Negative decision consequences

[BanksyBoyz]

Hey, all! First time poster here so I'm starting off with a bit of a big question, but I've been contemplating dipping a toe into the VN space and was curious about how you all view the concept of negative decision consequences in a visual novel (this may not be an original thought, but googling the question wasn't fruitful). I can certainly understand the desire to include "work" in the design of the narrative (we enjoy the payoff of something more when it takes us a bit of effort to reach it), but it feels like with negative decision consequences (or perhaps framed a different way, hidden conversational point systems that "unlock" content) the outcome is generally either to reload a previous save, roll back the decision (when that's an option), or simply avoid it entirely (through the use of something like a walkthrough - which I would imagine are ubiquitous for a reason). These options all feel like they break the immersion and narrative momentum of a story. Do you generally accept the negative outcome of a decision you've made, and if not do you find the act of rolling it back or reloading a save to add anything of value to the experience (maybe in a "sure, it was a negative result and I had to reload a save, but now I at least feel like my decision mattered" sort of way)? Would you find it frustrating if a game locked you out of rolling back that decision (via a single autosave system, for example, that made reloading impossible - sort of like an ironman mode in a survival game), if the consequences of it were interesting in their own way rather than simply a dead end?

I'm personally of two minds about it: being locked into "bad" consequences (or perhaps just unintended ones ) from a decision you've invested hours to reach could cause a serious strain on the player's desire to continue (though it seems to me that a good writer should be able to make that decision interesting in its own way rather than simply blocking off other content - and could incentivize replayability in a narrative with multiple branching outcomes), while, on the other hand, when your entire purpose is to tell a compelling story, giving the player power to undo or min/max their decisions impedes your ability to have a proper narrative impact and potentially feels like the old adage about gamers needing to be protected from their own tendency to optimize the fun out of an experience. If you knew a game was designed this way (with decisions being final), would you be even more inclined to consult a walkthrough straight away, or do you think (if written well) that this would add something substantive to the experience? I suppose fundamentally the question is about why people play VNs, is it to have an emotional experience (like reading a novel), or simply to see as much sex as possible as quickly as possible? I have a desire to do something a little different than what I normally see, a VN that's much heavier on narrative than sex (which I would hope would make the sex that is present much more impactful), but I'm not sure if that is a waste of time and don't feel like I know enough yet about why people play these games to get a good feel for the answer. Maybe there's a middle ground that has branching decisions but that "snap back" to a single narrative point via alternate paths - ensuring no decision ever truly impacts the overall narrative (giving players some comfort in knowing they aren't missing anything critical) but allows multiple ways to arrive at the same point, perhaps with some subtle differences in how those larger moments play out.

Sorry, that was a lot of words and I could continue on, but I'll leave it there. Any feedback is definitely appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Choices should matter imo. That's the very gist of any VN. And it's rather bland without it. Now you do you. If you think it's not needed then ditch it.

(yeah I did not read the big wall of english text)

 

[BanksyBoyz]

Choices should matter imo. That's the very gist of any VN. And it's rather bland without it. Now you do you. If you think it's not needed then ditch it.

(yeah I did not read the big wall of english text)

Yes, consequences should certainly matter, my question is more about whether specifically "gated" content mechanics (like hidden point systems in a conversation that lead to a "yes/no" outcome) are valuable to people, or if they generally just trial/error their way through them (or use walkthroughs).

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Yes, consequences should certainly matter, my question is more about whether specifically "gated" content mechanics (like hidden point systems in a conversation that lead to a "yes/no" outcome) are valuable to people, or if they generally just trial/error their way through them (or use walkthroughs).

Then yes gate 'content', as long it didn't destroy your scope and render flow. Which is a tedious balance to work with.
But again you do you, what you want to show>any options. My 2€ tho.

 

[desmosome]

Everything has a cost.

Single variable systems are super boring mechanically. It's essentially not even a real choice if you want to get all the scenes, and why wouldn't you? We are "forced" to pick the correct choice which is pretty much always the nice guy doormat responses. Now the advantages of using this approach is that it will cut down on developmental headaches like massive branching and variations to scenes.

Dual variable systems are more interesting and impactful. The classic love vs lust/corruption gives us a bigger sense of control on how we shape the relationships. Naturally, this means you "doubled" your workload.

It's a very simplistic view of things, but that's the gist of it. If you want to tell a specific story with preset characters and relationship dynamics, single variables can work. There are certainly amazing games with single variables that gets carried by the brilliant writing and plot developments.

 

[BanksyBoyz]

Everything has a cost.

Single variable systems are super boring mechanically. It's essentially not even a real choice if you want to get all the scenes, and why wouldn't you? We are "forced" to pick the correct choice which is pretty much always the nice guy doormat responses. Now the advantages of using this approach is that it will cut down on developmental headaches like massive branching and variations to scenes.

Dual variable systems are more interesting and impactful. The classic love vs lust/corruption gives us a bigger sense of control on how we shape the relationships. Naturally, this means you "doubled" your workload.

It's a very simplistic view of things, but that's the gist of it. If you want to tell a specific story with preset characters and relationship dynamics, single variables can work. There are certainly amazing games with single variables that gets carried by the brilliant writing and plot developments.

Appreciate the thoughtful feedback. I think my ultimate goal is to maximize narrative investment, but I don't want to ignore the possibility that these sorts of gating mechanics are something people value for reasons I don't completely understand (either as a sort of artificial difficulty increase, or maybe adding stakes to a decision - even if those stakes are simply the annoyance of needing to roll back the decision you've made to get the "correct" answer, or perhaps feeling good about getting the right sequence on your first try). To your point, I think a good story can be told either way, certainly.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

these sorts of gating mechanics are something people value for reasons I don't completely understand

lol wat

 

[Avaron1974]

Point systems are good if you are making a date sim with multiple girls say like Where the Heart is or have a multi path story.

Points let you know where you stand with the girls and as there is no harem it gives people a visual reminder of what is going on.

Point systems in harem games are meaningless. While Sisterly Lust is still the best example of a harem done well, the system used by WVM and My New Family kept it simple. Rather than points you just decide whether or not the new girl you met is added to the harem.

Quite a few people here want to see everything in one playthrough and while many games won't allow that they still need a walkthrough.

Shit i've seen people ask for walkthroughs for games launched on day 1 with 2 choices total.

If you plan to make a game with meaningful choices with multiple girls and paths then gated content and points will probably be the way to go.

While you will find a player base and many of us are gamers you will also find the ... "insert polite word idiots here" ... that want everything, demand everything and struggle copy and pasting 1 file into a different folder.

That being said.....

Would you find it frustrating if a game locked you out of rolling back that decision (via a single autosave system, for example, that made reloading impossible - sort of like an ironman mode in a survival game), if the consequences of it were interesting in their own way rather than simply a dead end?

The writing would have to be something special and the outcomes incredibly interesting or damn near everyone would find that frustrating.

That's the kind of situation that leads to even the most resilient players using a walkthrough.

It also depends on content. If people get locked into routes with kinks they don't like they will either quit playing straight off or take a shit on your work on the forums.

tl;dr you'll find people will enjoy whatever system you choose to use as long as it isn't too grindy but you'll also find people that complain about everything and need their hand held even through the most basic of games.

At the end of the day everything that goes into your game is coming from you, if you think you have an idea that would be interesting, try it. Worst case scenario is you have to redo some parts. Less of a problem if you make multiple copies trying different things. It's a lot of work but will give you an idea what people will or won't play.

Your 0.1 is your time to experiment and hook people. As long as it's interesting and not too grindy then you will find people will play. The only important part is you enjoy what you are doing.

 

[BanksyBoyz]

lol wat

You said didn't read my post, so I'm not sure why you'd expect to understand what I'm referring to.

 

[BanksyBoyz]

The writing would have to be something special and the outcomes incredibly interesting or damn near everyone would find that frustrating.

That's the kind of situation that leads to even the most resilient players using a walkthrough.

Very helpful, thank you. I can certainly see this angle, and yes I agree that the quality of the writing would have to justify it. To your point, I suppose there's no huge harm in trying something and finding out it doesn't work. Pleasing everyone is of course impossible, as you say, so I'll just construct a narrative in a way I'm happy with and see what happens.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

You said didn't read my post, so I'm not sure why you'd expect to understand what I'm referring to.

Fair point.
But let's reinvent the wheel before that.

 

[BanksyBoyz]

Fair point.
But let's reinvent the wheel before that.

This is all in the specific context of conversational gates that require you to answer questions in a specific sequence for a "yes/no" scene outcome that, it seems to me, people simply treat as trial and error or walkthrough fodder. These mechanics, to me, seem designed to give the illusion of choice and character personality ("oh, she didn't like when I said X because her personality is Y") but in actual practice become simply hoops to jump through. In the context of a dating sim or a harem scenario, I could see needing some way of "tracking" the state of a relationship with any given character, but I'm looking at it more from the angle of visual novels specifically, where the emphasis is more on the investment in the narrative. Anyway, it's all good, everyone sees things differently.

 

[79flavors]

Firstly...

Want the community wants...

Personally, I dislike point systems in a VN on the whole - because they are rarely done well. Those negative choices you are interested in always feel like pale imitations of the story the dev "really" wanted to tell, added as an afterthought rather than a deliberate design choice. It could be done well, but only if given a lot of thought beforehand. The flaw is with the numeric nature, or more realistically with the mindset of most inexperienced devs...

Most devs accumulate points in a way that pretty much guarantees that players must maximize points to see the story told as the dev intended. The number of times I've seen code like if deb_lust >= 12: at a point where the 12 is the absolute maximum makes all those other choices meaningless. All that other dialogue might as well not be there, if the player can never pick a "wrong" choice. The only worse mechanic is "you failed" or "you died" -> "The End".

Which also highlights the other flaw... which is that devs usually have a single story to tell, but add other choices out of some sense of necessity. All those "other" choices are an afterthought and therefore somewhat ill conceived or inane. Those sort of devs would do much better to just write a kinetic novel or near kinetic novel, in my opinion. Some games do flesh out the "other" paths, but they are rare and it's rarer still to see a game actually reward a player for making a poor choice, either in terms of sex content/animation or just simply a good laugh.

One system I think works well is for choices to lead to simple acknowledgements of those choices later on. A single extra line of dialogue based on previous choices. Or maybe a couple of sentences - but then return to the main story. Effectively... tell a singular story, but use choices as flavor text. It's strength is it's simplicity.

If you really feel branches are necessary for your game... just look to the really "big" games. They tend to give the illusion of choice. Whilst choices can lead to alternative branches, those branches are short lived. A decision in chapter 1 tends to only impact chapter 1. The overall arc is what matters and none of the player's choices actually impact it. At best, there might be the simple acknowledgement / flavor text I already mentioned in a later chapter. Also, as a general "keep me sane" option... start introducing branches in chapter 6 or 7, rather than chapter 1. The later in the game you start using them, the less you'll tear your hair out. Oh... and never offer the option of "Should I buy the red dress or the white one?" - you're just doubling the time spent rendering with practically zero benefit to the player.

Finally, consider an option I rarely see used... Use choices to gauge the player's interest in a specific topic/trope/fetish/character. Slowly introduce 3 questions into the early content of the game, then if the player scores 2+, use that as your content gate. No big branches. No hard decisions. If a player says "no" to a foot fetish once - it could be because they just weren't feeling it in that scene - but 2 or 3 no's out of 3 is a trend and one that the game should perhaps respect. Some (tamer) content could still be gated by a score of 1 to at least let the player see what they were missing. (A bit) Later in the game, if the player didn't score 3 out of 3 - perhaps add 2 more related (less subtle) choices to make it "best out of 5", to give an indecisive player the option to opt in or out of content they were unsure about earlier. This style of coding could work well in a harem game, where the player perhaps wants to bed everyone except the mom or the aunt or the girl from the coffee shop. Yes, the player will miss content - but clearly content the weren't interested in anyway.

That said, if your game is about foot fetish... fuck 'em - if they don't like your game, just let them go play another game rather than catering to an audience who will just suck the joy of writing your game out of you. Too many devs add choices because they feel they need to. Don't be one of those. Add choices if your story requires it and ONLY if your story requires it.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

This is all in the specific context of conversational gates that require you to answer questions in a specific sequence for a "yes/no" scene outcome that, it seems to me, people simply treat as trial and error or walkthrough fodder. These mechanics, to me, seem designed to give the illusion of choice and character personality ("oh, she didn't like when I said X because her personality is Y") but in actual practice become simply hoops to jump through. In the context of a dating sim or a harem scenario, I could see needing some way of "tracking" the state of a relationship with any given character, but I'm looking at it more from the angle of visual novels specifically, where the emphasis is more on the investment in the narrative. Anyway, it's all good, everyone sees things differently.

Much complexity. Asked around 2503 devs, got that chart instead, pls answer :

 

[BanksyBoyz]

I think you've nailed my own thoughts on this as well. Adding the illusion of complexity can have benefits, certainly, but only if that illusion is convincing (like a Mass Effect quest that temporarily deviates to a slightly different version of the same mission with a set outcome before snapping back to the original throughline with some added bits of dialogue based on your earlier choice - which I agree is a great idea). I think I have a pretty linear construction in mind, with relatively few "scenes" but done to an unusually high standard (I hope), and with considerably more narrative exposition (closer to an actual novel) than a "click through to the sex" experience; that may limit my appeal, but it's the story I'd want to read so I figure it should be the one I write.

Firstly...

Want the community wants...

Which also highlights the other flaw... which is that devs usually have a single story to tell, but add other choices out of some sense of necessity. All those "other" choices are an afterthought and therefore somewhat ill conceived or inane. Those sort of devs would do much better to just write a kinetic novel or near kinetic novel, in my opinion. Some games do flesh out the "other" paths, but they are rare and it's rarer still to see a game actually reward a player for making a poor choice, either in terms of sex content/animation or just simply a good laugh.

Absolutely.

Finally, consider an option I rarely see used... Use choices to gauge the player's interest in a specific topic/trope/fetish/character. Slowly introduce 3 questions into the early content of the game, then if the player scores 2+, use that as your content gate. No big branches. No hard decisions. If a player says "no" to a foot fetish once - it could be because they just weren't feeling it in that scene - but 2 or 3 no's out of 3 is a trend and one that the game should perhaps respect. Some (tamer) content could still be gated by a score of 1 to at least let the player see what they were missing. (A bit) Later in the game, if the player didn't score 3 out of 3 - perhaps add 2 more related (less subtle) choices to make it "best out of 5", to give an indecisive player the option to opt in or out of content they were unsure about earlier. This style of coding could work well in a harem game, where the player perhaps wants to bed everyone except the mom or the aunt or the girl from the coffee shop. Yes, the player will miss content - but clearly content the weren't interested in anyway.

This is interesting. Since my game will probably be quite tame compared to what is generally made (emphasis on realism and grounded relationships), this may not play as much of a role for me, but I think it's a good idea conceptually that I will have to think more about (maybe not in the context of specific kinks, but as a way of shaping the narrative in other ways).

Your post about "what the community wants" is also well-taken, I am under no illusion that I can write something everyone will be satisfied with (though I hope perhaps I can achieve a quality of writing that they can at least enjoy, even if it's not to their personal taste).

 

[anne O'nymous]

These options all feel like they break the immersion and narrative momentum of a story.

Let's see it with this hypothetical example : You're flirting with a girl, then you see to guy kissing and whisper an, "I hate fags !" that she hears. She now know that you are an idiot, and never ever want to talk to you again.
It's how it works in real life, why should it be different just because it's a game ?

Obviously, there's "bad decisions" and "bad decisions". ; having to cancel your date, and being homophobic shouldn't trigger the same level of consequences. But I don't see why there should have bad choice and ending choice in an adult game.
It's even the opposite, I think that there isn't enough. Ideally they should be small consequences, and cumulative. If you made too much bad choices, it's game over for you, you'll never get the girl. This being potentially weighted in a way or another, to include a right for forgiveness. Whatever by lowering the number of errors every now and then, or by offering a way to make it up for it ; by example being more gentle than usual can compensate the fact that you had to cancel the previous date.

Do you generally accept the negative outcome of a decision you've made, and if not do you find the act of rolling it back or reloading a save to add anything of value to the experience (maybe in a "sure, it was a negative result and I had to reload a save, but now I at least feel like my decision mattered" sort of way)?

I don't accept it if it come out of nowhere. There's (by chance few) games like that, where every choice is either "continue the game" or "game over", and they rarely goes over few updates because they are pure trials and errors. There's one by example where you loose the game because you didn't ordered the right meat during your first date with a girl you almost never talked to before ; and there's nothing in all the dialogs with this girl, that came make you guess what is the right meat. Therefore, the game is to guess what's in the author mind, and it's totally not an interesting game.

But if we have been gave the information to make the right choice, why shouldn't I accept them ? I've chosen this choice because I expected it to end this way.

Would you find it frustrating if a game locked you out of rolling back that decision (via a single autosave system, for example, that made reloading impossible - sort of like an ironman mode in a survival game), if the consequences of it were interesting in their own way rather than simply a dead end?

I would dislike it. Not because I'm forced to assume my choice, but because of the over complicated mechanism to achieve this and the lack of trust coming from the author.
Things like that should be implemented only when there's risk to break the game, and not to force the player in a certain way. And if some people want to cheat, it should be their right. They'll not really enjoy the story, but would they do it anyway since they don't understood that, by example, a girl always wearing black have "black" as favorite color ?

 

[InCompleteController]

79flavors explained everything perfectly.

I think Snow Daze is my best example of a beutiful VN where the "choices" take away from the experience. It's the standard affair, you have a mom, 3 sisters and try to make a harem out of them.
The only difference between maxing out the points with all of them is that you get to chose the harem option instead of just which of the girls you prefer. So there's no point in NOT getting the maximum score for all of the girls.

To put it simply, all the choices made throughout the game are really just asking: "Do you want the harem option? (y/n)"

The game also has some alternate endings for when you make some obviously bad choices. Whilst these give some fun scenes, the problem is that they kick you back to the main menu once they are over. It's obvious that the game didn't go the way the author intended, so why not just bring me back to before I made the choice? That way it could have been a fun diversion, but instead I now have to redo everything from my last save.

Whilst choices should have meaning, they don't have to last very long. If you go on a date, a choice could be as simple as picking between a walk through the park of down the harbor, the only change being which background gets shown during the date.

That said, VN's don't always need choices. Books have done very well for themselves, despite the reader never being given a choice, so why complicate things if you just want to tell a good story?

 

[BanksyBoyz]

It's how it works in real life, why should it be different just because it's a game ?

But this isn't real life, right? If you had full control over what your character says and the other characters around you reacted in an emotionally satisfying/realistic way I could understand, but what you generally get is a series of "square/circle" answers that either fit the shape the dev intended or they don't. Saying, "I hate fags" I feel like is kind of a good example, the player basically know this answer will have negative consequences because it's a telegraphed choice (which makes it sort of pointless to include it, imo).

But if we have been gave the information to make the right choice, why shouldn't I accept them ? I've chosen this choice because I expected it to end this way.

Yeah, that's fair. I think choices that make sense contextually and within the flow of the story are good, but if the only outcome from making them is "sex/no sex" then of course people will just rewind and do it again until they get the right answer (or use a walkthrough), which to me has the unfortunate effect of making the "story" part of the game more or less linear with filler added to give the illusion of consequences and the impression that this avatar you're conversing with has a personality rather than a script - but maybe that's not entirely a bad thing (anyone who plays a certain genre enough will of course begin to identify "gamification" patterns that can be all but impossible to remove). Not every story needs to be emotionally affecting, and maybe that's not why most people play these games.

I would dislike it. Not because I'm forced to assume my choice, but because of the over complicated mechanism to achieve this and the lack of trust coming from the author.
Things like that should be implemented only when there's risk to break the game, and not to force the player in a certain way. And if some people want to cheat, it should be their right. They'll not really enjoy the story, but would they do it anyway since they don't understood that, by example, a girl always wearing black have "black" as favorite color ?

Fair enough. Certainly if the choices are arbitrary (like needing to know a black dress means you must choose her favorite color correctly), then yeah, that's definitely silly and would not be a good experience. I suppose if I were to write both branches well enough to make them more or less of equal quality, that would be its own sort of stakes for the player of which path to take even if they can make the choice multiple times. Could always split the baby and just include both ways to play.

 

[BanksyBoyz]

79flavors explained everything perfectly.

I think Snow Daze is my best example of a beutiful VN where the "choices" take away from the experience. It's the standard affair, you have a mom, 3 sisters and try to make a harem out of them.
The only difference between maxing out the points with all of them is that you get to chose the harem option instead of just which of the girls you prefer. So there's no point in NOT getting the maximum score for all of the girls.

To put it simply, all the choices made throughout the game are really just asking: "Do you want the harem option? (y/n)"

The game also has some alternate endings for when you make some obviously bad choices. Whilst these give some fun scenes, the problem is that they kick you back to the main menu once they are over. It's obvious that the game didn't go the way the author intended, so why not just bring me back to before I made the choice? That way it could have been a fun diversion, but instead I now have to redo everything from my last save.

Whilst choices should have meaning, they don't have to last very long. If you go on a date, a choice could be as simple as picking between a walk through the park of down the harbor, the only change being which background gets shown during the date.

That said, VN's don't always need choices. Books have done very well for themselves, despite the reader never being given a choice, so why complicate things if you just want to tell a good story?

I think you're right about that. It's actually interesting that this "branching narration" seems to be quite standard in the VN space (I won't pretend to be an expert by any means, but what I've been exposed to anyway), while very linear experiences dominate AAA video games for the most part (even the "choice-based" RPG space is relatively linear in actual fact - it just includes optional side quests and sometimes companion choices or alternate endings, but there's still a 90% core experience everyone will have; unavoidable of course given the cost of making such games). I suppose it stems from the desire to give the player the feeling that it's them making these decisions (like an RPG), but they must know intuitively that they really aren't in control, that there's only one "real" path to their desired outcome (slight narrative variations and alternate endings not withstanding).

 

[InCompleteController]

Branching choices always means a bigger workload for the writer, so it's obvious why they want branches to never stray too far from each other or even merge back together.

Why write interesting personalities for two different girls if the players themselves feel just as satisfied if the game only has one girl, but it allows them to customize her outfit.

At the end of the day acknowledging that the player made a choice is really the big takeaway when it comes to games. The path may be linear, but they got to fill in the details.
That said, if you want replayability, the choices in your game should absolutely have some lasting impact on the experience. Unfortunately this takes more creative effort in VN's than any other genre due to how constrained the players are.