Recommending Story-first games

[Raife]

Back when I added it to the list, the game looked promising.

It's always interesting/amusing to track when jufot deems that a game has 'jumped the shark' into porn-first territory.

There are even rarer birds, though: games that make the list, fall off, and come back on. Or games that he dismisses as porn first, and then comes around to appreciate.

Say what you will about jufot (and I have... particularly regarding his notorious anti-college game bias ) he is very consistent. If you like the sort of game we do, it will be on the list.

 

[Raife]

*ROTFL* I can just imagine how the game thread (and probably some unrelated threads as well) would be filled with the rage of all those hypersensitive young men that starts complaining if the MC isn't behaving macho enough, or if an LI has ever had another partner than MC...

Yup. If jufot even suggested something like this on another thread, he'd be dogpiled on this hellsite for the upteenth time.

 

[Hildegardt]

This is a recurring issue for story-first devs: less is almost always more when it comes to LIs.

Take _Intertwined_: it would have been a much, much better game if Nyx had limited herself to 3-4 LIs. (Don't get me wrong... it's still a good game... but it could have been great.)

Intertwined might be the perfect example, because the main plot is stuck in limbo until the main girl finally gets some content. Erynn is literally what the story is about, but gets ignored in favour of side characters with already concluded arcs.

Say what you will about jufot (and I have... particularly regarding his notorious anti-college game bias )

Don't we all have our bias? I'm a sucker for scifi games myself. Some of them can literally do no wrong in my eyes.

 

[jufot]

Intertwined might be the perfect example, because the main plot is stuck in limbo until the main girl finally gets some content. Erynn is literally what the story is about, but gets ignored in favour of side characters with already concluded arcs.

I've become increasingly resentful of Intertwined's stepfamily storyline. It's not tied to anything else and should have been a separate game. Most of the last chapter was dedicated to it, so if you're not on Cara/Nikki routes, there was very little for you to do. Nyx seemingly understood people's frustration and was apologetic about that, but she has chosen to do the same thing for the upcoming chapter as well, which is just... whatever.

And it's not like she isn't aware of the consequences for the game's ever-expanding scope. From Patreon:

Some people may have noticed that if you are on multiple paths, MC isn't really conflicted by "dating" multiple LIs. There are a few scenes, but not many. I wanted to put more stuff into the game but since there are so many possibilities, it would've been so much extra work. So I made the decision some time ago that MC just doesn't give a fuck. At least not on screen to make it simpler.

She's basically sacrificing narrative integrity to rein in some of the excess, which is admirable, but again, it shouldn't have been necessary in the first place.

 

[noping123]

Interesting. Reading everyone's thoughts on LoF... I agree with a lot of what was said, but disagree with a lot of the conclusions drawn.

To me while it did seem like a bunch of disconnected stories, I thought it worked because of that. It was after all intended primarily as a slice of life game....

Look at your own lives. How many of you have a distinct narrative throughout your life? Moreover, how many can say that all of the interactions you have with those around you revolve around 1 person?

Having a lot of things seem somewhat disconnected from each other, and only tangentially related might seem weird from a storytelling perspective, but it did, in my opinion, feel more "real" I guess is the best way to put it. It was like multiple different stories, some connected, some completely disconnected from each other, all going in different paths, happening at the same time. The only common denominator was the player was somehow involved in all of them (or could be), but he certainly was rarely the focal point of any.

I can understand wanting a cohesive narrative to drive the story, but at the same time I think intertwining more of the separate stories together wouldn't have worked.

You can say what you want about whether you liked or disliked the game, or the content, or the paths taken and that's all down to the person, but I do think having the sort of disconnected storylines happening in tangent worked in the games favor.


The one weak point I personally did note, was that there did seem to be some storylines sort of brought up at various points and then dropped and rarely referenced/spoken of again. I am not personally completely sure if that's actually the case or not, I haven't played through every path the game has to offer, and it's possible some things did come up again at some point on different paths, but I did notice a few times things that were definitely referenced or focused on early sort of either never got brought up again, or reached what felt like a very hasty conclusion. Most of those were smaller side stuff though so I didn't attach too much importance to it.

 

[mr.AwesomeGameTaste]

Back when I added it to the list, the game looked promising. We've had an MC whose girlfriend disappeared mysteriously. He was working a dead-end job and didn't really have much going on. One day, he ran into a suicidal girl, which kind of became the catalyst that woke him up from his stupor.

That was a solid foundation to launch a story from, but it ended up going nowhere. The game turned into a series of scenes where people just hang out and have fun, and any problems are hand-waved away with some corny platitudes. The main story (if you can call it that - I mean Cece's situation) was also left unresolved. Besides her promise not to do it again during that cheesy beach scene, nothing has actually changed for her. Steph has it even worse because she regressed! She went back to the job that caused all of her and MC's problems, with MC's blessing. It doesn't even make sense! And what about MC's family? We meet the father and the sister, and then... what? It went nowhere.

So, when you look beyond all that, what are we left with? A sewage worker meets a popstar, who for some reason invites him and his friends on a private jet flight to her place. They have lots of fun over the next few weeks. Everyone goes back to their lives, and MC ends up with a new girlfriend. That's not much of a story, is it?

it's not any justification for LoF,but the sister will be a li in his new game so maybe we will find out more about mc's family. Obviously it should've been shown in lof instead.

 

[jufot]

Look at your own lives. How many of you have a distinct narrative throughout your life? Moreover, how many can say that all of the interactions you have with those around you revolve around 1 person?

I mean, my life is exciting to me, but I doubt it'd be fulfilling for you to observe I expect more from my entertainment than to simply follow a guy around while he completes seemingly unrelated tasks.

it's not any justification for LoF,but the sister will be a li in his new game so maybe we will find out more about mc's family. Obviously it should've been shown in lof instead.

Wait, the games are connected? I wasn't aware of that. Is it just the sister that will be recurring, or are there more?

 

[mr.AwesomeGameTaste]

I mean, my life is exciting to me, but I doubt it'd be fulfilling for you to observe I expect more from my entertainment than to simply follow a guy around while he completes seemingly unrelated tasks.


Wait, the games are connected? I wasn't aware of that. Is it just the sister that will be recurring, or are there more?

I don't follow the development close enough to know since i lost interest in the game, but I know the sister will be there,so there is a high chance of the father making an appearance as well. I'd guess we will hear about lof mc's life from the sister and of course everyone's gonna be a big fan of lexi diamante.
Seriously,is anyone else tired of the constant crossovers between the newer avn's? Between Two Worlds,Artemis,Bare Witness,Chasing Sunsets,LoF and a few more have done it,Lexi played more concerts than MJ at this point.
Like Im glad y'all are friends but I don't really care for it.

 

[jufot]

Seriously,is anyone else tired of the constant crossovers between the newer avn's? Between Two Worlds,Artemis,Bare Witness,Chasing Sunsets,LoF and a few more have done it,Lexi played more concerts than MJ at this point.
Like Im glad y'all are friends but I don't really care for it.

Agreed. It was a fun novelty at first, but it's so overused at this point, all I can muster up is a yawn.

 

[kotte]

And it's not like she isn't aware of the consequences for the game's ever-expanding scope. From (Nyx) Patreon:

"... I wanted to put more stuff into the game but since there are so many possibilities, it would've been so much extra work. So I made the decision some time ago that MC just doesn't give a fuck. "

I think this is such an interesting dilemma! On one end of the scale, we have non-interactive stories, where the author has complete control over the narrative, making it easier to build interesting characters that behave realistically. On the other end of the same scale, we have sandbox games where the player can do anything in any order, making it really difficult to make even simple dialogue be consistent ("wait, how can she mention that, I haven't done that yet?").

Basically, if a dev is intending to write a story-first game, it will be necessary to limit the degrees of freedom. Having a main LI that is mandatory can be one way (as in Elvensang).

Another way is to fill the game with micro-branching, choices that don't affect the game for an extended time. It can be different dialogue (as in Reconnect), or maybe that you need to take some extra steps to reach your goal, but you still get there.

Anyway, I am really impressed by those devs (some of you active in this thread) that manage to pull this off.

 

[Hildegardt]

I can understand wanting a cohesive narrative to drive the story, but at the same time I think intertwining more of the separate stories together wouldn't have worked.

You can say what you want about whether you liked or disliked the game, or the content, or the paths taken and that's all down to the person, but I do think having the sort of disconnected storylines happening in tangent worked in the games favor.

I don't see how it's a good thing that Kira and Robin have no impact on the story and Lexi's only role is trivializing any potential problem with her money. For these characters it's not about whether or not their stories could have been more connected, because they're superfluous.
Their existence takes away from the story, because the PC was supposed to be troubled by Steph's disappearance, but he isn't really, because he can just go for Kira, Robin or Lexi and ignore Steph for the whole game. And Cece was supposed to be the one who orchestrated the PC's salvation, but from a player's perspective she had nothing to do with me choosing a LI halfway through the game.

 

[boobsrcool]

I'll play both, then. Thanks again!

just finished one of the offcuts routes one of the better games i've played on here

 

[Raife]

Look at your own lives. How many of you have a distinct narrative throughout your life? Moreover, how many can say that all of the interactions you have with those around you revolve around 1 person?

Here's a vignette from my former life as an academic historian, noping, which tends to support your point.

When I was doing research, I interviewed several dozen living 'sources,' because the period that I was writing about was within the living memory of people then in their 80s and 90s. What I found surprised me:

• Those people who had thought about their past the most systematically -- by writing a memoir, for example -- tended to have the least accurate memory of events (as validated by other sources); and
• People who hadn't thought about events 50-60 years ago _at all_, until I started probing their recollections, tended to offer the most accurate reflections on the past.

I gradually came to a conclusion that is hardly original (historians like David Hackett Fischer got there first): people unconsciously 'edit' their own memories to conform to a conventional narrative arc, a tendency that becomes stronger the more they think about their past. It's not deliberate, and it does not make their recollections false... it means that events that do not conform with the narrative we tell ourselves... just get left out.

This leads me to a couple of relevant points for devs:

• Conventional narrative arcs are incredibly powerful. Heck, if people are unconsciously shaping their own self-images to suit them, imagine what you can do when you're actually telling a story.
• How accurate is my understanding of my own life... what have I left out, without knowing it, from my own memory? Are the stories that I tell about myself really true? Or perhaps they are true, but also incomplete...

 

[Sharinel]

• How accurate is my understanding of my own life... what have I left out, without knowing it, from my own memory? Are the stories that I tell about myself really true? Or perhaps they are true, but also incomplete...

Also how the fuck do I wake up at 3am in the morning remembering the witty comeback I should have said to someone when I was 8 years old?

 

[noping123]

Here's a vignette from my former life as an academic historian, noping, which tends to support your point.

When I was doing research, I interviewed several dozen living 'sources,' because the period that I was writing about was within the living memory of people then in their 80s and 90s. What I found surprised me:

• Those people who had thought about their past the most systematically -- by writing a memoir, for example -- tended to have the least accurate memory of events (as validated by other sources); and
• People who hadn't thought about events 50-60 years ago _at all_, until I started probing their recollections, tended to offer the most accurate reflections on the past.

I gradually came to a conclusion that is hardly original (historians like David Hackett Fischer got there first): people unconsciously 'edit' their own memories to conform to a conventional narrative arc, a tendency that becomes stronger the more they think about their past. It's not deliberate, and it does not make their recollections false... it means that events that do not conform with the narrative we tell ourselves... just get left out.

This leads me to a couple of relevant points for devs:

• Conventional narrative arcs are incredibly powerful. Heck, if people are unconsciously shaping their own self-images to suit them, imagine what you can do when you're actually telling a story.
• How accurate is my understanding of my own life... what have I left out, without knowing it, from my own memory? Are the stories that I tell about myself really true? Or perhaps they are true, but also incomplete...

Not to go completely off the rails, but I find the entire concept of memory, how we shape it, how it defines us, and just how accurate (and often inaccurate) it is, fascinating. It's one of those things I'll waste a few hours now and then reading about when I have free time, because all of it is interesting to me.

What's most interesting though, is that it isn't something I've thought about in a bit, and thinking about it now gives me a few ideas. Nothing I'll toy with in my current game, while I immediately thought of a way I could play with the concept in it, I'm not going to go toying with the story at this point, I like where it's headed and I don't wanna mess around with it anymore.

For the one I have planned though.... I've been slowly working on re-writing it. I loved some of the initial concepts, but my original execution.... yea, it sucked. I'm glad I didn't try to start making it back when I came up with it. I've been slowly improving it as best I can whenever I have some extra time to spare, but I have run into a bit of a roadblock recently trying to resolve a certain section of the narrative..... This gives me some really good ideas to get past that.

 

[Raife]

Also how the fuck do I wake up at 3am in the morning remembering the witty comeback I should have said to someone when I was 8 years old?

That's some George Costanza-level l'esprit de l'escalier... or something. (Someone should put it in a game!)

 

[Hahn1900]

Wait, the games are connected? I wasn't aware of that. Is it just the sister that will be recurring, or are there more?

Well there is a trailer for the new project from drifty... with a blonde girl in it that kinda looks similar to her... but if you really pay attention to the trailer, and look at the model, no its not the sister out of LoF...

IF she is, the model changed A LOT.

iam not a sup on this patreon anymore, but i dont think he said anything towards that LoF and the new game are connected in any way. In fact i remember a post where he made a hint that they arent connected at all... but i would be glad if somebody could confirm it otherwise...

LoF had SO MANY loose ends... especially regardings MCs family and the homeland story... it would be a good thing if the new project would take those ends and will go on with the story.

But i doubt it...

These things with MCs family are not the only very loose ends in the game.

I love the characters very much, and until episode 6 i thought the story could be a lot deeper than i imagined. But everything was just blown away in the last two chapters, as nothing happened and in the end the MC has just a new girlfriend, or the old one, or more than one... and thats about it.

So yeah, it was a really nice game with a lot emotions, but this thread is about story first... and if you look at the game as a story first game... the last two chapters pretty much were throwing the story out of the window and there wasnt much left storywise.

This fact doesnt make it a bad game, or less enjoyable. But its not a "story first" game anymore. I can agree with that. If you want deep story, LoF cant really deliver on that part as a whole.

 

[sageproduct]

Here's a vignette from my former life as an academic historian, noping, which tends to support your point.

When I was doing research, I interviewed several dozen living 'sources,' because the period that I was writing about was within the living memory of people then in their 80s and 90s. What I found surprised me:

• Those people who had thought about their past the most systematically -- by writing a memoir, for example -- tended to have the least accurate memory of events (as validated by other sources); and
• People who hadn't thought about events 50-60 years ago _at all_, until I started probing their recollections, tended to offer the most accurate reflections on the past.

I gradually came to a conclusion that is hardly original (historians like David Hackett Fischer got there first): people unconsciously 'edit' their own memories to conform to a conventional narrative arc, a tendency that becomes stronger the more they think about their past. It's not deliberate, and it does not make their recollections false... it means that events that do not conform with the narrative we tell ourselves... just get left out.

This leads me to a couple of relevant points for devs:

• Conventional narrative arcs are incredibly powerful. Heck, if people are unconsciously shaping their own self-images to suit them, imagine what you can do when you're actually telling a story.
• How accurate is my understanding of my own life... what have I left out, without knowing it, from my own memory? Are the stories that I tell about myself really true? Or perhaps they are true, but also incomplete...

Wow, this is absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing it. That gives me motivations to leave video diaries again, as I am one of those people for better or for worse ends up ruminating about the past. And trying to create dramatic narratives. I don't want to make fake memories

 

[Tlaero]

Not to go completely off the rails, but I find the entire concept of memory, how we shape it, how it defines us, and just how accurate (and often inaccurate) it is, fascinating. It's one of those things I'll waste a few hours now and then reading about when I have free time, because all of it is interesting to me.

I'm happy to go completely off the rails. I highly recommend this episode of Nova.

You must be registered to see the links

It's beyond fascinating. Apparently, when we remember something, the process of pulling it out of "storage" and then putting it back is a lossy operation. So, when we remember things, our memories of them change. This is partially the reason for why eyewitness accounts are so terribly inaccurate. It's also why athletes who visualize success succeed. Your brain can't tell the difference between "real" memories, and high detailed ones you made up in your head.

And it goes farther. They have people who make use of these aspects of our brains to cure phobias.

If you only watch one Nova in your life ... well, you really should watch more. But if you really do only watch one, make it this one.

Tlaero

 

[Tlaero]

Also how the fuck do I wake up at 3am in the morning remembering the witty comeback I should have said to someone when I was 8 years old?

Part of the reason I became a writer was so that I could tell the story of that 8 year old saying the witty comeback that I came up with years later...

Tlaero