Eroma a composite of EROtic ROMAnce, is phrased as a virtual reality game in which the players' avatars participate. It is a sexual game; not only can avatars have sex, they are required to, to advance their positions. Every point is scored sexually. The players are connected so that when their avatars have sex, the players themselves experience thirty second orgasms, male and female, simultaneously. It is hard-wired, so to speak: when the male penetrates to operative depth, his member flips the buried switch that evokes an immediate climax for both parties. Naturally all male avatars are handsome and all female avatars are beautiful, and they throw themselves into the competition with a will. There are several settings; in each one, half the players are eliminated, until it is down to two, one man and one woman, and then at last a single winner.
We follow one man, Pedro, and one woman, Fotina, as they compete but befriend each other as avatars, and in the course of the game come to love each other. That love becomes personal as they meet outside the game and discover the limitations of sex where mutual orgasms are not programmed and details can be messy. No wonder many players prefer game sex. Then they are the finalists, when only one can win, complicated by their real emotions as contrasted to their game setting roles.
The settings range from a pleasant forested landscape where they must have sex to score points, to a dangerous alien planet where trees feed on players by sexually luring them into traps. In the first setting they must find private places for sex, or it can't happen; but most are already occupied by other couples. So players must be clever not only in their choice of partners, but in their choice of locale. Half are not clever enough. Those eliminated in one round may return in later rounds as obstacles: the surviving players must have sex with them, or avoid sex with them, depending on the situation, but they do not cooperate. It's quite a challenge.
