Repeated scenes or 'not main plot' related scenes with outdated dialogue

[tanstaafl]

A minor pet peeve of mine in games. Think of a game that has a primary progression, but it also has night scenes or side 'quests' that are not directly related to the primary plot. In the scenario I'm talking about a player progresses the main plot, seduces the woman or women to the point that they are fully available to the MC. If the player hasn't kept up with progressing the not directly related night scene with a specific LI you can get dialogue that just doesn't match up with where you are with that LI. It's not a big deal, but it does kind of mess with the flow of the game in many ways. Even the top tier games like Milfy City has instances of this; I.E. progressing Carolyn to the point where she is fully available to the MC, but when talking to her at night when she's on the couch you get dialogue that completely refutes that.

The worst part is that, as a developer, I can see ways to head this off if progression is tracked per character. Now, granted, I get that this might be my own OCD wreaking havoc on my enjoyment.

switch(relationship.level){
    case 10:
        return “Say this [early relationship quote]”
        break;
    case 20:
        return “Say this [mid relationship quote]”
        break;
    case 30:
        return “Say this [late relationship quote]”
        break;
    default:
        return “Say this [no relationship quote]”
        break;
}

Does anyone else even notice this when it happens?

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Yeah, you have to be meticulous and on top of your game to keep little details like that on straight. It's why ideally, I prefer a straightforward story instead of a sandbox style, because it's easier to get the details to align because you have less to deal with and each branch you make is deliberate, and not unintended because your game is so free-form.

 

[Untolddead]

Most people don't do this because it creates a huge amount of extra writing. Even triple A games reuse the same dialogue over and over for the same scene.

 

[woody554]

I've tried it in renpy, but I couldn't figure out how to renpy script it without making a gigantic convoluted mess of nested conditionals, counter variables and menus. on the first write-through you can kinda keep it in your head, but two weeks later when you fix a state variable and have changed the dialogue 10 times it's incredicly laborous to keep all the alternate stories in order.

writing the additional text was a piece of cake, you just basically adlib the same you already wrote but a slightly different tone. but the stories refuse to stay same size or depth, and you end up one having 2 lines, and another having 5 pages because the change in relationship opened a tasty chance for the girl to reveal a traumatic experience or something.

but if you're doing it in a real programming language it should be much easier. I'm definitely still going to add stuff like that in renpy, I just have to cut down the complexity a lot and probably do it afterwards when I have everything else in place already. which of course will bring its own problems, but...

 

[maybim2legit]

One game that that does this correctly is Insexual Awakening. It has repeatable scenes whose dialogue changes depending on player actions. For example, if you repeat a sex scene with a character, they will comment on this being the second time they've had sex. Also, the MC recalls his relationships and the sex he's had with other characters and comments on them in sex scenes. (ie, comparing how good one character is at sex with another, saying I've done this before with such and such character, etc.) It's not a very large or long game so maybe that's why the dev could implement that so well.

 

[tanstaafl]

I've tried it in renpy, but I couldn't figure out how to renpy script it without making a gigantic convoluted mess of nested conditionals, counter variables and menus. on the first write-through you can kinda keep it in your head, but two weeks later when you fix a state variable and have changed the dialogue 10 times it's incredicly laborous to keep all the alternate stories in order.

writing the additional text was a piece of cake, you just basically adlib the same you already wrote but a slightly different tone. but the stories refuse to stay same size or depth, and you end up one having 2 lines, and another having 5 pages because the change in relationship opened a tasty chance for the girl to reveal a traumatic experience or something.

but if you're doing it in a real programming language it should be much easier. I'm definitely still going to add stuff like that in renpy, I just have to cut down the complexity a lot and probably do it afterwards when I have everything else in place already. which of course will bring its own problems, but...

This is why I'm not a fan of renpy or any sdk that abstracts a real programming language. I've actually looked into how to do this in renpy myself and, after a bit of fiddling, the easiest way was to futz with the actual sdk and create some python methods.