Here, if any one is bored and wants to waste some time inside my head, I truncated the conversation for convenience.
Synopsis from Discord:
There has been a lot going through my head as of late regarding the game. I'm working up a giant ass post that will kind of detail the thought process.
But if you want the short version, I've been writing this game the only way I know how. In the traditional novel/short story, 3-act fashion. Each character with a beginning, middle and end.
But because I wanted players to be able to pick whatever character they want, when they want, I have near zero control over the order the characters are played in. That limits how much cross over I can do which makes the chapters very narrow and only focused on a single character. it's fine, but it's very one dimensional.
Suddenly, when writing for Amanda I fell into the vicious cycle of If Roger says this, and the character already has blue/red scores, then the answers need to change this way or that and before I know it I had 2,500 words of text in the scene, of which only about 500 would be seen in a play through. The rest were just alternate versions to accommodate the possibility of other events happening first.
But since each character had their own plot, it was like having all the characters in the same pool, swimming in one direction but every had to stay in their own lane or things would quickly get murky.
Then it was like out of the blue I had an epiphany. Rather than write this game like a novel or a movie, it needs to be more like an episodic TV show. Reoccurring characters, evolving story lines. But each chapter/episode needs to be a self contained plot that can lend to character development, tell and engaging story, but not be concerned with where they'll be six episodes from now.
So over the weekend I started reading books and watching videos on screenwriting for television and suddenly this whole fucking world of possibility opened up in front me.
In a typical 1-hour show you have five well defined acts. The plot is contained entirely in those acts. But you also have up to 4 parallel story lines unfolding at once, with each new story having a lower priority and impact within the episode.
So I put this to the test with the Amanda chapter and all of the sudden I had this amazing 12-scene, multicharacter story unfolding with Amanda having the primary story, Cassie having her own plot with the secondary story, Jane having a tertiary tale unfolding, and a single scene with Emily that sets up future events but is itself a three act drama in a single scene.
It's hands down some of the best writing I've done for this game yet.
There is cross-over, development, rising action and lots of players choices in each scene.
This has me thinking that maybe I've been tackling this all wrong. If I want the kind of detail characterization and evolving story that I've always envisioned, in which all these characters co-exist, know each other and have an impact on each other as well as the MC, then an episodic structure might be the best way to go.
And it opens up the possibility of Amana actually getting her own chapters and scenes and we can tell the story of the evolving relationship between her and Roger.
It means the game unfolds in a more linear fashion, episode 1, episode 2, etc. But since each plot is self contained, we can continue voting on who is next and develop the stories in any order want. Plus by having 3 to 4 sub plots per episode, we can start giving screen time to the characters that aren't getting much of it.
And yes, writing cross character story arcs becomes a shit load easier because I won't have to consider all the what-ifs. The past will be well written and deviations can be made for the choices the character made previously. The upside is we'll know what those choices were and can account for them specifically rather than writing a ton of 'if' statements to cover our ass.
And none of this has to impact the improvements I've made with the development. We can still crank out scenes at the same pace. Release playtests for each act and then bundle them up at the end of the month as a complete 12-16 scene episode.
At the end of the day, what I know is that rewriting Amanda's chapter this way, was some of the fastest, easiest, and best writing I've done. And the plot I have laid out for the opening is stronger than any previous iteration.
Oh, another side perk is that I can provide a sex scene per episode because even for a slow burn character like Amanda, the sex can happen in a side plot with another character until such time as we pop dat cherry!
I never wanted the blue/red system to lead to player punishment by not making the 'correct' choice. That is why I opted for a system where your decisions impact the way other characters behave and act, but ultimately all roads lead to Rome. An episodic structure would make it easier to explore 'side paths' without much difficulty. But I still want to avoid the players feeling like they are missing out 'rewards' just because they chose differently than other players or the way the developer thinks they should have.
Anyway, all this kind of leads me back around to the poll on F95.
First off, let's be clear, I've already made choices. The poll is out of curiosity and nothing else. If this was a poll to determine game content it would be left strictly to supporters.
But I got to thinking, if I'm going to do this episodic, and I'm just doing it for shits and giggles because I enjoy making it and I love telling stories, does the game really need an end. Or do I just let it trail on forever in an endless series of episodes like any other good 14 season show?
But if I do that, then I'll never get to make the other games I have hovering in the back of my mind.
Then I realized that with the new naming system I have already implemented, and the relationships system that lets characters define their relationships with each other and not just the MC, there is no reason I can't have more than one MC. The programming is already there!
But then I'm like, ok, what if one MC is a teacher and he catches Jane trying to jimmy the lock of the principal's door. If she tries to fuck him to get out of trouble, is that going to piss of the players who are enamored with Roger and his story line. I was curious about the answer.
Plus with an episodic structure my workload goes down exponentially.
Because I no longer have to think about the big picture. I don't have to write a chapter and think about how it's going to impact things four chapters down the line.
Instead, 100% of my creative energy gets to go directly into the chapter I'm working on now and the rest of the story can just naturally evolve.
And if each of the MC's was a patient of Dr. Amana, there becomes this common thread the binds them together.
But the population of characters around these MC's would be free to move between story lines without longer term ramifications and we would get to see how they behave in different situations and really evolve them multidimensionally.
Ideally these other MC's wouldn't be one shot characters. They'd have their own stories and histories to be told. Plus they offer opportunities to bring in other students......I um....I mean characters. And it alleviates me having to explain how it is Roger has the ability to maintain 15 individual relationships simultaneously.
Understand that I've not yet committed to the idea of multiple MCs.
Right now it's just a thought I'm playing with based on the idea that I wouldn't have to do anything to code it and make it work. And writing it would just fall within the natural context of the episode by episode evolution.
But the MC's would never cross paths with each other because if they do then I have to commit to giving them faces and I don't want to do that.
I want each MC to be singularly immersive and the only way to do that is to never show their face.
And the only way I can avoid ever showing their face is to make sure the MC's always stay isolated from one another.
And while I would consider including female MC's, I never want to get inside the head of any of the LI's. I like keeping that part a mystery.
Much as I hate to say it, but this change would just be another one in a long line of major switch ups. I think the best compliment I've ever gotten was from a patron whose been around since version 1. He basically said, 'I hate that you change your mind about your game once a year. But every time you do it becomes even more fucking AMAZING!'
I can only hope that this episodic switch is another in that line of annoying, yet pleasure multiplying changes.
