Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

I thought it was a crying shame Emma didn't get a proper ending in Become a Rock Star, but is it fair to ask the rest of the fans to wait yet another month (or more!) just to give her some closure?

You may be in luck, because if I understand correctly, there is an addon with Emma's ending in the works. Personally I was more disappointed in the ending of the no main LI run I did. It became the same (I think) as the "cheat on Lisa" ending. I had hoped it would be a case of where MC would live a true hedonistic rock star life.

 

[EndlessNights]

What about Acting Lessons? With a smaller cast, I think it was done pretty well? It's been way too long to remember anything concrete, but I thought there was some genuine stuff there, and I still do hold it in high regard. BaDIK, I kinda lost interest quite a while ago and stopped playing it.

Well, I thought Rena's route was quite interesting. I think she does come to understand the MC pretty well by the end (better than any of the other characters do on their love routes IMO). She takes a hard, unflinching look at him, clearly recognizes his flaws, and still comes away from that examination loving him. Their relationship certainly could and should have been developed more, but I thought her route was pretty well done all in all.

I feel Megan and Melissa's routes rely too heavily on the idea that love that endures through tragedy must be real. We think they must be in love just because they stayed together despite everything, but I didn't feel like I actually saw the relationship become more mature or their personal connection deepen in either case. The overly wordy and probably completely unfair question I ask myself is, "Would Acting Lessons stand out as a great love story if no one died and Leah was replaced by an extremely professional and mentally well-adjusted nurse named Hector?" My personal answer is definitely no, but most of the romantic moments with Megan and Melissa in the game occur before the major dramatic earthquakes.

Disclaimer: it has been years since I've played AL and my memory isn't necessarily any better than desmosome's. BaDIK is definitely much fresher in my mind.

 

[Raife]

I agree. This type of interaction creates a more immersive experience, partly because in real life I don't always know the right thing to say to a woman.

I'm trying to pull this off to some extent with my main LI's. For example, with one LI there have been a handful of choices that (to some players) may look they wouldn't have any impact on the relationship with the LI. But if someone is considering what they know about that LI they could make a strong educated guess which choice the LI would find more attractive.

One of the (many) reasons why I enjoy your game, Impious, is that you've created LIs with very distinctive personalities AND histories with the MC. Thus, you can't just feed standard 'kindness coins' to a LI in order to get closer to them. The player needs to understand what an LI wants the MC to be, given their histories. We might call this a 'tailored' kindness coins approach. I think it works well... certainly relative to standard kindness coins.

What I like best, though, is something more unusual, along these lines:

1. A dev creates a NPC with a major role -- even a central role -- in the plot.
2. In most paths, she serves as a friend/confidant or an ally (or antagonist/rival!) of the MC... but...
3. under certain narrow conditions that are _very_ difficult to anticipate or 'game' she can evolve into a LI.

Point 3 should not require that much additional work for the dev -- just a few more romance scenes and small but meaningful changes in dialogue if the NPC has become an LI. After all, the NPC will have many scenes as a friend/ally of the MC, anyway... and the shift to a LI (if it happens) might also come relatively late in the plot.

Shifting from 2-3 should be _hard_ -- not easter-egg level, but genuinely difficult. The player might need to make logical guesses about what qualities in the MC might appeal to the NPC AND get lucky AND navigate very hard to anticipate contingencies.

There aren't a lot of examples of this scheme in games, although the Viconia romance in _BG2_ mostly qualifies (for a good- or neutral-aligned character). Elsa in _Corporate Culture_ might become another example, if sqwl takes it that way.

Why isn't this approach more common? Is it just because it tends to frustrate players, since achieving the LI switch is so difficult? I think the upsides, in story terms, are meaningful enough to justify the effort.

 

[moskyx]

What about Acting Lessons? With a smaller cast, I think it was done pretty well? It's been way too long to remember anything concrete, but I thought there was some genuine stuff there, and I still do hold it in high regard. BaDIK, I kinda lost interest quite a while ago and stopped playing it.

The problem with AL is that is designed to be played in a certain way, and only in that way. The moment the player rejects Melissa's advances early on (she was drunk, ffs), or tries to get away from Megan and finds that the MC still falls for her despite every single player input saying otherwise, everything else falls apart. And what if you were actually interested in that wild nurse who seemed so eager to be with you? Nope, you can't pursue her despite having several choices pointing toward starting a relationship with her: at some point, the player's agency is suddenly overruled just because you weren't supposed to act like that, even though the dev himself gave you the option to do so in the first place. Immersion is broken because my MC is alienated from my inputs, and, at least in my case, I just can't keep taking the game events seriously.

 

[Raife]

The problem with AL is that is designed to be played in a certain way, and only in that way.

Exactly. I enjoyed AL (and I enjoy BAD, despite the fact that it triggers poor jufot) but it features quite a lot of pseudo choices and clumsy narrative kludges.

BAD is considerably better, in this respect, despite the fact that it's much larger. Yes, the dev still faceplants their narrative if the player makes certain choice combinations (e.g. the two LIs that are in a relationship with each other -- which we have discussed at length in this thread) but the player feels less grossly manipulated than they do, under certain conditions, in AL.

 

[noping123]

The problem with AL is that is designed to be played in a certain way, and only in that way. The moment the player rejects Melissa's advances early on (she was drunk, ffs), or tries to get away from Megan and finds that the MC still falls for her despite every single player input saying otherwise, everything else falls apart. And what if you were actually interested in that wild nurse who seemed so eager to be with you? Nope, you can't pursue her despite having several choices pointing toward starting a relationship with her: at some point, the player's agency is suddenly overruled just because you weren't supposed to act like that, even though the dev himself gave you the option to do so in the first place. Immersion is broken because my MC is alienated from my inputs, and, at least in my case, I just can't keep taking the game events seriously.

It's because the *ENTIRE* premise of the game surrounds the idea that deciding between megan/melissa is a hard choice. If it's an easy choice, the entire thing sort of falls apart, so regardless of your choices the game still puts the MC (if not the player) in the position where it's a difficult choice to make.

I'm a lot more forgiving on the "don't let you pursue leah" thing, because as the game shows, that would be a TERRIBLE choice, so I'm ok with the game not letting you make it - but you certainly have a point with the rest.

I'm ok with "fluff" choices - choices that exist solely not to be a real choice, but more as "flavor", but anything that isn't a fluff choice should, IMO, have a narrative effect in some way or another. If at some point you're going to completely override a players choices for narrative purposes, then it probably shouldn't exist to begin with.

 

[ename144]

Perhaps this is a more subjective perception than I think it is, but I usually don't get the feeling there is any deep emotional connection between DPC's characters. It's not there in the falling in love stage or once the relationship has begun. There are moments when characters in BaDIK confide in the MC, showing that they trust him even with their deepest secrets, and he generally reacts appropriately enough on those occasions...but I don't get the sense even then that the relationship has reached a new level and that they truly understand each other and feel each other's emotions. Part of the problem as you said is undoubtedly the malleability of the relationships -- the story has to be able to accommodate both the MC being passionately devoted to his one true love (or two true loves) and the scenario where he is cheating left and right at every opportunity. Also, in DPC's world I think drama often tends to overwhelm love...hopefully that won't be the case at the end of BaDIK, but I'm not entirely confident.

In DPC's defense, I should say that emotional intimacy is one of the toughest things for a writer to depict even though Tlaero makes it look effortless a lot of the time.

I think the romances in BaDIK have a lot of potential, the game is just very hard pressed to cash in on it because DPC needs to keep fueling the (short-term) DRAMA. All of 5 of the LIs have at least a few moments where you can see the makings of a genuine connection with the MC (or with all three characters for the Maya/Josy throuple), as do several of the side girls. But rather than build on those moments DPC tries to string them out, or winds up undercutting them because the game doesn't have room to fully explore the implications of said moments.

So we go from Maya explaining why she's drawn to the MC to her insisting the throuple be no strings attached in the course of about 12 hours, or Sage doing a complete personality swap from 'horny party girl' and 'lonely sensitive student' and back from one episode to the next, or the MC refusing to ask Isabella about her husband despite it being a red flag large enough to stomp Tokyo into the ground. DPC doesn't want to sort out those problems yet, so we studiously avoid them. Even after we've supposedly passed the 'crossroads' where the MC has committed himself to a relationship, the game is entirely focused on that blasted frat party rather than how said relationship has changed; he couldn't even be bothered to tell Maya and Josy he's committed to the throuple FFS.

If DPC wanted to focus on the romances I think all the necessary material is there. But the romances are an afterthought to him, and unfortunately it shows.

These are all excellent points and I totally agree. I do really like a lot of DPC's characters; they tend to be very easy to root for and fun to spend time with. I still want to see them overcome their problems and find their happy endings even if the romance feels a little lackluster.

Right there with you.

I think the problem stems from that the vast majority of the choices we get aren't about the MC at all, they are only about what the LIs want and what the player wants. Any roleplaying you get are incidental. If a choice boils down to "LP+1, yes or no?" or "follow this LI's path, yes or no?" or similar, the choice isn't about the MC. What you shape as a player isn't about the MC's personality, it is about what LIs they persue. If we want roleplaying, the choices you make must affect the MC as well.

For example, if you have the classic scenario with two LIs and they ask which of them is prettiest you get the choices "choose LI A", "choose LI B", "can't choose / choose both". In order to affect the MC you can add an indecisive trait to them if you choose the "both" option. And this will affect interactions later on. And may even cause you to lose LIs in extreme case as they both leave if you are unable to choose between them.

Another key is to have the player choose the preferences of the MC before they actually matter. For example, scenario where you and LI are choosing where to go on a date, LI expresses their opinion, then you get to choose between LIs option or one of your own. Instead of that you can have the MC daydream about his ideal date when he is at work and the player gets to choose some scenario. If MC's choice matches the one of the LI, the date becomes perfect. If it doesn't MC have a choice to accomodate the LI or assert his own opinion (which may add those traits to MC as well). And regardless of choice it becomes harder to have a successful date.

I very much agree that choices should be about the MC, but it's a delicate balancing act. To use the dinner date location in your example, it's very easy for that to devolve into another LP+1 choice if the MC's preferred venue doesn't inform his character going forward. At the same time, you don't want to force people into simplistic boxes, either. Just because your ideal date might be be a jazz lounge one day doesn't mean you'd never want to see a movie with a girl later.

Even the notion of lining up the MC's interests with the LI can be tricky because experiencing new things is (IMHO) part and parcel of dating someone. Enthusiasm can be infectious so you'd expect to enjoy an activity more on a date with a passionate devotee of that activity than you would on your own. Sometimes that can let you see the activity in whole new light. Or sometimes it doesn't and it helps you realize the relationship isn't going anywhere. You need to see how things go in a variety of situations before you can tell how the potential LI matches up.

That's why I'm in favor of building the relationship up from lots of little interactions rather than one or two key moments. Obviously the MC will eventually need to pull the trigger on a potential romance, but I think it works best if you have a lot of opportunities to interact with all the LIs before you need to make the more consequential choices. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work because you not only need to track and evaluate a big heap of variables, you also need the game to be long enough you can spend a lot of time getting to know the various LIs and still have things to do once you make your choice. (This, incidentally, is why I've come to favor simple, high-concept morality systems over more ambitious and intricate ones.)

So I try to be understanding when devs need to cut a few corners, but it's *really* frustrating when they get the balance wrong.

 

[jufot]

experiencing new things is (IMHO) part and parcel of dating someone. Enthusiasm can be infectious so you'd expect to enjoy an activity more on a date with a passionate devotee of that activity than you would on your own. Sometimes that can let you see the activity in whole new light. Or sometimes it doesn't and it helps you realize the relationship isn't going anywhere. You need to see how things go in a variety of situations before you can tell how the potential LI matches up.

See, these are all great points on how dating actually works and it sounds like you prefer this kind of realism, but then you say:

I think it works best if you have a lot of opportunities to interact with all the LIs before you need to make the more consequential choices.

Which isn't realistic at all. Dating is not like a car brochure where you take your time and carefully read the marketing blurb on each page and then, at your leisure, commit to a 5 year finance plan for your favourite. Sometimes you meet an interesting person after you've committed to someone else. Or perhaps you just couldn't find enough time to spend together before someone else you were casually seeing asked for commitment.

If realism is a goal, I'd like to see those dilemmas. Because they are a lot more interesting to me than the brochure approach

 

[kotte]

Sometimes you meet an interesting person after you've committed to someone else. Or perhaps you just couldn't find enough time to spend together before someone else you were casually seeing asked for commitment.

If realism is a goal, I'd like to see those dilemmas. Because they are a lot more interesting to me

Some of us play these games to fulfil a fantasy. For them it will always be important to be able to at least tailor the experience towards something you would have wanted to see.

But some of us play to feel something. It can be good or bad feelings, but in order to feel anything at all, it is important that we accept the illusion. And anyone who has lived through the dilemmas Jufot is writing about, knows how the emotions hit you when someone manages to tell a story that comes close to something you have been through.

I can appreciate both types of games, but I am a total sucker for the latter.

 

[bacienvu88]

the game is entirely focused on that blasted frat party

And this is why I stopped playing BaDIK after the first season. Too much frat boi antics. And I'm very much not into frat bois.

I very much agree that choices should be about the MC, but it's a delicate balancing act. To use the dinner date location in your example, it's very easy for that to devolve into another LP+1 choice if the MC's preferred venue doesn't inform his character going forward. At the same time, you don't want to force people into simplistic boxes, either. Just because your ideal date might be be a jazz lounge one day doesn't mean you'd never want to see a movie with a girl later.

Note that I didn't at all think my examples through. It just serves the purpose that if you add traits / points of different kinds to the MC as well you can get much more natural progression.

And it can be a scale as well, not just binary. E.g. indecisiveness-points, assertiveness-points and so on.

Even the notion of lining up the MC's interests with the LI can be tricky because experiencing new things is (IMHO) part and parcel of dating someone. Enthusiasm can be infectious so you'd expect to enjoy an activity more on a date with a passionate devotee of that activity than you would on your own. Sometimes that can let you see the activity in whole new light. Or sometimes it doesn't and it helps you realize the relationship isn't going anywhere. You need to see how things go in a variety of situations before you can tell how the potential LI matches up.

I agree. But the thing is the dev is completely free to choose what aspects of MC's personality they want to track. So instead of assertive/accomodating it could be openminded/narrowminded. Or something else. Or there is a third option "play rock-paper-scissors" about it which gives some other trait.

Which isn't realistic at all.

Let me stop you right there. In my opinion "realism" isn't a good goal to strive for. Much better to strive for "fun", "entertaining", "sexy", "interesting", "thoughtful", "emotional" and so on. Of course it needs to be grounded in some sort of reality, but it should never be a goal to make a game as realistic as possible.

 

[ename144]

See, these are all great points on how dating actually works and it sounds like you prefer this kind of realism, but then you say:


Which isn't realistic at all. Dating is not like a car brochure where you take your time and carefully read the marketing blurb on each page and then, at your leisure, commit to a 5 year finance plan for your favourite. Sometimes you meet an interesting person after you've committed to someone else. Or perhaps you just couldn't find enough time to spend together before someone else you were casually seeing asked for commitment.

If realism is a goal, I'd like to see those dilemmas. Because they are a lot more interesting to me than the brochure approach

Sure, that can be an interesting dilemma to explore (and for what it's worth, I think BaDIK is bending over backwards to explore that very thing following the crossroads). But that's a specific situation. I don't think it should be used as a general case.

More importantly, there's still the issue of LP+1. Even if a choice is complicated by existing relationships, it's still ultimately a question of how to model the interaction between the MC and the various LIs. If you force the player to make snap judgements, they're going to pick the ones that give the best shinies. If you try to punish that behavior by making the choices blind, the player will likely be frustrated when they get an unwelcome reward at the end of the game.

The only way a player will be comfortable making apparently sub-optimal choices is if the dev can reassure them that the game will ultimately back up their choices: sure, you miss out on LP+1 today, but by doing so you'll have a better chance with an LI more to your liking in the future, or skip a subplot you'd only roll your eyes at, etc. The game needs to show that it's *possible* to craft a coherent character through you choices before it can expect a player to commit to doing so. I don't see a good way to do that without spending a lot of time interacting with lots of characters and seeing how our actions change things.

To my mind there's a difference between 'realism' and reality. We want games to reflect the sort of interpersonal dynamics we recognize in the world around us, but at the end of the day they're still games. Reality persists regardless of our feelings, but we can reload a game when things don't go our way, or play something else altogether if things go too far off the rails. However we choose to model reality in the game, we still need it to be fun. To me, the slow and steady approach works best for long-term roleplaying and intercharacter dynamics. Snap judgements and pre-fab personalities/relationships are better suited to short VNs or kinetic novels. YMMV, of course.

 

[VIGOR GAMES]

I haven't tried it yet, but I was totally expecting Dream Town to become a possible candidate for the list!
I hope you get to continue it later on!

We will definitely continue, but at the moment, we are betting on OnlyFriends because DreamTown is quite expensive to produce and to make regular updates we need significant financial support.

 

[Dragon59]

Some of us play these games to fulfil a fantasy. For them it will always be important to be able to at least tailor the experience towards something you would have wanted to see.

But some of us play to feel something. It can be good or bad feelings, but in order to feel anything at all, it is important that we accept the illusion. And anyone who has lived through the dilemmas Jufot is writing about, knows how the emotions hit you when someone manages to tell a story that comes close to something you have been through.

I can appreciate both types of games, but I am a total sucker for the latter.

I'd say that's why there are different games with different approaches. If all games followed a single, universal approach, why bother? Some games will not be written for the greatest common denominator, but will, instead appeal to a portion of the market. That's okay.

 

[bacienvu88]

La fille de la zone (The Girl in the Zone)
This has to be one of the strangest VN's I've played. I'm not sure I actually recommend it, but it is very interesting in many ways. Set in a zombie apocalypse, MC is trying to find his sister and lots of stuff happen on the way.

The game is in french originally and has a not very good English translation. Knowing some French is recommended. I played the English version but with the original french .rpy file next so I could compare.

Not much sexual content but there is plenty romance.

 

[jamdan]

Deadmoon Survival

Give it a shot. It's pretty good. Zombie Apocalypse incest story that actually has proper characters dealing with survival and incest urges. The writing is quite good and the relationships are treated with much more realism than most incest scenarios. I assume most people here have what it takes to stick it out at the beginning despite the MC being quite... weak at the start. It will certainly annoy people who want the MC to quickly take charge and be a survival chad or something, but he does show character growth throughout and will blossom in the coming updates.

As for the NTR, it's not really true NTR. There are some avoidable zombie rapes (that doesn't lead to bad end), optional lesbian between mom/sis, avoidable flashback of mom getting carried away and cheating on her husband (didn't happen if you don't pick the choices during flashback). Tbh, even if you pick all the choices that lead to these scenes, the plot doesn't turn into NTR. Mom and Sis loves the MC with all their heart. It just makes the narrative more convincing imo.

The developer of that has, unfortunatly, caved to the anti-anything that isn't vanilla crowd.

Thread

Hopefully they reconsider.

 

[desmosome]

The developer of that has, unfortunatly, caved to the anti-anything that isn't vanilla crowd.

Thread

Hopefully they reconsider.

Oh well. If that's what dev wants, it can't be helped. I think it's not exactly a case where dev just caved to the anti-NTR bitching. Well, it probably did affect him to an extent, but it seems like he was genuinely just dismayed that the zombie stuff was being interpreted as the most integral part of the story or something, both by fans and haters of said content.

Which is pretty stupid because if you actually fucking read the story, it's abundantly clear that the focus is on the MC's hero's journey or some variation of it. All the "NTR" stuff put together doesn't even factor into the main story. Like mom gets zombie raped if you pick the choices to mess up her escape and what not, but she powers through without getting corrupted at all. It's just an optional scene and not a "route."

I'm not surprised at all though. I've already talked about what I think about the average F95zoner lol. They don't understand what they are reading at all.

I had some theories on the "zombie lord" MC that pops up in his visions/dreams and whatever darkness was put into him by his father's experiments. I thought maybe the zombie rape counters could be tied to a dark route down the line, but I guess that theory is shot. Well, I still think there will be a good vs evil split near the end though. There are too many instances of darkness vs light (moon) allusions.

 

[thanks for the demos]

Two games I recently replayed and still liked a lot. They might not be a great fit for F95 in general (no sexual content), but I think some of the folks here might enjoy them:

Open Sorcery - hypertext IF / twine game in which you play a freshly awakened/installed firewall elemental. Short and highly replayable. Tech+magic setting, beautifully written, charming, at times witty and surprisingly emotional. Has some highly adorable moments.

Seer's Isle - a short interactive story, nordic myth setting. Quite liked the artstyle. Best experienced blind (after your first readthrough or two you'll have figured out the mechanics anyway and formed your own opinions about the symbolism behind choices)

 

[yossa999]

Another newcomer with great potential
The Neverwhere Tales

It's urban fantasy story about an ordinary guy with his ordinary office job who suddenly finds himself in the midst of a conflict between a secret order and supernatural forces. Moreover, his relatives turned out to be full of surprises. So far two chapters were released, I liked what I saw, highly recommend.

 

[jufot]

Seer's Isle - a short interactive story, nordic myth setting. Quite liked the artstyle. Best experienced blind (after your first readthrough or two you'll have figured out the mechanics anyway and formed your own opinions about the symbolism behind choices)

I've mentioned their work on this thread before but I've never met another player before! It seems two of their games are on F95, the other being Along The Edge, which is also my favourite. I'll add both to the OP.

I can also recommend

You must be registered to see the links

, which is a game with an adaptive soundtrack that shifts based on your choices that define MC's character.

Nova Box make well-written, non-sexual, story-driven VNs with impactful choices and a degree of supernatural elements. They are a lovely bunch and one of my favourite indie studios.

 

[Deleted member 4643628]

I've mentioned their work on this thread before but I've never met another player before! It seems two of their games are on F95, the other being Along The Edge, which is also my favourite. I'll add both to the OP.

I can also recommend

You must be registered to see the links

, which is a game with an adaptive soundtrack that shifts based on your choices that define MC's character.

Nova Box makes well-written, non-sexual, story-driven VNs with impactful choices and a degree of supernatural elements. They are a lovely bunch and one of my favourite indie studios.

If you search for VN without sexual content and not japanese anime style ask me.