- Sep 20, 2018
- 3,429
- 14,191
Yes, probably too many to express coherently.
I think your instincts are spot on, so don't go second guessing yourself too much. But on the specific topic of how much branching is good, I've been contemplating that a lot after my less-than-enthusiastic response to Being a DIK's Crossroad. My current take away is this: choices can be a tremendously powerful tool, but only if the game is able to reflect those choices back at the player. Some choices can be hard to reflect - and bigger choices require a bigger mirror.
Basically, I think choices help keep us players immersed in the game. They allow us to tailor the experience to our own preferences and at a very basic level give us a sense of ownership that differentiates a game from a novel/movie/etc. But to really leverage that potential, the game needs to react to those choices. The old RPG trick of giving us a list of potential dialog options can be beneficial even if the NPC will give us the same response each time, but it's far, far more effective if an NPC will call back to that option in a different (but related) situation down the line. The catch is that we need to agree with the call back; if we picked an option to sound badass and the NPC reacts as though we were cowardly, then the illusion is lost.
To return to BaDIK for a minute, that game goes to great lengths to track our choices so it can call back to them. It's one of the game's great strengths. But the game also has a complicated morality system that (among other things) gauges whether our actions at certain key points are DIK-ish or CHICK-ish, then adjusts our 'Affinity' to match. On top of that, the game also throws 5 different LIs at us (and a host of sidegirls), each of which we can pursue or decline.
Now, the Affinity system was always notoriously vague, and the question of why some girls weren't LIs was much debated, but in general those options did the important job of adding replayability and helping us define what sort of person the MC was. For me the real problem began when we reached the crossroad at the end of Season 2 where the MC was forced to pick a single LI path going forward (or reject them all if you were so inclined). The MC recognized that playing the field was going to hurt someone's feelings so he had to make a choice following a big montage; the game would even make the choice automatically if the MC had only be pursuing a single option. Then come Season 3, the MC got some extra scenes with his preferred LI at the big Halloween party.
In theory, it was a great idea. The problem is that DPC didn't consider the bigger picture, namely the way the Affinity system overlapped with the choice of LIs to define the MC. After all, if the MC was a hardcore DIK, why would he stop being fuck buddies with a girl just because she *might* get hurt - especially if she had to be talked into formally dating him in the first place? Conversely, if he was a dyed in the wool CHICK who'd only pursued a single girl, why would he need to go through a crossroads in the first place? And if he did, why would he or worry more about the Halloween party than he would about helping his new girlfriend deal with an ultimatum from her control-freak father? Or even just telling her that she *was* his girlfriend now?
In short, BaDIK had spent years training us to think that crafting the MC's view of women, in both the specifics and the broad term, was a major aspect of the gameplay only to pull rank and force us into a few narrow branches to service the plot of Season 3. To me that was thoroughly unsatisfying. It really gutted my interest in replaying the game because I no longer trusted the decisions I made to reflect the reasons I made them. Previously, alternate playthroughs felt like a roleplaying experience; now they were just a completionist chore. To be clear, my view was hardly mainstream. But I stand by my critique.
Okay, tangent over. The reason for this long digression is that I think it illustrates an important aspect of choices in a game. The more the game emphasizes a choice, the more it needs to honor the implications of that choice. Ignoring or contradicting a one-off conversation option is at most irksome, but playing fast and loose with a core gameplay mechanic can be devastating. So my advice to you, TD, is to consider carefully how a given choice could tie into the core gameplay aspects of Pale Carnations (at least as you see them).
If you think a choice is tightly woven to those aspects, then you should be willing to lavish development time on as many branching options as are feasible. Those branches will not only pay dividends by keeping the player invested, they will also reinforce that the underlying subject matter is an important part of the game. On the other hand, if you think the choice is only tangentially related to the core gameplay, then you should be very cautious allowing it to branch widely; not only would excessive branching give you less bang for your buck in the here and now, but it may wind up hamstringing the game down the line when the implications of this branch feel more important thanks to all the ongoing attention they require.
To address your example more specifically, the choice of vaginal or anal with Felicia after the interview was potentially a bit indulgent, but ultimately I'd say it was fine. This choice isn't likely to demand specific follow-up later and it probably didn't take that long to add. I'd suggest, however, the option to not have sex with her at all is far more significant because it tangentially ties into what I see as a core gameplay aspect: namely, the nature of the MC and his relationship with Carnations. Now if that was deliberate, no worries; that's branching time well spent. But if that wasn't intentional, then much as it pains me to say it, that's the sort of choice you should consider very carefully in the future because it might suggest we should try to keep Edwin from fooling around on the job if we want him to be a better person when all is said and done.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that example in and of itself is a big problem. But it's the sort of option that, if it's repeated often in the early game, could cause an issue when you no longer have dev time to support at a crucial moment.
That's my best attempt at articulating my thoughts, anyway. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well, and it's hard to get specific when I'm not entirely sure where you intend to go with the game. You'll probably have to take this with a lot of salt.
