Events that play out differently after long term decisions - How to to keep players invested and replayability?

[probably_dave]

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently working on a game, where after a significant period of time (probably between 4-5 hours of play time) and event occurs and this plays our drastically different based on how you've played the game so far. My question is, considering the event is triggered by how you've played the game over a long period, what is the best way of giving the player access to the different scenes as I have to assume most would be unwilling to spend 4-5 hours just to achieve each scene (I hope they will be of course, but better to plan for the worse) and I want to avoid players just following a walkthrough to obtain each scene.

I'll use the Kidnapping event as an example:

• You stop the kidnapping:
  • Your police force catches the kidnappers before it happens. Will result in scenes where the kidnappers are interrogated by the police
  • Your private security catches the kidnapers before it happens. Will result in scenes where the kidnappers are interrogated by your security
• You know about the kidnapping, but are too late to stop it:
  • You and the police chase down the kidnappers. Scenes between you and the police on a manhunt.
  • You and your private security chase down the kidnappers. Scenes between you and your security forces chasing the kidnappers.
• You don't know about the kidnapping and can't stop it
  • You and your private security chase down the kidnappers (different to previous version)
  • You chase down the kidnappers by yourself
• You don't know about the kidnapping and then you yourself get kidnapped:
  • You have to deal directly with the kidnappers

I understand there's a lot of options here, and I've got how the player achieves each scenario (it's a City Builder VN, so it will be based on how your city is doing as well as choices you make along the way). Most players, I'm imagining will end of with the kidnapping occurring one way or another. The aim is then for the second playthrough, they should be able to stop the kidnapping as they'll be able to pick up on the subtle clues spread out over time.

My question is however, what is the best way to allow the players to replay the event? As far as I can see it:

• Do nothing, if a player really wants to unlock everything, they'll likely just get a walkthrough anyway
• Provide a replay functionality, where the player can select which version of the event to play through once the event has been completed once
• Expand the quest log so that each option is clearly laid out to allow the player to know which event they will get
• Give the player the option of buying a 'Multi-verse' AI enhancement that provides guidance on how to obtain each scene (and which path the player is currently on) but is only enabled once the player has completed the scene once.
• Reduce the estimate time from 4-5 hours to around 1 hour and add a 'recommend you save' pop up before the choices begin. I'm personally against this, as I feel the long, subtle build up to the event helps with the player experience of knowing something is going on, and they have to investigate what.

Please let me know your thoughts, I'm currently tempted to go down option 4 (with maybe option 2 enabled after 2-3 completions).

 

[Toramizu]

You have to ask yourself a few questions before deciding for yourself, then it'll be easier to find how to do it :
- How important is this choice? Does its have lots of repercussions, or only the scenario? Players won't replay the game for it if it feels too short or if the characters ignore it during the 4-5 hours. Who is the kidnapped person for the player?
- How good is the payoff of the wait? Does the time feels meaningfull or should it be reduced? The most important here is to not ignore the choice during that time. You don't need much, like feedback from the police/security from time to time.
- Does it lock some of the game features (gameplay, important characters,...)? If yes, you might want to warn the player, if not, and it's only story based, you can leave it as a surprise.
- Do you want the player to have more information than the character has? Because in your example, "Not knowing about the kidnapping" is hard to warn against without seeming like a "You missed something" rather than an alternative option.
- How many choices of that type do you plan to add? If it's multiple, be careful, it will take a lot of time on your part, but won't make the game much deeper compared to the time investment.
- How do you plan to manage the replay value? If the game is short, or with fast progress, players will want to restart often, but if there is a lot of planning and/or grinding, less so.
- Does it need to be that wide? Seeing as you talk about the 4-5 hours gap, I'm not sure enough players will replay the game to be efficient on your part. It's often better to make multiple choices with less options than one choice with lots of different options. In your example, you can fuse the "Knew but too late" with the "Didn't know" options quite fast, reducing the number of branches.

Sorry if anything I said doesn't sound coherent, my bed is calling me

 

[probably_dave]

Thanks for the advice Toramizu, very coherent.

How important is this choice? Does its have lots of repercussions, or only the scenario? Players won't replay the game for it if it feels too short or if the characters ignore it during the 4-5 hours. Who is the kidnapped person for the player?

The person being kidnapped is one of the main characters in the game. The event will be a main changing point in her storyline, and thus influencing how she behaves going forward (this will be limited by the choices the character makes during the event and not necessary about how they got there).

How good is the payoff of the wait? Does the time feels meaningfull or should it be reduced? The most important here is to not ignore the choice during that time. You don't need much, like feedback from the police/security from time to time.

The aim is to have this plot 'simmering' in the background throughout with more and more events occurring as it builds to the finale (e.g. if the MC knows something is going on, they will have to investigate to try and find out what). During that time, the player will be focused on many things, but I imagine she'll be one of the key ones players focus on. Hints will be dropped throughout that period. The payoff will be different types of 'scenes' with the kidnapped character and other characters based on your choices.

Does it lock some of the game features (gameplay, important characters,...)? If yes, you might want to warn the player, if not, and it's only story based, you can leave it as a surprise.

I only planning on locking one aspect, which is whether, once the character is saved (not saving will result in a bad ending, which the player will be warned about and can reset back to the choice that caused it within the event) what the MC does with the kidnapper. If you go down the 'good' route and use the police, you won't be able to 'kidnap' her back.

Do you want the player to have more information than the character has? Because in your example, "Not knowing about the kidnapping" is hard to warn against without seeming like a "You missed something" rather than an alternative option.

By the time the event occurs, the player and MC will be aware that 'something' is about to happen, however, depending on their route, they might not know what. I don't want the player to know more than the MC (unless it's a second playthrough, in which the player will know what to look for and go down less dead ends as they are investigating)

How many choices of that type do you plan to add? If it's multiple, be careful, it will take a lot of time on your part, but won't make the game much deeper compared to the time investment.

Direct choices will there, at the start, they'll be used to jump between the different routes, but as you progress, they will become more limited. There will be choices on what you do during the event too, but these will be limited to key decisions. At the start, these will be small and quick to implement, but the for more limited ones at the end will have the bigger impact (and thus longer to implement). I really want it to be a combination of lots of smaller choices that, eventually, leads to a limited set of bigger choices the player can take.

How do you plan to manage the replay value? If the game is short, or with fast progress, players will want to restart often, but if there is a lot of planning and/or grinding, less so.

The plan is for the game to be long, as it is also a village management game. I don't want the player to be in a position where they have to abandon their village because they didn't like the result or just to see a different version of the event. If they are planning on restarting anyway, then yes, they might make different choices. I really don't see players restarting that often as they will need to spend time investing in their village.

Does it need to be that wide?

I do agree that the number of options is wide. I have the plot and events laid out for each one, and as I progress in implementing, I won't be afraid to cut the choices if needed. I plan on starting from either end with the full knowing and full not knowing. Based on how that's going, I'll either incorporate the paths together or keep them separate based on how the implementation and feel of the game is going. I've taken this into account during the planning, so if I do need to cut, I already know how it will be cut, and at what point they merge.

 

[K.T.L.]

Something I've been toying with is, at the start of the game, ask the player (or provide a menu option) to turn hints on. That adds a comment or some sort of marker to important menu options - bit like some of the walkthrough mods do. Remember though, each major branch in your game adds a huge amount of extra work for you to do...

 

[probably_dave]

Something I've been toying with is, at the start of the game, ask the player (or provide a menu option) to turn hints on. That adds a comment or some sort of marker to important menu options - bit like some of the walkthrough mods do. Remember though, each major branch in your game adds a huge amount of extra work for you to do...

Yeah, that type of thing I'm thinking of with the 3rd option (the 'multi-verse' add on in the game). I'd like to have it to be only available once the an event has been completed first time however, to encourage a first playthrough without assistance.
Totally agree on the extra work. One of the main aim for this major event is to consolidate all the smaller events so when the next section of the game begins, it's starting from only a limited number of places

 

[anne O'nymous]

My question is however, what is the best way to allow the players to replay the event?

I'm somehow tempted to ask : Why ?

"Choose Your Own Adventure" entertainment isn't something recent. Before video games there were theater plays in the early 1900, some attempt as TV show in the 70's and 80's , and obviously the RPG books. Could be added the table RPG themselves, that is undoubtedly the most advanced variation of the concept. The interest being that you decide, or undergo, what happen, and deal with it. The more the game advance, the more it become the story of the player, and his only, because he haven't made the same choice than others.

But if you offer the possibility to, more or less directly, replay the event, this in order to change its outcome, then what is the interest to implement different outcome ?
Even the player who would care the less would be tempted to replay this or that, because the outcome don't please them. As for the other, they'll all play the same game, having the same story and the same conclusion. You'll just have lost half your time implementing game mechanism that have no interest since your game would have been the same for the players if it was a pure Kinetic Novel.

 

[probably_dave]

I'm somehow tempted to ask : Why ?

Just for clarity, I don't mean, at the end of the scene to provide the player with the option "Do you want to go back to the start and make a different choice". Once the choice is made in the playthrough, the choice is made and the player will have to deal with that choice.
It was more around, are there other ways, other than the player trying every choice possible to give the players access to some of the scenes they may have missed?

As for why, it's a good question.
There are some people who will enjoy playing a game over and over, experimenting with different decisions and appreciating the rewards they get for the different outcomes. However, there's also the other half, who having played through once, will then say 'Hey, I've completed the game, give me everything'. Rather than ignoring that half, are there ways to try and encourage them to replay properly or at least give them the opportunity to explore different options without them hacking/modding the game to give them what they want.

 

[Rando Civ]

Eh, I just go balls to the wall crazy.

 

[anne O'nymous]

It was more around, are there other ways, other than the player trying every choice possible to give the players access to some of the scenes they may have missed?

Yes, no, maybe. It totally depend of the scenes.

Mostly it's all a question of writing, both of the story and of the game, and how well you handle the variations in a given scene. But for this to works you need to first stop to look at the problem from the "how can I make the player replay the scene" angle. What you need to do is to find a way to give another chance to the scenes, not to the players.

Taking your kidnapping example, why should there be only one group of kidnappers in town, and why your security team can't pass the baton to the police forces ? Of course, you being kidnapped five time in a row wouldn't be interesting, but you can simply exclude the outcome already seen from the possible outcomes of the next kidnapping ; including an anonymous call to warn about a kidnapping that will happen day X at Y location, and script the part where the player go to prevent it, because the only option left is "catch the bastards before they act".

Rather than ignoring that half, are there ways to try and encourage them to replay properly or at least give them the opportunity to explore different options without them hacking/modding the game to give them what they want.

Making a game that worth being replayed ?

No, I'm kidding, those persons wouldn't replay it even if it would effectively give them a totally different story, with every single dialog line being a discovery for them. They don't care about the story, they don't care about the game itself, they just want to catch 'em all ; and "all" don't mean "the scenes", they care only about the lewd ones.
But there's a thing to know about those persons. They don't effectively play the game, but they also don't effectively read what is said about the game. You can expect for 90% of them to not even know that they missed something. Oh, and also they rarely put a buck in the game, so they rarely worth that you go outside of your game mechanism(s) just to please them.
Take a game like Super Powered by example. While making my mod for it, I discovered that there's actually more than 1000 different scenes in it, with around 30% of them that can't be seen in a single play if you don't cheat. Yet in more than 4 years of existence, there's really few people complaining because they haven't seen this or that scene ; most of the players discovered that they missed content by using one of the mod that list the scenes they've still to see.

I would say, "add a scene gallery", but it's rarely a good idea because the scenes tend to feel off when they are took outside of context. It only worth the pain you'll have to do it if the scenes have by themselves some replayability potential. And, once again, anyway those persons would care only about the sex.
If really they want to see everything, they just have to put their fingers out of their lazy ass. Depending of the engine you'll use, there's more or less easy way to see all the scenes by yourself, and since it's them who want to play the game differently, it's to them to find a way to do it, not to you to offer them this possibility.

 

[Deleted member 1536527]

I've been struggling with this exact issue for quite a while, and I don't think it has a simple solution either. I find it really annoying when every choice in a game could potentially lead to different scenes, and I'll never know if I missed something until I redo it. This promotes just creating tons of saves and going back to see what would happen differently. More than anything else it actually discourages me from playing.

Potential Solutions?

I think this sort of issue, if you trace it back, goes really deep. It goes into the writing. One thing that I would try to avoid at all costs are "delayed consequences" (saving user choices only for them to take effect much further down the decision tree of the story). Its annoying more than anything else, hurts replayability as well I think. Most players just cheat at that point.​

​

A good way to make sure that you don't have these is, if you make a flowchart/decision tree of the scenes:​

• no two branches should reunite after just splitting (there can be exceptions to this particular rule)
• no branch should have a split, dependent on a decision other than the one made on the immediately previous node.

If you follow these as a general rule, I think you'll avoid making the player replay the same content (which could be potentially many hours) just to get a different scene at the end.​

Give the player more info:

Ok, so you have avoided the above stuff. But now you can potentially have too many branches, or very long branches which diverged early on. In this case, the best thing might be to give the player more knowledge of what the hell's going on. It can include:​

• Option to give hints
• Option to give descriptions of what'll happen
• Option to turn on a complete story tree in the menu, and highlight the parts that have been explored

The last option is by far the hardest to implement, but imo the best one. I don't remember which but I played a game doing it. The help it provided was IMMENSE. I knew exactly which choices made a difference, which one's I need to change, and it let me jump to that point in the game just by clicking on it!

Another neat thing I think one can do is have the rest of the unexplored tree hidden (the nodes show question marks). That will keep the content secret but still give the player an idea that something different would happen if they made a different choice there.

Conclusion:

So I think there are two main ideas behind increasing replayability, to avoid making players redo the same content as much as you can, and giving players (or atleast the option to) more information about where the choices lead.​

 

[XenoFash]

Wicked Choices: Book One has a story tree that allows you to see exactly which decisions would have gone different ways so you know if you've missed something, but the consequences are hidden until unlocked. For that particular game I didn't feel the need to go back and replay, but it was a cool feature.

Though I think people who play these games understand the concept of playing different paths, and completists will complete with walkthroughs.

 

[InCompleteController]

Try looking up "Detroit: Become human", more specifically the choice diagrams/flowcharts. The game is basically an advanced visual novel where paths lead in different directions.

Once you have beaten the game the diagram is unlocked for the player. Whilst a player can always see the entire diagram, and the path between each node, they can only see a description of the choices they have seen.
With it being unlocked in the end it never gets in the way of people playing the game like they want. Also, all paths are possible in the first playthrough, so a smart player will be able to get the best ending in their first try, if they are observant enough.

 

[probably_dave]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

It's really helped me clarify how I want to approach it.

I feel I will go down the 'gallery' type route where there's a specific section for each of these 'major' events. From there, the user will be able to see which parts are locked and unlocked. For the locked ones, the gallery will offer high level tips on how to access that route and which other quests need to be completed to open it up.

Hopefully, that will give the player enough guidance to try it for themselves without hand holding them through the game.