How many branches do you want in a VN?

[Meaning Less]

My opinion. It makes no sense to give the player the illusion of choice.

Example. The MC has a choice to spy on his mother or sister as she washes in the shower or not to do so. I'm sure 100% of players will spy.

If the MC is spotted and kicked out of the house as a pervert, the player will load the save and try to act like a high moral person and not sin voyeuristic, but the player will be voyeuristic without consequences because the consequences can be avoided by cheating. There really is no choice.

Much better another option. No tragic consequences immediately after spying. But later, for example already lying in bed with him, his mother or sister will admit to the MC that she noticed him.

Now you are essentially talking about skippable content, thats not really a branching path just a skip button if the only thing that changes is seeing a voyeur scene or not...

Similarly, a single choice that instantly leads to game-over is not really considered a branching path because there isn't any path ahead, just a bad end.

Everything you said is effectively illusion of choice. If there is only one way to play the game or if your choices are only skipping content instead of showing you something different then you are most likely talking about a linear game.

 

[Yngling]

In my opinion, this is a big flaw in the plot. I like the explicit possibility of choice, when the player is faced with a dilemma, rather than a set of choices of random events that will lead to some result.
There are a lot of games here that you can only fully get through by reading the walkthroughs. This speaks not to the wisdom of the developers, but rather to the inability to compose a story.

I think that depends on how the choice is presented.

A moral choice may have unintended consequences which are still logical.
Say the female protagonist has a date with a guy. After the date she can:
a) go home with him
b) take a taxi to her own home
c) walk home to save money (money is a variable in the game)

On a) she has sex with the guy. The player doesn't like the guy so that choice is out.
Leaves b) and c). You choose c) because you think you need the money for something in the future, or already spent it on a nice dress to wear to the date. While walking home she gets raped (another undesireable event in the players opinion).

This might warrant a walkthrough but the choices are logical. To me this is NOT an example of poor design.

The reason I would like branching in a VN is to avoid a LI I don't like. In simple terms, I want a buffet, not a mukbang. You pick the plates (story) and what you put on the plates (characters) but please let me choose what I want to consume. Quite a few games where I had to basically rush through content with 1 character because the choices were 'go through or quit the game'.

I do like the 'good/bad/neutral' idea, but I'd prefer it on a case by case basis rather than a 'build'. Same with submissive and dominant, I can want to dominate one lady but let another dominate me, I can want to be sweet and gentle to one woman and hatefuck the next one

Understandable but I think that the LI's probably interact with each other as well (personally this is something I like at least) so then it doesn't really work...

Can you name a choice in these games that would cause the plot to branch out?

I mentioned a major choice in Fallout 4 already...

My opinion. It makes no sense to give the player the illusion of choice.

Example. The MC has a choice to spy on his mother or sister as she washes in the shower or not to do so. I'm sure 100% of players will spy.

If the MC is spotted and kicked out of the house as a pervert, the player will load the save and try to act like a high moral person and not sin voyeuristic, but the player will be voyeuristic without consequences because the consequences can be avoided by cheating. There really is no choice.

Much better another option. No tragic consequences immediately after spying. But later, for example already lying in bed with him, his mother or sister will admit to the MC that she noticed him.

Your suggestion works only if the delayed consequences are not a game over or otherwise very negative.
Therefore that is also a fake choice.

What might work is giving pervert points after peeking / getting caught which has some undesireable effects or prevents certain routes, when above a certain threshold.

Personally (and this certainly also applies to the example of the female protagonist going on a date with some guy) I am not against save scumming. It may seem like cheating but I think it is one of advantages of games over real life: the possibility to do stupid shit and be able to start again.

 

[Yngling]

If you want a game that has a lot impactful choices on the story I suggest you try College Daze ! I haven't found an other game with so many ways to play the game !

HTML + real porn is something I generally try to avoid (like the plague) but I will have a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[anne O'nymous]

Can you name a choice in these games that would cause the plot to branch out?

Of course, Fallout 3... Defuse Megaton's bomb or not, and if not make it blow out for Tenpenny or not.
It's not the only example that pop up in my mind, but isn't it the most obvious one since the three paths are explicitly totally excluding.

But must be noted that it isn't what you were talking about. You said that "quests are not AAA games, their era is long gone", while a multi-route system can perfectly exist without a single quest ; this even in AAA games. Dishonored have a multi-route system, that depend solely on your kill rate. Slowly but surely, you see the world change, for the better or for the worse, depending how bloody you'll be. And this change also have an impact on the difficulty, the bloodier you'll be, the less you'll be able to stealthily progress. This will goes until the ending scene that will present you two radically different futures depending on this.

And, of course, it's even less what OP was talking about. It poll make it relatively obvious that he was concerned by the relationship with the characters, way more than by the background story itself.

In many of these games actually linear plot, side quests in general do not affect anything globally.

So, what about Dragon Age Inquisition ? Outside of the quests themselves, your actions will change the plot, going as far as blocking full parts of the game.
Once again, it's not the only game doing this, even more recently, but the most obvious. Being part of the Inquisition, your choices have a strong impact on the people under your jurisdiction, and therefore on the story.

The apogee of this was the ending of Mass Effect 3, the mass dissatisfaction of players who were deceived by the promise that every choice is important.

Bullshit. Of course, people complained about Mass Effect 3 endings, but it absolutely not stopped muti-route systems. Do you really believe that the guys taking the strategic decisions for AAA studios are stupid and can't make the difference between players being disappointed by a false promise and them being against a game mechanism ?

By the way, all the choices you made during Mass Effect 3 have no impact on its ending, except of course the difficult, and possibly success, of the final big battle. And I don't say that because the ending feel the same without the DLC. No, I say this because whatever choices you've made during the whole campaign, so starting the first game, the three options will be presented to you and you can pick whatever one you want.
The ending is conditioned to a single choice, the last you'll make. As I implied, all the other choices only decide how the last battle with be going.

But at the moment we are discussing visual novels. From it I expect first of all an interesting story and characters, you can't surprise me with any sexual scenes.

I'm sure that Juliette Karlsson can surprise you with all her sexual scenes, and absolutely don't see the relation between a multi-route system, even applied to the story, and the lack of interest that the story and characters would have.
In fact it's more the opposite. It's seeing the story and characters really adapt to your choices that make both interesting and enjoyable. And it happen that it's something possible and done, even on the adult gaming scene. To some extend of course, indies devs don't have the same capabilities than AAA studios.
Since I talked about it, I'll use Karlsson's Gambit as example. So far the main story itself isn't too impacted by the choices, but you can already feel some changes in the characters' personality, and even more in their behavior.

 

[Guntag]

HTML + real porn is something I generally try to avoid (like the plague) but I will have a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

For a "fan of choices", even if you dislike html + real porn, I think it's worth playing just for the technical aspect, seeing how meticulous (but not perfect of course) it is possible to be for the author to manage all the possible choices. And of course, in order to judge that, you have to play multiple times, trying different choices

 

[buff]

A meaningful choice should be one that has non-trivial impacts on the "day-to-day" events of the game. The core story should remain primarily linear IMO.

Couldn't agree more. Best example I can think of of "choices being done right" is The Last Sovereign where the plot is basically the plot, but how hard things are, what people tell you, what options you have, what gear you can equip, who is in your party, affection of girls, etc etc are all very dependent upon choices. The complexity is almost ridiculous, but you definitely feel like your choices matter a lot even though the overarching plot is the same for any playthrough.

 

[asmrfan23]

as a player, since most games here are entirely single person efforts I don't want them to write a shit ton of paths/choices because i've seen far too many start branching, never really make any progress, then boom burnout [Abandoned]

 

[Yngling]

Couldn't agree more. Best example I can think of of "choices being done right" is The Last Sovereign where the plot is basically the plot, but how hard things are, what people tell you, what options you have, what gear you can equip, who is in your party, affection of girls, etc etc are all very dependent upon choices. The complexity is almost ridiculous, but you definitely feel like your choices matter a lot even though the overarching plot is the same for any playthrough.

Great game.

The problem with RPGM is the replayability. It just takes forever to progress through the story. And managing saves is also problematic.
Not a criticism of the game though, Last Sovereign is one of the few games where RPGM is used to it full potential for an adult game.

The advantage of Ren'py is that you can easily skip to the relevant branching choice and go from there.

 

[buff]

For those of you picking multiple branches-- if you use walkthroughs when you play branching games, you might want to rethink your selection. Playing with a WT is basically playing a KN.

 

[Yngling]

Playing with a WT is basically playing a KN.

I disagree with this. The point why I want choices / paths is not because I want to make it difficult to achieve the best outcome. Instead, it is because I want to take a path (to an outcome) which is to my liking. Which does not need to be the same as your liking. We might even disagree on whether the path or the outcome is the most important.

 

[Sakyazel]

Id strongly encourage devs ,especially solo devs to stick with one major path but write a very meaningful choice & content for alternative endings. I could see short branches during the story to include some more niche fetishes. But its very much a waste of time to create long exclusionary alternatives. The ending is different because you dont have to tie them all together again. Its best if you dont have to replay the whole story just to see the other endings, so dont make an early choice predetermine an ending.
Im a bit disillusioned with choices for the sake of immersion, at the expense of a longer story. I think a preferrable solution if player choice allows you to skip some content or see it in different order, but basically lets you visit everything in one playthrough.
An exception would be a larger project with good production plan that has rewarding gameplay and not just VN elements. So I like choices and the world reacting to you a lot just dont think VN is the most suitable for it.

 

[Yngling]

Id strongly encourage devs ,especially solo devs to stick with one major path but write a very meaningful choice & content for alternative endings. I could see short branches during the story to include some more niche fetishes. But its very much a waste of time to create long exclusionary alternatives. The ending is different because you dont have to tie them all together again. Its best if you dont have to replay the whole story just to see the other endings, so dont make an early choice predetermine an ending.
Im a bit disillusioned with choices for the sake of immersion, at the expense of a longer story. I think a preferrable solution if player choice allows you to skip some content or see it in different order, but basically lets you visit everything in one playthrough.
An exception would be a larger project with good production plan that has rewarding gameplay and not just VN elements. So I like choices and the world reacting to you a lot just dont think VN is the most suitable for it.

There are other ways to reduce production time. It's all about allocating resources where the dev needs them.

For example, you can reduce development time by:
- Writing less words
- Use sprites over backgrounds instead of full renders for simple dialogue scenes
- Don't use animations
- Use a easier way to create graphics then Daz
- Use only standard poses
- etc.

For sure all of this will reduce quality but so does railroading players onto a path they might not have preferred.

The dev can choose what he wants...

 

[Deleted member 752977]

I think practically 2-3 main branches for most devs / writers with minor branches in between. It keeps the work for the writer light, and players can enjoy more fleshed out routes. The flow of the story itself should be linear-ish, but the details in between should be affected by the player's choice.

 

[comte bonfim]

In my opinion, I'd say what I usually look for the most is the possibility to either get with someone I actually do like from the game, so a specific monogamous path with a certain character without having to be forced upon by the game throwing other characters at the MC without a chance to say "hey, I don't actually wanna date you, we just hooked up". I mean, if it's a harem I'd say I just want the option to choose the girls I want in my harem, not the whole buffet.

Another thing that I usually go for if I'm not feeling any of the characters is usually just sleep around and try my best not to commit, and I hate when games throw the famous "so, you're dating someone?" "yeah, i got someone" — Me: "No, we don't, I specifically told off every single girl after banging them that I'm not looking for anything serious, don't lie to yourself MC."

But yeah.. Being forced by the game to recognize that you're dating SOMEONE without it being your full choice is kinda a turn off for me, like why can't we actually choose "DO YOU WANT TO DATE THIS PERSON? YES? NO? OKAY." If you pick whatever, then you're not dating, move on to the next one. It pisses me off.

Another thing that I actually dislike in some games is being locked in a relationship by the start of the game, then it breaks up because of some shit and then the game forces that person into your life AGAIN trying to make you change your mind, like bruh, if I'm starting a game in a relationship already HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO CARE FOR A PERSON/CHARACTER THAT I DON'T KNOW OR DIDN'T GET THE CHANCE TO MEET BEFOREHAND? Stories like that needs more balanced-out choices for the player to actually pick up the story behind the relationship and THEN present choices for the player to slowly fit back in after the fact, just don't shove it down our throats, it breaks the whole dynamic of the game in my opinion.

 

[m00nsh1ne]

I think if you are making people pick their Love Interests (LI's) then having anymore than 4 just creates headaches for the devs and the players. The more complexity a story has then the longer the development cycle is which creates longer waits. If it takes 6 months or longer to release an update then it's hard on the players to even remember the names of the people in the game and remember exactly what they did when they last played lol. So unless you can hammer out quick updates (less than 3 months apart) I'd keep the number of LI's to 4 or less.

For the over-arching story I think it depends on what type of tale you wish to write. A more realistic one? A fantasy or Sci-Fi adventure? If you are looking for a more realistic story than the more ending outcomes the better... like did you get the girl? Did you get that big raise? Did you achieve your goals ethically or nefariously? All of those would be nice but again I'd limit the number of variables to something the dev/dev team could handle in a reasonable amount of time. If you are telling a more fictional type of story then I'd stick to the classic aproach of did you achieve the happy ending or not. If the goal is to defeat the demon lord than just railroad that story to some degree and go with a pass or fail system. All the complexity should be on the LI's side of the equation.

 

[VMiller]

... and I hate when games throw the famous "so, you're dating someone?" "yeah, i got someone" — Me: "No, we don't, I specifically told off every single girl after banging them that I'm not looking for anything serious, don't lie to yourself MC."

It's all very complicated.

If the answer was that important to a girl, she would have asked the MC about it before she started fucking him.

There is another option, the girl asks just out of curiosity, she has no wish for a love relationship. I know from experience that some girls will fuck guys they know already have girlfriends and even married men.

 

[Yngling]

For a "fan of choices", even if you dislike html + real porn, I think it's worth playing just for the technical aspect, seeing how meticulous (but not perfect of course) it is possible to be for the author to manage all the possible choices. And of course, in order to judge that, you have to play multiple times, trying different choices

I have started playing it, and you are right. Plenty of choices and different paths.

What I don't like though is how some important / useful things are hidden in a way that don't make sense to me.

I don't know about you, but IRL I have never gotten any massive stat increases by drinking myself stupid in some bar. Only stat decreases actually but that's another story.

Yet at the same time the different walkthroughs provided also seem suboptimal, at least when it comes to certain content.
That is understandable, but you kind of need the walkthrough because of "easter eggs" like the bar mentioned above, as well as because you don't know which color lights you will be able to catch in the future.

But while you can see the lights as a kind of gameplay element, I have to say that don't really like the hidden but important easter eggs. In my opinion, if a dev does choose to include easter eggs, they should be quite unimportant while major decisions on the other hand should also be clearly indicated. On that last note: the first time I had sex with Monica (she was a virgin) was a quicky in the bathroom.... This is also something I don't like, but it was easily avoidable so no biggie.

 

[Doorknob22]

My personal rules for branching:

1. Don't make me choose between two LIs, don't force me to replay in order to see content I "missed". There's a game here I enjoyed initially and it has many branches. At first I started saving at each branch, going back to play the other path, and then I stopped playing it altogether: I'm trying to enjoy myself, not to play a bookkeeper.
1.1. Adding an option to skip an LI because I don't fancy her is a nice option.

2. Don't give me blind choices, i.e. choices I have no idea what the effect of each will do. Open the left door or the right door? Say "You're beautiful" or "You're funny"? How am I supposed to know what is the "right" choice? I hate guessing.
2.1. Never ever give me "bad" choices. You chose this, game over or you can't make progress with this LI. Nope.

So in my opinion, good VNs should have one path, with different "flavors" to tackle situations per the players' preference. Serious or light attitude, asshole or sensitive, violent or peaceful, there should be no "wrong" paths, only different flavors to each situation or LI.

 

[Remembrance]

Don't make routes for the sake of it. Like make 3 girls then you can only choose one to date, but the rest of the story remains the same. So you have to skip thru it 2 times just for a few dating scenes. Not fun, & not many are gonna go through with it.

Compared to forced exclusive choices, I prefer conditional inclusive choices, because I want more outcome variations & more consequences.
Like if you choose between A & B, you only get 2 paths. If you can choose A or B or Both, you get 3 outcome options.
Better yet if each choices is dependent on previous action, like you can only choose A if you were nice to her, choose B if you were nice to her, choose both if you have a certain flag from making correct choices.

This not only gives more power to the player, but also makes it rewarding to play the game.

My rule is, I should be able to play 70-90% of the game on one play through. If I feel like I'm being locked out just because the dev wants more routes, more replayability, then I drop it.
But if it feels organic, like the player can really impact the story by being good or evil, dom or sub, etc. leading to more varieties of the same outcome, then that is very much acceptable.

 

[Guntag]

I have started playing it, and you are right. Plenty of choices and different paths.

What I don't like though is how some important / useful things are hidden in a way that don't make sense to me.

I don't know about you, but IRL I have never gotten any massive stat increases by drinking myself stupid in some bar. Only stat decreases actually but that's another story.

Yet at the same time the different walkthroughs provided also seem suboptimal, at least when it comes to certain content.
That is understandable, but you kind of need the walkthrough because of "easter eggs" like the bar mentioned above, as well as because you don't know which color lights you will be able to catch in the future.

But while you can see the lights as a kind of gameplay element, I have to say that don't really like the hidden but important easter eggs. In my opinion, if a dev does choose to include easter eggs, they should be quite unimportant while major decisions on the other hand should also be clearly indicated. On that last note: the first time I had sex with Monica (she was a virgin) was a quicky in the bathroom.... This is also something I don't like, but it was easily avoidable so no biggie.

I agree with the stats gain at the bar. I consider it like a little cheating event and I don't really like to use it. About cheating, I like to use energyrelated (energy if you play without incest). This way, I can use as much energy as I want while still managing stats, lights and all the choices, but that's a matter of taste. I don't find the complete cheat mode really interesting. An other thing that allows you to cheat (the author knows it and decided to leave it that way) is that when you select a choice requiring level 5 in a light and you gain enough xp to reach lvl 5 when selecting the choice, you can open your phone and close it to succeed with the event (instead of failing if you don't do that). It's up to you to decide if that's fair or not. I like to use it when it's happening for an important event.

For the rest, it's just about discovering/learning the game and then replaying it with what you learned. Indeed walkthroughs help you discover new things. I don't call most of them easter eggs because for the people who made these choice they weren't hidden at all, it's just that there are so many choices that most of them are "hidden" until you play the game a lot of times in different ways. But yes, some are harder to find than others (and the bar isn't one of them ).