Do you prefer scene-based or free-roaming VNs? Why?

[Deleted member 805449]

By "scene-based" I mean VNs where the game automatically leads your from one scene to another, like, let's say DMD.

By "free-roaming" I mean games where you can actually navigate the world of the game on your own, like for example Man of the House.

In my personal opinion: Conceptually free-roaming games are great, but, due to developer's lack of experience in terms of game design and UX, like 90% of free-roaming adult games have horrible user experience, and the locations, due to poorly-thought layouts and constant changes of perspective become labyrinthine to the point where compared to it, first-person puzzlers from the 90s like the Atlantis series suddenly seem easy to navigate.

So I generally think that scene-based is much safer choice unless you know exactly what you're doing.

 

[recreation]

I prefer a good mix of both. Having some freedom of choice is always welcome. On the other hand, too much freedom is a mood killer in many games. Poor layouts add to this and that's why I prefer story driven games with some freedom.

 

[fauxplayer]

If the author/dev is leading the reader/player through scenes based on the choices you make, to me that's a visual novel. This might be semantics, but think of "VNs" as scene-based by definition. A "free-roaming" game like Man of the House isn't a VN.

If a game allows you to navigate in a "free-roaming" mode, where the player has some agency over where the MC goes and what he does, then it's not a visual novel--it's, well, a game.

 

[Akamari]

If the author/dev is leading the reader/player through scenes based on the choices you make, to me that's a visual novel. This might be semantics, but think of "VNs" as scene-based by definition. A "free-roaming" game like Man of the House isn't a VN.

If a game allows you to navigate in a "free-roaming" mode, where the player has some agency over where the MC goes and what he does, then it's not a visual novel--it's, well, a game.

In my opinion it's the same. Just having the freedom of choosing the next screen does not make it much more of a "game". Unless you consider searching for another VN part trigger as terrific gameplay.

 

[Akamari]

I find free-roaming games often void of meaningful player interactions, choices and cohesive storytelling. Therefore, I would say the first option, but some games manage to mix both together well. So I'll just say I like focus on scene-based, but I don't mind limited free-roam mixed in.

 

[Deleted member 805449]

It's purely semantics, but according to wikipedia,

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.

And it's kind of pointless to distinguish between those two types of games in terms of terminology, because they're usually made using the same technology, serve similar purpose, target the same demographic and are made by the same kind of people.

And structure-wise, both are pretty much just state machines decorated with pretty pictures and some text, anyway. They're not that different. Which is why some titles implement elements of both.

 

[Rythan25]

Depends how well the story is made or the game is made... I played some VN where its story driven with choices, and they are god awful to the point I rather play boring grindy sandbox VNs... When they are both bad I think Sandbox is slightly worse... case in point Glamour which is even slower than BB who know everyone hates for some mysterious reason...On the other side of the spectrum some story/choice based VN are also god awful where the choices are "get kicked in the balls or eat shit" meaning no good choices, such as Bully or Because I Love Her...

When they are both good I want to say Sandbox might be slightly better as it will entertain me beyond the porn aspects, where as the story/choice ones after I read them, I just play for the porn scenes...

 

[79flavors]

I can see the potential for free roaming stories. But I don't think I've ever been happy with a game that features them.

Most are there to give the player a sense of choice.
But in most cases, the choice is to go somewhere things happens, or go somewhere where nothing happens. That sort of choice doesn't interest me. Invariably it frustrates me, because I am jumping between map locations hoping I picked the right location (usually at the right time of day) for something interesting to happen... and nothing does.
The other consequence is the dependence on walk-throughs to "do the right things, in mostly the right order". At that point, the player might as well be playing a linear game without the free roaming... encountering the story in more or less the same way and at the same pace the author intended... if the game is "played right".

Done well, it can feel like a living world where things will happen in no specific sequence, but key elements will be dependent on previous key elements. The scope for side stories inter connecting the primary story/stories is an enjoyable distraction. I just wish I'd seen it delivered.

The other weakness is the delivery schedule. All those events are great once the game is complete, or at least nearing completion. But all that mythical Patreon money is often tied to regular releases. But in order to play that 0.3a version, the player has to have enough narrative story to keep them interested. There is no way the player can know what events will be added in the future and often games will feel a little empty. In order to keep people interested, the events are usually written in a sequential order and are dependent on the previous event. So you just end up with another largely linear story with an annoying map.

Linear stories are far from perfect. But the weakness tends to be the developer rather than the style.

 

[Avaron1974]

I slightly prefer more free roaming ones mainly because click to progress bores me after a while.

It's also why I prefer RPG's, the gameplay keeps me interested.

If it's scene based then the story and/or characters needs to be amazing or i'll be bored after a few minutes and delete.

If it has more mechanics to it i'm slightly more forgiving because it gives me other things to do but it still falls on the story and/or characters.

 

[おい！]

Well it is all just point and click anyway, it's all the same to me, I call games like Bonetown free roaming not Man of the House.

 

[icesun]

If free-roaming is done reasonably well it's very enjoyable: Harem Hotel / Mythic Manor / Personal Trainer being good examples.
But at the same time it can be the game's downfall for me: I've tried to enjoy Water World on multiple occasions by now, but for me that game is unplayable and unenjoyable without an exact walkthrough (and I don't like having to abide to one) - same goes for Superpowered (although that I only tried once). (EDIT: yes, both of these aren't classified as VNs, but these were the best examples I could think of to get my general point across)

So as a whole: I can enjoy both perfectly fine. It is really up to the developer on what and how the player is to be engaged and involved to make either way work - and I think a single, rather linear plot is way easier to be implemented well than multiple semi-inter-dependant plots, thus you will find more linear than sandboxy games in my signature...

 

[fauxplayer]

It's purely semantics, but according to wikipedia,

You must be registered to see the links

.

Semantics for sure. I casually refer to all of them as games myself even if I make distinctions when I'm thinking about it more critically . I make a personal distinction between these three categories:
1 Linear or scene-based VNs like DMD (or Melody, Depraved Awakening, Parental Love, Life With Mary, My Sweet Neighbors, etc).
2 Free-roaming VNs, such as Waifu Academy or Mythic Manor or Echoes of Lust or Milfy City
3 Sandbox games like Man of the House, The Tyrant, Lucky Mark, or Big Brother--I personally don't consider these to be "VNs" but I'm not gonna argue with anyone who does lol. They all have prefabricated stories with accompanying visuals.

And it's kind of pointless to distinguish between those two types of games in terms of terminology, because they're usually made using the same technology, serve similar purpose, target the same demographic and are made by the same kind of people.

And structure-wise, both are pretty much just state machines decorated with pretty pictures and some text, anyway. They're not that different. Which is why some titles implement elements of both.

I would still say there's a point to making the distinction because the experiences for the player are different. Again, I'm just using my own definitions here, but to me it's as simple as asking: Am I spending my time as a player reading something or doing something? Am I exploring, stat-building, navigating, solving puzzles, etc? Or am I along for the author's ride with a few choices here and there that impacts how the story plays out? Reading along with Melody vs navigating around with Mythic Manor vs building and managing stats and unlocking content through activity in Lucky Mark are very different experiences for me as a player.

So to finally answer your question: Which do I prefer? I find that a well-written and competently rendered scene-based VN (with choices that matter) is the type of release I get most excited about. I guess I'm more interested and invested in a quality story than in most free-roaming sandbox games. I find myself downloading an update and playing the newest release of my favorite VNs as quickly as possible, where I'll wait until I have a good chunk of free time before playing the next release of a free-roaming game. I also get frustrated with them or will skip whole releases depending on which nPC is getting the update. Or you'll be hours into it and the next release will make saves incompatible and I'll quit haha.

An outlier here is DeLuca Family. In that game, the player toggles between linear VN mode and free-roaming sandbox mode and back. It's a unique, clever implementation. It's not for everyone, but it's easily my favorite game right now and the release I'm most eagerly anticipating--not just because the girls are interesting (and hot!) and the story is compelling, but it has the best of both worlds in terms of gameplay mechanics.

TL;DR: It depends But overall I tend to favor scene-based VNs over free-roaming VNs, with some exceptions. In the end quality trumps design.

Oh, and PS: Thanks for asking this question! Off the top of my head I would have responded "Oh for sure I like having more agency as a player so I prefer more free-roaming games," but when I actually looked at my favorite games and considered the updates I was most looking forward to, most of the titles are scene-based VNs. So I learned something new about myself!

Jesus, I'm long-winded today....

 

[desmosome]

Free roaming is a style that by its nature requires a lot more resources in development than most indie devs can provide. What is an ideal free roaming game?

1) Something with a huge interactive world like GTA or classic cRPGs. Lets face it, almost all free roaming/sandbox games here are stuck in a microcosm of your house + school/gym/work. You go through every day repeating the same events and dialogues until something changes due to your accrued love points or whatever. Its terrible. Something of a hero's journey with sufficient scale would be better suited for this kind of gameplay. Something like Seeds of Chaos.

2) Something that has meaningful character advancement like a skill tree or RPG elements. No, just having strength, charisma, love, corruption that you raise by repeating the most repetitive and mind numbing tasks is not enough. You want the stats to raise in an organic manner with very little repetition. If you need to repeat scenes, make it a generic scene like "You watch some TV together." Having the exact same detailed conversation about anything more than once like every character has amnesia is a serious immersion breaker. A real skill tree gives a sense of progression and some goals that can drive your grind. While not perfect, High Rise Climb gives you a very interesting skill tree and a broad goal of getting promotions to give you a purpose in your every day grind.

Hmm I thought I could come up with more, but lets just say the dev NEEDS to have a proper goal in mind. What kind of game do you want to make? They need to have a clear reason why they want to use this often annoying style of gameplay and make it a boon for the overall outcome of the game. A Spell For All (vast world to explore, so many girls to catch, skill growth), Damsels and Dragons (good combat and dungeon crawling for renpy, pretty big world to explore), Take Over (amazing management side to the game, good world building, sense of progression as you get closer to toggling the regime one sector at a time). DeLuca Family (clever hybrid, immersion in your work in the mafia/relationship progression benefits from free roaming parts, can always progress the main plot when things get monotonous).

Simple corruption games can also work to an extent. Games like Corruption, Mind Break, Deviant Discoveries and many similar games have a goal. A rather simple goal, but a goal nonetheless. Here is a sandbox with lots of women. Go corrupt them and turn them into sex slaves with drugs or whatever. The Tyrant kind of falls in this category too, due to its clear cut goal that is laid out in the introduction of the plot.

I'm not trying to dog on any dev, but if we take a look at Man of the House or something like My New Life, there is no clear goal in why you are doing whatever it is you are doing. Why do you need to repeatedly give a massage or help doing homework? So I can build a love meter? Why does helping out with mudane chores somehow lead my family into doing sexual acts with me? Why do I have to find this pokemon(?) card to give to my sis? Why would she give you a strip show all of a sudden cus you gave her a pokemon card? In games like this, you are just a teenage shitlord who does random shit to somehow buy the affection of the girls around you. Its incredibly unconvincing and loses focus rather fast. If you are not doing a straight up corruption game, a convincing story is very necessary to give purpose to the free roaming grind. You want this sandbox world to make sense.

Free roaming games have a number of things that the dev needs to consider and fulfill to make it superior to a normal VN format. I didn't even get into the UI issues and navigation nightmares that many sandbox games have. VN, on the other hand, only needs a good plot, characters, and decent visuals. Something a small time dev might have a better chance at doing right.

 

[VNON]

we should just focus on scene based vn
no more free rooming bullshit
with unlimited repeatedly scene
with minimalist dialog
with one / two scene a day
sandbox in here is suck

DMD is just suck too, a lot of bullshit choices
you should really try GGGB, a lot of choices, a lot of possibility, and choice is really matter in there
forget about your female MC ego

 

[fauxplayer]

Having the exact same detailed conversation about anything more than once like every character has amnesia is a serious immersion breaker.

YES! I promise that I read and valued your entire post, but I just wanted to point out and highlight this bit of gospel right here. This cannot be stated enough, yet it's so undervalued and overlooked by so many lazy devs, and even devs that aren't lazy at all but maybe assume people don't care about this.

Don't make me have the same goddamned conversation with an nPC every time I repeat an action. Thanks.

 

[Someone]

I tend to prefer freedom of choices and action, so free roaming for me.

 

[jamdan]

I generally like the "scene-based" ones more but i'll enjoy a free-roaming game if its done well. Man of the House is one of my favorite games for example.. Not much grinding, a hint system so i know what im supposed to be doing, good map/navigation etc. Milfy City is another one i like a lot, DeLuca Family and im sure there are others im forgetting.

The best free-roaming games have a structure to them, so you dont get lost, which is easy to do in a lot of them. Especially when you're waiting for an update for a month or two. And sadly a lot of them are just non-stop grind-fests, which is a deal-breaker for me. I dont want to jump through all these hoops over and over again to progress the story.

 

[preglovr12]

I'm not a huge fan of free roaming games because 90% of the time you need to be in X location at Y time and that's just the same damn thing as scene based stuff for the most part. Having to waste an entire day sleeping in a free roam game just to progress that one girl you're really lusting after (or finishing the story of the last girl in the update) kinda ruins it for me. Same exact thing with a money hurdle forcing you to work rather than advance the story.

Another huge boost for scene based in my opinion is the integrated story. Not being able to advance your favorite girl without some progress with the others leads to more natural, narrative driven threesome opportunities and overall leads to a much more enjoyable and believable end user experience, again, in my opinion. Having a girl say "I'll wait in bed while you go get your friend and we'll have a threesome" and then having to advance the other girl's storyline over three or so in game days really takes me out of the whole thing.

No doubt there are endless more opportunities in a free roam game but I've yet to play one that couldn't have just been a scene based game and probably been better for it.

 

[K18]

I prefer scene-based or a visual novels that's choice-based & story-driven more over free-roaming/sandbox games (with exceptions, of course). Visual novels focusing on the story and characters and their interactions with each other.
Choice-based & story-driven visual novels (& with a mostly linear plot) i think about are "Depraved Awakening", "Starship Inanna", "Sisterly Lust", "My Sweet Neighbors", "The Visit", "Our Fate", "Family Matters [Perv2k16]" and some others.

Some exceptions of free-roaming for me would be "The DeLuca Family" clear navigation, "MILFY City" pretty straightforward minus the hidden photos & items, "Love and Submission" updates starts & ends with the story.

In general to me, a lot of free-roaming/sandbox games have tedious & time-consuming grinding & redundant movements and little plot content with no end in sight, it becomes a guessing game to see everything. Grinding for money & stats (maintaining health stats), being at X location at Y time to trigger & progress the story, repetitive scenes that get boring & confusing over time, random scenes at random times, difficult mini-games, half-finished content/work in progress pop-up of characters' stories, bad navigation & useless hints, no notification for completing all available content in update. Examples for me are "Man of the House", "General Practitioner", "Deeper", "Cure My Addiction", "My Cute Cousin/Roommate", "Deep Impact", "Indecent Desires", "The Tyrant" (repetitive scenes & endless grind, would've been better as a straight visual novel like the dev's other game "My Legacy").

 

[Domiek]

The problem with free-roam is two-fold.

1. Majority of sandbox are full of needless grind, senseless stats, and repetitive scenes. This association alone is enough to drive someone away from a sandbox game even if it doesn't have those elements.

2. It takes a lot of time to develop meaningful story progression when you have many different characters. A lot of times a player will really only be interested in one or two, but may have to wait multiple months before that specific character receives an update.

This is the lesson I've learned with Personal Trainer. Despite not having stats or any content locked behind grind, I still hear players frustration when an update doesn't include the character they're following.

I think games like Delucca have got the right idea. Implement free-roam but limit the scope. Unless you're working with a team or are a full time dev without a second job, there's just not enough hours in a day to fill a large open world with meaningful content while simultaneously advancing stimulating story progression among multiple characters.