Recommending Story-first games

[jamdan]

VN's are just one of the "story based" game genres.

Nobody would say, for example, that Baldur's Gate's story was ruined by the gameplay. Or the Elder Scroll games. Or, well, basically any AAA game that has a story. Or even AA or non-VN indie games.

For VN's specifically, I think it largely depends on the specific gameplay.

The game may have an excellent story, but it's hidden behind hours of grinding. That may be a case where gameplay kills the story, because nobody sees the story because they gave up before they got to it. But even then, I'd say that is a game design issue more than a gameplay issue.

 

[365 others]

VN's are just one of the "story based" game genres.

Nobody would say, for example, that Baldur's Gate's story was ruined by the gameplay. Or the Elder Scroll games. Or, well, basically any AAA game that has a story. Or even AA or non-VN indie games.

For VN's specifically, I think it largely depends on the specific gameplay.

The game may have an excellent story, but it's hidden behind hours of grinding. That may be a case where gameplay kills the story, because nobody sees the story because they gave up before they got to it. But even then, I'd say that is a game design issue more than a gameplay issue.

I partially agree with your point of view. Grinding, as long as it has a clear purpose, has the proper reward, and gives the player a feeling of completion or satisfaction, can be present in a VN/game within a reasonable amount (even if that ends up being a couple of hours).

I enjoy "having to earn" an accomplishment or having to "work" to get something from the story, as long as it has meaning to the story itself.

So for example I've been enjoying many games such as The Last Sovereign, Maids and Masters, and Zombie's Retreat; but I hated the nonsense in the grinding in The College.

 

[FatGiant]

Question:
What do you guys think of the following expression?
"Gameplay is the death of story."

In a VN there're usually branching story-lines made active by the player's choices. These branches can have a softer or a harder impact on the overall plot. But, what I found peculiar about this gameplay mechanic is that, it can indirectly affect elements of the story that makes it enjoyable.
I am of the opinion that everything can be a good story as long as it's execution instills those feelings of curiosity, tension and release. But also, the fact that it is permanent. If you can go back in time and change a path, so that a specific story beat doesn't happen, then everything kind of becomes... meaningless.

I personally find the "every road leads to Rome" approach to branching the most enjoyable, as well as no branching at all, or very soft branches (flavors of a given situation).

What is your opinion on this particular subject?

This is AFAIK not a point where consensus will ever be reached.

What I think... Well... If the author manages to create a clear and relevant narrative to each of the branches, one where the branches are NOT interchangeable, but meaningful and Unique. I would say yes to hard branching. That rarely ever happens. What we do get is a rehashed story with different characters, sometimes even the same dialogues. That is why I have decided to give up on branching.

What I mean by that is, I play ONE branch. If they are all interchangeable, all planned to give you closure and satisfaction, it really doesn't matter which one you choose. I don't get MORE game by replaying, I get the same, just again and again.

Take for example: Where the Heart is. You can't have them all. At several points you need to choose, each choice locks you in a path, closing others off. You can replay to look for the other paths, but are you getting MORE game? No, you are just choosing the same with very slight differences, that in the end, CAN'T affect the main story. I simply gave up on that. Others don't.

Another example: Bare witness. This is what good branching looks like, each one is Unique. Each one expands your sense of satisfaction in a different manner. Do you get MORE game? No. You get to play longer, but the story is already over.

Another even: Freeloading Family. Story ends. Then you are given a list of possible endings to see. Each is varied, Unique, strong and can stand alone. You don't get MORE game, but you do get a lot of satisfaction from each ending (yes I am aware that Alice's ending is weird as fuck, thank you very much)

Each one of these handle the branching in a different way, there are more, many more, but these are enough to illustrate what I mean.

So, I do prefer soft branching, like Grandma's House. Or My Dorm. The branching mostly resides in saying Yes or No to the girls and to some (light) fetishes. The story, however little or not there is, moves along unperturbed. You don't get MORE game, just a customized experience.

The concept behind branching is still stuck in the "Choose Your Adventure" trope, the main problem with that is the fact that the story become thinner each time you branch it. To the point where there is really no story at all, just a load of branches that mean nothing at all.

Peace

 

[Gothgirlgames]

This is AFAIK not a point where consensus will ever be reached.

What I think... Well... If the author manages to create a clear and relevant narrative to each of the branches, one where the branches are NOT interchangeable, but meaningful and Unique. I would say yes to hard branching. That rarely ever happens. What we do get is a rehashed story with different characters, sometimes even the same dialogues. That is why I have decided to give up on branching.

What I mean by that is, I play ONE branch. If they are all interchangeable, all planned to give you closure and satisfaction, it really doesn't matter which one you choose. I don't get MORE game by replaying, I get the same, just again and again.

Take for example: Where the Heart is. You can't have them all. At several points you need to choose, each choice locks you in a path, closing others off. You can replay to look for the other paths, but are you getting MORE game? No, you are just choosing the same with very slight differences, that in the end, CAN'T affect the main story. I simply gave up on that. Others don't.

Another example: Bare witness. This is what good branching looks like, each one is Unique. Each one expands your sense of satisfaction in a different manner. Do you get MORE game? No. You get to play longer, but the story is already over.

Another even: Freeloading Family. Story ends. Then you are given a list of possible endings to see. Each is varied, Unique, strong and can stand alone. You don't get MORE game, but you do get a lot of satisfaction from each ending (yes I am aware that Alice's ending is weird as fuck, thank you very much)

Each one of these handle the branching in a different way, there are more, many more, but these are enough to illustrate what I mean.

So, I do prefer soft branching, like Grandma's House. Or My Dorm. The branching mostly resides in saying Yes or No to the girls and to some (light) fetishes. The story, however little or not there is, moves along unperturbed. You don't get MORE game, just a customized experience.

The concept behind branching is still stuck in the "Choose Your Adventure" trope, the main problem with that is the fact that the story become thinner each time you branch it. To the point where there is really no story at all, just a load of branches that mean nothing at all.

Peace

That's the concept i choose as well keeping on the track, with some light deviations kinky wise, but the main story remains the same.

 

[FatGiant]

That's the concept i choose as well keeping on the track, with some light deviations kinky wise, but the main story remains the same.

I so wish I could still play your game. I already told you all there is to say about it, but, I still feel the loss you know.

Peace

 

[Gothgirlgames]

I so wish I could still play your game. I already told you all there is to say about it, but, I still feel the loss you know.

Peace

Let me get to your pm ^^

 

[thanks for the demos]

What do you guys think of the following expression?
"Gameplay is the death of story."

Since most answers are of the type 'qualified disagree', I'll just mention the kinds of gameplay that absolutely murder story for me:

1. Ludonarrative Dissonance: the game tries it's hardest to tell you one thing, but encourages the exact opposite with it's gameplay.
e.g. a sense of urgency in the narrative, while giving you lots of mostly meaningless sidequests or making the next segment the prime spot for grinding levels/resources for hours.

2. repetitive grind: whether it be minigames, sandbox fetchquests or doing the same event a dozen times to farm 'relationship points': if it isn't in itself satisfying / enjoyable / meaningful then it should be optional to begin with and probably doesn't need to exist.

I partially agree with your point of view. Grinding, as long as it has a clear purpose, has the proper reward, and gives the player a feeling of completion or satisfaction, can be present in a VN/game within a reasonable amount (even if that ends up being a couple of hours).

I enjoy "having to earn" an accomplishment or having to "work" to get something from the story, as long as it has meaning to the story itself.

Mostly agreed, unqualified exceptions above.

 

[kotte]

What I mean by that is, I play ONE branch. If they are all interchangeable, all planned to give you closure and satisfaction, it really doesn't matter which one you choose. I don't get MORE game by replaying, I get the same, just again and again.

I feel the same, and I would even go further and say that to me, the experience of the story gets watered down for each playthrough, and therefore I avoid it. The emotions I felt first time I played will never come back when I play a different route, and the memory of the first route turns into a meh.
It becomes a problem when once in a while I play a game (or "read a VN") where the author clearly has given some serious thought to the different branches. Such as Summer Scent.
Or where I appreciate the author so much, I feel a deep fear of missing out on something. Such as Toro 7.

So I usually only do one playthrough. For this type of player, the best choice for the dev is to have light branching, just giving some colour to conversations or have pluggable scenes that does not affect the main storyline.

 

[Vasin]

I don't think it's fair to call the process of reading an average VN "gameplay". It's a little bit like calling flipping pages of a book "gameplay".

Even if you have dead ends in the story outline where you can end up at a "game over" it's really just one option among many and the only thing that makes it "wrong" is authorial intent. My point here is that the expression doesn't really apply to many of the games you would consider story first or that are discussed in this thread.

And really, it's just an overdramatized expression of a well known relationship between narrative and gameplay, where increasing the amount of one reduces the other. It's not like you can't have gameplay in your adventure game, or some story in an arcade platformer.

 

[Tlaero]

I struggle with this in my games. It's certainly true that player choice impacts story. If nothing else, player choice either shortens the story or lengthens development time. There are a lot of ways to tweak the impact of player choice on the story, but each of them has pros and cons.

The thing that many people here on F95 want is the original "Choose your own adventure" (CYOA) style, where each choice is a branch that goes to a different ending. In this style, your choices matter but this is hands down the most costly on the story scale/choice scale. One branch cuts the story length of every branch in half (or makes it take twice as long to develop). Two branches on a path reduce the story length to 1/4. Three to 1/8th. Etc. There's also the fact that you're really telling multiple independent stories, which begs the question, why not just separate the branches into multiple games?

Another method is the "Mass Effect" style. There, your choices affect individuals (Allies, LIs, etc) but not the overall story. The Reapers are coming regardless of who you romance. This isn't as expensive as CYOA but people complain that their choices don't matter. And, depending on how many LIs you add, it can still be really expensive. If you have 9 LIs, then, roughly, every time you go to make a sex scene, you've got to make 9 of them. Again, you're either going to have shorter/fewer sex scenes, or they're going to take 9 times as long to create.

And, finally, there's the "Persona" style. In the Persona games, very few of your choices have any impact at all. They're there for Roleplaying purposes. You can be a jerk or nice, and the LI is going to fall for you, but you get to act the way you want to. This is, by far, the least costly for a dev, but many people will complain that, if the choices don't matter, why have them at all?

Of course, there are a ton of variations on these three styles, but they tend to be intermixes of those three.

(You could say that where there are "wrong" choices that lead to a game over is a 4th style of choice, but I'll argue that those aren't "player choices." They're really a test.)

I've done games in each of these styles and had a mixture of love and hatred from players for each of them. I haven't found a style that everyone likes.

Tlaero

 

[365 others]

I struggle with this in my games. It's certainly true that player choice impacts story. If nothing else, player choice either shortens the story or lengthens development time. There are a lot of ways to tweak the impact of player choice on the story, but each of them has pros and cons.

The thing that many people here on F95 want is the original "Choose your own adventure" (CYOA) style, where each choice is a branch that goes to a different ending. In this style, your choices matter but this is hands down the most costly on the story scale/choice scale. One branch cuts the story length of every branch in half (or makes it take twice as long to develop). Two branches on a path reduce the story length to 1/4. Three to 1/8th. Etc. There's also the fact that you're really telling multiple independent stories, which begs the question, why not just separate the branches into multiple games?

Another method is the "Mass Effect" style. There, your choices affect individuals (Allies, LIs, etc) but not the overall story. The Reapers are coming regardless of who you romance. This isn't as expensive as CYOA but people complain that their choices don't matter. And, depending on how many LIs you add, it can still be really expensive. If you have 9 LIs, then, roughly, every time you go to make a sex scene, you've got to make 9 of them. Again, you're either going to have shorter/fewer sex scenes, or they're going to take 9 times as long to create.

And, finally, there's the "Persona" style. In the Persona games, very few of your choices have any impact at all. They're there for Roleplaying purposes. You can be a jerk or nice, and the LI is going to fall for you, but you get to act the way you want to. This is, by far, the least costly for a dev, but many people will complain that, if the choices don't matter, why have them at all?

Of course, there are a ton of variations on these three styles, but they tend to be intermixes of those three.

(You could say that where there are "wrong" choices that lead to a game over is a 4th style of choice, but I'll argue that those aren't "player choices." They're really a test.)

I've done games in each of these styles and had a mixture of love and hatred from players for each of them. I haven't found a style that everyone likes.

Tlaero

What would be your favorite style, as a developer? Setting the players/readers aside, which one would you say you enjoy working with more?

 

[jamdan]

Personally I prefer games that are fairly linear, maybe with "flavor" choices like dialogue differences or little side-events every so often. With any real branching (usually ending variations/routes) happening near the end of the game.

Things like Light of My Life (dialogue differences/side-routes) or Freeloading Family (ending variation, although I didn't like the endings in that one for the most part).

I agree with the previous comment about heavily branching games being not as enjoyable. The motivation isn't there to play the other routes, most of the time. But the main thing is if saves stop working, then I'll probably just give it up. Maintaining a bunch of saves to "see everything" can get tedious after a while.

 

[Tlaero]

What would be your favorite style, as a developer? Setting the players/readers aside, which one would you say you enjoy working with more?

I'm a writer and a storyteller. It's rare that there are two (or more) equally good stories to tell for a given situation. So I definitely feel that giving players choices hurts my ability to tell the best story that I can. I prefer to limit the choices as much as possible. I don't mind roleplaying choices, and I like the "test choices" (the 4th style I mentioned above) because I feel that what makes a game a game is the ability to fail. But, if I had my druthers, I would highly limit the number of choices.

Tlaero

 

[Gothgirlgames]

A little question.
you all use first or third person?

 

[MalkavianVamp]

A little question.
you all use first or third person?

To me 1 st person is more immersive in a way

 

[Gothgirlgames]

To me 1 st person is more immersive in a way

Yeah i feel like i made a mistake doing my game in third person.

 

[MalkavianVamp]

Yeah i feel like i made a mistake doing my game in third person.

People have different preferences some prefer third some first you should do a poll on your Patreon or here

 

[raynarnab]

The thing that many people here on F95 want is the original "Choose your own adventure" (CYOA) style, where each choice is a branch that goes to a different ending. In this style, your choices matter but this is hands down the most costly on the story scale/choice scale. One branch cuts the story length of every branch in half (or makes it take twice as long to develop). Two branches on a path reduce the story length to 1/4. Three to 1/8th. Etc. There's also the fact that you're really telling multiple independent stories, which begs the question, why not just separate the branches into multiple games?

Another method is the "Mass Effect" style. There, your choices affect individuals (Allies, LIs, etc) but not the overall story. The Reapers are coming regardless of who you romance. This isn't as expensive as CYOA but people complain that their choices don't matter. And, depending on how many LIs you add, it can still be really expensive. If you have 9 LIs, then, roughly, every time you go to make a sex scene, you've got to make 9 of them. Again, you're either going to have shorter/fewer sex scenes, or they're going to take 9 times as long to create.

Tlaero

TellTale Games creating the Walking Dead Series is notorious for false choices particularly for the ending episodes (characters dying). What usually would happen is that the other character would die in the next episode anyways and so the story didn't change dramatically enough (also now you dont need to deal with increasingly complex scenarios of some characters living vs others not and having to recreate a scene for every version of the alternative universe).

Some people were upset by it, but I enjoyed having the decision even if it didn't change the main story beat. Why? Simply because I loved how it created tension for my choices and for me the journey to make me feel emotions while reading a story was great. Ofcourse for people that really want a choice Tell Tale games is not for them. All in all it comes down to why is a reader reading the story. I do it because I enjoy the story and creation of tension, others want to craft their experience (even if it dilutes the story)

 

[Tlaero]

A little question.
you all use first or third person?

In most of my games, I use 2nd person present tense. "You look down at your glass and sigh."

In my most recent one (Gemini), I used first person present tense. "I'm anxious and can't meet her gaze."

When I do flashbacks to things that happened in the past, I do third person past tense. "Michael fidgeted with his glass as he berated himself for not speaking up."

When I do text stories with occasional images as apposed to VNs, I write in third person past tense the way god intended.

Switching back and forth between them gives me fits. While editing I frequently find passages in the wrong person and tense because my mind didn't switch over fast enough.

Tlaero

 

[Gothgirlgames]

People have different preferences some prefer third some first you should do a poll on your Patreon or here

Yeah i will do it next week.