Devs need to read more Harlequin Romance novels. Yes, I read them. They are books that are easy to pick up and put down because they rely on a very successful formula for romance. When I read a Dean Koontz book or other "real" book, I'm likely to do a marathon session... which is detrimental to things like dinner! For those that don't read Harlequin Romances... they are no longer "virgin meets rich doctor, falls in love and they get married"... no, today's romances are much, much racier, more realistic and contain some scintillating erotic sex scenes (not porn.. but some get damn close).

To be honest, sex in video games really doesn't hold much interest for me. It tends to be just sex, not romance. Even when they add in romantic qualities, they get it all wrong and really all they're doing is establishing some form of very boring relationship that usually goes along the lines of the following:

*Choice: there is often a choice of potential romance partners, you choose one through a dialogue tree.
*Courting: there are usually dialogue options to continue showing an interest in your choice (or to switch choices). In GTA4, you took her out on a bunch of dates.
*Conclusion: Sex in a bed.

Yawn... boring!

Alternately, we have the more scripted romances that tend to follow the High School concept of "I like her, she doesn't seem to like me, I make a sacrifice for her or rescue her... oh, she does like me... conclusion".

Yawn... again boring!

Devs need to spice things up a bit and think romance and passion not "sex". Harlequin books have a very long and successful history of writing romances and they tend to follow these rules:

Conflict. There must be conflict. There must be a reason to initially hate or dislike the eventual love interest. Maybe the love interest's brother killed your sibling or parent, maybe it's an old family feud, maybe the love interest had you demoted... it doesn't really matter as long as conflict is established with a simple backstory. Conflict simply adds an element to "overcome" which adds to the final resolution.

Anticipation. The initial conflict is always emotional... and once that is overcome, there is usually a situational conflict to overcome. Even when each person realizes they love the other, there are still situations that usually keep them apart - prolonging the anticipation of a resolution. Often it's a misunderstanding, another person... whatever. There just has to be a point at which the heroine realizes she loves the hero, but can't be with him. The more doomed the relationship seems, the more emotional the resolution is.

Resolution. The hero and heroine finally express their love and commence with the usual showing of their love. "Romance" isn't sex in a bed... it's sex in an open field while it's pouring rain, it's sex on a grand piano in the middle of a huge ballroom with chandeliers softly lit, it's having emotions overrun the situation and a need to show love through sex. Sex in video games needs to be a grander gesture. It needn't be time consuming or explicit... just not boring "sex in a bed" stuff. I do really like how Mass Effect did the sex scenes... just wish it hadn't been so pedestrian and maybe a bit more situationally imaginative.



Harlequin rules of romance also state that the male is always an Alpha male. They must be powerful, decisive, dominant... though with an underlying "hidden" kindness or suffering some emotional wounding. (Bioware's Anomen was not an alpha male in Baldur's Gate:SoA - yes, he was BORING!). The female is almost always a plucky woman. In the past, she was often powerless and needing to be rescued ( from poverty, widowhood, divorce, single motherhood, marauding soldiers, evil relatives, a demeaning job, or some combination of the above), but nowadays she is much more inclined to be an assertive woman who's life is totally under control... until she meets "the man".
EDIT: and it should be noted that sex and romance (love) are treated differently in Harlequins. Often sex is at the beginning of the book and forms the basis for the conflict. They meet, have sex, then find they have to work together. Guilt and conflict ensure... followed by anticipation and finally resolution.



While the Final Fantasy series, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate series and other games have attempted "romance" - they seem to fail on multiple accounts and to a large degree it seems because they aren't looking at "mature" romance. Instead they are using either underdeveloped high school romance, or they simply give optional partners culimnating in some form of sex scene if the dialogue options are followed. I think that romance has been a sub-plot or optional plot in many of the previous games, but I see no reason why a love story can't actually form the basis for a game. Movies do it all the time. Terminator was a love story. She hates the "future guy" who is ruining her life (conflict) - "come with me if you want to live". They gradually realize their love for one another but are on the run. I don't even recall if an actual "sex scene" was shown because in this romance, the conflict and anticipation parts were drawn out so long. "I came across time for you Sarah. I love you, I always have."
The last scene of Sarah Connor being pregnant though is an interesting way of showing the resolution. It's a touching love story because of the conflict - this is what is so often missing in video games. If she had met him and liked him right away, the love story would not have been nearly as good.

There are many games with good love stories in them... and most do the anticipation part well... but I would like to see more conflict and more mature and passionate resolutions. I didn't have the pleasure of playing Mass Effect unfortunately, but I'm really looking forward to Dragon Age: Origins... and I'll be interested to see if the Bioware devs have been reading romance novels... and have taken video game sex to a place of mature passion and romance. If not, then they should start reading romance novels... doesn't this one seem like it could be an interesting game?


(and yes, this is an actual book!... though I haven't read this one.)