VN Ren'Py Isabella - Chasing Shadows [Ch. 4.3] [badtimetales]

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FatGiant

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Jan 7, 2022
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Interesting to read your opinions about the cliffhangers.
Thanks for telling your opinion!

I will not remove them (at the end of an update) as I think it fits the theme.
But as I said, it's not so easy to find a good one.

For the rework/steam release I'm not sure what to do.
As people will play it without the time between the update they are not really necessary. But some/most of them also serve the story, like the last one.





Let's take these two quotes (which doesn't mean the others aren't important).

I'm glad you see it like this.
And I'm for sure not insecure about my work, C 3.3 was great (and ironically got the fewest comments and ratings).
At least great for what I want to tell, if people don't like it in general, I can't or better don't want to change it.

Let's look at some popular shows. GOT, 24, Supernatural.


All of them had cliffhangers between the seasons.
I'm not asking if the producers know what they do or not (because their income speaks for itself) but what do you think about those?
Sure, there is a 12 months time between the releases and im on a few months (like before and after the update).

One actual show without big cliffhangers is ST: Picard.
But that lives from the actors and I couldn't get Sir Patrick to play a role in Isa, i have no idea why not ;)
Interesting choices of TV-Shows. I translated subtitles for 24, Supernatural and a bunch more (way too many). I am keenly aware of how their CH worked, most of my dislike of CH come from exactly that.

The funny part is, neither of those shows needed it. Neither as a retention of attention nor as a builder of tension. It was purely a necessity dictated by the survival of the writing team. And brother, they needed it. Most of the top named TV-Shows go through a 100 writers at least. They are always easy to blame, even if they were "forced" to write filler garbage in the middle season.

This medium where we meet ourselves, is a completely different beast. Scale aside, budget aside, it is usually a one man show (or very close to it) with very little need to protect or save the writing team.

When I say that it denotes a lack of confidence, it is not meant individually, but in general. I too can see that this is a particular case, being more of a thriller and all (thankfully not a "noir" one, even if I read way too many of them and watched too many hours of them, 40's cinema was a rather large addiction of mine growing up). I absolutely love the way you are telling us this story BTT, so, in this case, even if I don't like CH, I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn't there.

Another major gripe I have with CH is that we KNOW that the follow-up scene will NOT be what we were led to believe, or, it will be less severe, or even have no relevance at all. I remember for instance (and forgive me for mentioning another game) that in Intertwined, Nyx ended an episode with a scene that insinuated that one of the LI's was raped and probably killed. That wasn't even remotely true, it was, as most of that game, smoke blown into the played eyes. Never even downloaded that update and deleted her game. Maybe I'll play it if it is ever completed, maybe.

That type of manipulation of the audience, can backfire. Criminal Minds once decided to end a Season with a rather large explosion that pretended it was the death of the team. Their next season, had the worst ratings of the whole show, because most people were under the impression that the show had ended. Only after a very large investment in Advertisement they were able to bring their public back, but, the show was never the same. The cast was blamed and forced to take a paycut, that led most of them to look for greener pastures. Or, let's go with Bones, that died when the writing team was forced to incorporate religious content and create CH that made it look that that was the new direction of the show. It kept going for a few more years, but it was never the same as when they started with that.

I am aware of how it can create a bit of a thrill in a short term, but, it is not something you can rely on or go too far on, or it may kill a project. Believe it or not, people don't like to be manipulated, even if they accept it. Well, the majority of people. LOL. There are kinks for everything.

I'll shut up now, :D

Peace ;)
 
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hampsure

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Dec 4, 2021
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Or, let's go with Bones, that died when the writing team was forced to incorporate religious content and create CH that made it look that that was the new direction of the show. It kept going for a few more years, but it was never the same as when they started with that.
Interesting. I always assumed that show's death knell was the main characters getting into whatever relationship they had (don't remember the details, just that it soured me on the show) kinda suddenly after years of having a will they won't they situation. When shows play that game for too long they're usually forced to keep playing it or risk losing interest once that element is no longer there. Religion is obviously controversial though, so that likely makes more sense since the show did have more going for it than the romances. Glad religion didn't kill X-Files at least though I guess they had it as a theme from earlier on.

Another major gripe I have with CH is that we KNOW that the follow-up scene will NOT be what we were led to believe
Yep, I'm conditioned to assume what we think happened likely wasn't what happened whenever there's any ambiguity and even if it seems really clear that it can very well be completely reframed to show us how what we saw wasn't what we thought. Not a fan of the ones that go out of their way to be deliberately misleading. How I think about it depends largely on the context of the given media though as to if I have any reason to distrust it or not.

Lots of interesting insights... the extent of my knowledge is more limited to what I remember having watched. ;) I do have commentary on Criminal Minds and some other shows that had really poor ideas for season endings, but don't want to derail this into completely tv talk, hehe. Just one more thing:

Believe it or not, people don't like to be manipulated, even if they accept it.
Then how do magicians have jobs? :LOL:;)
 

badtimetales

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Sep 25, 2020
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Interesting pick of shows
Why is that? Because they are "old"?
I was against GOT at the beginning after seeing the trailers. But after watching Season One the got me hooked up. Until 60-70% into it, than I lost interest.

(seen all of GoT and Supernatural, but 24 I only saw occasionally with others when it aired and recall it was a bit anxiety-inducing) - this game better have a better ending than Game of Thrones.
If you reject both ladies you can still have a nice life with Zeus .....

zeussend.png

If you reject him too ..... na, that's getting to bloody for a public board :p
 

hampsure

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Dec 4, 2021
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Why is that? Because they are "old"?
Not from my perspective. I just meant it was a good variety and I genuinely found them interesting picks (24 was the only one I didn't regularly watch myself - the other two I saw every episode of). Doesn't seem like that long ago that Supernatural actually ended, haha. I sure hope people don't think of them as old already. :LOL:

If you reject both ladies you can still have a nice life with Zeus .....
Don't know why that would happen but good to know there's an option if all else fails, lol. I do have a soft spot for big doggos and Zeus is one of my favorite characters. :)
 

badtimetales

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Sep 25, 2020
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The funny part is, neither of those shows needed it. Neither as a retention of attention nor as a builder of tension. It was purely a necessity dictated by the survival of the writing team. And brother, they needed it. Most of the top named TV-Shows go through a 100 writers at least. They are always easy to blame, even if they were "forced" to write filler garbage in the middle season.

This medium where we meet ourselves, is a completely different beast. Scale aside, budget aside, it is usually a one man show (or very close to it) with very little need to protect or save the writing team.

I don't have these insides, but it's difficult as a single writer/renderer/animator/postworker alone.

I do understand that cliffhangers are not liked by everyone.
There even was that scene in Chapter one with the old guy smoking a cigar and moskyx asked me why I didn't remove it.
Because he is one of the main players. I have to introduce him, one way or another.

People playing chapter by chapter will have forgotten about him.
People who play it in once will recognize him.



When I say that it denotes a lack of confidence, it is not meant individually, but in general. I too can see that this is a particular case, being more of a thriller and all (thankfully not a "noir" one, even if I read way too many of them and watched too many hours of them, 40's cinema was a rather large addiction of mine growing up). I absolutely love the way you are telling us this story BTT, so, in this case, even if I don't like CH, I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn't there.
Lol.

Thanks ;)

And as I said, most of the CH tell a story too.

Another major gripe I have with CH is that we KNOW that the follow-up scene will NOT be what we were led to believe, or, it will be less severe, or even have no relevance at all. I remember for instance (and forgive me for mentioning another game) that in Intertwined, Nyx ended an episode with a scene that insinuated that one of the LI's was raped and probably killed. That wasn't even remotely true, it was, as most of that game, smoke blown into the played eyes. Never even downloaded that update and deleted her game. Maybe I'll play it if it is ever completed, maybe.

That's the problem with CH.
Propose too much, people will get upset.
Too less, people will get bored.

So a CH as a CH is difficult. I agree.
But a CH as a story element?


That type of manipulation of the audience, can backfire.
hmmm
 

badtimetales

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Sep 25, 2020
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And speaking about CH

Well, ST: PC 0308 ....
That was BRUTAL. And i liked it :p

but i know there will be the next ep next week.
 
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moskyx

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Jun 17, 2019
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I do understand that cliffhangers are not liked by everyone.
There even was that scene in Chapter one with the old guy smoking a cigar and moskyx asked me why I didn't remove it.
Because he is one of the main players. I have to introduce him, one way or another.

People playing chapter by chapter will have forgotten about him.
People who play it in once will recognize him.
Well, then I'd wish you had used the 'another' way :ROFLMAO: That scene is just too blunt, it's so obvious he's the bad guy that I felt kind of insulted, you trashed my hopes of me having to solve a real mystery there. I simply don't like to be so much ahead of my MC in those details, I love some good detective work. So I think you could have included that same scene but without showing his face, just to let us know that Isa's former manager is only someone else's minion. But the worst part is how, in the next chapter, the MC asks the hairdresser to keep him informed about that guy he has just learned about, even though our MC has no reason yet to link him to his current issues. He should have been mentioned but then 'forgotten' by the MC as just an average creepy tycoon, because at that time our MC was only focused on the gossip about Isa, and there's no reason for him to suddenly feel so interested in that old fart.

With those two modifications, the most attentive players can start to suspect him anyway (and then, when he's 'officially' unveiled as the evil mastermind, they would congratulate themselves for being so smart), and the less attentive ones will discover later in the game that this was the same man you mentioned back then and will applaud you writing skills, because you did drop the hints and now everything makes sense. The scenes at the restaurant and then Isa's and Annou's stories should be enough to grant him the 'bad guy' role in everybody's eyes, I think there was no need to introduce him so clearly and in such a cliched way back in Chapter one.
 

hampsure

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Dec 4, 2021
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it's so obvious he's the bad guy that I felt kind of insulted
To play devil's advocate, the way they were so obviously introduced led me to think they weren't necessarily the only ones to worry about and that I was being set up to focus on this core group of villains as to not expect other things that may be revealed later. :unsure:
 
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Impenitent

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Nov 1, 2022
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Well, then I'd wish you had used the 'another' way :ROFLMAO: That scene is just too blunt, it's so obvious he's the bad guy that I felt kind of insulted, you trashed my hopes of me having to solve a real mystery there. I simply don't like to be so much ahead of my MC in those details, I love some good detective work. So I think you could have included that same scene but without showing his face, just to let us know that Isa's former manager is only someone else's minion. But the worst part is how, in the next chapter, the MC asks the hairdresser to keep him informed about that guy he has just learned about, even though our MC has no reason yet to link him to his current issues. He should have been mentioned but then 'forgotten' by the MC as just an average creepy tycoon, because at that time our MC was only focused on the gossip about Isa, and there's no reason for him to suddenly feel so interested in that old fart.

With those two modifications, the most attentive players can start to suspect him anyway (and then, when he's 'officially' unveiled as the evil mastermind, they would congratulate themselves for being so smart), and the less attentive ones will discover later in the game that this was the same man you mentioned back then and will applaud you writing skills, because you did drop the hints and now everything makes sense. The scenes at the restaurant and then Isa's and Annou's stories should be enough to grant him the 'bad guy' role in everybody's eyes, I think there was no need to introduce him so clearly and in such a cliched way back in Chapter one.
It's not wrong for a writer to let us know who the Big Bad of a story is. It would be one thing for an Agatha Christie novel to reveal the murderer early, but in a thriller establishing the Big Bad like this gives us an enemy to focus on and adds a different form of suspense. Stories can have different types of mysteries, and here revealing the existence of the cigar man tells us nothing about how or why the girlfriend was murdered, leaving those mysteries subject to our intestive detective work.

Furthermore, if I correctly recall the sequence of events, the beginning of Chapter Two already had planned for us a "who" mystery in the form of Isa's stalker, so revealing Cigar Man was an effective way of adding layers to the plot, rather than redundencies.

Cliches are only cliches if they are so overdone that they don't accomplish their purpose. Here, BTT, an excellent plotter IMO, used Cigar Man effectively. I thought the ending of Chapter One was well done because it gave us a glimpse into the conspiracy to be revealed and piqued our interest for Chapter Two.
 

moskyx

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Jun 17, 2019
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It's not wrong for a writer to let us know who the Big Bad of a story is. It would be one thing for an Agatha Christie novel to reveal the murderer early, but in a thriller establishing the Big Bad like this gives us an enemy to focus on and adds a different form of suspense. Stories can have different types of mysteries, and here revealing the existence of the cigar man tells us nothing about how or why the girlfriend was murdered, leaving those mysteries subject to our intestive detective work.

Furthermore, if I correctly recall the sequence of events, the beginning of Chapter Two already had planned for us a "who" mystery in the form of Isa's stalker, so revealing Cigar Man was an effective way of adding layers to the plot, rather than redundencies.

Cliches are only cliches if they are so overdone that they don't accomplish their purpose. Here, BTT, an excellent plotter IMO, used Cigar Man effectively. I thought the ending of Chapter One was well done because it gave us a glimpse into the conspiracy to be revealed and piqued our interest for Chapter Two.
Let's agree to disagree, then. The structure of this game, the planned scenes I mentioned that came after that one, made this one totally unnecessary. I've already explained how he could have created the same effect on players without being so blunt on that exact scene, there's no point on repeating myself.
 
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