Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

That's a great idea and you should post it on the game thread


You can add further drama

You must be registered to see the links

This is one of the reasons I like Intertwined, actually. You can have good, deep friendships with LIs (except Alexis) you're not romantically involved with.


Your comment suddenly reminded me of

You must be registered to see the links

and I just had to share

Yeah, I'm planning on posting something on the game thread when I've gathered my thoughts a bit more.

And yes, I was going to mention Intertwined, but didn't want to push the length of the post even further. And yes, I'm a bit sour about not being able to be friends with Alexis. Because I think she would be as great as friend as she is as lover.

 

[bacienvu88]

A challenge with second chances is that allowing that really just means lowering the "difficulty" level. If you don't have to make the "right" choices, then where's the reward for making the "right" choices? So, as a dev, we have only a few options.

1) Make the screwup happen regardless of the player's choices. Either have it happen before the game started (reasonable) or have the MC make bad choices in the game against the player's will and have the player's throw their laptops out the window.
2) Make the screwup happen if you don't get enough points, but give an option to get back together if you fly straight from then on, resulting in an ending that is as good as if you get enough points in the first place. I guess we could call this, "Easy mode."
3) Same as 2, but you get a less good ending than if you made all the right choices. Most players will hate this, because when they realize that they did it "wrong" they'll be angry that they had to start over. And, if the less good ending is content they don't see if they do it right, then people will really hate being "forced" to play wrong to see that content. (Maybe put it in a gallery... )
4) Make it so that you actually do BETTER by pissing off your LI then getting back together. I fundamentally don't agree that mistreating someone and then treating them well results in a stronger relationship than consistently treating them well. I certainly wouldn't enjoy a game that made me do this, but other people might.

Tlaero

First, I'm not necessarily talking about actually mistreating the LI. Rather I'm talking about difference of opinion between MC and LI. Or MC having a bad day or just makes a mistake. It is implied in the genre that MC will do anything necessary in order capture the interest of the LI he chose and the only thing MC need to be happy is the love of his LI(s).

It is very common to have LI:s ask things like "beach or mountains?" and you are supposed to answer the same as the LI to show you are compatible. And it is always MC that have to concede, because the LI is always right. And when LI:s are allowed bad days and MC is supposed to be supportive at those times. But MC must be at his best at all times. This makes for a very one-sided relationship that is frankly not very healthy in the long run. And very seldom do we see what happens when LI crosses MC:s bottom line.

I think it would be interesting to not only model LI:s love points, but also model MC:s happiness with the relationship. Or the relationship status itself. I haven't thought out properly exactly how that would work. But I think it would be very interesting to explore having to balance MC:s happiness/love with LI:s happiness/love.

 

[Tlaero]

Balancing MC's happiness/love with the LI's is a really interesting concept. Many relationships have this as, stereotypically, the man wants sex more often than the woman does. It's a worthy game development goal.

A workable game mechanic to enable this isn't obvious to me, though, and I welcome any suggestions/brainstorming on it. (No room for this in Toro 7, but at this point, I've got a lot of latitude with the next Elsaverse game.)

As you've pointed out, game developers (me, especially) have trained our players to do what the LI wants. How do we convince the players to assert themselves without getting rapey? And, since only the player/MC makes choices, won't it still end up amounting to, "If your score is high enough, she'll do what you want"?

Is there a mechanic we can impose on the player so that they have to find balance? I'm thinking about non-erotic games where you have some sort of condition that will kill you unless you get some medicine every 8 hours, etc. However you want to act in the game, you have to do that as well. Is there an appropriate equivalent in a story based erotic game? The obvious one is some sort of "You have to have sex every day or you die," but that's seriously porny.

In my mind, I also keep coming back to this question. What is the mechanism by which the LI decides whether to increase the MC's happiness? If it's not the MC's actions, then what is it? And if it is the MCs actions, then how is it different, at its core, to all other games?

Not saying you're in any way wrong. I'd really like to find a gameplay mechanism to do this.

Tlaero

 

[Raife]

Speaking of negatives, I'd also like to see some serious consequences for pursuing Jen. It's doubly important given MC's history. At an absolute minimum, I'd expect him to recognize that he's a shit psychologist who should not be allowed anywhere near vulnerable people, and resign. It would be even better if he was caught, disciplined and perhaps fired for it.

But I know this is just wishful thinking. Most (all?) VN devs seem to think that having consequences for one's actions is "punishing the player," so they never do it. That sounds ridiculous to me, but I'm not a dev, so...

I agree strongly with all of this, as you know.

But best of all would be this scenario: Jen becomes something like the 'true path' in the game... she is an essentially perfect match for the conflicted MC, and he (for complicated reasons) is a calming influence on her. Yet the 'price' of true love is professional failure and humiliation; alternatively, the MC can say goodbye to Jen, but suffer debilitating regret that colours his other professional and personal relationships.

I'd love to play that sort of 'failure that feels like success/success that feels like failure' scenario... but most players would probably hate it!

 

[bacienvu88]

Balancing MC's happiness/love with the LI's is a really interesting concept. Many relationships have this as, stereotypically, the man wants sex more often than the woman does. It's a worthy game development goal.

A workable game mechanic to enable this isn't obvious to me, though, and I welcome any suggestions/brainstorming on it. (No room for this in Toro 7, but at this point, I've got a lot of latitude with the next Elsaverse game.)

As you've pointed out, game developers (me, especially) have trained our players to do what the LI wants. How do we convince the players to assert themselves without getting rapey? And, since only the player/MC makes choices, won't it still end up amounting to, "If your score is high enough, she'll do what you want"?

Is there a mechanic we can impose on the player so that they have to find balance? I'm thinking about non-erotic games where you have some sort of condition that will kill you unless you get some medicine every 8 hours, etc. However you want to act in the game, you have to do that as well. Is there an appropriate equivalent in a story based erotic game? The obvious one is some sort of "You have to have sex every day or you die," but that's seriously porny.

In my mind, I also keep coming back to this question. What is the mechanism by which the LI decides whether to increase the MC's happiness? If it's not the MC's actions, then what is it? And if it is the MCs actions, then how is it different, at its core, to all other games?

Not saying you're in any way wrong. I'd really like to find a gameplay mechanism to do this.

Tlaero

I don't have any actual experience as a game developer (am an experienced software dev though) and I only have these half baked ideas floating around my head that I never did anything with.

The closest I can think of is Crusader Kings, but those games work on a more abstract level than VN:s do, and if implemented in a VN would make the game way too complex to handle. It also relies on randomized personalities which is not suitable for a story focused VN.

As you say, the sticky point is how LI decides to appease MC or not. The problem is of course that the MC is the only one with actual agency unless you make it multi protag. It is easy to associate a cost with actions that MC would rather not do, but is to appease LI. But much harder to associate a cost to LI:s action. The closest I can come up with currently is something like this:

menu:
  "Do what LI wants" if mc_happiness > 0:
    $ li_lp += 1
    $ mc_happiness -= 1
  "Do what MC wants" if mc_happiness > 0:
    if mc_happiness < 5:
      $ mc_happiness += 1
    else
      $ li_lp -= 1
  "Start huge argument" if mc_happiness == 0:
    ...

But that feels a bit artificial and has potential to become too gamey.

I think using Deb and Carl from Nothing is Forever can serve as a useful example. They have realised that their kinks aren't compatible and this is threatening to deestroy their relationship. How do you write that with either Deb or Carl as the MC instead of MC being an outside observer (as is the case in NiF)? This without MC drawing the short end of the stick. Or perhaps using Elsa and Jason as example between Nightmares and Transitions. I.e. how to write a game where they can repair their relationship without the further influence of later happenings.

And this gives me yet another half-baked game idea: Playing as a couple in couples therapy. But I'm probably too lazy to do anything about it.

 

[noping123]

It is very common to have LI:s ask things like "beach or mountains?"

I feel personally attacked. (To be fair when I added that, I intended it to have larger consequences than just a point addition or not, but later on I changed my mind.)

And when LI:s are allowed bad days and MC is supposed to be supportive at those times. But MC must be at his best at all times. This makes for a very one-sided relationship that is frankly not very healthy in the long run. And very seldom do we see what happens when LI crosses MC:s bottom line.

I disagree with this thought process overall personally.

I think this sort of system is no different than life - when you first meet someone and get to know them, the things you say or do that they don't like, greatly decrease your chances of any sort of interactions with them later on - whereas the more you say or do stuff they like, well....

And it's not like as a player you're forced to do any of this (Ok in some games, but I think the majority at least) - you do have a choice. Maybe you're not interested in that person, so you pursue someone else instead, which again, is pretty normal.

And it's not really one-sided IMO - the LIs/npc characters, you as a player obviously can't make their choices for them, that stuff is already a part of the game, but you as the player can decide how you feel about it. Is it something you like? Sure then go ahead, pursue someone and try to impress them - but if that character makes a bunch of choices, or does a lot of things you don't like, then you can reject them just as well.

I think the reason you see it as one sided, is because the choices being made by the LIs/npcs, don't really change, and yours do, (Actually personally I try to make some things different and variable depending on your actions, and have them act differently depending on your choices, but let me tell you, from the development side of things, that is fucking difficult), but that's just the nature of it being a game, and not life. There are certain compromises you'll have to make, but in a lot of ways I do find it realistic in that when you first meet someone, you generally *do* have to be on your best behavior at all times, if you want a chance of it going anywhere. Sure you can usually relax after getting to know them, but most games don't actually portray that part of a relationship - partially because that's usually the boring part. (Maybe not for people involved, but as far as gameplay/story goes, yea its boring).


I think though, at the end of the day, you're *ALWAYS* going to be limited in some way in these regards, and there's not much that can be done about it, because that's simply the nature of how games are. I think any solution is going to be "meta-gameable" in that people will very quickly figure out the optimal approach very quickly, and all that work you put in seems silly now, and the "better" you make it, the larger the scope of the project becomes, to the point where very quickly you're trying to add more work than anyone can reasonably handle without a decent sized team around them.


I think the whole "Point system" or anything really analogous to it, exists for the sole reason that, most devs don't want just a game where every single woman throws themselves at the MC - unless of course theyre making that sort of game. But otherwise, you want *some* system where the LIs will reject the MC based on your actions/decisions, because otherwise it gets real porny real quick. The whole point system style (or anything like it), is simply the easiest way to do that, that doesn't really risk massive scope creep.

 

[bacienvu88]

I agree strongly with all of this, as you know.

But best of all would be this scenario: Jen becomes something like the 'true path' in the game... she is an essentially perfect match for the conflicted MC, and he (for complicated reasons) is a calming influence on her. Yet the 'price' of true love is professional failure and humiliation; alternatively, the MC can say goodbye to Jen, but suffer debilitating regret that colours his other professional and personal relationships.

I'd love to play that sort of 'failure that feels like success/success that feels like failure' scenario... but most players would probably hate it!

That sounds awesome. Strong agree on all of that.

 

[bacienvu88]

I feel personally attacked. (To be fair when I added that, I intended it to have larger consequences than just a point addition or not, but later on I changed my mind.)

Sorry about that, didn't mean to attack your game. It was the first example I could think of. And it is a sort of underhanded compliment, I thought of your game because it is good and that stood out.

I disagree with this thought process overall personally.

I think this sort of system is no different than life - when you first meet someone and get to know them, the things you say or do that they don't like, greatly decrease your chances of any sort of interactions with them later on - whereas the more you say or do stuff they like, well....

And it's not like as a player you're forced to do any of this (Ok in some games, but I think the majority at least) - you do have a choice. Maybe you're not interested in that person, so you pursue someone else instead, which again, is pretty normal.

And it's not really one-sided IMO - the LIs/npc characters, you as a player obviously can't make their choices for them, that stuff is already a part of the game, but you as the player can decide how you feel about it. Is it something you like? Sure then go ahead, pursue someone and try to impress them - but if that character makes a bunch of choices, or does a lot of things you don't like, then you can reject them just as well.

I think the reason you see it as one sided, is because the choices being made by the LIs/npcs, don't really change, and yours do, (Actually personally I try to make some things different and variable depending on your actions, and have them act differently depending on your choices, but let me tell you, from the development side of things, that is fucking difficult), but that's just the nature of it being a game, and not life. There are certain compromises you'll have to make, but in a lot of ways I do find it realistic in that when you first meet someone, you generally *do* have to be on your best behavior at all times, if you want a chance of it going anywhere. Sure you can usually relax after getting to know them, but most games don't actually portray that part of a relationship - partially because that's usually the boring part. (Maybe not for people involved, but as far as gameplay/story goes, yea its boring).

Ok, I've now spent entirely too much time trying to express myself to get my point across without success. So instead I'm going to pose a couple of questions.

In Alive, if you would make the game to be in Mary's POV instead of the current MC, what would change in their interactions and why? (and I chose Mary here, because she is infatuated with MC at the beginning of the game while MC hasn't had a thought of pursuing her)

And going back to the "beach or mountain" question. If Alive had been in the POV of Nikki, by the same logic you pose above, she would answer "great, me too!" regardless of which answer MC chooses. Yet, when in the current MC POV, she doesn't. Why is this?

I think though, at the end of the day, you're *ALWAYS* going to be limited in some way in these regards, and there's not much that can be done about it, because that's simply the nature of how games are. I think any solution is going to be "meta-gameable" in that people will very quickly figure out the optimal approach very quickly, and all that work you put in seems silly now, and the "better" you make it, the larger the scope of the project becomes, to the point where very quickly you're trying to add more work than anyone can reasonably handle without a decent sized team around them.


I think the whole "Point system" or anything really analogous to it, exists for the sole reason that, most devs don't want just a game where every single woman throws themselves at the MC - unless of course theyre making that sort of game. But otherwise, you want *some* system where the LIs will reject the MC based on your actions/decisions, because otherwise it gets real porny real quick. The whole point system style (or anything like it), is simply the easiest way to do that, that doesn't really risk massive scope creep.

The problem with basic point system is that you only get two paths: pursue or not pursue. The only dynamic is when MC gets off the pursue path. In contrast we can take Dog Days of Summer, where most choices are story branching points to some degree. This makes the game pretty complex to manage, but dev does mostly by trying to merge branches whenever possible. That game is the best there is in terms of story dynamics in my opinion.

 

[noping123]

In Alive, if you would make the game to be in Mary's POV instead of the current MC, what would change in their interactions and why? (and I chose Mary here, because she is infatuated with MC at the beginning of the game while MC hasn't had a thought of pursuing her)

I have no idea. That is way too complex a question to ask without a really long and dedicated answer - the entire dynamic of the game chances, because you're trying to put the player in the shoes of a totally different character, and that requires changes for the sake of gameplay.

But let's take this another way and say "What happens if you change the POV, without changing the story" - in which case, pretty much nothing. In that case, you're simply forcing the player to act a certain way rather than giving them decisions. But what about the MC? Before he was making decisions, so what is he doing now? Well, as a dev and a storyteller you have to decide which way you want that person to act, in my case he'd reject her because I have an idea of what I personally consider the "Canon route", and Mary isn't it. I mean sure you could make the npc "decisions" rng, but I personally fucking hate that idea - and since decisions need to be made one way or another, and it's weird to have the player make decisions for the NPC, you'll have to force it, soo..... Yea. Doing something like what you suggested would require such a massive overhaul and re-write of the entire story that I don't think it's a fair question.

And going back to the "beach or mountain" question. If Alive had been in the POV of Nikki, by the same logic you pose above, she would answer "great, me too!" regardless of which answer MC chooses. Yet, when in the current MC POV, she doesn't. Why is this?

No, by the logic I propose this wouldn't happen at all. If it was in the POV of Nikki, what would happen is the MC would pose the question (as he did originally), and then instead of her just answering "beach!" the player would get the choice - because that's what a lot of these games are about, player agency. When you're talking about swapping the POV, you're also swapping the player agency, which can change how things play out.

When I write everything, I have a "canon" story (which means choices/decisions/etc) in mind, but I'm still giving options for the sake of player agency.

In fact, I'll tell you right now: In the "canon" version of my story, MC prefers mountains, Nikki prefers beaches, MC isn't into mary despite how she feels, but despite the beach/mountain thing, everything else MC does is something Nikki likes, and the Ch4 date scene is with her, and not with anyone else - that's my "canon" version. If I'm being honest, I actually sometimes don't write quite as much for that version of the story, because it's the one that I consider the "natural" route, and so I end up putting more effort into the other paths, since they aren't the ones I initially envisioned.


So for me at least, when you're talking about swapping POV, everything still plays out via the "canon" version, but swapping player agency to whoever the new MC is - and in that case, the story may end up changing drastically depending on the options the player makes - and the (current MC), would now no longer be given options, but rather act according to his "canon".

The problem with basic point system is that you only get two paths: pursue or not pursue. The only dynamic is when MC gets off the pursue path. In contrast we can take Dog Days of Summer, where most choices are story branching points to some degree. This makes the game pretty complex to manage, but dev does mostly by trying to merge branches whenever possible. That game is the best there is in terms of story dynamics in my opinion.

I haven't played that game so I can't speak of it. But I can say, no matter how complex a system looks, if you break it down far enough, it always boils down to binary choices. You can always be clever and layer and stack these, which can get incredibly complex very fast, but binary choices is always what you'll end up with at the very base level.

Since you asked about my game previously, I'll use it as an example.

We'll take Mary. There are currently 3 viable paths regarding mary: (actually 5 but I won't talk about the 4th atm). Path 1: Reject her. You don't pursue Mary, she remains mostly a side character in the game.

Path 2: Pursue her - you pursue mary, and I haven't finished the game yet so I'll just say "We'll see how that goes."

Path 3: Sort of Pursue her - there's a path available where you can pursue mary, but NOT go on a date with her, but still leave things open for later if you wish. It's actually a bit of a PITA to even get on that path since it requires some careful navigation, but it's there.

Path 4: We won't talk about this.

Path 5: Pursue her, then reject her. Stacey comes a-knockin'. This one exists, but obviously isn't really considered "Viable".

That's 5 possible paths with one person - but it all always breaks down to binary choices. Pursue or don't - but path 3 involves another couple of binary choices on top of that.(Technically path 3 involves a choice that isn't binary, you have 3 options and only 1 of the 3 leads to this path, the other 2 take you in different directions, so I guess most of my argument falls apart here, but whatever) And so does path 4. and so does path 5. And the interactions, and the way people may respond, or act, will differ depending, but it's always due to a series of binary choices.

For example, the stuff I'm currently working on is a scene with erin and nikki alone (No MC, just the 2 of them) - and I created 3 different versions of that scene, depending on how the end of the last chapter played out - and it's not just minor dialogue changes, but the scene is vastly different depending on what happened the night before - but it's still all the outcome of a series of binary choices, which lead to one 3 possible scenes playing out.

Maybe this is an inability for me to see things beyond my own perspective, but I can not envision ANY sort of system that, at it's core, doesn't boil down to binary choices.

 

[bacienvu88]

I have no idea. That is way too complex a question to ask without a really long and dedicated answer - the entire dynamic of the game chances, because you're trying to put the player in the shoes of a totally different character, and that requires changes for the sake of gameplay.

But let's take this another way and say "What happens if you change the POV, without changing the story" - in which case, pretty much nothing. In that case, you're simply forcing the player to act a certain way rather than giving them decisions. But what about the MC? Before he was making decisions, so what is he doing now? Well, as a dev and a storyteller you have to decide which way you want that person to act, in my case he'd reject her because I have an idea of what I personally consider the "Canon route", and Mary isn't it. I mean sure you could make the npc "decisions" rng, but I personally fucking hate that idea - and since decisions need to be made one way or another, and it's weird to have the player make decisions for the NPC, you'll have to force it, soo..... Yea. Doing something like what you suggested would require such a massive overhaul and re-write of the entire story that I don't think it's a fair question.




No, by the logic I propose this wouldn't happen at all. If it was in the POV of Nikki, what would happen is the MC would pose the question (as he did originally), and then instead of her just answering "beach!" the player would get the choice - because that's what a lot of these games are about, player agency. When you're talking about swapping the POV, you're also swapping the player agency, which can change how things play out.

When I write everything, I have a "canon" story (which means choices/decisions/etc) in mind, but I'm still giving options for the sake of player agency.

In fact, I'll tell you right now: In the "canon" version of my story, MC prefers mountains, Nikki prefers beaches, MC isn't into mary despite how she feels, but despite the beach/mountain thing, everything else MC does is something Nikki likes, and the Ch4 date scene is with her, and not with anyone else - that's my "canon" version. If I'm being honest, I actually sometimes don't write quite as much for that version of the story, because it's the one that I consider the "natural" route, and so I end up putting more effort into the other paths, since they aren't the ones I initially envisioned.


So for me at least, when you're talking about swapping POV, everything still plays out via the "canon" version, but swapping player agency to whoever the new MC is - and in that case, the story may end up changing drastically depending on the options the player makes - and the (current MC), would now no longer be given options, but rather act according to his "canon".




I haven't played that game so I can't speak of it. But I can say, no matter how complex a system looks, if you break it down far enough, it always boils down to binary choices. You can always be clever and layer and stack these, which can get incredibly complex very fast, but binary choices is always what you'll end up with at the very base level.

Since you asked about my game previously, I'll use it as an example.

We'll take Mary. There are currently 3 viable paths regarding mary: (actually 5 but I won't talk about the 4th atm). Path 1: Reject her. You don't pursue Mary, she remains mostly a side character in the game.

Path 2: Pursue her - you pursue mary, and I haven't finished the game yet so I'll just say "We'll see how that goes."

Path 3: Sort of Pursue her - there's a path available where you can pursue mary, but NOT go on a date with her, but still leave things open for later if you wish. It's actually a bit of a PITA to even get on that path since it requires some careful navigation, but it's there.

Path 4: We won't talk about this.

Path 5: Pursue her, then reject her. Stacey comes a-knockin'. This one exists, but obviously isn't really considered "Viable".

That's 5 possible paths with one person - but it all always breaks down to binary choices. Pursue or don't - but path 3 involves another couple of binary choices on top of that.(Technically path 3 involves a choice that isn't binary, you have 3 options and only 1 of the 3 leads to this path, the other 2 take you in different directions, so I guess most of my argument falls apart here, but whatever) And so does path 4. and so does path 5. And the interactions, and the way people may respond, or act, will differ depending, but it's always due to a series of binary choices.

For example, the stuff I'm currently working on is a scene with erin and nikki alone (No MC, just the 2 of them) - and I created 3 different versions of that scene, depending on how the end of the last chapter played out - and it's not just minor dialogue changes, but the scene is vastly different depending on what happened the night before - but it's still all the outcome of a series of binary choices, which lead to one 3 possible scenes playing out.

Maybe this is an inability for me to see things beyond my own perspective, but I can not envision ANY sort of system that, at it's core, doesn't boil down to binary choices.

Ok, my posing those questions backfired. And I agree that it was a bit unfair. I'll try again to express myself. See if I succeed. I'm sorry if this is a bit rambling, but my thoughts are not that clear on the matter.

What I'm trying to get across is that both courtships and relationships require interest and effort from both parties in order to work properly. And what I see with the traditional love points is that what is important is the MC:s interest and effort and LI:s interest is always there if MC puts in the effort to increase the LI:s. At the same time the LI need not put in any effort. This is what I see as one-sided.

In a courtship you want to increase the other party's interest in you while assessing your own interest in the other party and how much effort you are willing to put in. The more your own interest, the more effort you are willing to put in to increase the other party's interest.

So, if we look at the Mary situation again but from a neutral POV rather than Mary POV as I previously stated the question, we see that at the start she is much more interested in a relationship than MC. So it is she who must put in effort in order to increase the interest of the MC. And yet, most of the effort is pushed onto the MC.

For the Nikki situation (sorry for misremembering who actually asked the question), they seem to be more equally interested so the date becomes more of assessing each other. A.k.a getting to know each other. And it bugs me that Nikki is allowed to be honest, while MC is supposed to fake interest in whatever Nikki likes. Especially if Nikki and MC starts to get more serious and Nikki begins to learn that most things you've told is fake. It would be more interesting if the options were "(lie)Beach", "Mountains". And if you lie you get a love point with Nikki. But then later at the club Freddie comes to talk to you and Nikki and starts to talk about how you love the mountains busting your lie.

But maybe what I want is not reconcilable with an MC POV and player agency. Because it is actually the player who chooses, the result is that the MC always make the right choices. Maybe what I want is a more neutral POV, although I don't know how that would work while having actual choices.

All I know is that the feelings, state of mind, mental health and desires of the MC are almost never taken into account in VN:s and that precludes a lot of interesting stories to tell.

 

[noping123]

or the Nikki situation (sorry for misremembering who actually asked the question), they seem to be more equally interested so the date becomes more of assessing each other. A.k.a getting to know each other. And it bugs me that Nikki is allowed to be honest, while MC is supposed to fake interest in whatever Nikki likes. Especially if Nikki and MC starts to get more serious and Nikki begins to learn that most things you've told is fake. It would be more interesting if the options were "(lie)Beach", "Mountains". And if you lie you get a love point with Nikki. But then later at the club Freddie comes to talk to you and Nikki and starts to talk about how you love the mountains busting your lie.

TO be fair, I don't see it as "faking" interest. I see it as letting the player decide what they want - when I coded it, I made it so you *DIDN'T* need a perfect score with her for the "best" result - my specific thought process was "You do everything else right, but don't choose the option she likes, and that's still ok".



I think what you're specifically looking for is, in a lot of ways, incompatible with a game that offers diverse choices - it's the type of thing better suited to a kinetic novel style. As soon as you start offering the player choices, you're creating a situation where either A: Their choices are completely irrelevant and only flavor, so it's still basically a kinetic novel, or B: the LIs/NPCs will respond in hardcoded ways to those choices, so players will always find a way to decide what they think is the "right" and "wrong" answers.



Go back to the Mary thing you mentioned - she DOES do most of the work. She approaches you, she slips you her number, she makes ALL of the moves, and all you as the player do is decide "Do I want to pursue this or not". There is no real effort on the part of the MC, all of the effort is on Mary. The most "effort" you as the MC put into that situation is deciding whether or not to call her after she's made every move in the book, and then talking to stacey and getting free concert tickets. That's the extent of the effort on the MC's part - compare that to Nikki, where you have to do a lot more "work" to get that to succeed.


The whole "LI" doesn't put in effort thing, well I think that's two-fold. #1 - generally you don't see what these characters do when the MC isn't around, so you wouldn't really be privy to any effort they put in, if any. (Going back to what I mentioned before about adding a scene that's just Nikki and erin, one of the reasons I added that scene and a couple more similar ones was to specifically portray these people having a life that doesn't revolve around the MC - he's a player in their story, not the other way around). The second is - ...



I'm a bit like you in that, my thoughts here are a bit disjointed, I'm just sort of stream of consciousness-ing it at the moment, so I'm a bit all over the place, but what it boils down to is, I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for. I think often, a lot of the things you mentioned ARE taken into account, but they're considered in a way that's binary and static - and I personally (And I could be totally wrong here) don't see a way around that, at least not one that is reasonable for any solo or even duo dev to tackle. Because of the binary/static nature of things (Choice A leads to outcome A, choice B leads to outcome B, etc), it can feel like you as the MC does all the work because after all, you make a choice, then thing happens - but how do you do it any other way? How do you have Choice A lead to outcome C, without either adding more options to make that possible, or just removing option A, or making things rng, or whatever. How do you introduce a system where an LI reacts certain ways, and you can then react, and then they react, and so on and so on- that doesn't just turn into the exact same situation as above, just with more steps? I know for me, and it seems for a lot of devs based on the games I've played - they ARE taking the psychology of the NPCs into account, and then having them react to the player decisions in a certain way based on that - it's not that it's one sided, it's that you as the player only control the one side, you only have input into the one side. The other side is reactionary to your decisions, because it HAS to be.

One more note:

It would be more interesting if the options were "(lie)Beach", "Mountains". And if you lie you get a love point with Nikki. But then later at the club Freddie comes to talk to you and Nikki and starts to talk about how you love the mountains busting your lie.

Difference of opinion. I disagree, I do not think that would be more interesting at all. More dramatic sure, but more interesting? I don't think so.

Spoiler: I tossed this idea in the bin, BUT originally when I wrote that scene and added that option? The plan was, in Ch5 which I'm currently working on, to have a callback to that question, and different things to happen depending on your answer back then. I ended up binning that idea, and it won't happen (for a number of reasons that aren't important) - but I will note this: I think having stuff like that, solely for the purpose of accumulating points, is well... pointless. I don't like it. I literally only added it myself because I had plans for it later... but since I scrapped those plans and went a different direction, it ultimately ends up just being for points.

But personally I don't agree with drama being inherently interesting (One of the reasons I personally DON'T like intertwined - the entire game is nothing but drama, and I'm just... not interested. Drama can be interesting, but only if it's.... actually interesting. Drama for the sake of drama isn't interesting to me - and that's just a personal judgement call, different people will obviously have different opinions on that).

I think the scenario you created above would be interesting *IF* the MC had a reason to lie besides "I want to get into her pants", but I don't see a way such a scenario is compatible with player agency.




Also as a final note: FYI, I like these sorts of discussions. I think at the end of the day you and I will sometimes disagree on what we like in a game, or what we look for or what we find interesting (Maybe I'm wrong on that, I just get that impression from some of the stuff we've said), but I do enjoy trying to break things down, and look at them from different perspectives, even if ultimately no one changes their mind on anything, I personally think trying to take the time to look at things differently and maybe even learn something is always a good thing.

 

[Vasin]

So, I played Elsaverse Omnibus's 4 main games. I am a bit reticent about playing anything with "-verse" because it's usually a fanservice red flag to me. Unfortunately despite being good games they did not quite meet my expectation that were built up high with both praise in this thread and my playing Toro 7. The writing in those stories is good enough, it just didn't make me care, tbh. Chloe's arc, albeit good, is thinly sliced across all 4 games, cartoonish villains and protagonists that you could probably swap between games with no effect on the storyline, their only defining feature being pining for LIs. LI's writing is exceptionally good though, it was the thing that actually kept me playing. Ironically I found the game that has the least to do with the entire "elsaverse" thing to be the best. "Darkness falls" really rocked and if not for random porny bits peppered about it would easily be the best.

But there is an issue that I had with most of those games that I feel is relevant to current discussion and that is choices. I think the game that did choices best out of 4 is Jessica one where you could hide the score and as I understand to not get gameover screen you have to get varied and not a single category score. Saving Chloe was also good in that regard even though I somehow managed to find all the "side" endings, I found Miranda's game to be the most aggravating with it's incessant "choose one of the 80% identical fake options to adhere to the actual choice you made at the start of the game" having to click a polite response only to roll back and click on less (or more) polite response to get an arbitrary point. If the only choice (or 2) that matter are at the start that let them be the only choices. I think it's an attempt to somehow add "gameplay" to the VN aspect of it and it really didn't work for me, unlike the point&click aspects of DF that were moderately successfull (they were quite limited but fun).

As for LI's agency I don't think there's a way to code it without making it random and if it affects an important plot point then players will complain that their decisions are irrelevant, but if it's just random flavour then you just multiply the load for no reason because if LI chooses a flavour scene out of 3 randomly then you just do triple the work for the same playtime. That seems quite silly to do.

The only way that I can see to make it work is to give player the ability to either make "wrong" choices or not make "right choices" and if LI has high enough interest have them respond with some kind of proactive action. It's essentially a less obvious hardcoded route with "relationship problems" and therefore more branching writing, so it's understandable why nobody does it. I only see it potentially working in a quite lengthy game with a single LI.

 

[bacienvu88]

TO be fair, I don't see it as "faking" interest. I see it as letting the player decide what they want - when I coded it, I made it so you *DIDN'T* need a perfect score with her for the "best" result - my specific thought process was "You do everything else right, but don't choose the option she likes, and that's still ok".

I understand that is your intention. But from my perspective as a player it becomes "should I get +1 LP or not" regardless of what I think the character would say. Thus it becomes "fake", because it may not be what I would choose is both options were neutral.

I think what you're specifically looking for is, in a lot of ways, incompatible with a game that offers diverse choices - it's the type of thing better suited to a kinetic novel style. As soon as you start offering the player choices, you're creating a situation where either A: Their choices are completely irrelevant and only flavor, so it's still basically a kinetic novel, or B: the LIs/NPCs will respond in hardcoded ways to those choices, so players will always find a way to decide what they think is the "right" and "wrong" answers.

You may be on to something here. But I don't necessarily want a kinetic novel. What I want is that the choices there are have an impact on the actual story. And I want all choices to be equally valid (and valid can very well be to lead to a bad ending). I am not particularly interested in options that give "+1 LP" and if you don't have enough LP the LI is cut from the story.

Go back to the Mary thing you mentioned - she DOES do most of the work. She approaches you, she slips you her number, she makes ALL of the moves, and all you as the player do is decide "Do I want to pursue this or not". There is no real effort on the part of the MC, all of the effort is on Mary. The most "effort" you as the MC put into that situation is deciding whether or not to call her after she's made every move in the book, and then talking to stacey and getting free concert tickets. That's the extent of the effort on the MC's part - compare that to Nikki, where you have to do a lot more "work" to get that to succeed.

I actually do count "slip you her number" as her pushing work onto the MC. But I may be biased since I seriously dislike calling people. But yeah, perhaps not the best example out there.

The whole "LI" doesn't put in effort thing, well I think that's two-fold. #1 - generally you don't see what these characters do when the MC isn't around, so you wouldn't really be privy to any effort they put in, if any. (Going back to what I mentioned before about adding a scene that's just Nikki and erin, one of the reasons I added that scene and a couple more similar ones was to specifically portray these people having a life that doesn't revolve around the MC - he's a player in their story, not the other way around). The second is - ...

I'm a bit like you in that, my thoughts here are a bit disjointed, I'm just sort of stream of consciousness-ing it at the moment, so I'm a bit all over the place, but what it boils down to is, I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for. I think often, a lot of the things you mentioned ARE taken into account, but they're considered in a way that's binary and static - and I personally (And I could be totally wrong here) don't see a way around that, at least not one that is reasonable for any solo or even duo dev to tackle. Because of the binary/static nature of things (Choice A leads to outcome A, choice B leads to outcome B, etc), it can feel like you as the MC does all the work because after all, you make a choice, then thing happens - but how do you do it any other way? How do you have Choice A lead to outcome C, without either adding more options to make that possible, or just removing option A, or making things rng, or whatever. How do you introduce a system where an LI reacts certain ways, and you can then react, and then they react, and so on and so on- that doesn't just turn into the exact same situation as above, just with more steps? I know for me, and it seems for a lot of devs based on the games I've played - they ARE taking the psychology of the NPCs into account, and then having them react to the player decisions in a certain way based on that - it's not that it's one sided, it's that you as the player only control the one side, you only have input into the one side. The other side is reactionary to your decisions, because it HAS to be.

Maybe part of my problem is that MC:s have a tendency (especially if male) to not voice out their feelings or state of mind even in inner monologue. Not sure. But I do know that I usually have a harder time connecting with the MC than his friends and LI:s.

Something to think about: What is your favourite MC? Personally I think most MC:s are pretty meh, but I'd probably choose Vivian from Dog Days of Summer. MC:s from One day at a time and Leap of Faith are ok as well I guess.

One more note:

Difference of opinion. I disagree, I do not think that would be more interesting at all. More dramatic sure, but more interesting? I don't think so.

Spoiler: I tossed this idea in the bin, BUT originally when I wrote that scene and added that option? The plan was, in Ch5 which I'm currently working on, to have a callback to that question, and different things to happen depending on your answer back then. I ended up binning that idea, and it won't happen (for a number of reasons that aren't important) - but I will note this: I think having stuff like that, solely for the purpose of accumulating points, is well... pointless. I don't like it. I literally only added it myself because I had plans for it later... but since I scrapped those plans and went a different direction, it ultimately ends up just being for points.

But personally I don't agree with drama being inherently interesting (One of the reasons I personally DON'T like intertwined - the entire game is nothing but drama, and I'm just... not interested. Drama can be interesting, but only if it's.... actually interesting. Drama for the sake of drama isn't interesting to me - and that's just a personal judgement call, different people will obviously have different opinions on that).

I think the scenario you created above would be interesting *IF* the MC had a reason to lie besides "I want to get into her pants", but I don't see a way such a scenario is compatible with player agency.

I think you made the right decision. I shouldn't have said it was more interesting. I should rather have said it was a different take or something. What I'd actually like to answer in such a situation is something along the lines of "I prefer mountains myself, but I'd love to accompany you to the beach sometime and perhaps you can accompany me to the mountains as well?".

A similar question that gets around is taste in music that you are supposed to say whatever the LI like (for a subversion, see dubstep in Finding Miranda). But personally I find it more interesting to discuss music with someone who has different taste from me (as long as they are knowledgeable about the topic that is).

Also as a final note: FYI, I like these sorts of discussions. I think at the end of the day you and I will sometimes disagree on what we like in a game, or what we look for or what we find interesting (Maybe I'm wrong on that, I just get that impression from some of the stuff we've said), but I do enjoy trying to break things down, and look at them from different perspectives, even if ultimately no one changes their mind on anything, I personally think trying to take the time to look at things differently and maybe even learn something is always a good thing.

Yep. These discussions are great! And are a great way to actually understand what I myself really think when seeing different perspectives on a topic.

 

[Kallisto]

On another note I think VN:s are really harsh in term of second chances. If MC chooses the wrong option or don't collect enough love points or whatever you are cut off from any other content with that LI. There is never a case of them deciding to stay friends or not even talking to each other and later find out that they want to try being more than friend.

I know you've kinda expanded past this point but I wanted to go back to it because I found it interesting. I definitely think it depends on what type of VN you're playing. There are games out there with multiple endings. For example, if you don't get enough love points then you don't get the true-love-explosion-happily-ever-after ending. But if you have a middle ground of friendship points and love points, you get a tamer "good" ending - where MC and chosen LI might not be super in love but they're happy for now and willing to see how their relationship progresses. And if you only have friendship points then romantic love doesn't factor in at all and you're just friends with said person. These multiple types of endings are a lot more prevalent in adult otome games (more geared towards women).

I definitely think the friendship path is a bit rarer but again it depends on the type of game. Just to grab an easy example, Tlaero has said in this thread that she was surprised (or maybe that's too strong of a word), that another user was interested in just talking to and learning about the other characters - and not just the LI they were interested in. That's def a product of the type of game she's making and her audience. It's an (in-depth, story focused) adult game, more skewed toward a straight/straight-ish male audience. It'll just take reading a few of the comments on this site to get that some people just want to focus on their love interest(s) and damn the rest (especially other male characters). While in VNs catered more towards women or just more focused on story and romance, it is quite possible to have "friendship routes" with a character the player isn't romantically interested in but would still like to get to know. I personally dislike the system of "timed interactions", where you can only choose to go visit a certain number of people/places, for that very reason. I would like to get to know the other characters/gameworld and sections like that always give me a sense of "false replayability". As if I'm being told "welp just play the game again and you can get to know the others!". While a valid way to play, it's not really how I like to play - idk I feel I'm rambling on this point so I'll go back to what I was saying before lol.

The better choice of games text-based games and interactive fiction games come to mind (when it comes to friendship routes). The current wips/demos have shown that writers care more about the players getting to know the characters and interacting with the game world, rather than fast tracking toward either lighter topics or pure smut. For those games, there's been an emphasis on being able to befriend other characters in the game besides your chosen LI(s) or even just having a pure friendship route with an LI, where the game won't just stonewall you if you didn't get enough love points to make the romance path or if you'd rather not romance someone.

As for your later point that some of these games feel like it's the MC who has to maneuver perfectly and choose the right thing, I agree. I also don't really have any solution for this lol. The system would have to be very...dynamic to work. Like if MC has shown enough interest (gotten enough friendship/like points), the LI will come to them or start making moves towards them (asking them out, getting them a thoughtful gift based on personality/fluff choices the player has chosen previously for their MC, etc). I have no idea how that would be managed from a dev standpoint and I know some people (maybe not so much in AVNs?) don't like being pursued by in game characters. I love it, as long as that flag was checked because I as the player got enough like points to show that I am interested in this character.

Now I don't know if everything I said would apply to this genre/thread but I gave it a go. Sadly most of the games here do not appeal to me because I'm more into noncorruption, female protag games where there are male LIs (that aren't all aggressive assholes). I can also get behind male protag games as long as there are male LIs available and MC can be gay. So Toro 7 is about the only one mentioned that has appealed to me so far.

 

[noping123]

I understand that is your intention. But from my perspective as a player it becomes "should I get +1 LP or not" regardless of what I think the character would say. Thus it becomes "fake", because it may not be what I would choose is both options were neutral.

I think that's part of the problem though. No matter how you do it, players will almost always turn it into "Which choice gets me the outcome I want", and disregard everything else. You can try your best to make things as interesting as possible, but that sort of metagaming will ALWAYS exist, and there literally isn't anything you can do about it. The thing is, at least to me, all choices are equally valid, depending on your perspective, it's just a matter of metagaming, which makes one seem "worse" than the other. The most one can do is make consequences or differences based on the difference choices, which I personally try to do, but I can say from experience, that is actually really difficult to put into practice. Most of the time it honestly, isn't worth the work.

Different people have different takes on their approach - but as a dev (or even a player) you have to accept that metagaming exists, and always will - so you have a choice. Do you create the game (Or in the case of most VNs, the story) you want to create, metagaming be damned? Or do you try to work around the metagaming? Doing that is definitely a lot of work, and requires a LOT more foresight than most people honestly have - it's sometimes hard to understand the future consequences of every decision you make in development, just because there will always be players that think differently than you. You could employ beta testers and stuff like that, but that has limitations too -usually you can only utilize stuff like that rather late in the process, when it sometimes is just too late to make those sort of changes without massive delays. And the more you try to mitigate the metagaming, the closer you come to kinetic novel, and every "option" being flavor - which in itself isn't inherently bad, but it may not be what you wanted to create, so it depends. If you try to do both, you can really quickly end up in scope creep, which for most devs will just be too much to handle.

Idk, I don't really have a solution. Personally I just go the "Tell the story I want metagaming be damned" route - it's the least stressful approach, so that's what I do. I can see the validity in any approach, but I don't really know of any that would come close to what you really want, without either becoming a kinetic novel, or just being way too much work to implement. It's certainly something worth thinking about, maybe eventually someone does find a solution, but I can't imagine it'd be easy either way.




As far as MCs go.... I'm not really big on mc's in general - idk I don't really have any I particularly like. Quite a few I actively dislike, but.... Many games have MC's that are intentionally rather bland and/or blank - this is obviously done to allow some level of self-insertion. Then on the other hand you have MC's with fully formed personalities, etc who aren't blank slates - the problem with those is player choice. It's very easy to run into situations that make NO SENSE at all - things that were done for story purposes, but that do not in any way fit with the MC "you've built" based on your choices. Badik is a great example of this - the infamous scene in the dorm, only makes sense with a very specific set of choices, if you play through the game differently, that entire scene is just totally nonsensical - but it was done for story purposes, and that's a problem you often run into with games that try to build the MC as an actual character.

So half the games have MC's that are (intentionally) rather bland, the other half end up creating nonsensical situations - it's extremely difficult to properly navigate that, and so far I haven't played any games that have actually done it well. Leap of Faith comes close, there are a few other games that might but it's just too early in their development to say for sure, so atm idk. None really come to mind.

 

[The_Dragon_Reborn]

I have to say, you're in a bit of a unique spot where you don't like unnecessary sex scenes that just seem bolted on. Very few people in this site think that way and I respect that. I'm also not going to list games like This is the Police because I assume if you're here, then you're looking for games with at least some lewd content.

Alright, let's start with one of the classics, Katawa Shoujo.

You must be registered to see the links

I'm sure you've already played this, but a lot of people have not so I'm mentioning it just in case. It's the bread and butter of people who are relatively new to visual novels.

Now first, Blackberry Honey.
https://f95zone.to/threads/blackberry-honey-ebi-hime.6165/
I've been in this market (Well if you count playing porn games for years as being in the market.) for years and I can genuinely say this is one of the best yuri content you're ever going to see. It's absolutely top-tier writing, ebihime really knows how to write both interesting relationships and interesting stories. Also FYI this one is pretty long.

Crimson Gray and it's sequel.
https://f95zone.to/threads/crimson-gray-final-sierra-lee.3739/
https://f95zone.to/threads/crimson-gray-dusk-and-dawn-final-sierra-lee.19057/
Now I have to admit, this is not superb writing per-se, but it's one of the best tellings of a proper yandere romance story you're ever going to get. I personally felt that the sequel wasn't as great as the first game, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

Sweetest Monster
https://f95zone.to/threads/sweetest-monster-final-ebi-hime.5048/
Another ebihime VN, the guy knows his stuff what can I say. This one is pretty unsettling at some parts and intentionally so, I'm not going to spoil anything but there are some big strings in this. Has plent of lewd content for you to enjoy, though no scene feels like they're just trying to fill in the scene gap. You see all those shitty 3D 'visual novels' on the front page, right? This is what all those games wish they were.

VA-11 Hall-A
https://f95zone.to/threads/va-11-hall-a-cyberpunk-bartender-action-sukeban-games.1430/
An excellent visual novel (Yes, visual novel, I do not consider mixing drinks every half an hour or so gameplay.) based around a woman working as a bartender in a cyberpunk city, though FYI this one has no sex, at all. There are some lewd jokes every now and then, and there's exactly one scene where you hold hands with someone, but no sex.

Stay! Stay! DPRK!
https://f95zone.to/threads/stay-stay-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-devgru_p.3661/
For this one, I have to say that you're either going to love it or hate it. It's not a very serious game, as you can tell from the name. The humor's not dry-cut but it's definitely not for everyone, but I personally found it quite enjoyable. Also has sex scenes, suprisingly.

Clannad
https://f95zone.to/threads/clannad-v1-6-7-3-key.34141/
https://f95zone.to/threads/clannad-side-stories-final-key.34142/
https://f95zone.to/threads/tomoyo-after-its-a-wonderful-life-final-key.1099/
I have to admit something here, I haven't even touched Clannad, simply didn't have the time to, but it's considered one of the classics, the stepping stones of the visual novel genre, so I'm throwing this here. It has to be half-decent if so many people praise it, right? No sex btw.

If you want more suggestions, go through these games and tell me what you like and what you don't, I'll be glad to help you find more.

I'd just like to say thanks for the sweetest monster recommendation. I probably would have never come across it without you replying to this thread.

Especially considering for some reason it has no reviews at all given how good the story was. I like to play games like it though and crimson gray and the like as sort of palatte cleansers from all the bullshit that goes on in these other games.

The inconsequential romping around lol. (Not that I don't go for that either but those games are like junk food compared to Katawa, Crimson, and now this game for me). Thanks again.

 

[bacienvu88]

I think that's part of the problem though. No matter how you do it, players will almost always turn it into "Which choice gets me the outcome I want", and disregard everything else. You can try your best to make things as interesting as possible, but that sort of metagaming will ALWAYS exist, and there literally isn't anything you can do about it. The thing is, at least to me, all choices are equally valid, depending on your perspective, it's just a matter of metagaming, which makes one seem "worse" than the other. The most one can do is make consequences or differences based on the difference choices, which I personally try to do, but I can say from experience, that is actually really difficult to put into practice. Most of the time it honestly, isn't worth the work.

And once again my choice of words is poor. "Every choice should be worthy to explore" perhaps describes my intent better. Even if I choose a suboptimal option I'd like to find it interesting enough that I am glad that I chose it. And sometimes that can be interesting flavor text or something big with major branching points. If I get the choice of "Compliment LI (+1 LP)" vs. "Say something stupid" I'm probably not even going to try the second option. Especially not if it is the tenth time such an option has come up.

With regards to love points: It is basically one big choice (pursue LI or not) split up into many smaller options. And with too many of these +1 options, it starts to feel like "do you still want to pursue this LI?" repeated over and over again.

To be clear: I find Alive to be pretty good in this regard. It has a fair amount of branching and most options feel good.

And again I'd like to push Dog Days of Summer . It really have a lot of branching. At the end of the current update, you can have 6 different relationship states for one of the LI:s (heartbroken, friend, fwb, soft dom, hard dom, love) plus some minor variation variables for those. There are also multiple paths to these which is weaved into the relationships paths with other LI:s who have many paths and relationship states as well. There are different scenes depending on path. For example characters (including MC) moving house in some paths but not others. Ok I'll stop gushing over that game now.

Different people have different takes on their approach - but as a dev (or even a player) you have to accept that metagaming exists, and always will - so you have a choice. Do you create the game (Or in the case of most VNs, the story) you want to create, metagaming be damned? Or do you try to work around the metagaming? Doing that is definitely a lot of work, and requires a LOT more foresight than most people honestly have - it's sometimes hard to understand the future consequences of every decision you make in development, just because there will always be players that think differently than you. You could employ beta testers and stuff like that, but that has limitations too -usually you can only utilize stuff like that rather late in the process, when it sometimes is just too late to make those sort of changes without massive delays. And the more you try to mitigate the metagaming, the closer you come to kinetic novel, and every "option" being flavor - which in itself isn't inherently bad, but it may not be what you wanted to create, so it depends. If you try to do both, you can really quickly end up in scope creep, which for most devs will just be too much to handle.

Idk, I don't really have a solution. Personally I just go the "Tell the story I want metagaming be damned" route - it's the least stressful approach, so that's what I do. I can see the validity in any approach, but I don't really know of any that would come close to what you really want, without either becoming a kinetic novel, or just being way too much work to implement. It's certainly something worth thinking about, maybe eventually someone does find a solution, but I can't imagine it'd be easy either way.

I agree. Don't think too much about metagaming and focus on the story you want to tell. But that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. I don't want to stop players from trying to find the optimal route (I especially dislike devs who disable rollback after choices ) or similar metagaming. But as I said above I would like devs to try to entice players to choose suboptimal options because that also leads to interesting outcomes. Perhaps even more interesting than the perceived optimal option.

And with regards to kinetic etc. my preference leans toward fewer but more impactful choices over many choices that have little impact. But I like quite a lot of different VN:s and like both kinetic ones and VN:s with lots of choices both big and small. At the end of the day, the story and the story-telling is the most important and as long as that is good other quirks can be overlooked.

And I don't remember that scene from Badik. It was too long I last played it and I only played to ch4 I think (bought season 1 on steam). I got tired of the frat boy antics in that game so I never bothered to follow it later.

As far as MCs go.... I'm not really big on mc's in general - idk I don't really have any I particularly like. Quite a few I actively dislike, but.... Many games have MC's that are intentionally rather bland and/or blank - this is obviously done to allow some level of self-insertion. Then on the other hand you have MC's with fully formed personalities, etc who aren't blank slates - the problem with those is player choice. It's very easy to run into situations that make NO SENSE at all - things that were done for story purposes, but that do not in any way fit with the MC "you've built" based on your choices. Badik is a great example of this - the infamous scene in the dorm, only makes sense with a very specific set of choices, if you play through the game differently, that entire scene is just totally nonsensical - but it was done for story purposes, and that's a problem you often run into with games that try to build the MC as an actual character.

So half the games have MC's that are (intentionally) rather bland, the other half end up creating nonsensical situations - it's extremely difficult to properly navigate that, and so far I haven't played any games that have actually done it well. Leap of Faith comes close, there are a few other games that might but it's just too early in their development to say for sure, so atm idk. None really come to mind.

That question was probably a bit unfair. I just remembered that there are few likable male characters at all in AVN:s. MC or not MC. So with the overwhelming amount of male MC:s chances are few to find a likable one.

 

[bacienvu88]

The better choice of games text-based games and interactive fiction games come to mind (when it comes to friendship routes). The current wips/demos have shown that writers care more about the players getting to know the characters and interacting with the game world, rather than fast tracking toward either lighter topics or pure smut. For those games, there's been an emphasis on being able to befriend other characters in the game besides your chosen LI(s) or even just having a pure friendship route with an LI, where the game won't just stonewall you if you didn't get enough love points to make the romance path or if you'd rather not romance someone.

Do you have any recommendations for good IF games? I have been meaning to get back into IF:s for a long time, but it never happened for some reason or other.

Now I don't know if everything I said would apply to this genre/thread but I gave it a go. Sadly most of the games here do not appeal to me because I'm more into noncorruption, female protag games where there are male LIs (that aren't all aggressive assholes). I can also get behind male protag games as long as there are male LIs available and MC can be gay. So Toro 7 is about the only one mentioned that has appealed to me so far.

Sadly, there are few female protag straight games that aren't also corruption and none good. At least I have been unable to find any. There are a number pretty good lesbian games at least, but you don't seem to be looking for those.

For your other comments, see my reply to noping.

 

[bacienvu88]

Soooo... I finally got to _A Long Journey_. It's good... and deserves to be in your OP. I particularly admire:

• The dev's depiction of sex between male and female characters. They nail it: the passion, the exploration, the slight fumbling (even among sexually experienced people, who are with each other the first time). So much of the sex depicted in these games does not feel real or arousing. This does.
• The ambiguously motivated LI. Absolutely love it.
• The setting... it has been done before in sci-fi, but I like the twists.

But I am concerned, jufot, that the dev is making a classic mistake: creating an exceptionally expansive plot with too many characters. It feels like we are just at the beginning of the beginning of the story... and there's already a _ton_ of dialogue. I can't see how they are going to finish this thing.

Just started playing this considering the glowing recommendations here. Interesting premise. But, is it just me or is the MC incredibly cringey? As in even worse than the normal horny teenager MC. I find myself wanting him to shut up as soon as he says something. And his thoughts are even worse ...

 

[jufot]

But, is it just me or is the MC incredibly cringey? As in even worse than the normal horny teenager MC. I find myself wanting him to shut up as soon as he says something. And his thoughts are even worse

MC's initial reactions to his predicament and to Selene's presence is definitely on the cringey side. It gets better though because he gets better