Collaborating and animating for Cute Cock Clicker
The Queer Games Bundle is a collection of nearly 600 items by LGBTQ+ creators and teams, nearly 400 of which are independent video games, all sold for just $60. I’m talking with creators from the bundle about their games and their making habits. Visit the bundle and consider buying it.
This article is about explicit adult games! Turn back if that’s not for you.
Bob Conway and Deevil collaborated on Cute Cock Clicker (CCC), which is a funny, sexy clicker game where men take off their clothes and eventually have sex. I was struck by the writing, which is really playful and fun — something you don’t always see in sex games. And the art, by Deevil, is beautiful.
“I’m a cis gay allosexual male and kind of a hopeless romantic, but prefer ‘queer’ because it feels more comfortable,” Bob says. He’s been making games in his own cinematic universe for years, starting with the game Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS). He says his favorite project so far has been Orcs of Mordick.
How long have you been making games?
Bob: I’ve been making games since 2017
Deevil: Since 2018
What tools do you like to use?
Bob: I primarily work in Ren’Py, which is flexible enough to do lots of non-[visual novel (VN)] things — like I built an ATB RPG engine in it for Orcs of Mordick last year, and Cute Cock Clicker and YAGS Booty Call are clicker/action games built in Ren’Py — but I’ve also made a game in RPG Maker (PEEN, or Psychic Erotic Extraterrestrial Neutralizers)
Deevil: Daz3D and Ren’py
What themes or genres do you like to explore?
Bob: Almost everything I do is slice-of-life (sometimes with a twist) with queer characters. I like exploring sexuality and coming out (in addition to homosexuality, I’ve gone a bit into demisexuality, asexuality, and aromanticism, and have worked on games led by others with non-binary characters) and generally like writing characters who are coming to terms with their sexuality. When I leave those comfortable boundaries, it’s either to write slice-of-life smut, or to write SciFi-tinged stories with alien characters.
Deevil: I love a cute story with sweet cinnamon buns. However, I end up making porn :P
Bob: It was a bit of a natural extension of me wanting to challenge myself and continue learning more about the engine and making it do unusual things.
What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of making games?
Bob: My answer to this has changed a lot over the years. I used to enjoy the writing and technical aspects the most, since my day job is programming and I really enjoy tracking multiple branching story paths (and associated game variables) in my head. But recently I think my favorite part has become working with other people, primarily in the context of gamejams, because it’s exciting to collaborate with others and make something great together, often within the time confines of a jam. The part I enjoy the least is generally wrangling contributors, such as artists, and following up to ensure that things get done, because I always feel bad doing it. Gamejams are also pretty good in this regard, because I can make someone else take over the project manager role and focus on my portion — writing and/or programming.
Deevil: Love the creative outlet, hate the writing and disappointment when something doesn’t quite work the way you wanted it to.
Is there a game that has affected you recently?
Bob: I unfortunately don’t play as many games these days as I’d like to, given my ever-increasing day job responsibilities and my ongoing game development projects. I generally like games that have strong emotional threads tied to characters you really grow with, so the last one that really affected me is probably Detroit Become Human.
Deevil: I… don’t play many games… my attention span is very very limited.
Cute Cock Clicker seems to have started as a joke, right? How did it become something real after that?
Bob: Cute Cock Clicker started as a joke reaction to a Chloe Spencer [Let’s Play] of a game where you poked women in bikinis while they objected and asked you to stop. The non-consensual aspects of the game really bothered me, so I wanted to do better, and also maybe switch it to sexy men, instead. Deev and I had been aware of each other for a while, mostly via the Bara Game Development Discord server, but hadn’t collaborated on anything before. I posted a random message asking if anyone would be interested in creating art for a shitpost (after creating a basic version), he responded, and it rapidly grew from there into something serious.
Deevil: I saw Bob post about doing this lil shitpost game and thought OMG, I love puns and making fun of stuff, the rest is history.
Deevil: I love a cute story with sweet cinnamon buns. However, I end up making porn :P
Had you two worked together before? How did this particular collaboration get set up?
Bob: Cute Cock Clicker was our first collaboration, and as noted above, it was kind of just random given he responded to my semi-serious public channel post.
Deevil: Never previously, although we were aware of each other’s strengths. I knew Bob could do exactly what this game needed and I could cobble together some images on my side as well as add some ideas.
I really liked the silly, fourth-wall humor in the game. Did you know all along that it would be funny?
Bob: My other games before CCC had been extremely serious or addressed serious topics, so I wanted to try writing something completely different. As such, I picked some random quirk for each guy — like Connor constantly breaking the fourth wall, Juan constantly using idioms, or Tobias speaking in Ren’Py script — and tried to crank it up to 11. Deev had a lot of great suggestions for personality quirks as well. I’m pleasantly surprised that people enjoyed it. It’s also worth noting that the guys are all (physically) based on YAGS characters, which I also found amusing as a bit of an inside joke, and their names are also meaningful in some way (for example, Connor and Hank from Detroit Become Human, Tobias being another Animorphs character alongside Jake, etc).
Deevil: I think I would have to say yes. The whole point was to make fun of another game and we quickly realized we both enjoy bantering back and forth until we devolve into nonsense, so it really worked out well.
What was it like making the animations, clicker elements, and so forth work within a traditional visual novel engine?
Bob: I’d made clicker-style games before (YAGS: Booty Call and BJ’s BaraJam Kitchen), but Cute Cock Clicker became my most ambitious project, coding-wise, to date. It was a bit of a natural extension of me wanting to challenge myself and continue learning more about the engine and making it do unusual things. I’ve only gotten worse since then with wanting to push Ren’Py, with projects such as Over The Moon that feature extensive programmatically-generated puzzle segments, or Orcs of Mordick that is an entire Final Fantasy-style active time battle RPG engine. The animations were Deev’s idea, so I’ll let him talk about those.
Deevil: I figured that Bob could make pretty much anything work and to make the animations it just meant taking scenes I was doing anyways and moving the model into various positions (okay, it’s not that easy, but basically that’s it with some cramping hands from making tiny adjustments over and over again) and letting them render for hours and it at least added something extra to the clicking so we thought it would be a good idea :)
You both have other work in the bundle — could you tell me about those projects and give me a quick sales pitch?
Bob: I have two other games in the bundle. Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS) was my first VN project (although it took a while, so it was my third released game), and it’s a traditional visual novel about being gay, making friends, and coming out. It’s not a dating sim as much as an exploration of sexuality and relationships, including platonic relationships. The bundle version includes the paid extras (soundtrack, wallpapers, and behind-the-scenes PDF book). My other game is YAGS: Falling For You (YFFY), which has a VN portion following up on YAGS’ secret route as well as a spatial-reasoning puzzle portion, satisfying my desire to do unusual things with Ren’Py. The bundle version is the “deluxe” version of the game that includes a puzzle editor.
Deevil: The other items I have in the bundle are Tim’s Terrible Tuesday. A pretty simple game where our poor protagonist Tim just really needs to get through the day without being fired, dying, etc. It’s not a long game, but hopefully people enjoy it, even if it’s only for the porn. The other item I have in the bundle is a short story / comic book called Late Night Gym which is just a sexy little story about two meat-heads who meet in an otherwise empty gym. [Editor’s note: buy the bundle at the top of this page to find these games!]
