How do you write a game? (Non-technical)

[Deleted member 1645360]

I'm thinking of making a game; I'll probably use RenPy since I have some Python experience. I’ve also got experience doing renders and writing stories. But the idea of an interactive game is intimidating. All the choices and possible endings—step on a butterfly in scene 1 and maybe your character will never have been born to begin with.

People who’ve made game before, how do you keep it al straight? Any tips for someone who is just starting out? What’s a good simple kind of story/game to start with?

Thanks.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

In the 12 years I've been making games (mostly academic, still working on my first nsfw thing), I find that there is a balance between the amount of work you want to put in, and the amount of choice or control you want to give to the players.

for each degree of freedom you want players to have, you have exponentially more work to do. be it multiple storylines, or mixing and matching clothes as an important game mechanic or feature you want. Often it is not practical to make everything, so sometimes game makers try to fake it or wing it, ie your choices in game don't actually matter, or there are only a few correct answers.

I actually avoid multiple storylines at all cost, not because they are hard (which actually they can be the easiest way to give your game diversity), but because I can only think of one storline (actually I have a hard time trying to figure out the middle and end of a story, so I don't really even finish my storlines XD), and I have a hard time trying to rethink of characters, situations, and outcomes in a different light.

I actually try to focus on game mechanics, but thats off topic.

for simple story/game, you want to focus on action, the here and now, not waste players time giving them critical background information that would support/explain why things happen. The easiest way to do that is either keep the characters 1 dimensional/ or basic, or to use an already popular and well know fictional character, (such as a cartoon character or story book / movie characters) so you can skip most of the background information, minimal amount of characters is a big plus. I find a good one is to have these characters living a normal life, but they have a side routine, such a visiting a park. and it is here in the part, isolated from the rest of what the character normally does or who they are normally with that you can have the lewder side of them come out, without needing to justify what is going on or slowly build up the storyline (such as required for romance). it would be like the characters secrete side that only you get to see. At least it is a quick start, I am good at thinking of quick start, but I can never figure out the middle and end parts of my stories or games so I can't say how far you can or can't go from here.

 

[Droid Productions]

I'm not sure I agree. Yes, of course more options means more complexity. But that's what makes it a game, rather than a kinetic novel. The trick for avoiding the tree of death is to not think of them as branches in a tree, but as tracks on a railroad. Occasionally the tracks diverge, bringing back some cargo, but there's only one sets of tracks. You can also give the feeling of interactivity by having multiple parallel tracks that can are each linear, but can be explored in any order, but at some point I feel you have to have meaningful player choice, or you're not really a game.

 

[BigBaboon]

All the choices and possible endings—step on a butterfly in scene 1 and maybe your character will never have been born to begin with.

This! Strongly recommend reverse process - think about the LAST scene(s) and then go from happy (and/or bad) end(s) to scene 1. And if you want more than one ending - you can trace story lines from different endings through key scenes or player choices to single scene 1.

 

[ParadiseLofts]

...for each degree of freedom you want players to have, you have exponentially more work to do.

You nailed it with this. Personally, I like choices to matter, as it makes replaying games more fun for me, but yeah, tons more work involved. I also favor non-linear games, where there is more freedom (or even the illusion of more freedom is okay, sometimes) to explore, but all of that takes considerably more planning and code. That said, build what you love.

 

[Deleted member 1684328]

I'm thinking of making a game; I'll probably use RenPy since I have some Python experience. I’ve also got experience doing renders and writing stories. But the idea of an interactive game is intimidating. All the choices and possible endings—step on a butterfly in scene 1 and maybe your character will never have been born to begin with.

People who’ve made game before, how do you keep it al straight? Any tips for someone who is just starting out? What’s a good simple kind of story/game to start with?

Thanks.

Just take it easy for now and make your story very linear, see it as a concept. The first thing I do when I write a story is think about: 'What will it be about?' Then I already have some kind of ending in my head.

Let's take Super Mario, for example. How complicated is the story? A dragon kidnaps the princess, and you are a plumber who, apparently, can jump quite high. Not very complicated, isn't it?

I usually define major story elements first. In case of Mario it will be something like this:

1 Princess has been kidnapped
2 Mario is going castle after castle to save her
3 Final boss battle

If you want a branching story, you can cut these chapters into decisions

1: Take Yoshi with you, or not
2: Yoshi can die
3: If Yoshi is alive, he might help you during the battle

These things don't happen it the game, but I wanted to show with this example how you can dramatically change the story but a choice. Just remember to keep it simple for now. Good luck!

 

[amcic1998]

It will be for sure the kind of game that everyone love to play on daily basics

 

[Volta]

This is a really interesting question and i've found there are three ways of dealing with it that i think are satisfying, obviously you can handle it however you want but these three work IMO:

1- Don't branch at each choice, rather think of the plot as linear but each choice records a value for the answer, say a value of 1,2 or 3, those values only pertain to certain events, that way when those choices become relevant you can pull a value check and tailor the content to fit, the main direction of the story doesn't then branch all the time rather you build up a series of values that are effectively context to the story, for example across 10 choices the first three effect everyone but only choice 5 and 7 really effect a specific character making the thing not route or branch dependant rather it's based on check of stored values.

This changes the "diagram" for the game from the branch of death thing to a line that picks up values as you go and then, when needed splits into a series of potential outcomes that then recombine into the main storyline again, of course continuity does become a problem but it's certainly a far better option than exponential numbers of branches.

2- Don't branch, web, different choices can end up with the same result, choices tie back together, perhaps the different routes share common elements and then go their separate ways again, "branches" aren't discrete, they dip in and out of each other in the way described by the train lines metaphor, choices just push you to a new line for while but ultimately the player can "recover" from certain choices this way, it's quite forgiving i've tried writing a game this way and it does work, however continuity can become a massive pain in the ass if the game goes on too long, the problem isn't that each branch bogs you down it's the potential routes that a player can go through before a given scene and tailoring the scene to fit it means lots of scene variants rather than lots of different scenes, it can become a head thrash if you too closely interlink scenes but a huge work load if you don't link closely enough, tough to do but it does work to a degree.

3- keep everything as discrete as possible for as long as possible. Be very conservative with branches to begin with, give choices but just store the outcomes, then when the story reaches a turning point apply the combined result of those choices, you'd need lots of if, and , not, or, xor logic stuff at the turning point but in that way you can reduce your work load by making each branching point further apart and more significant each time rather than over branching and making them feel less significant. This also could be useful narratively, it would give you a "steady state" to work in for a little while and give flavour and airtime to certain elements while accruing choice outcomes for the next major plot upheaval.

There is no perfect answer by any means but i agree with the fact that more freedom will generally lead to more work, pruning the potential "dud" choices out helps a lot as does removing choices that make no sense for the characters to make, a character with particular morality isn't going to make certain choices so screening out some potential choices would reduce work load, however this does cause there to be a "point of no return" in certain cases, it's a tough call for sure.

 

[Sodudeme]

Compartmentalize and document everything. A lot of people are saying how hard it gets when things branch off, but it's mostly just keeping track of it.
The first part: compartmentalize. Break everything you can down into small pieces, and only look at what goes into and out of each part at first. You can flesh everything out later, but if you don't have a framework, a plan to build off of, somewhere to go with everything, it gets hard very quickly.
The second part: document. To keep from getting lost, you have a map. It's the exact same thing. It gets really hard to keep track of all the branches. Having a diagram you can look at and physically place something makes it all easier, so make a flowchart. then you don't have to remember, you can just look. Public variables are also pretty handy. If you look at most games, they try to avoid scene specific flags unless something really important happened there. Instead they have counters on public variables that every scene (or at least most of them) uses. Trust, lewdness, numbers for how many times what's gone in where. Hell, it's even like that in PG games, you don't have a list of every fight you had, you've got an XP pool. They can help make content seem more diverse without making the actual game much more complex. You can take one of your little compartmentalized scenes, and flesh it out with a dozen variations depending on those variables. Add a few sentences here if it's the first time, maybe a paragraph there if you got the trust high enough, that sorta thing.
Oh, and get a plushie, they're great for debugging. When something goes wrong, taking the stuffed animal and explaining exactly what's happening, and what should be happening instead, will usually lead you to how to fix the problem. And if it doesn't you can throw it at the wall without breaking anything.

 

[OsamiWorks]

I haven't made a full game before just small trash projects but nothing I'd ever publish. I understand what you mean since I had just figured this out last week. Here is what my design folder looks like so far.



My main folder is getting sloppy and I need to move the abandoned docs, but I have divided up my story into multiple sections.
- A Core Story which is the intended path
- Character arcs, which are other character stories appended to the core story
- A flowchart after outlining to determine pathing, so as players make decisions that are significant you can follow along with them, and if there is a deviation from the intended route, you can make certain events and pathways are no longer valid. Mine is a mix of bullet points from my outline and nesting into charts or references to other places

You can have plenty of options in dialogue which have no significant impact on the game, you can free ball those by adding pseudo code into your writing like:

"Hey Anon, what kind of drink do you like?"

{0:"Anything with Alcohol",
1:"Something complex like coffee or tea",
2:"Sugary and sweet please!",
3:"Preferably someting hot",
4:"As long as it's cold.",
5:"Bodily fluids, lemme lick an armpit"}

#responses
0:"So you're that kind of person..."
1:"Are you one of those pretentious types?"
2:"Same, I love milkshakes!"
3:"Boldness might not be as attractive as you think."
4:"What a chill response... get it?"
5:"You're not serious are you? Fucking degenerate scum."

Offering different responses that don't impact the main story allows the player to project themselves onto the main characters actions and can be utilized to give weight to an actors personality. If you're feeling clever though you can store a response in a variable and check its value in other locations to determine dialogue at later parts if you want.

 

[jezzoo]

candid80 I'm in a similar position - know how to code, do graphics, and write, but designing an interactive story, or actual gameplay, that's quite another beast. I'm probably struggling in very similar ways you do.

I have to echo Saki_Sliz - when you think about it, most games, even open-world "freedom-oriented" games, don't actually give the player any story choices. The feeling of freedom is usually achieved via gameplay mechanics (how you choose to tackle the challenges), and a choice in which order the content is consumed (like quests or locations). You rarely get actual story choices, and that's fine.

Also consider player perspective. Story decisions, aside from being hard to write properly and multiplying the amount of content you have to do, are opaque to the player. Even if you communicate the immediate effect, they won't know what they're choosing down the line. This can result in a trial-and-error gameplay, rather than an empowering, informed (predictable) decision.

Given that Renpy games have limited mechanics, that leaves us with letting the player decide on the order of content consumption. That can be individual smaller storylines, or choices that have no impact - moving between locations, dialog trees with player-choosable independent dialog branches (topics) until all are exhausted, or dialog/action choices that have no impact on the story (this one I think is a bit of a bullshit move though).

 

[Saki_Sliz]

I was just talking with someone on Reddit, and another concern came to mind.

so there is a balance between short, quick to reward game design, vs slower, but better reward.

a quick reward would be a fap game, a slower reward would be learning about characters and their transformation.

quick is good because often players have short attention spans. I know myself don't like to read that much in games, so I avoid most renpy games (but there are good ones, such as those that act like life sims or dating sims rather than being just a vn). However, the original Redditor was mentioning how sex is kinda lame and shouldn't be the main focus or goal of adult games. I went off on a tangent on how I like the idea of the relationship, ie character being embarrassed or shy, and then sometimes pervy or accepting, etc. Context I thought was key, but that often requires story and character development, which I have no attention span for, at least when it comes to reading, so I won't demand it from my audience if I wouldn't.

Story decisions, aside from being hard to write properly and multiplying the amount of content you have to do, are opaque to the player. Even if you communicate the immediate effect, they won't know what they're choosing down the line. This can result in a trial-and-error gameplay, rather than an empowering, informed (predictable) decision.

Absolutely. There was only one game where things seemed clear. Mythic Manor. Each character is 1-D, simple, follow a very generic character design. Ie the sweet, shy and innocent girl, so you knew to use all the nice guy options to get to her heart, and the lewd content matched expectations. That was neat, while it was predictable it did at least deliver on it's promised goods. now that was a long time ago, their could have been many more updates and the characters may now have layers of complexity, but I do like the idea now of making very stereotypical characters. IE the fat sassy girl, the mean bitching alpha queen, goth girl, the stupid but hot blond. etc. Characters from shows like total drama island did a very good job at making standout characters.

Given that Renpy games have limited mechanics, that leaves us with letting the player decide on the order of content consumption. That can be individual smaller storylines, or choices that have no impact - moving between locations, dialog trees with player-choosable independent dialog branches (topics) until all are exhausted, or dialog/action choices that have no impact on the story (this one I think is a bit of a bullshit move though).

I think I have given up on finding the perfect game. Instead, I think I want to make a sandbox, inspired by the fact that I don't play Skyrim, I just mod the crap out of it. There is crap to do all the time, mess around, good for the quick game play. and if you want slower longer-term stuff, there will be things to explore, ie characters to interact with and relationships to make and evolve. The only issue is that it needs a lot of content, and the onlyway I'll pull it off is if I trick myself and consider making the game as part of the sandbox experience itself. The game trapquest is a good example, lots to do, explore, very replayable, but it took a lot of work to make, and that is a text based game with some graphics.

 

[PJWhoopie]

Some great stuff here guys!

 

[FlexiDuck]

Last week found this video about narrative choices in games. I found it very useful

 

[sillyrobot]

Draw a finite state diagram. That way you know what parameters end up in each state and that no state is unreachable. It also helps you identify what states you want to include and what other states are necessary transitions.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Draw a finite state diagram. That way you know what parameters end up in each state and that no state is unreachable. It also helps you identify what states you want to include and what other states are necessary transitions.

Finite state diagrams are always a good idea, not many know about them if they don't go into a technical field or similar higher knowledge exploration. The issue is, these are defined states. Thats all fine unless you want to let your players be able to do unique things, where instead of states of the game, it is more like multiple game mechanics. You can still use state machines to plan how you want the game to break down into core goals or play styles, but I don't think it will be able to track everything in some cases.

 

[Cul]

I don't play Skyrim, I just mod the crap out of it.

Hah, should make a game that can be modded to hell. Thought before, even something light, which could be run on phones, with fake 3d like

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, but an actual rig for the character, and you could have a Mario Maker but for VN's hah. The tools would be there, and a thousand people can then make content (like a Sims where you load people's saves + backgrounds, etc.)

sex is kinda lame and shouldn't be the main focus

Similar things you hear, it's about the desire itself being the focus, instead of the lewd pictures. So basically endless teasing, with Skinner-box rewards, hah. I remember old Italian movies are also just endless teasing. Even before the more known Japanese stuff. But teasing people for 2 hours in renpy means 2 hours of reading, so it is harder on people, hah. If there were a large community of voice actors, I think some issues would be gone.

quick is good

I also think it's hard to solve. I do think you want a quick way to show what the player will get, but when the only drive is the sex itself, yeah, tension can fall apart. Stories I like also seem to mix in funny or pleasant things from the start, even if they are tragic later on. I guess we need bait to lure you in. But also nobody likes being bored, hah.

Edit: Sounds like I'm suggesting Candid's Star Treck game to have good comedy writing and voice actors, hah... Though, with those renders, some nice people might offer.

Edit2: Oh, to Candid, I remember I asked for the before-Davinci in your other thread. That was for some technical stuff about RGB crushing and skintones. Since I can't really give you advice, I could give you some LUTs instead hah. Just need reference before cgrade.

 

[jezzoo]

I think I want to make a sandbox

Ie the sweet, shy and innocent girl, so you knew to use all the nice guy options to get to her heart, and the lewd content matched expectations.

Both of these points relate to the opacity of choice I'm wary about.

As you say, sandbox games require a lot of extra content - which almost no indie games have. They also need a lot of guidance, even hand holding, so the player knows how to progress once they're done fucking around (see - quest markers). Adult games I've seen here tend to abuse the sandbox concept - they don't have enough content, so you're done fucking around almost immediately. Instead, they use the sandbox to pad out game time by obscuring progress without guidance (and repetition, but that's another topic). You're left wandering about, trying everything in a desperate attempt to move on.

And as you observe, "choosing the girl" in dating sims is also usually weirdly obscure. Making a straightforward choice would lack challenge, and could make the result feel unsatisfying, so the devs twist it with moon logic. You have to take a number of often arcane steps to achieve the desired result, because that's how the script goes. Thus people don't say "how do I choose Sarah", but "how do I get Sarah".

In my opinion, once people start calling for a walkthrough for your game, you've failed as a game designer.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

You're left wandering about, trying everything in a desperate attempt to move on.

Ah, so you mean to point out, how their should be some ways for players to know and plan. I agree, and I know a few game's I've played done this well, and I agree that it is a problem when you don't know what your actions will lead to, but I can't remember specifically what allowed for players to plan or know what will happen. I can't remember a particular game however.

I think I may have even been in a conversation where we discussed how, it's important for players to know the consequences or the results of their actions, but there was a contradiction in how they either get the knowledge (something about before or after the choice) and or how that information would rob freedom of choice. Actually, this may have been the talk about Diablo like games, maybe about the new diablo 4 game, or an Extra Credits episode on youtube. Possibly it was a talk about character customization and knowing the consequences of upgrades or character systems, simple vs complex. Idk, whole lot of talking not enough walking i guess.

 

[sillyrobot]

Ah, so you mean to point out, how their should be some ways for players to know and plan. I agree, and I know a few game's I've played done this well, and I agree that it is a problem when you don't know what your actions will lead to, but I can't remember specifically what allowed for players to plan or know what will happen. I can't remember a particular game however.

I think I may have even been in a conversation where we discussed how, it's important for players to know the consequences or the results of their actions, but there was a contradiction in how they either get the knowledge (something about before or after the choice) and or how that information would rob freedom of choice. Actually, this may have been the talk about Diablo like games, maybe about the new diablo 4 game, or an Extra Credits episode on youtube. Possibly it was a talk about character customization and knowing the consequences of upgrades or character systems, simple vs complex. Idk, whole lot of talking not enough walking i guess.

Full deterministic games where the player has complete knowledge can quickly lead to degenerate game play as the players learn a single optimal path and never deviate.

Full deterministic games where the player has limited knowledge can quickly lead to pixel bashing/scene spinning game play as the players try to discover what they need to do next.

Partially random games where the player has complete knowledge can lead to save scumming as the players try to force the game onto the optimal path.

Partially random games where the player has limited knowledge can quickly lead to save-heavy games and reloads as the player ventures down a few paths trying to figure out enough about the situation and its consequences too determine which, if any, are acceptable.

A couple of examples from games on the site:

Full Deterministic, limited knowledge
Wife Trainer suffers from players being incapable of reasonably planning because each woman is unique with different responses and different actions the trainer can take. Those actions have both an immediate impact and often a less obvious secondary impact. Since training time is a play constraint, a player cannot try them all. Thus, a player cannot make an informed choice until the 2nd or 3rd playthrough having seen the immediate and longer term results of the initial choices and recorded the ones that appear optimal/pleasing. Since the trainer is expected to be more competent and experienced than the player is at training women, it would make a better game if the player were given stronger cues as to expected results/purpose of each option -- especially the unique options. Why should I consider taking this woman on a road trip on the weekend? What are we going to see/do? What do I expect to gain? Walkthroughs -- either self constructed or community -- are a must if the player wants to hit any specific goals.

Partially random, (mostly) complete knowledge
Superpowered allows a player to generally plan and then be forced to react to the random element -- which women will appear in this timeslot? How much attention will the MC pay in class? What event will occur while on patrol? Some of the variations in result are large enough to incent save scumming. Walkthroughs are more akin to strategy guides -- accomplish this before starting that. A few of the game elements are surprises or poorly telegraphed inside the game and are play is improved by more extensive explanation.