Complete Freedom of Choice

[Deleted member 379289]

This isn't a request for a specific game, but a suggestion to developers. I don't know if there's a more appropriate forum(?)

Here's my idea
A game with an engaging story that has freedom of choice but where you would still get all the interesting scenes no matter what unless you specifically reject them. How you play might be reflected on the scene - like skull-fucking vs a sensual blow job - and when the scene occurs, but you still get the scene no matter what.

Reasoning
A large number of people only play most games a single time because reading the same things again and again is simply too repetitive and new ones a constantly coming out. At the same time we don't want to risk missing out by making the "wrong" choice so we cling to the manual. The decision is often made a lot easier by certain scenes being quite difficult, time consuming and frustrating to unlock unless you know exactly what to do. Even if you don't look in the manual, you will still often try to make the choice the game thinks is "right" rather than how you actually want to play it.

The consequence is that there is no actual freedom of choice and immersion is completely lost. I'm sure a lot of you have strong opinions about why this is wrong, but it doesn't really change the fact that people - including deeply flawed and deranged ones like myself - still do it.

In other words, there is possibly a pretty big market for a game where you are free to be yourself (or whatever character you want to be) because you "win" no matter what.

 

[HornyGamerDS]

Although I love the idea of freedom of choice I feel if the choice you make always leads to the same outcome then it's not really following freedom but a linear choice.

 

[mickydoo]

My idea for a game is having the same outcome no matter what you do, but how you get there is defined by choices. If you go left you get to meet girl a, if you go right you will not meet girl a til later on in the game, something along those lines.

 

[kimoo]

This isn't a request for a specific game, but a suggestion to developers. I don't know if there's a more appropriate forum(?)

Here's my idea
A game with an engaging story that has freedom of choice but where you would still get all the interesting scenes no matter what unless you specifically reject them. How you play might be reflected on the scene - like skull-fucking vs a sensual blow job - and when the scene occurs, but you still get the scene no matter what.

Reasoning
A large number of people only play most games a single time because reading the same things again and again is simply too repetitive and new ones a constantly coming out. At the same time we don't want to risk missing out by making the "wrong" choice so we cling to the manual. The decision is often made a lot easier by certain scenes being quite difficult, time consuming and frustrating to unlock unless you know exactly what to do. Even if you don't look in the manual, you will still often try to make the choice the game thinks is "right" rather than how you actually want to play it.

The consequence is that there is no actual freedom of choice and immersion is completely lost. I'm sure a lot of you have strong opinions about why this is wrong, but it doesn't really change the fact that people - including deeply flawed and deranged ones like myself - still do it.

In other words, there is possibly a pretty big market for a game where you are free to be yourself (or whatever character you want to be) because you "win" no matter what.

so why do you want someone to play the game twice
the people are different you make choices to just make all kind of people play your game
not to make them play it twice ....
example: i hate NTR so if you forced me to see NTR in game i will close the game and delete it
but of course there is someone who might like NTR so there should be choices

another thing there is no one today making a game without choices ...
you just want to attract as many people as possible

 

[Deleted member 379289]

Although I love the idea of freedom of choice I feel if the choice you make always leads to the same outcome then it's not really following freedom but a linear choice.

That wasn't my idea

My idea for a game is having the same outcome no matter what you do, but how you get there is defined by choices.

This was

so why do you want someone to play the game twice
the people are different you make choices to just make all kind of people play your game
not to make them play it twice ....
example: i hate NTR so if you forced me to see NTR in game i will close the game and delete it
but of course there is someone who might like NTR so there should be choices

another thing there is no one today making a game without choices ...
you just want to attract as many people as possible

>90 pct of a typical game is MF/MFF/FF content which the vast majority likes or at least isn't completely turned off by. I'm sure most people would love to see all of that if they could. Granted, some of it is anal, which people are a bit more conflicted on, but that is often presented as a choice in the specific scene. I'm all for choices during scenes. In fact, I want more of it.

Another point is that while things like NTR often happen as a consequence of choice, it is only rarely an obvious one so in practice it is still forced on you. In many cases, you'll miss out on other stuff if you refuse NTR. For instance, in Long Live The Princess (otherwise great game btw) an important character will become unhappy and you'll lose gold unless you watch your sister blow him.

That's not just a bad solution for haters of NTR but also the lovers since it's usually still only <5 pct of the game and you might miss out on it if you don't know specifically what to choose. My suggestion is to either completely dedicate some games to the masses and then let others appeal more directly to specific kinks or make the choices a lot more optional - possibly by selecting them at the start.

Again, let me be completely clear. I want to give people access to all sexual encounters no matter the choices, but the dialogue and when it happens will still depend on them. You can still reject the encounter and you can still have choices within the encounter.

 

[Deleted member 379289]

Also, all of you guys selecting the horse-sized duck might want to watch this first

 

[WhitePhantom]

I mean my game has a ton of choices, and the only choice that will end the game is if you try and do something that would get you arrested (ie barge in the shower and rape them) you might like it (

You must be registered to see the links

)

It is difficult though, because you need so many extra renders, and that mean updates take a lot longer, and therefore people turn off the game and care about it less.

If you have complete freedom of choice, and you have Characters A, B, C and D, and you abuse A B C and try and fuck D, now we need a storyline where ABC would be angry but D loves you. Now reverse that and you need the same for A love, BCD hate etc and so on, and then what if you're nice to them all, or nice to half. Now you need about 10 different sets of renders. That turns what could be a 30 render long scene into a 300 render scene, and considering most devs are not millionaires and hobbyists like myself, only a very few do it full time, a 300 render scene takes a few weels. If you wanted a full update like this, you'd get yearly updates.

I also dislike walkthroughs, and you won't get a walkthrough from me until 2-3 months after the update the walkthrough is for. That stops you clinging to a manual because there isn't one, so you have to make your own choices.

That's just my thoughts from a developer trying to give freedom of choice to a degree.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Here's my idea
A game with an engaging story that has freedom of choice but where you would still get all the interesting scenes no matter what unless you specifically reject them. How you play might be reflected on the scene - like skull-fucking vs a sensual blow job - and when the scene occurs, but you still get the scene no matter what.

Have you an idea of how hard it would be to do this kind of games ? [Hint: How many AAA games really works like this ?]

It's simple, it can't be done. This just because it's a x^2 thing that coders have to deal with here. When the player have had to make 10 choice, there's already 100 possible outcome. 10 000 when he reach the 100 choice. Did I really need to continue ?

The only way to really deal with this is to write a decision tree, which will both handle all the possibilities, and limit the number of possible outcome (because kissing the girl at day X or day Y can mean the same for this particular scene). All this while making the writing of the condition a little easier ; either "this" happen, or do not happen.
There's IA algorithms designed for this, but as efficient as they are, they also are way to be fast enough for a game. So, until the day these said algorithms become atomic-like, start to spread, and have an easy to use implementation, you'll have to deal with a limited freedom ; especially in indie games.

 

[Deleted member 379289]

@WhitePhantom: I'd love to check out your game, but unfortunately I'm not into that dick style. Kept me off Dating My Daughter too (among other things). I prefer something more naturally looking or (even better) the Lab Rats approach where you just see the girls, read what you're doing to them and then imagine the rest.

@anne O'nymous: I realize my suggestion might be insanely difficult for some games, especially the more complex ones. A game based on my idea would probably need a lot fewer choices and story arcs that are not as interconnected. This is an acceptable compromise. In fact, I'd love to drop 3/4 of the choices that typically needs to be made as they don't seem to serve much of a purpose story-wise but just interrupts me. All this constant clicking, transitions, waiting for new text, decisions etc. keeps me from being truly immersed in what I'm reading.

Maybe that's just me... I don't know if there's an actual market for it. It's an idea to float.

 

[Akatriel]

Here's my idea
A game with an engaging story that has freedom of choice but where you would still get all the interesting scenes no matter what unless you specifically reject them. How you play might be reflected on the scene - like skull-fucking vs a sensual blow job - and when the scene occurs, but you still get the scene no matter what.

I'm working on a similar idea;

- Scenes are from a pool of random-like encounters with their likelihood modified by global variables (E.g time of day affects chances of a scene triggering)

- The scene has a handful of art assets tied together with text. The scene branches out depending on player choices and random dice rolls modified by skill checks

- The text is written in 3 - 5 different flavors. A neutral "control" flavor and different mood flavors. The whole scene sounds different if the player is hurt, thirsty and desperate, compared to healthy and horny, etc.

- These flavored texts have adjective lists and pull different adjectives depending on players stats.

So we have micro and macro changes to a scene coupled with a pool of encounters, with most of the changes being text based, the easiest art asset to change. This is the theory, but it's still in development and implementing the mechanics that facilitate all this a challenge unto itself.

 

[anne O'nymous]

@anne O'nymous: I realize my suggestion might be insanely difficult for some games, especially the more complex ones. A game based on my idea would probably need a lot fewer choices and story arcs that are not as interconnected. This is an acceptable compromise.

It can only be done if there's one character, perhaps two if you limit the interactions between them. It will be still a limited number of choice, but they can stack up past some times.
By example, I said in my previous comment that kissing the girl on day X or day Y can have no influence in a given context. It's true, but only past some time. At first, the day you kissed her for the first time matter, because you perhaps not did it yet, but also because you can have waited too much or not enough. But after some weeks and many other kisses, the day you first kissed her mean less than the number of times you did it. So, the more the game advance, the more you can get ride of previous choice. But it still let many of them to take in count and it's still a growing number ; just that there's way to make it grow less.
All of those choice matter (almost) everywhere. Take the classical corruption game. The fact that the girl performed her first blowjob matter when she'll give you another ; she'll be less reluctant. It also matter when you'll ask for something more ; she'll not comply to swallow right in the first time, and (according to the way these games works) don't agree for sex if she didn't sucked you first. But it also matter in daily situation ; she'll be less embarrassed to see you naked if she had your dick in her mouth by example.
And each situation must take care of all the previous choice/actions. To keep the "you're naked in front of her" example. Are you still strangers ? Have you already kissed ? Have she touched your dick ? Sucked it ? have you had sex ? Her reaction will be conditioned by all this. And it's just the, "you're naked in front of her", case. The morning greetings will also vary depending of this, same for the goodnight kiss. Even the, "can you take out the trash", will depend of this ; "I'll suck you for your pain", "you fucked my ass yesterday, it's the least you can do", and so on.

Giving freedom to the player is easy. Taking count of it and making the choice be reflected in the game is the opposite of easy.

 

[kimoo]

That's not just a bad solution for haters of NTR but also the lovers since it's usually still only <5 pct of the game and you might miss out on it if you don't know specifically what to choose. My suggestion is to either completely dedicate some games to the masses and then let others appeal more directly to specific kinks or make the choices a lot more optional - possibly by selecting them at the start.

believe me you don't have to show me all the scenes in the game
i am not here for porn and there are many like me we are here for story
(if we want to jerk off we know where to go)
i played incest story 2 and avoided NTR scene that was animation not just 5 images as you say

and there are many games i have already played and avoided scenes because i don't like this girl or i want to be with this girl

if you want to show me all the scenes soo you cannot call your game optional (there is nothing like that)

and finally this is your game do as you like and let's see how many will like it