I disagree there's plenty that worth just the story
Literally NONE of the ones people claim are worth JUST the story, have proven been to me.
Some of the most 'famous' of the 'story rich' adult games out there, like Being A DIK, or Acting Lessons, or Leap of Faith, or .... any.. I mean I could name at least 10 more I tried for rave reviews.... and they are all FAILURES.
People like to try that old chestnut "Adult does not just mean porn".... but in GAMING, certainly in Game retail/hosting.... it DOES.
I can name perhaps 30+ games, marque products from AAA+ studios, which deal with any combination of sexuality and sexual theory, depression and assorted other illnesses mental, suicide, homicide, assorted trauma and the causes, r*pe, CSA, CV, slavery, violence of all kinds, organized crime, systemic corruption, drugs and the causes and damages of drug use, and every assorted fetish and kink you can imagine... which DO NOT have 'Adult' or 'Sexual Content' or 'NSFW' tags on game sites, or warning labels of a kind on hard copies.... ....because ADULT in this sense, DOES MEAN EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT.
Often times, in MANY jurisdictions, that is a LEGAL definition, and WHY they must HAVE those tags available to devs and studios on their sites.
So that old 'its not that kind of game' is weak and wrong argument... the A part is ESSENTIAL and what sets an Adult game apart from any others.
So if it is a game like Acting Lessons with almost NO sexual content.... then the guy should have just CUT IT, used symbolism, shadow play, implication, retrospective confirmation, or just good old FTB, all the tricks of old Code Hollywood... and the story would NOT have changed, been the same. That fails as an AVN.
If it is a game like Being A DIK where there is a 'nature of the MC' system... but that does NOT open up any other way to play, no matter what, even being a Dick, and not a Chick of the DIK's....but rather you are still hemmed in to a monogamy Romance story, with limited sexual content.... that too fails as an AVN.
If it is even a game which is kind of epic on all other metrics, like Nephilim, but has appalling sex scenes, in a game otherwise so good, they should look like they were made by Michael Ninn or Mario Salieri... but instead look like some early 80s, videotape, carpeted wall garage, amateur smut lords cheap shit made to sell out of a van or in the classifieds of B grade porn mags... which unfortunately that game does.... THAT fails as an AVN.
If the game is one like Artemis, where it is never made clear you are playing a monogamy romance, and all the adult content, even it being plentiful and of good quality, is locked behind narrow pathing there is no in game direction on, whereby also ONE misstep can hardlock and dead end access to not just some, but almost ALL content.. which can happen in that game... that fails as an AVN.
I have only every played a small number of Adult games, which actually have amazing stories, and WORK as AVNs, and what made them worth playing, was the fact the devs CLEARLY cared as much about the Adult content, as the rest of the game, and KNEW what an AVN is, understood that A part is at least AS important as the rest. And went the extra mile to make sure there was both excellent quality, and quantity of sex scenes.
Games like Ripples, and Eternum, games like Pale Carnations, and Oppai Odyssey, and of course, games like this.
Most games on Steam of this kind, are dismal failures, which is why Itch is my go to source. Here you have more diamonds than chunks of coal, but on Steam it is, sadly, the other way around.