I'm gonna rant off about what keeps buggin be about games: Choices and alternative paths. So this is to all potential game creators:
Don't get me wrong, it's amazing to have multiple endings and all of that but every fork in story development means exponential growth of effort for the developer. Thus most games that start out with multiple paths end up abandonned and unfinnished. And it's no wonder. People underestimate the effects of exponential growth, not just in games but everywhere. Just having two paths in a story creates a lot more than twice the amount of work for the developer than one.
Obviously, choices are what makes games interesting. But most of the time, choices are meaningless unless the story is framing the choices in an engaging way and the choices are actually meaningful. For example who gives a fuck where I cum? Unless it actually matters for the story and the characters, all those extra animations are wasted.
The tradeoff between development time and value for the game is not worth it. I'd rather have long games with fixed but meaningful stories than short games with many but pointless choices. It's a pain to see all the effort people put into creating games to be wasted because of this.
Be confident and tell a story how you want it to be. That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to patreons or forum members but ultimately you're the creator who creates. The story is the most important aspect of a visual novel. Choices are a way to put yourself into the shoes of the character. Without the engaging story, the game might as well be a non interactive porn flick, and most games would be better off that way.
IMHO the most important thing when making meaningful choices is to tie up the knots together. If you have choice A and B at some point, you need to join those paths together at some point so you can continue no matter what the player chose. If you don't, the above mention of exponential growth of story complexity happens and you cannot deal with it. It's hard enough to tell *one* compelling story. It's impossible to tell multiple compelling stories at the same time . You will mix up things or just not be as engaging as you could be.
Very few games actually manage to do that properly. Even AAA titles like Mass Effect have a ridiculous amount of variables that decide how the ending turns out - and they fuck up the ending. It's not necessary to have that amount of complexity. People want an engaging story and are more than happy if good/bad choices during gameplay actually reflect in the ending - if that ending is meaningful and makes sense. And most people don't even bother checking out the other ending! Nevermind the hidden endings some games provide that are usually only found by people reading a walkthrough. People will only check that out if you did a good job telling the story in one way.
Don't get me wrong, it's amazing to have multiple endings and all of that but every fork in story development means exponential growth of effort for the developer. Thus most games that start out with multiple paths end up abandonned and unfinnished. And it's no wonder. People underestimate the effects of exponential growth, not just in games but everywhere. Just having two paths in a story creates a lot more than twice the amount of work for the developer than one.
Obviously, choices are what makes games interesting. But most of the time, choices are meaningless unless the story is framing the choices in an engaging way and the choices are actually meaningful. For example who gives a fuck where I cum? Unless it actually matters for the story and the characters, all those extra animations are wasted.
The tradeoff between development time and value for the game is not worth it. I'd rather have long games with fixed but meaningful stories than short games with many but pointless choices. It's a pain to see all the effort people put into creating games to be wasted because of this.
Be confident and tell a story how you want it to be. That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to patreons or forum members but ultimately you're the creator who creates. The story is the most important aspect of a visual novel. Choices are a way to put yourself into the shoes of the character. Without the engaging story, the game might as well be a non interactive porn flick, and most games would be better off that way.
IMHO the most important thing when making meaningful choices is to tie up the knots together. If you have choice A and B at some point, you need to join those paths together at some point so you can continue no matter what the player chose. If you don't, the above mention of exponential growth of story complexity happens and you cannot deal with it. It's hard enough to tell *one* compelling story. It's impossible to tell multiple compelling stories at the same time . You will mix up things or just not be as engaging as you could be.
Very few games actually manage to do that properly. Even AAA titles like Mass Effect have a ridiculous amount of variables that decide how the ending turns out - and they fuck up the ending. It's not necessary to have that amount of complexity. People want an engaging story and are more than happy if good/bad choices during gameplay actually reflect in the ending - if that ending is meaningful and makes sense. And most people don't even bother checking out the other ending! Nevermind the hidden endings some games provide that are usually only found by people reading a walkthrough. People will only check that out if you did a good job telling the story in one way.
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