Recommending Story-first games

[camube]

So i'm currently playing Snowstorm off of this thread's recommendation, and it made me realize one thing why I like Our Red String so much in terms of feeling like "I'm gaming".

Because Our Red String as a game manage to avoid the pitfall of: Option A give points, Option B doesn't give points binary.
ORS manage to be a game where the choices are valid alternative instead of "guess the correct answer". It makes the game feels like a "game" and also, your own "gaming experience".

I don't play with walkthrough initially with AVN, and in general. I didn't play Acting Lessons and BaDIK with walkthrough, even until now for example.

But, I think during Eternum and One Day at a Time period, I realizes that these games and many others uses a "Option A gives points, Option B doesn't" construct, and the more extreme the game uses that construct, the more it drove me to just check walkthrough. Cuz there is actually a **correct** answer. "The other answer" is not a valid alternative path, it's just an incorrect option.

I think to me that point is what is lacking in AVN games in terms of making it feel like "i'm experiencing playing a game".

Not all AVN needs to have valid alternative paths like ORS or Bare Witness but, the extreme ones makes me just want to use walkthrough because without it, if you choose incorrect answers, you just miss contents.

Another example would be that people put Intertwined as a recommendation if they like ORS. I realized now that Intertwined is far closer to Eternum than to ORS.
In the sense that both Eternum and Intertwined skip contents if you choose incorrectly.
It doesn't offer you a viable alternate path, it just cuts you off.
I didn't use walkthrough playing Intertwined and later on I realized I miss shit ton of content because I rejected the very first meeting and on top of that also rejected the other family side of the story.

Snowstorm made me able to put my vague dissatisfaction with AVN "gaming" put into words because that game tells you exactly after each events whether your affinity with the character goes up or not.
And if you choose "correctly" it goes up.
I don't see any reason why should we as a player choose "incorrectly" then, in general.
The gaming experience then just becomes a "guess which answer is correct" thing.

That said, I'm really glad one of my first AVN exposure was BaDIK because BaDIK gave the players many valid alternate path.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent everyone!

Snowstorm character designs are good though. The clothes are pretty unique.

 

[moskyx]

Then Saving Chloe could actually be a short example of what you seek. Deliverance also offers a very different experience depending on your choices. Now it's just a matter of tastes.

 

[camube]

Hmm, a big maybe for Snowstorm?
Instead of simply choosing a LI, Snowstorm has an RPG inspired stats system, in which you have to have enough skill points to succeed at your choices. Don't expect too much, though, because it's pretty much impossible to predict the skill checks for your preferred path.
The world also doesn't change depending on your choices, but you get to see it from different perspectives and the differences can actually be pretty detailed. You'd probably need 2 1/2 playthroughs to see all the content of the individual characters and 3 full playthroughs to get every detail of the main story.

speaking of Snowstorm, I read one of the recent Patreon poll and there is a question there on whether the game's 3 main path should be made more limited (for more consistency) or let it stay the way it is, free for all.

Like for example, only Bear camp MC would be able to hang out with Matilda or only Raven camp MC would be able to hang out with Yrsa, which I think makes a ton more sense and reduce the MC's behavior and thoughts inconsistency.

The first time I chose the Matilda hang out, having chose Raven as the MC camp, I was pretty surprised with the outcome and I was like, "huh?"

But yeah, in terms of consistency and wider story appeal, I also think limiting the stories we get to see off of the main camps we choose is probably a better idea for the game. The clothes are pretty though in this game. Like the settings

 

[bacienvu88]

Then Saving Chloe could actually be a short example of what you seek. Deliverance also offers a very different experience depending on your choices. Now it's just a matter of tastes.

Dog Days of Summer is the game with most branching that make sense I think. Nearly all options have an effect of some kind. A lot of those have more than a cosmetic effect. And depending on choices you can have vastly different content.

 

[moskyx]

Dog Days of Summer is the game with most branching that make sense I think. Nearly all options have an effect of some kind. A lot of those have more than a cosmetic effect. And depending on choices you can have vastly different content.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit torn on the topic since, on one hand, I do love those big games that give you great freedom of choice and make the world evolve according to those choices. It's nice to see a complex story responding to your inputs no matter how suboptimal they may seem, it's a very enjoyable and satisfying feeling when it's done right. On the other hand, the completionist (and even the translator) in me can't help the anxiety of realizing how many branching and potential paths are yet to discover and how many slightly different playthroughs I might need to do (and how many lines I'd need to translate and check). Anyway, props to whoever manages to create a story that, after being put into a complex game, makes actual sense when played blindly.

 

[EndlessNights]

But, I think during Eternum and One Day at a Time period, I realizes that these games and many others uses a "Option A gives points, Option B doesn't" construct, and the more extreme the game uses that construct, the more it drove me to just check walkthrough. Cuz there is actually a **correct** answer. "The other answer" is not a valid alternative path, it's just an incorrect option.

I think to me that point is what is lacking in AVN games in terms of making it feel like "i'm experiencing playing a game".

Not all AVN needs to have valid alternative paths like ORS or Bare Witness but, the extreme ones makes me just want to use walkthrough because without it, if you choose incorrect answers, you just miss contents.

I disagree slightly because I feel like less can be more when it comes to VNs. Sometimes it's actually a good thing when you miss content! Your choices can let you avoid scenes you don't want to see and characters you don't like or empower your roleplaying and make the narrative more coherent.

To give an example, I've just done one playthrough of Once in a Lifetime. My MC only stayed on Aiko's route. While there wasn't much story payoff for that (basically just a single render as I recall), I liked that I was able to avoid incest and that it felt like the LIs had some degree of agency because they could reject the MC for rather arbitrary reasons.

I also don't like using walkthroughs or poring over the code to find the "right" choices. I'd much rather let the chips fall where they may and accept the consequences of the MC's actions. That mindset can help VNs feel more like games.

Another example would be that people put Intertwined as a recommendation if they like ORS. I realized now that Intertwined is far closer to Eternum than to ORS.
In the sense that both Eternum and Intertwined skip contents if you choose incorrectly.
It doesn't offer you a viable alternate path, it just cuts you off.
I didn't use walkthrough playing Intertwined and later on I realized I miss shit ton of content because I rejected the very first meeting and on top of that also rejected the other family side of the story.

Intertwined isn't a harem game, though. You're not able to play every path and the MC can't romance everyone on a single playthrough. You're supposed to miss content. That's a fundamental aspect of the game design. So, to me, it's a completely different type of game compared to Eternum.

 

[thanks for the demos]

Camube, re: Games vs VN
Depending on how important the visual component is to you, you might enjoy text-parser games/experiments in the vein of Emily Short's

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and

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.

Each run is short, basically a setting and a single extended conversation. Mood and state-of-conversation play a big role and your interactions do shape the reality around you. They tend to be highly replayable (70+ outcomes for Galatea).

It is text-parser-based interactive fiction though, with all the advantages and disadvantages this entails.

 

[camube]

Intertwined isn't a harem game, though. You're not able to play every path and the MC can't romance everyone on a single playthrough. You're supposed to miss content. That's a fundamental aspect of the game design. So, to me, it's a completely different type of game compared to Eternum.

I realized even right after posting that Intertwined is not the best example but that was what's off the top of my head, unedited stream-of-consciousness wise.

What I mean by "missing contents" is games that gives you dialogue choices but there is a correct answer being A if you want to see the full dialogues, and B is just there to be an incorrect answer.

What I like about ORS, BaDIK, and Bare Witness is that, at least for it's major choices, there are alternate paths. It's equally valid for Lena whether she try Onlyfans to get money or whether she focus on music and still be struggling.
BaDIK is like that too where it's equally valid whether the MC is a certain kind of person that would make Quinn likes him, or not. On Bare Witness, dinner with Zenda is I think one of the early branch of the story whether to go with her route, or other people's route.
The choices are not a binary "correct or incorrect", but it's choices that carries weight because it has alternative path that closes the path we don't choose and open the path we choose.

On Intertwined, if the player doesn't answer correctly on Layla's route, they don't get the full render of her route. They have to answer most things correctly to get full render of her path and by extension, Elena's render too.
Even if a player choose Layla and Elena route and skip Alexis (for example), if they don't correctly choose the right answers, they would miss some things even on her path.
This happen in One Day at a Time too.

That kind of game design makes the game becomes a "which answer is correct" instead of a "each answers yield different results".
So what I was trying to convey was not really about "seeing all the story in one go" but more so to have choices on these AVN games yield different results instead of "choices being a +1 or 0 point system".
Intertwined +1/0 point system could yield to compounding of mistakes too.

On the contrary, the initial setting of Snowstorm is perfectly fine by me. There are 3 camps in Snowstorm, you choose where you're going very early on, so you only get to see specific camp story for that particular camp. I don't mind that at all.

However during the actual events stories, the ending has a "your affinity increase / did not increase" notification to it.
I don't see the reason to choose answers that for example Lady Nox would not want to hear, since that would just lead to "affinity with Lady Nox did not increase".

Games doesn't have to be ultra-complicated like ORS. Games can reduce the path variance through reducing number of characters, but I do feel like some games have a "+1/0" points system where, the 0 yields nowhere.
Worse if the mistakes from 0 choices compounds.

Also, I don't think AVN games need a lot of choices to begin with. I see AVN more of a "novel" I read more than anything. But I want those choices to be somewhat meaningful.

Speaking of points system, ORS has that too but, if you don't have enough points to do certain actions, you just get driven to an alternate path instead.

Projekt Passion on the other hand goes the opposite way with how it uses choices. On that game 95% or even more of the choices does not matter at all. It nullifies the effect of choices and relegate it to flavor texts.
Most choices are "be nice, be mean, or, make a joke".

It's similar to Eternum in that it's a harem game. But I like Projekt Passion better because I seriously think in Eternum, Annie's Space Station Date is sorta relevant to the main plot. And there is no variant to that path if the player say no to Annie. They just won't go and not see that event. Not even as a friend.

Anyway, sorry that my post is not succinct.

Also one thing I realized very recently is that, AVN genre at the moment is still extremely niche in the sense that the average income for the devs is still really low.
And so, developing an AVN game is really more of a "hobby".
In order for higher quality games to be produced, that average income needs to get higher because higher potential income would attract talented peopele to develop games.

I don't know if we ever get to that point but it would be nice if that ever happen.

 

[FlyinginTime]

Hi, can you guys recommend me some games?

I looking for games where there's male protagonist. the story is kinda like he gets a crush on someone. He tells her but she rejects but going forward she regrets the decisions. Basically games where the LI rejects and then regrets...or maybe there was a miscommunication between them like in "intertwined" Doesn't really matter there's sex or not, im just looking for the theme. Doesn't matter but if the game is in renpy it's a plus. and it would be great if it's not like those fuck everything harem games. I want maybe a bit sad plot. Priority is on the story not sex.

Thank you

 

[yossa999]

Hi, can you guys recommend me some games?

I looking for games where there's male protagonist. the story is kinda like he gets a crush on someone. He tells her but she rejects but going forward she regrets the decisions. Basically games where the LI rejects and then regrets...or maybe there was a miscommunication between them like in "intertwined" Doesn't really matter there's sex or not, im just looking for the theme. Doesn't matter but if the game is in renpy it's a plus. and it would be great if it's not like those fuck everything harem games. I want maybe a bit sad plot. Priority is on the story not sex.

Thank you

Based on your description, it looks like the Chasing Sunsets would do, not quite the plot you wanted, but seems similar enough. But I assume you've played it before?
EDIT: It looks like the Yesterday's Crossroads is exactly what you were looking for, but it's at the very beginning, only the first chapter has come out.

 

[EndlessNights]

On Intertwined, if the player doesn't answer correctly on Layla's route, they don't get the full render of her route. They have to answer most things correctly to get full render of her path and by extension, Elena's render too.
Even if a player choose Layla and Elena route and skip Alexis (for example), if they don't correctly choose the right answers, they would miss some things even on her path.

I honestly don't mind missing content in those kind of situations because to me they mirror something that happens in real relationships all the time. Sometimes you just inadvertently fail to connect and get closer with people in various situations regardless of how much you like them. In real life, you don't get to see all the content, get all the sex scenes, or score all the friendship points either.

I think it can actually be quite interesting to see characters sabotage themselves due to their own awkwardness or find themselves unable to tear down the mental walls that keep them isolated from other people. If the couple end up staying together despite the "missing content," you can get the feeling they've grown as people and overcome some of their issues even if that might not be exactly the intended narrative the dev has in their head.

Even though I like Zero End more than Intertwined, I think Intertwined may actually handle this type of situation a bit better comparatively speaking. In Zero End, you can miss content with LIs due to stat checks you would not be able to anticipate on a blind run. That isn't supposed to be a big deal, but in practice you can miss out on important information about the characters if you miss certain scenes/conversations. Going forward, Stolen Rose will need to find alternative ways to get players who missed scenes up to date so that the story doesn't end up confusing them. I suspect one reason bacienvu chose to begin his walkthrough writing career with two complex games in Zero End and Dog Days of Summer instead of something simpler is because he realized they could help a lot of people who might be feeling frustrated and lost due to all the branching and missable content in those games.

As moskyx alluded to, a lot of people hate missing content because they are completionists who feel the need to see everything. I think this actually can become borderline compulsive behavior in some cases. Yesterday I ended up adding a poster on the Intertwined thread to my ignore list because of his ranting about everything he hates about Alexis and her path. I thought about asking him why he was forcing himself to play a romance route for a character he despises in a VN with choices, but I figured it wouldn't do any good because he probably feels like he HAS to see all the content at any cost no matter how much he hates it.

Anyway, sorry that my post is not succinct.

Oh, I understand. Believe me, I understand completely.

 

[bacienvu88]

On the other hand, the completionist (and even the translator) in me can't help the anxiety of realizing how many branching and potential paths are yet to discover and how many slightly different playthroughs I might need to do (and how many lines I'd need to translate and check).

I have played a large amount of playthroughs (guess 50-100) by now although I tab/ctrl through often. But the variations mean I still uncover some whenever I play. As for the code. It is indeed a pain in the buttocks. I think there are 12 levels of indentation at one point.

 

[bacienvu88]

I suspect one reason bacienvu chose to begin his walkthrough writing career with two complex games in Zero End and Dog Days of Summer instead of something simpler is because he realized they could help a lot of people who might be feeling frustrated and lost due to all the branching and missable content in those games.

Exactly. The main reason I have written those is because I was one of the frustrated and lost people. For simpler games I usually find it enough to just read the source if there is no walkthrough already. But ZE and DDS is way past the amount of branches I can keep in my head, so I wanted a walkthrough.

As moskyx alluded to, a lot of people hate missing content because they are completionists who feel the need to see everything. I think this actually can become borderline compulsive behavior in some cases.

It is a bit interesting. I am a compulsive completionist. But when the game gets complex enough I find that I don't care about that. And DDS has reached a level where almost every playthrough actually is unique unless you painstakingly write/remember every choice you made in a previous playthrough. Which means it is impossible to do a completionist playthrough anyway. I guess my completionist streak manifests itself by making lots of playthroughs instead (and later a walkthrough).

 

[camube]

Exactly. The main reason I have written those is because I was one of the frustrated and lost people. For simpler games I usually find it enough to just read the source if there is no walkthrough already. But ZE and DDS is way past the amount of branches I can keep in my head, so I wanted a walkthrough.

It is a bit interesting. I am a compulsive completionist. But when the game gets complex enough I find that I don't care about that. And DDS has reached a level where almost every playthrough actually is unique unless you painstakingly write/remember every choice you made in a previous playthrough. Which means it is impossible to do a completionist playthrough anyway. I guess my completionist streak manifests itself by making lots of playthroughs instead (and later a walkthrough).

Wait, is Zero End complex? at it's current update?

I felt like it's pretty simple. I think I got everything after some speedrun playthrough
I can see it being quite complex though. My first thought was, "wow, too many gods"

Oh, I understand. Believe me, I understand completely.

oh thank you!

Yeah on Intertwined, Alexis didn't exist on my initial playthrough because I generally choose "refuse the chick (in case crazy)" when they go for MC's dick at first glance even before knowing each other. Whether it's Intertwined or Snowstorm, I usually make the MC say "no" to those type of character.

I agree with you on one thing though, using walkthrough is not fun. At all. I play my games blind on first run too.

 

[EndlessNights]

Wait, is Zero End complex? at it's current update?

I felt like it's pretty simple. I think I got everything after some speedrun playthrough
I can see it being quite complex though. My first thought was, "wow, too many gods"

If you want to see ALL the content like a good completionist would, I'd say it is already significantly more complex than the average VN. Some choices are gated by skill requirements and some scenes are tied to the specific deity the MC worships. Of course, it's still a blast to play blind and I'm sure plenty of people are enjoying the game with just a single playthrough.

 

[Dragon59]

Then Saving Chloe could actually be a short example of what you seek. Deliverance also offers a very different experience depending on your choices. Now it's just a matter of tastes.

Are you implying that Deliverance delivers a very different experience?

I'm still waiting for banjos to show up in that one...

 

[bacienvu88]

Wait, is Zero End complex? at it's current update?

I felt like it's pretty simple. I think I got everything after some speedrun playthrough
I can see it being quite complex though. My first thought was, "wow, too many gods"

You can't see everything in a single playthrough. There is unique content for each of the gods. Then there are several places with mutually exclusive content. Also note that several sex scenes have additional content with the right requirements. Then there is the question of optimizing your stats and relationship points.

 

[ostrogotihichun]

genuinely curious about your opinion on yesterday's crossroads what you guys think about it?

 

[yossa999]

genuinely curious about your opinion on yesterday's crossroads what you guys think about it?

Separation, depression, grief and pain, despair, broken people, sick people, terminally ill people, what is there not to like?
Just kidding, of course, although all these moments are present in the game one way or another. But it looks like it will be a very slowburn story, the first chapter is almost about the world building, the MC is trying to start a new life after a sudden breakup with his girlfriend. He meets new girls, reflecting on his past and thinking about how he should live on. Not much action yet, but still the interest grows as you play further. What I like is that the plot does not force the MC to interact with a certain girl, it is entirely up to him to choose. Good game with the potential.

 

[ostrogotihichun]

Separation, depression, grief and pain, despair, broken people, sick people, terminally ill people, what is there not to like?
Just kidding, of course, although all these moments are present in the game one way or another. But it looks like it will be a very slowburn story, the first chapter is almost about the world building, the MC is trying to start a new life after a sudden breakup with his girlfriend. He meets new girls, reflecting on his past and thinking about how he should live on. Not much action yet, but still the interest grows as you play further. What I like is that the plot does not force the MC to interact with a certain girl, it is entirely up to him to choose. Good game with the potential.

i agree with you but not gonna lie i believe the harem don't make sense in this setting