- Sep 28, 2020
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The problem with branching paths is that it adds an absurd amount of work for games made on Renpy, which relies HEAVILY on variables in its coding.
Making a completely different path, say, joining SIN instead of HERO for example, not only means that much more writting to do, but it also means making what's basically a completely different game, narration-wise. Because side-events end up getting impacted, the story is therefore different (given how the MC is the key to all major events), the amount of variables to track also expands exponentially.
In the end, that would mean double the amount of work. And that's only for one branching path.
Now imagine, taking ItzSyther 's example, the party Fight or Flight. Imagine if WeirdWorld added that branching path. You therefore get two paths. Later on, when HERO vs SIN comes, that makes a total of 4 paths (Fight-SIN, Fight-HERO, Flight-SIN, Flight-HERO). But there might have been also the option to stay on the run, which means two more paths.
And if, later down the road, there are another branching to add, that multiply the number of roads by two, again !
It sounds amazing on paper, but as far as I know, WW works alone on this game. That means branching paths would either make each update tiny, content-wise, rather than having as much content as currently per udpate, for every single path, or each path would get updated one after the other, making the progress of the overall story that much slower.
And when you add variables into the mix, that means one modification in a variable would have disastrous consequences with the amount of other things dependent on it through each path.
Given the scope of the story and it's sheer length, for a solo dev, not branching paths is absolutely the smarter decision.
Branching paths, when it comes to amateur porn games, are better suited for shorter and faster stories. Superhuman is more on the grand scope, slow burner side of things.
Making a completely different path, say, joining SIN instead of HERO for example, not only means that much more writting to do, but it also means making what's basically a completely different game, narration-wise. Because side-events end up getting impacted, the story is therefore different (given how the MC is the key to all major events), the amount of variables to track also expands exponentially.
In the end, that would mean double the amount of work. And that's only for one branching path.
Now imagine, taking ItzSyther 's example, the party Fight or Flight. Imagine if WeirdWorld added that branching path. You therefore get two paths. Later on, when HERO vs SIN comes, that makes a total of 4 paths (Fight-SIN, Fight-HERO, Flight-SIN, Flight-HERO). But there might have been also the option to stay on the run, which means two more paths.
And if, later down the road, there are another branching to add, that multiply the number of roads by two, again !
It sounds amazing on paper, but as far as I know, WW works alone on this game. That means branching paths would either make each update tiny, content-wise, rather than having as much content as currently per udpate, for every single path, or each path would get updated one after the other, making the progress of the overall story that much slower.
And when you add variables into the mix, that means one modification in a variable would have disastrous consequences with the amount of other things dependent on it through each path.
Given the scope of the story and it's sheer length, for a solo dev, not branching paths is absolutely the smarter decision.
Branching paths, when it comes to amateur porn games, are better suited for shorter and faster stories. Superhuman is more on the grand scope, slow burner side of things.