2023 is over, and with it a lot of decent releases. Both Mugen Souls finally came out uncensored for the west, Baldr’s Gate let you sleep with a bear, Dungeon Travelers came out on something better then the Vita, a couple of top tier Vn’s like Muramasa and Nukitashi(as butchered as that was), some Ninetails and their subsidiaries stuff, Hentai Labyrinth, and so on.

I even almost hit all my game goals for the year. If I hadn’t dropped Nep 3 I’d be at A+, but I also barely had goals to begin with, which this new year will be the exact opposite, more about that near the end of the post for those who care.

I’m also really disappointed with myself over the sheer amount of started then dropped projects. I tried to play a huge number of games this year and dropped them all within 2 or 3 days. The reasons were numerous, from bad galleries to wanting the game to have more content to just not enjoying it. Then there’s the like 5 times I said I’d start a game only to not even get past the title screen… man this year was bland for motivation. Demon’s Roots was one of a few games that actually impressed me. Basically zero VNs did(Date A Live was the my favorite of the year, of the few I read), and the best games were almost all early things like Fairy Fencer and Dead Estate.

Next year though looks better. Shin Koihime’s fan patch should finally come out, Rance 03 has some chance of release and probably a few other things in the 18+ world that I haven’t been tracking. For ecchi, there’s Tsurugihime, Stella Blade(hard maybe), Konosuba cosplay sim, Infinite Wealth, Dungeon Travelers 1, Shred and Tear, the next Trails entry, and the Yuuna ghost hot springs game. So there is some promise next year, just wish there was more 18+ stuff I was looking forward to.

AI stuff

Expect an AI game or a few this year. I don’t want to hate on AI art games, I think they can speed up things and if used well let people who would otherwise never make games try their hand at it. So far though… We have chuuni garbage with lots of pictures but no substance, galleries with no game, that weird starving ribcage look that looks horrible, parody stuff that uses pre time skip stuff(way to many parody things use pre time skip Naruto…), game’s with terrible design, and no gallery stuff. It’s been a mess, and on top of that a lot of them are just scam single alpha releases meant to get some patreon subscribers and then the makers just never update. I’ve seen like two games worth anything and even those don’t play to the strengths of AI art, it’s just about making things cheaper and affordable which is fine.

As for AI translation, it depends on quality. I’ve likely already read one and barely noticed, but two Mandarin Farm games have been AI translated recently and they are horrible. Likely I feel they are using the AI like you would a machine and going line by line, which is not how you handle AI as you aren’t giving the AI the context it needs to be smarter then Google translate. If you are going to use it that way, at least edit the damn thing.

For next year, instead of just going through sequels or some random set list, I’m going to try to play 1 ecchi thing per game genre that I can. I’ve found myself skipping some genre’s entirely and this has lead to some games that I really should play getting ignored, or a building list of one genre that I really should start working on(looking at you, fighting games). Also, all first games of a genre will likely come with me going on a tangent on the content of that genre, because why not.

So following is a list of what genre’s I could think of and a mix of examples and intended games to be played. Generally new releases are the priority, but we’ll see. This doesn’t mean I won’t be playing 3 turn based RPG or anything, just that I want to push myself to at least get something in every genre I can. Porn games will be ignoring this entirely, though the only 18+ things I have guaranteed in my list for next year right now is a Rance game at some point and probably the rest of the Lock n Lewd set of games. Probably Shin Koihime if it actually comes out?

Genre’s and some maybe’s for what I’ll play in no particular order-

Turn Based RPG- Trails into Daybreak/Nep 3/CCC

Action RPG- Senran Kagura Burst

Strategy RPG- Not sure. There’s options but none are that pervy. Stella Glow, Luminous Arc among others.

Dungeon Crawler- Dungeon Traveler 2-2/ the original maybe or Mary Skelter 3. Demon Gaze 2 if that happens.

Hack and Slash- Bayo/Oneechanbara/Smash a Hit/???

Mystery Dungeon- Yuuna Hotspring

Wrestling- Rumble Roses Japan edition(has English menus and dub)

Racing- ???

Sport- BMX XXX as I don’t want to spend hundreds of hours on DoA Xtreme and that’s about the only other option. You’d think at least volleyball would have a decent number of lewd games, or hell lingerie football or something but no…

FPS- Bright Memories or Michigan Hell Report(Japanese version cause it works and has all content)

TPS- PN 03

Schmup- Otomedious or Like A Dreamer

Puzzle- Magical Girls. Not sure how subdivided puzzle as a genre should be…

Sandbox- Mafia 3 or Sunset Overdrive

Survivor- There’s this witch one and not much else yet

Minigame Collection- Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Platformer- Drifting or Amazing Princess

Fighter- Blazblue 2

Adventure- Death Mark 2 or NG

VN- Phantom Trigger or Blazblue VNs

Dating Sim- Konosuba or this weird stock market one

Igavania- Tsurugihime

Metriodvania- ???

And more. I don’t even know all the game genre’s nowadays and they pop up pretty often. I’m hoping the sheer variety will get me to finish most of this list, but who knows? Anyway, hope to have an alright 2024. Have fun.