Need some input on improving gameplay

I've gotten some great feedback around the interwebs since the public release went live. The main problem with this game is, and always has been, the actual gameplay. I wanted to spill my thoughts and get your opinions. 

Okay, so here are my observations:

• There's a severe "uhhh, what am I doing? How do I play this?" factor, especially for new players.
• The gameplay isn't sexy, and it distracts from the sexiness.

And here's how I think these problems can be helped:

• Increase player control over the scene
• Reward the player for doing sexy stuff
• Reduce complexity
  

I'm going to go into detail on each point, but first I want to make one thing clear - I'm not talking about rewriting the game. All of these are iterative changes, based on the current capabilities of the code. Yes, I'll have to write more code to implement them, but the core system behind each idea is already working in the game.

Increasing player control:

Right now the player has very little impact on the animations that play. All you're really doing is clicking buttons and managing meters so that you don't lose. 

The animation system allows for one partner to be "active" at a time, meaning that if the partner getting oral is active, the character's animations mostly ignore anyone railing her from behind. The active partner shifts around automatically right now. Instead, I think you should be able to switch who is active by clicking on the partner's picture. So...

Fix #1: Allow the player to choose which partner is active at any time. That partner will also be the target of activated abilities.

Next, each partner has a unique set of animations they progress through, depending on their personality. It's not very obvious though, since they progress automatically and there's little indication of why they change to new animations. So instead, I think the player should be in control of that. So maybe you have a Slow, Medium, and Fast speed setting, and you can set the speed of the active partner. Then you can leave them at that speed and switch to another partner to adjust their speed too.

Fix #2: Allow the player to adjust each partner's thrusting speed independently. Their speed has gameplay effects (see the Reducing Complexity section).

Rewarding the fun stuff:

Right now, as the player's pleasure bar increases, your shields recharge slower. Sexual stimulation damages your shields, and can make you lose the round completely. Even if you don't lose, your mana points go down throughout the round, so you get weaker and weaker. I think all of these things punish the player for playing the game. Doing sexy things makes you lose. It's just a bad design decision.

Instead, you should be rewarded for doing sexy things to the main character and to the npcs. If there's a fail condition, it can't be something that bites you in the ass for trying to have fun. That way, instead of distracting you from the fun stuff, it encourages you to do the fun stuff.

These changes all work together-

• Remove shields and health. You can't "die" in the scene.
• Start the round with zero mana. Each time your character orgasms, you get one mana point, which can power your abilities. This means instead of getting weaker throughout the round, you get stronger. 
• Right now you're scored on "Love" collected. I want to break Love into 3 types: Physical (cum), Energy (any kind of sexual stimulation), and Fetish. Physical love is the same as always- whatever you've collected at the end of the round is your score. Energy love comes from stimulating your partner, and you gather it during sex. A partner's Fetishes give you optional objectives. If you fulfill their fetish(es), it adds a bonus or a multiplier to your Energy score. That score will be visible throughout the round, and combined with the Physical love score at the end. (note that npc fetishes were already a planned feature)

Fix #3: Flip the mechanics. Reward and encourage sexy player actions. Add progression back in.

Reducing complexity:

This isn't about making the game more shallow or easier to beat, but making the mechanics more intuitive to what the player naturally wants to do. The core design idea around this is- Every player action should have an immediate, obvious effect on the sex. Passive boosts to things like shields and pleasure input aren't interesting. And the more complex the action, the more optional it should be.

The fixes above are trying to follow this rule- 

• Setting which partner is active has a visual effect on the animations. It also makes that partner the target of whatever abilities you want to use. 
• Changing a partner's thrusting speed changes the animations. It also affects how quickly that partner's buildup/pleasure meters fill up. You can use the different speeds to make them cum more quickly, or let the buildup meter fill and milk all the love you can out of them. Constant fiddling isn't necessary, but you can do it if you want.
• Abilities will need to fit the changes. As long as they're objective-focused, I think they'll work. For example, you might have a "Denial" ability that keeps the active partner at the edge of orgasm, so you can fulfill a submissive fetish, or so you can fill their buildup meter before they cum. Abilities give you more power, but are optional.
• Breaking Love into three types makes it so you can see immediate rewards for things you do in the scene. Filling a partner's buildup meter before letting them cum would give you a bigger score (with Energy love), which would display as it's happening. Fulfilling fetishes or getting a high Energy score is completely optional to the gameplay. It'll only affect how much XP you get for upgrading characters in the character select screen.

I also think that in the end, an in-game tutorial that guides you through the basic mechanics will probably be necessary, so-

Fix #4: A tutorial.

Final thoughts:

One of the starting design ideas for this game was that you're playing a character who is just reacting to being fucked. It was an interesting concept in my head, but in reality it's very hard to make reaction as fun as action. These changes reflect a small shift in the core design idea, hopefully in a positive direction.

I'm super excited to start implementing this stuff, but I wanted to get feedback from all of you first. 

What do you think? Do you agree that the problems I mentioned need to be fixed? Do you think the fixes I proposed will help those problems? Do you have other ideas that address those problems specifically?

<3