of the gameplay.
This one is free and about 90 minutes long, it’s definitely worth your time.
OK so this is a weird one coming from me cuz but I really like bullet hell so y’know whatever.
I liked it. Sue me. The humor was cute. And the music was really good!
There are absolutely some neat ideas coming to pass in the yiff space, and I would love to see more. Fusing sex and gameplay is really tough without making sacrifices. I hope the games I make are half as good and/or innovative as these ones - god knows I’m trying!!