Need to rant a little about sandbox avns

[anne O'nymous]

I don't mean fading or other transitions. That's visual.
I mean more tangible breaks, in a pure visual novel, imagine having a heavy drama scene lasting for hours... It would be mentally draining, or humor scene lasting for hours... That would get annoying fast. All of that, including sex scenes, need a break to keep everything balanced and feel good to read/play.

But the same happen with books and movies, yet they don't make you have to move by yourself to the next scene. In books there's the chapters/sections that fake the break, but in movies it's all a question of writing. And the same can be done with VN.
It's where small filler scenes take all their importance, at least when correctly handled and written. They permit to defuse the tension, or to divert it. And this works better than a mandatory travel that leave the tension pending.
Take something like "My name is Luna" from The DeLuca Family by example. If the player would have been solely left after Luna told her story, his mind would stay focused on the horror she had to live through, and whatever scene would come after would be wasted, because of those pending thoughts. It needed an after scene that let the tension fall back, in order to let the player be able to focus again on what come next. And a mandatory travel do not offer this, especially when the next location is a blind guess, because the player have nothing to thought about, except what he just witnessed.

In other words, free roaming is not, have never been, and will never be, a way to pace your story.

 

[Winterfire]

But the same happen with books and movies, yet they don't make you have to move by yourself to the next scene. In books there's the chapters/sections that fake the break, but in movies it's all a question of writing. And the same can be done with VN.
It's where small filler scenes take all their importance, at least when correctly handled and written. They permit to defuse the tension, or to divert it. And this works better than a mandatory travel that leave the tension pending.
Take something like "My name is Luna" from The DeLuca Family by example. If the player would have been solely left after Luna told her story, his mind would stay focused on the horror she had to live through, and whatever scene would come after would be wasted, because of those pending thoughts. It needed an after scene that let the tension fall back, in order to let the player be able to focus again on what come next. And a mandatory travel do not offer this, especially when the next location is a blind guess, because the player have nothing to thought about, except what he just witnessed.

In other words, free roaming is not, have never been, and will never be, a way to pace your story.

I made that distinction in the post previous to that, you're right when it comes to pure visual novels, but a sandbox is not a pure visual novel. In those type of games, free roaming is 100% a valid way to pace the story.

 

[tanstaafl]

In those type of games, free roaming is 100% a valid way to pace the story.

More accurately, people who like free roam aren't concerned with overall story pacing as opposed to individual stories found in the sandbox.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I made that distinction in the post previous to that, you're right when it comes to pure visual novels, but a sandbox is not a pure visual novel. In those type of games, free roaming is 100% a valid way to pace the story.

I disagree even when it come to sandbox. In fact, I disagree even more when it come to sandbox.

I just finished to catch-up with Desert Stalker, not having had the time before to restart it after the many change they did in the game core. It's a sandbox game, and its pace is totally depending on the free roaming part, and god, what a mess it is when you play it from the starts and not updates after updates.
They have a story in mind, but the instant you don't follow its order, it's done. Some scenes make the day advance, or act as main scene for the day, preventing you to progress in other route during that day. And if you pick them before the other scenes available that day, you end out of sync. Something that slowly pill up.
You'll have scenes where the characters are oblivious about what happen in the previous scene you seen, or, more exceptional, aware of something that will happen later. You've events from a secondary path that happen way too early, or late, in regard of another secondary path, for the whole to feel consistent.
It's something that is even more obvious if you track the labels you're in. You just pass from "day9.rpy" to "day13.rpy", then return to "day8.rpy"... Even considering the obvious fact that those "days" are just indicative, they correspond to an update, and you shouldn't constantly travel back and forth like that. Simply because whatever happened between "day9" and "day13" is not yet took into account in "day8" scenes.

The instant you decide to goes for a free roaming mechanism, you need to have a main story, or at least a main storyline that you'll keep blank, or fully hidden, in order to pace everything. You've to think about the game as a single story, and not stories that are parallels and sometimes reunite.
It's not just "this scene can only happen after that one", nor "this scene can only happen X days after that one", but "this scene can only happen when all the story lines have reached a given step".
Players have always their preferences, they will always tend to focus on a given story. And this will always mess with the pace of the other secondary stories, and by then to the whole game... At least unless you've a central line that force them to slowdown.

 

[Winterfire]

I disagree even when it come to sandbox. In fact, I disagree even more when it come to sandbox.

I just finished to catch-up with Desert Stalker, not having had the time before to restart it after the many change they did in the game core. It's a sandbox game, and its pace is totally depending on the free roaming part, and god, what a mess it is when you play it from the starts and not updates after updates.
They have a story in mind, but the instant you don't follow its order, it's done. Some scenes make the day advance, or act as main scene for the day, preventing you to progress in other route during that day. And if you pick them before the other scenes available that day, you end out of sync. Something that slowly pill up.
You'll have scenes where the characters are oblivious about what happen in the previous scene you seen, or, more exceptional, aware of something that will happen later. You've events from a secondary path that happen way too early, or late, in regard of another secondary path, for the whole to feel consistent.
It's something that is even more obvious if you track the labels you're in. You just pass from "day9.rpy" to "day13.rpy", then return to "day8.rpy"... Even considering the obvious fact that those "days" are just indicative, they correspond to an update, and you shouldn't constantly travel back and forth like that. Simply because whatever happened between "day9" and "day13" is not yet took into account in "day8" scenes.

The instant you decide to goes for a free roaming mechanism, you need to have a main story, or at least a main storyline that you'll keep blank, or fully hidden, in order to pace everything. You've to think about the game as a single story, and not stories that are parallels and sometimes reunite.
It's not just "this scene can only happen after that one", nor "this scene can only happen X days after that one", but "this scene can only happen when all the story lines have reached a given step".
Players have always their preferences, they will always tend to focus on a given story. And this will always mess with the pace of the other secondary stories, and by then to the whole game... At least unless you've a central line that force them to slowdown.

You're talking about inconsistencies that happen because the dev has decided it's not too important to condition check for everything, which happens in games like Summertime Saga (and similar) because getting everything in a single playthrough is more important than story consistency. Even some AAA games (I believe Persona 3 or 4) did the same.
I don't like this either, but I am talking about an entirely different thing.

All games (either pure vns or not) have a break, and free roaming (where applicable) is a valid way to make such break.
If you want a good example, Being a DIK does it well. It breaks the story with its free roaming where you can do side content, before continuing, it's seamless and it feels good, without that weirdness that you described. Granted, it could be fixed or even prevented entirely, but to my understanding, majority of players prefer to be able to do everything in a single playthrough rather than having a consistent story, which is a shame imho.

-edit-
Even what I'd consider pure VNs have a similar break. Not enough to be considered a "Free roaming" but for instance in Majikoi you get to selected the heroine you want to interact with, outside of the normal choices. It breaks the main storyline, but it does so seamlessly and it feels good. They could have put a narrative break as many other similar games do, and it'd have felt just as good imho.

It works, and it has worked for countless games.

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Winterfire is stinky.

 

[DuniX]

I am a simple man, no sandbox, no play.

I cannot stomach the bad writing in a continuous line, I need a break and do something else.
Whenever you bore me I press the skip button, if the scene doesn't end I will skip till the end of the game.

 

[Jaike]

Winterfire is stinky.

Insomnimaniac is Chalksy??

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

Insomnimaniac is Chalksy??

You caught me. I am, in fact, a whodunit children's book in disguise.

 

[anne O'nymous]

You're talking about inconsistencies that happen because the dev has decided it's not too important to condition check for everything, which happens in games like Summertime Saga (and similar) because getting everything in a single playthrough is more important than story consistency.

No, I'm not talking about this.

Desert Stalker is nothing like Summertime Saga. You're not a horny guy that decide to have a lot of fun, you're a horny guy that have to deal with four factions and will shape the future of the area. The consistency of the story is even more fundamental that the game clearly draw you in one direction.
Oh, and there's also a lot of conditions, but limited to their story line, while, as I said, they should be more global. Reason why the story end being so messed.

All games (either pure vns or not) have a break, and free roaming (where applicable) is a valid way to make such break.

Sorry, but no, it still isn't.

Side content are not a break, at most a diversion that violently throw you out of the situation. To be a break, it need to free your mind from the situation, not let it pending in the back. And in the case of Being a DIK, that you used as example, it's more a stopgap than anything else.
Not that mixing story and free roaming (something that HopesGaming did way before DrPinkCake) is a bad approach, it's the opposite, but it don't serve to pace the story. Especially since you can't even be sure that the player will be interested in that side content, and therefore will not just skip it completely.