In line with what I have said previously, I do think wide-and-shallow makes for a more fun VN gameplay experience, I think it is possible for a very good narrow-and-deep story to beat that but, and this is a personal preference, to me it needs to be an epic story. While I think the characterization in ORS is very good, the fact that the plot is centered around the conflict of individuals and measured ambitions limits my enjoyment of it to mostly just amusement, and if the main goal is fun then wide-and-shallow does it better for me.
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GGGB vs ORS: Structure
GGGB and ORS follow a very similar structure, but have a couple key differences.
One that’s plain to see is the fact that having only one playable character in GGGB forced me to make Ashley one of the participants in almost every sex scene. I also noticed having a female MC caused the majority of the NPCs to be guys, even though Ash could have a few lesbian relationships with her friends. Having Ian and Lena as playable characters doesn’t only mean I can have way more variety when combining characters for hot and original sex scenes, but also allowed me to introduce more female NPCs in the cast, and I really love those new characters! (Holly, Alison, Cindy, Cherry, Emma...) But the major structural key element for both games lies in their status quo (yeah, I’m gonna use that word a lot from now on).
As I said before, with GGGB I wanted to push choice mechanics and branching possibilities to the extreme, to the point where it’s almost ridiculous (the thug route, for example). The fun was the exploration of how widely paths could vary, and you could end up with a very different status quo depending on your choices, affecting not only Ash but the surrounding characters. The downside to this kind of structure, other than the previously mentioned lack of profundity on its themes, was the lack of said status quo. Things could vary so much that the overall structure lost consistency and became an amalgam of “what if” scenarios, without a defined or conducting plotline.
This problem is intrinsic to all choice-based and open-ended games and stories, I think, and ORS faces the same conundrum. After all, if the story is set in stone, there’s no room for the player to make meaningful choices, and that’s what this is all about! But I wanted ORS to have a more solid structure and a better defined status quo that could serve as a frame for me as a writer and the player. That meant narrowing the possible outcomes, meaning, Ian and Lena’s possible permutations are more focused. Don’t get this wrong, this doesn’t mean there are less permutations than in GGGB: the difference lies in how the choices affect that status quo. While in GGGB your choices created different, varied and somewhat unconnected status quo, with ORS my goal is making your choices affect a single, deeply interconnected status quo. This is what I refer to when I talk about making a more focused and nuanced gaming experience. Hopefully this way your choices as both Ian and Lena will be even more meaningful, having a deeper impact on their environment and personal relationships, where connexions are more clear and explicit and well structured.
What do you think, you prefer the more wide-and-shallowstructure of GGGB or is ORS’s narrow-and-deepstructure gripping you more into the story?
None of that stops me from really enjoying ORS, of course. The only concern I have with regards of the status quo being fixed that could actually reduce my enjoyment would be if it led to too much drama in the story. The existence of a solid status quo (and so, of a canon), implies an inherent resistance from the narrative elements to decisions that would deviate from it, not saying the game would block you from deviating from the canon, but the impact from doing so would be felt more, with the player being teased for undoing what was "meant to be". GGGB not having a "meant to be" meant that it could very cleanly break away from the original status quo without being nagged by the story for doing so, which I appreciated because it meant I could enjoy the alternate stories without constantly being dragged back to "think of what could have been if you stayed true to the canon, you monster".
Alternatively, even if someone actively wants to stick to the canon, there can always be the issue of 11th hour drama, where, despite having taken a lot of the correct decisions, the player missed something, or went too far in one of the side-stories, and that negatively impacts the canon ending, that's some real VN frustration right there. My point here is that I appreciated just how drama-free some of the GGGB routes ended up being, staying true to Eric or lezzing up with Eva, for instance. Maybe it was a side-effects of those status quo being more shallow, but I appreciated that in those routes you could just enjoy the last half of the game with little drama or chance of fucking it up. My concern is that if in ORS the canon route ends up being centered around "good" Ian and "good" Lena, that it may lead to the inclusion of way too many "last second disasters" just for the sake of drama, even if otherwise it would make sense for such a route to be safe and wholesome at that point.
