Recommending Story-first games
- Thread starter jufot
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- May 15, 2021
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It's the dichotomy between player agency and narrative integrity. Either the choices are pointless fluff, in which case why have choices at all, or they have significant, tangible effects, in which case the narrative has to be flexible enough to support disparate characters/events/timelines. In my experience, the latter always results in a weaker story as opposed to a linear, on the rails one. It's why kinetic novels tend to have the best stories.
Still, it's not an AVN problem, nor even a gaming problem - it happens anytime you let consumers control the narrative. For example, Netflix recently released a series called Kaleidoscope. It has eight episodes taking place at different times, and was designed to be watched in any random order. Eight episodes means ~40K different watch orders. Choices galore! Except it ended up being very tedious. Because you can start with any episode, they all have to do a little song and dance about introducing the characters and they can never have cliffhangers because there is no opportunity to resolve them later. Sure, there is merit to this kind of experimentation. It drives creativity. But they ended up with a show more about the gimmick than the story, and surely someone at Netflix saw that coming?
- Sep 20, 2018
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I think that's a good set of guidelines, definitely. One slight tweak: I suggest the goal shouldn't be for characters to make the 'smartest' decision they can as much as they should make the 'best' decision they can. You can get a lot of mileage out of characters making objectively foolish decisions as long we we understand why they're doing it and sympathize with their reasons (even if we ultimately disagree).
That said, I'm reminded of Bare Witness which has a 'mini-harem' in the MASH path. It did a pretty good job with all your points (there was a notable lie of omission by the MC, but it's quickly forgiven), and it put in a lot of work fleshing out the character dynamics within the harem (which was great). But it still ran into problems in my eyes because of the way the harem path upstaged the non-harem paths for those girls. It wasn't just that the harem path got more content, it's that the solo paths felt truncated. The MC didn't have anything to do with the girls individually because nearly all their content expected them to be in the harem. [Technically, Athena and Heidi did have some memorable unique content if you insisted on splitting them up and dating them solo (though it made you feel like a heartless monster). The problem here was that the H/A throuple felt truncated because, again, it was supposed to be expanded.]
I guess what I'm saying is that even following those rules doesn't necessarily ensure the audience will buy into the big orgy. I think you also need to be careful to show how the girls aren't just pieces in a harem-shaped puzzle. You can be heavy handed and either give the player no option to romance the girls individually - or even show how the other girls' lives will be ruined without the harem (that's kind of what the solo-Heidi or solo-Athena paths did in BW). But I think the much better option is to give the girls happy solo paths, just contrast that happiness with the happiness they find in the harem route to show how it meets the girls' needs differently. A Summer's End did something similar if you refuse to end up with the chosen LI: Sam and Michele can still find happiness with new partners, it just won't be the same as if they get together. Sure, our sympathies are obviously with the couple we've spent the game watching, but we don't need to treat the alternative as a non-standard game over.
To bring this back towards the theoretical topic, I think you need to keep the story in mind. If the harem IS the story, people skeptical of harems probably aren't going to like it no matter how well you tell it. If the story is about something else - even something closely related, the way ASE is about Michele deciding what she wants out of life rather than just about her encounter with Sam - then you'll have a lot more latitude when it comes to selling the harem.
Then again, maybe people like me are inevitably the portion of the Venn diagram outside the harem circle and you should stop worrying about us.
- Nov 24, 2018
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Yeah, every choice you give the player weakens the story. Even having multiple LIs does damage. No matter how well you integrate them, you're still burning time on the ones a given player isn't playing at that moment. The release schedule gets longer for stuff most people aren't playing (different for each player, of course).
Tlaero
- Jun 18, 2022
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One of my ideas for an anti-harem harem game actually combines two of your suggestions: an original haremmonger dies and the MC wants to leave the harem. The story would be about a sex cult created by the MC's father for his own abusive gratification. One tenet of the cult is that the founder's designated son will inherit the leadership role when the founder dies. This rule was put into place by the father with the idea that the women in the cult would compete to give birth to the future leader, but it just so happens that the father dies abruptly before any begetting has taken place and his long-estranged adult son is his only living descendency.
The MC has no love for his father (who also had no love for him), but he's also broke so it's hard to refuse the substantial inheritance coming his way. Part of his patrimony is the cult itself, and that's a much tougher pill to swallow. He isn't a believer and considers his father to have been a scammer rather than any kind of prophet. To him, the women in the cult initially seem fanatical, unhinged, and even dangerous. If he takes the time to slowly get to know them, though, he'll gradually come to realize they've been cruelly used, abused, and brainwashed for years. Like him, they're victims of his father.
I envision the VN as potentially having quite a few different endings. If the MC tries to shut the cult down immediately, he gets murdered by the cultists for being a false prophet. If he passes control of the cult to someone else, it evolves into something even more sinister and he has to live with that guilt. More happy endings are possible when the MC decides the best tack is to try to gradually change the cult and its property into something healthier like a commune or a retreat for abused women and children. Some haremy moments would definitely be involved along this path, but there's also room for healing, romance, and hope. I don't see an MC on this path choosing to keep the harem perpetually; however, he could fall in love with one of the cultists. Alternatively, the MC could decide to walk his father's path and fully embrace his role as cult leader with all that entails. That would be the corruption path with some variation depending on just how evil the MC chooses to be.
- May 15, 2021
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I'd love to play that game. The key for me is that the harem is not there to be enjoyed, but to be deconstructed, literally.
If I were the developer, I'd allow even the players pursuing the "good guy" path to make use of the harem, sexually, but with a twist. Imagine the MC thinking, "it sucks that these women are brainwashed and I'll definitely help them, but let's have an orgy first." MC has sex and moves on with his day. The player's thinking, "woah, that was hot! That's how you do a sex scene! I'll subscribe to the dev's Patreon." So far so good, so ordinary, so boring.
But then, towards the end when the harem members realize the extent of cruelty and abuse they've been subjected to, MC realizes that, despite good intentions, he has also been guilty in perpetuating that abuse. He suddenly has flashbacks to the harem-ish sex scenes the player has picked throughout the game. Only this time, it doesn't feel sexy at all, it all feels like rape! This does a serious number on MC's psyche, especially since both he and the player think themselves a Good Guy.
Now, at that point, I'd give the player the option for the MC to either kill himself or choose to live with the fact that when push came to shove, he was no better than his monstrous father.
This sounds like Spec Ops: The Line for harems, and I'd pay good money to see it happen
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- Sep 20, 2018
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I don't know if I agree, at least not entirely. I've always been fascinated by the way seeing the results of your choices play out can shed so much more light on the situation than seeing any one take alone. I think it's one of the best tools that game-based stories have other other media.* It seems to me that choices could be used to reinforce a story, as long as the author has a solid understanding of what that story is and how the choices are meant to further it.
Granted, that's no easy task, and the more choices you offer the harder it is (exponentially). But I wouldn't want to give up on a very powerful tool just because it's difficult to use. To call on A Summer's End again, I don't know if that story would necessarily be weaker if we automatically accepted Sam and never saw the glimpse of an alternate future where Michele embraces a more conventional life, but I'm certain it wouldn't be stronger.
* Yes, I did read Choose Your Own Adventures as a kid, but it's a much smoother process in a game.
I'll admit, I'd almost certainly play the first chapter of that game just to see if it looked like you could pull it off.
- Nov 24, 2018
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As I see it, there are five types of choices in a game:
1) "Roleplaying" choices that have little impact on the game but allow the player to say, "This is how I'd like to act."
2) "More info" choices where you go deep on a dialog tree but doing so just teaches you more about something without significantly impacting the game.
3) "Gatekeeping" choices that, if made incorrectly, cause you to fail in some way.
4) "Ordering" choices that let you choose which action to take first, but you're eventually going to do them all in one playthrough, so it doesn't significantly impact the game.
5) "Branching" choices that cause the player to not see some amount of content unless they play multiple times.
I've ordered those from least dev cost to most. Dev cost implicitly impacts players in that more cost means either longer release times or shorter stories. This is independent of developer skill. The cost is there even if the developer is an expert branching storyteller.
I suspect that most of the current VN players really only consider branches to be "valid" choices in games. I don't collect telemetry on my games (who wants to play an erotic game that tracks them?), but it would be interesting to know what percentage of people play through once vs what percentage play enough times to see most of the branches.
Tlaero
1) "Roleplaying" choices that have little impact on the game but allow the player to say, "This is how I'd like to act."
2) "More info" choices where you go deep on a dialog tree but doing so just teaches you more about something without significantly impacting the game.
3) "Gatekeeping" choices that, if made incorrectly, cause you to fail in some way.
4) "Ordering" choices that let you choose which action to take first, but you're eventually going to do them all in one playthrough, so it doesn't significantly impact the game.
5) "Branching" choices that cause the player to not see some amount of content unless they play multiple times.
I've ordered those from least dev cost to most. Dev cost implicitly impacts players in that more cost means either longer release times or shorter stories. This is independent of developer skill. The cost is there even if the developer is an expert branching storyteller.
I suspect that most of the current VN players really only consider branches to be "valid" choices in games. I don't collect telemetry on my games (who wants to play an erotic game that tracks them?), but it would be interesting to know what percentage of people play through once vs what percentage play enough times to see most of the branches.
Tlaero
- May 15, 2021
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It's the exception that proves the rule
Truly impactful choices like these are rare, and even in an exceptional game like this, it's still not great. The choice to reject Sam robs the story of its momentum, leading to an early ending that's bittersweet at best, profoundly sad at worst.
I don't think it's wrong that the choice is there, but it's clearly an afterthought. After all, A Summer's End is a queer love story made by queer women with the explicit goal of creating positive LGBT representation (see their website). Given that, I don't think the game would have lost any of its appeal if it was purely kinetic without that choice.
- May 15, 2021
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I agree with that. For me, the whole point of a choice is consequence - making a choice is not just about picking a path, but equally about rejecting another. If I choose to take the car to work, I'm also choosing not to take the tube, which means I won't get to meet that cute girl that would have been sitting across me. And I will make that choice without complaining about "missing content"
As for the others in your list, I do enjoy them most of the time. But I see them merely as gameplay tools to differentiate kinetic novels from games. They're just obstacles between me and the story.
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Sorry. Guess I should have unpacked what I meant by "smartest" and "they know how to."
I phrased it this way very specifically to avoid a number of writing mistakes I personally am particularly prone to:
- Characters holding the
You must be registered to see the linksin order to make the Plot work. (Negated by making "characters making smart decisions" a writing goal every time a character does something.)
- Losing track of what makes each character unique. (Negated by considering their worldview, skills and habits when making those smart decisions.)
- Forgetting to give my characters weaknesses. (Negated by making their weaknesses pretty much the only way left for them to fail despite trying to make smart decisions.)
- Forgetting subjectivity. (Negated by considering these decisions from within the context of the character's point of view, not the audience's point of view or my own personal point of view.)
The only risk is recurring villains might start to look too cool, and I'll be forced to make them kill a dog or crush the woobie's dreams or something, just to keep the audience from sympathizing with them. We want them squarely in "love to hate" territory.
Personally, I would probably try to give each LI their own route with the MC before the harem starts to gel, because that's part of the whole process of building appeal. I can see how economic decisions about what's worth developing would come into play, especially in an economy like Patreon where only a few players' opinions "count" because they vote with their wallets. I'd try to avoid this fate, but it might not be easy to do so systemically. Maybe choosing the right backer goals is the best way.
Nothing wrong with making the harem ending optional. Though executing that may require explicitly choosing characters' names off a list at some point, even if it's couched in things like who to listen to first or whose plan to agree with. But at that point, it becomes a problem of ludonarrative dissonance, not narrative structure.
I'm going to be honest, the route you describe from A Summer's End sounds like more effort than I'd probably put in to detailing that particular part of the world. Do I really want to design two whole new characters, including giving them enough appeal that it makes sense they could woo two of the LIs, just so the player knows who their ex hooked up with? I might be oversimplifying your description in my head, though.
Maybe the fix is to just have LIs hook up with other LIs, in the specific case where the player picks a monogamy route.
If only the Bulletproof Harem were designed to facilitate that sort of thing. Oh wait. It is. The harem isn't the story, it's just the dessert. The meat and potatoes is the external conflict. That's why I demand an A-plot with characters solving a group problem. Ostensibly, that's what the story is about. The purpose of the Bulletproof Harem is just to make the dessert pair naturally with the main course.
Viewed through that lens, though, I now realize that the initial write-up was one very obtuse implementation of the more general, more compact principles presented previously. It focused on making the story all about building the harem, and that's just overkill.
Don't worry. I'm not doing it for you. And I'm certainly not doing it for Screedy McBodyBags, up there. I'm doing it for me.Then again, maybe people like me are inevitably the portion of the Venn diagram outside the harem circle and you should stop worrying about us.
Well... for me, and perhaps also for
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who helped inspire the whole train of thot.
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The statistic has to be from a complete game though, because for an in-development game, the long waiting time for update would lead some players to play other branches where they might not have done otherwise had the game is a completed game.
I would play most games once if the game is a completed game, because that becomes the "canon" of my "experience" with it. Maybe twice if I'm curious, but that is only if there are 4-5 paths.
If there's only 2 path, I'm certain I'd only play 1 path.
I play multiple paths now just because players have to wait for updates. No better example to this than Bare Witness. One day I just got so bored I decided to check the four girls playthrough, and actually came out really surprised becuase it's one of very rare times where the adult scene of the fivesome added dimension to the story.
I wouldn't have seen that had I bought Bare Witness completed game on itch or steam.
This is a good take, but I feel like it can depend on execution as much as the type of choice.
For example, some games tie Roleplaying choices into a Karma system, which accidentally turns the whole game into Branching that the player needs to continually reaffirm in order to make sure they have enough karma points to get the "right" ending. Or at least, that can be the player perception if too much of the karma system is hidden "under the hood." It can get bad enough that one of the first things modded into games with a karma system is consequences in parenthesis, so the player doesn't need to consult an FAQ in order to game the system.
Ordering can end up cheaper than "More Info" if implemented particularly well. The Ink language provides some excellent tools for this, and has integrations for basically every engine but Ren'Py.
Branching can be almost as cheap as Roleplay, assuming you re-join into the critical path ASAP and just store a flag for a nice callback or two, much later.
Reusing art assets or simply writing less can pretty much always raise or lower the time commitment of any particular branch.
And of course, some scenes or even lines can pull double or triple duty, so it's reasonable to expect that some choices could do the same.
It's also worth mentioning that sometimes what you're actually delivering is the Illusion of Choice. You can argue that this is what Roleplaying, More Info, and Ordering are all about, but I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. There will always be edge cases, and sometimes these can be quite compelling. Turn-limited "Escape Room Sequences" where Ordering is actually Gatekeeping, for example. So I feel like it might be worth considering the Illusion of Choice as its own separate dial for the writer to tweak.
- Sep 20, 2018
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Do you really think "More info" choices are more demanding than "Roleplaying" choices? I would have thought the opposite, unless we're just talking about the time required to write up the codex entries themselves. Not trying to gainsay you, just expressing my surprise.
But on the larger point, there's no question choices are expensive. Of course so are graphics, and I still see them as a net positive when used well. I think there's a lot that could be gained by looking for ways to leverage branching choices. For most games it's a gimmick, sure, but it doesn't *have* to be. I believe carefully applied branching can add impact to our choices by showing us the full consequences of them. But I suppose it's an open question whether branching could ever provide a better return on investment than simply making a pair (or more) of (relatively) linear games centered the alternative branches.
You're right about telemetry, of course, but it's a shame because I would be very keen to know how other players approach choices in these sort of games. Branching is the one most people fixate on because has the most measurable results. Personally, I've found simple roleplaying can be very effective, as long as the game occasionally references our choices. A little interactivity can go a long way. The catch is that you can't just ignore those choices when they become inconvenient or the effort is wasted.
Oh, and double secret don't ignore those details right after swearing up and down what a big deal they are (still looking at you, BaDIK!).
Sigh. Sorry about that.
You're looking at each path as a complete story in isolation, but I think you need to consider the game as a whole. Rejecting Sam is certainly bittersweet, but that's the point; Michele made an important choice and faced consequences.It's the exception that proves the rule
Truly impactful choices like these are rare, and even in an exceptional game like this, it's still not great. The choice to reject Sam robs the story of its momentum, leading to an early ending that's bittersweet at best, profoundly sad at worst.
I don't think it's wrong that the choice is there, but it's clearly an afterthought. After all, A Summer's End is a queer love story made by queer women with the explicit goal of creating positive LGBT representation (see their website). Given that, I don't think the game would have lost any of its appeal if it was purely kinetic without that choice.
The game obviously takes sides here, but by my reckoning it still plays fair; we can decide for ourselves if alternate!Michele's melancholy comes from denying a part of herself to blend in or is simply do to the way she ended things with alternate!Sam. What matters is that the extra hardship Michele faced with Sam purely due to homophobia does no one any good. To my mind, that makes ASE far more effective propaganda than a simple kinetic novel would have been.
Of course it would have been far worse than a kinetic novel if the rejection path had been a mere strawman where Michele leads a sad, broken life trying to live up to society's expectations, then kills herself right after marrying Joey. That sort of heavy-handed moralizing would wear poorly. I mention this, incidentally, because it roughly matches my concern with your take on Spec Ops: The Harem.
I think you're taking me too literally here. I wasn't suggesting that you needed to show unchosen LIs in happy external relationships the way A Summer's End showed us an alternate future for Michele and Sam. My point is that if members of the harem are optional, you need to make each possible permutation feel in some way distinct - and ideally not just in a way that makes you feel bad for leaving someone out (though that probably would work to a degree).Nothing wrong with making the harem ending optional. Though executing that may require explicitly choosing characters' names off a list at some point, even if it's couched in things like who to listen to first or whose plan to agree with. But at that point, it becomes a problem of ludonarrative dissonance, not narrative structure.
I'm going to be honest, the route you describe from A Summer's End sounds like more effort than I'd probably put in to detailing that particular part of the world. Do I really want to design two whole new characters, including giving them enough appeal that it makes sense they could woo two of the LIs, just so the player knows who their ex hooked up with? I might be oversimplifying your description in my head, though.
Maybe the fix is to just have LIs hook up with other LIs, in the specific case where the player picks a monogamy route.
I realize that's a very tall ask, especially if the harem exceeds a bare minimum 3 LIs, but I think it's necessary. If the only difference between romancing someone individually and romancing them in the context of a harem is the opportunity for more and busier sex scenes, I don't think it's ever going to feel "real" no matter how well you flesh out the characters. It's not enough just to cut out the content related to the unchosen characters, you're going to find at a least a couple new things to do with the chosen character(s) you couldn't otherwise do.
In a way, it's just another manifestation of the tyranny of choices that Tlaero brought up. A choice that does nothing but opt out of content isn't satisfying from a gameplay perspective. I don't think you'd need to match an equal amount of content for each permutation, but you need to give every branch something meaningful to call its own. If you want to keep your thumb on the scale, you can follow the ASE route and make the non-harem paths feel bittersweet because of the absence of the unchosen LIs, but it will be an easier sell if you add something positive to the mix in the process.
In practice, I suspect this means it would behoove you to limit the number of sub-harem permutations, either by keeping the entire cast small, or by making certain characters a package deal. Or, as I said, just write me off and focus elsewhere!
- Nov 24, 2018
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At it's simplest, roleplaying choices just provide multiple ways to say the same thing. It's one or two extra sentences often without needing to change art assets. Sometimes you add a variable and have some code to make subtle changes in how people treat you. For instance, in Darkness Falls I often had 3 ways for Blake to respond to Won, and updated variables based on which you chose. Then, depending on which you did the most caused her to call you "Old Man", "Blake", or "Partner." That kind of thing is really easy and doesn't cost much.
More info is harder to do well because it's really noticeable when you know something but the game doesn't act like you do. So you've got to come up with text that's unimportant enough to be fine for the player to miss. And the time spent doing that is, almost by definition of questionable benefit.
Tlaero
See, I don't like doing that, because I only feel like I'm learning when somebody tells me something I didn't already know and their reasons make sense.
Believe it or not, you've actually been super helpful. Even if I were to disagree with you on every point, (which I don't. It's like 70-30,) my brain is a busier place for having hashed it out with you. I can't thrive in a vacuum.
I do need to do more writing and less navel-gazing, though, so I'll probably respond less to this thread for a bit.
- May 15, 2021
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That's fair, and quite a few people were put off by how moralizing Spec Ops: The Line was. But that's precisely what made the game special and the reason why it's still being discussed today. After all, it was the first time a modern-day shooter wasn't some jingoistic American military masturbation, but dared to call out the monstrosity of it all.That sort of heavy-handed moralizing would wear poorly. I mention this, incidentally, because it roughly matches my concern with your take on Spec Ops: The Harem.
And Spec Ops: The Harem would be much less judgemental. Don't care about how evil you are and just want to enjoy the harem? You can! The game should let you explicitly choose the corruption path and follow in your father's footsteps. Be the harem lord of your dreams! Similarly, there should be a good guy route where you don't abuse anyone and perhaps find love along the way. My only problem - and this is where the moralizing comes into play - is when you choose to do bad things while patting yourself on the back for being such a Good Guy. That, in my opinion, is a teachable moment and it'd be a shame to waste it.
A great example is T&T's interruptions in Chasing Beth where if you make creepy/misogynistic choices, they pull you aside, chastise you gently, and give you a chance to do better. It worked wonderfully, no matter what the handful of naysayers claim over on the game thread.
My approach would be like that, but since the consequences are at the very end of the game, they'd be more permanent
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You know, I remember some japanese VN from, like, the 1990s, fan translated much later, that had condoms in it as a consumable item. In order to get the harem ending, you needed to do all the sex events with all the characters. But actually doing this meant risking unprotected sex. I don't know, maybe there was some sort of optimized route or secret condom supply in the game that would let you do it all?My approach would be like that, but since the consequences are at the very end of the game, they'd be more permanent
All I know is, I got what looked like the harem ending, except two of the girls were pregnant, and then they compared notes and got mad at me for cheating on them. Then the wacky slice-of-life music starts playing, the tsundere has an aura of flame around them, the badass is ominously lifting a samurai sword, they're all yelling at me. It was a pretty hilarious subversion of the trope.
- Jun 18, 2022
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In my original idea, I didn't see the harem as being completely avoidable on the good path. Perhaps it should be, though. My thinking was that the father, since he started the cult primarily to satisfy his own appetites, would have sought to infuse sex into its rituals and make it an integral part of the worship service. He would've had to have been more subtle in the beginning to attract followers, but he's had near unlimited power and unquestioned devotion for some time before his death. The MC would have to at a minimum live up to the cultists' basic expectations of what a leader should be. There would be some grace period for him to get accustomed to the role, but if he immediately stops the sex rituals and reveals new revelations I think that would be greeted with a great deal of skepticism (perhaps along with some secret relief, but not enough to stop a rebellion).
It's a fundamentally messy situation and I don't see the MC coming out of it completely pure and unsullied. I wouldn't go so far as to make him suicidal (isn't this whole idea triggering enough already?!), but he should feel guilty and uncomfortable about some of his actions even if they were the best choice available.
I think the corruption path should start out exactly the same as the good path. The MC should still have the plan to destroy the cult from the inside, but things just don't work out quite as he planned. His road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's the little choices along the way that mess everything up. Instead of doing the bare minimum to live up to what is expected of him, he pushes things a little further. Instead of forging genuine human connections with the cultists, he makes demands and grows accustomed to using them. Instead of subtly challenging dogma, he upholds it. He sees himself turning into his father and hates it, but how can he possibly give up all the free sex and the power?
I don't see the corruption path ending well. Maybe there's a way to get a "And so it continued" ending if the MC doesn't seek to expand the cult and retains some level of self-control, but I'd definitely want to do some moralizing here and there. That along with the heavy theme might inevitably make it less fun to play. There's a game called The Patriarch where the MC is basically forced to become a cult leader. I think it's possible the dev wanted to play around with some of the same ideas I had with it, but I found the story so miserable I didn't want to continue with it long enough to find out.
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Random aside: I did a
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. Sure, there's only like four you'll usually use, but some of the more interesting choices have use cases I didn't expect. Like making the narration First-Person Past Perfect sounds like they're giving testimony at a trial.
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