Harem vs. "meaningful choices"; one playthrough vs multiple.

[Selek]

I'm trying to develop a story structure and script for a Ren'py game, and I'm struggling with one fundamental design decision: how to give the player "meaningful choices" without annoying players by making them play through the game multiple times. If choices just lead to temporary deviations from the story path, some players will complain that the choices don't really matter. But if choices do matter, some players will complain that they have to play through more than once to see all the content. Put another way, a "harem" game has the advantage of only one playthrough, but choices tend not to matter; whereas a "choose your love interest(s)" game has the advantage of choices that matter, but requiring multiple playthroughs to see all the content. I lean toward a compromise; a game that might require two or at most three playthroughs to see everything, made easier with mid- or late-game save points, like a Bioware Star Wars game or (maybe) Being A DIK.

I suppose another alternative is to give the player decisions on other aspects of the game, like mini-games or stat-raising decisions. But I don't think these choices satisfy players who want "meaningful decisions" that affect the story.

I'm curious how all of you (developers and players alike) view the tradeoff between harems and meaningful choices.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

how to give the player "meaningful choices" without annoying players by making them play through the game multiple times.

You can't, it's absurd at best.
You have to make a design choice lol.

 

[j4yj4m]

I don't think there's a real compromise to be made. Meaningful choices to me mean that there's some kind of actual consequence and that's pretty much the opposite of what a harem would demand.

in the end somebody is always going to complain but I personally prefer a somewhat clear decision. Even though I kinda tolerate these compromises, they often just feel bad and you neither get decent romance or such nor a really good harem.

 

[Synx]

Couldn't you just make it unlock all the scenes at the end of a chapter or something? Like you can see all the adult content without playing through it multiple times but if you want context of the scenes you need to play through it multiple times.

Most people that complain about multiple play throughs are the people that skip 99% of the dialog anyway

 

[moskis22]

I don't see the problem with multiple playthroughs, just be sure tu put the skip option for readed text

 

[GNVE]

Well if you have really meaningful choices with enough content difference than players won't really be annoyed by multiple playthroughs. BUT the story needs to be well written and the differences need to be big enough. Players need to actually unlock wholly different paths and stories which is very costly in development time. It is something you need to build your fanbase around. They can't expect a new chapter to play every month because you might be developing a different path entirely.
You might even have to redesign the save screen to make sure it helps to keep track of different playthroughs.

It takes a lot of work and that is why most devs don't do it.

(I'm trying but I know it will be a clusterF. I'm making the game more for me than anyone so it is worth it.)

 

[MissFortune]

I couldn't decide myself, so I just went down the middle with a walkthrough mod-style ending. You'll get the main ending based on your choices, then I'll offer a menu for the player to see the other possible good/bad endings.

 

[79flavors]

Write the game you'd want to play.

You'll never find a good solution to your question. The best you can hope for is a good solution for your story - and since it's you that will write your story, it's also your preferences and biases that will either aid or hinder your storytelling. There is an "X" factor that will turn an okay game into a good game - and for a single developer project, that's almost always going to be that the developer went with their gut and ignored the peanut gallery. At the very least, writing a game according to someone else's rules can suck the fun out of it for you.

A personal viewpoint:
What player's want.

I'll also point out that it's way too easy to overextend yourself. Pick one aspect of your game that you already know you can deliver well - and focus on that as the core of your game. Treat all other considerations as optional. You don't have the budget or sheer number of staff that Bioware or even Being a DIK have. So keep it simple and don't let scope creep kill your project. Write a kinetic novel if that's what it takes.

 

[Janice Davis]

Personally, I don't like to have to play through too many times. I think three or four major decisions that affect the storyline would be enough. Just my opinion, of course.
I have played and enjoyed some games where the choices don't mean much, and some where your decision changes everything. Both can be good, if they are well done.
You can't please everybody, so I agree with the others who have said, basically, that you should do what you think is best.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Well if you have really meaningful choices with enough content difference than players won't really be annoyed by multiple playthroughs. BUT the story needs to be well written and the differences need to be big enough.

I totally agree.
If it's to have the redhead in one play, then in the next play the only real difference will be that the girl will have blond hairs, stick to the harem.
But if the girls effectively have different personality and need to be seduced differently. If one will want you to stay at home and share tender moments together, while the other will make you discover parts of the town you didn't know exist. In short, if as GNVE said, it's two different stories, then it worth it.


This being said, I disagree with the other on one point, the supposed incompatibility between meaningful choice and harem story.
A game like Sisterly Lust, by example, is a harem story, and it have (half) meaningful choice. Not all girls will agree to go with you in the end, not all will agree to marry you, and not all will be pregnant. And it's not the only one, but generally you don't see the significance of the choice. Not because it don't exist, but because you go for the harem, and therefore do your best to please all the girls.
There's also the problem of the realization. If you put meaningful choices in your harem, a scene involving two girls will need to have five variations :

• The girl A isn't part of the harem ;
• The girl B isn't part of the harem ;
• The girl A can't stand the girl B ;
• The girl B can't stand the girl A ;
• Both girls can't stand each others.

This imply a lot more of works for the author, and a good understanding of both the story and the engine to do this well.

Saying that harem and meaningful choices is an impossible combination is just not thinking enough about the story. It's not because most harem game follow the path of least resistance, and decide that all the girls are madly in love with the MC and will not care a single second that they have to share him, that it's the only way to write a harem game. As I said, it would need way more works for the author, but a harem game is an opened gate to the most possible meaningful choices.
In fact, a harem game can have way more meaningful choices than a none harem one. Seducing the girl isn't the only thing the MC have to achieve. Once it's done, he have to convince her to join the harem, and this will need for him to present her the other girls. Here, the order he'll do this matter. If the first girl he present is the little brat, he'll never succeed. But if he present the maternal figure, the girl that decided to take care of all the other, it's something different. She'll welcome the new girl with a "welcome to the family, what can I do to make you feel at ease ?" that will lower the girl's defense.
There will also have meaningful choice inside the harem itself. If the MC tend focus on one girl, or to ignore one too often, it will raise some jealousy. He need to share his attention between all the girls, in order to keep them equally happy over a week. Same with the cohabitation between the girls. They have their own personality, there will always have small conflict that the MC will have to solve correctly in order to keep his harem a peaceful place.
Or he can decide to play with those personalities, standing a little too often against the insecure girl, in order for her to strengthen her bound with the shy, but really caring, girl. If he's on the maledom side, or if she's on the sub side, he can also raise the jealousy of one girl in order to have more opportunities to punish her.

Most harem games end when the MC have his harem, but what if one don't ? What if the story isn't to make all the girls agree to join MC's harem, but to make them not decide to left the said harem ? A pure fapable game (because all girls are already opened to sex) with a story (don't fuck with the relation balance between the girls). A game where the goal isn't to make the harem grow, but to prevent it to shrink. A game where the girls don't say things like, "take me to a date, and we will have sex", but "take me to a date, or no more sex for you".

 

[Playstorepers]

Most people that complain about multiple play throughs are the people that skip 99% of the dialog anyway

This, basically.
I never heard about people really caring about a game and still complaining about multiple playthroughs.

From there it's still a difficult choice to make, but it takes away your pressure, because either way, someone's going to be unhappy. Just tell the story YOU want to tell and you should be fine.

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

You'll never get a satisfactory answer to that question, because some people want one thing and the others want something else.

For the sake of keeping stats, if the writing is good, I'd rather play the game multiple times than have the story compromised. A perfect example of that is Pale Carnations. If the writing is whatever, I'd rather have a harem style game so that I'd finish the game sooner. But the truth is, if the writing is whatever, I probably won't be playing the game to the end.

In the end, as others have said, make the game you wanna play. If you do it any other way you will get burnt out sooner or later.

 

[Selek]

Thanks for all those thoughtful replies. Very helpful. As you all said, I should write the game *I* want to play. I like games that are well-written and well-illustrated, but I also enjoy interesting decisions. As Sid Meier (of Civ fame) once said, games can be thought of as a series of interesting decisions.

I suppose one way to inject choices is to add minigames or free-roam point-and-click quests. For a first game, though, I doubt I'll venture down that path; I want to get something done, and I've already got plenty of story I want to tell. Likewise, I suppose a sandbox structure might add some measure of decision-making, and I enjoy some sandbox games. But a sandbox also adds coding complexity -- and, more importantly for my purposes, it tends to disrupt the flow of the story. So I'm not going in that direction.

A separate issue for me is whether it's to be an H-game first, or a story with H scenes. The latter approach could increase decision-making by expanding the range of decisions past whether one gets the girl to decisions affecting the game world and plot structure. anne O'nymous offered some interesting thoughts on "getting past the harem" in their post above. Good food for thought.

Anyway, I'm really grateful for the comments, and I welcome any more suggestions or thoughts people have. I imagine most developers have thought about this issue, and I appreciate your sharing the wisdom that comes from experience.

 

[Benji13]

As the other writers here, this is just my personal viewpoint, but maybe it will help you, too. I already played more adult games than I would like to admit. 70% of the games I read the whole story, because I play games where the story matters. I don't just want to see nude girls. I want to know them, feel with them and the main character. Many people here say, that you should make the game that you want. That is a good advise if it means "make your story". But for the gameplay in most cases I don't think this is a good decission. The gameplay should support the story - at least in adult games or other story-driven games. I said, that I read most of the games completely. The rest of the games where I skip most is because there is no story or a bad story just to go from one scene to the next and don't really matter. But "Meaningful choices" is in my opinion too often more like a cuss. Because it means have to go through the whole game as often as different choice combinations are there. Because else it's not possible to know, which choice will have an impact and which not. There arre several games I abandoned because I was tired of skipping though the same scenes over and over again. That's no fun. So I would advise you, if you want meaningful choices than do one of these things:

1. Make it clear, that this is a meaningful choice and everything after this will be different.In principle, this means starting from this point there will be two (three, four,...) completely differentstorys/games. Something like first you introduce the MC and present every romancable character. Than at some point you as the MC has to make the decision which girls you want to have. After that, the "meaningful choices" only make small differences.

2. Sandbox. You can progress with every girl and play with every girl as if it is the only girl. The girls will never meet each other or know of each other (at least they don't know that you have fun with them, too), only if you plan a thresome or something like that. It's possible to make this more kinetic and without a sandbox. Advantage of a sanbox-style is that you can decide which girls you want and in which order.

3. Implenent something that many mods do: Give the player the oportunity to see every possible scene. So if the MC wants to make a walk in the evening and you can go left or right and on each direction you will meet and have fun with a different girl, then there are three options: 1. Left (girl A, blowjob) 2. Right (girl B, see masturbating) 3. Both (mod). Players who want to play it more realistic can turn the mod of or just ignore that choices. I always play with such mods, if available.

That would prevent the player from seeing scenes more than once (only if he wants/gallery). I highly prefer such games.

And please don't make huge differences in choices that seem to be small things. I played games where "let's eat pizza" versus "let's eat noodles" leads to completely different scenes. Why? The worse of that is, that you often don't know that, so you don't know if you missed half of the game.
In my opinion the best "meaningful choices" are, if you want to see a scene with a specific fetish. Something like "Do you want to visit girl C? -> Yes (footjob) -> No". Storywise there is no difference, it's just if you want to see this kink.

 

[Benji13]

A good example how you shouldn't do it: I just played The Fosters. Story is ok, the girls meet my taste and there is some good eroticism and nice scenes. But I just played it like 20 times with slightly different decissions and sometimes there are just some minor dialogue changes, but sometimes another decission at the beginning gives you a completely different erotic scene at the end of the current version. You really don't know what you have to do to get a specific scene. It's completely obscure why a decission leads to this outcome and the other decission to another. Even with the walkthrough mod and this even more confusing alpha/beta point-system. I can't really enjoy this game any more and constantly have the feeling that I'm missing scenes. But I don't want to search with try and error for them. I think that's another game on my ignore list despite the good content. I want to see and read everything of a good game. But not several times.

 

[Selek]

Ugh, I don't want to play anything 20 times. Thanks for the report.

 

[InCompleteController]

If you really want to make a game with meaningful choices, then I would recommend looking into Detroit: Become Human.

In that game once you have completed one path you unlock the ability to check out the decision tree for the game. From there you can start a new game from any node you have unlocked.

I believe that the game just shows unknown nodes as simply a question mark. Personally I would just hide nodes the players aren't aware off and simply highlight nodes from where the player can unlock new nodes.

 

[Selek]

If you really want to make a game with meaningful choices, then I would recommend looking into Detroit: Become Human.

That game's approach looks super interesting. Its first Steam tag is "Choices Matter," heh. It apparently has at least 45 different endings, and the game plays radically different depending on your choices. Plus the nodes you mention (or "flowcharts," as IGN's review describes them) help you decide on different paths.

Wow. I doubt my fledgling game-design skills are up to that sort of approach! But it's encouraging to see the positive response that game has gotten. If it goes on sale at Steam, I might take the plunge. Thanks for mentioning it!

 

[Deleted member 4178103]

Little things can be the most meaningful ; it does not change how the story unfolds, but it can modify the story's appreciations.

I'd say focus on the story and what you want to share. Then you can add variations.

 

[zerofreak]

There has been great mechanisms explained here to solve the issue you are facing, some of them easy to implement. Just to give my opinion, having branches is only a problem for long games, even with skip, if there is a lot of decisions, many of them not important is quite boring. One of my favourite game with a lot of branches is Something to write about: the author.