- Dec 16, 2017
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There's a difference between consequences creating branching in a story and straight up game over. A choice between A and B where B is game over and A continues the game isn't really a choice at all for a game, so it's completely superfluous. It suggests the dev doesn't understand the idea of branching in a story which is never a good sign as it tends to lead to either a wonky narrative down the line or instances where you've got a choice but really all options lead to the same response, so why give the player the option to choose at all?Well actions have consequences, when you bitchslap one of your students you usually get fired. Do you expect the dev to make a branch for the mc as jobless loser chilling every day in his shitty appartment because he (you) took dumb decisions?
- Dec 21, 2019
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I understand what you want to say and I agree to some degree, but let's give it more time to see if this is right or not. We have so far just 1 release, imo a too low of a sample to be sure. Let's see 0.2 how it will do. Narrative so far seems... ok to decent and yes there is a lot of room for improvement down the road.
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I hope you can understand that choices or decisions are not only implemented in a game to give branches. They can be used to show the state of the protagonist mind/actions/story. They can also be used to give flavor text, even if it leads to the same result (not the case we are discussing here, but needs to be said). Let me give you an example, it seems like you cannot see past the direct meaning of a text:
random fantasy/action/fighting game, you are starting up the story and you face off a strong opponent early on and you get two choices: Fight or Run. You press Fight >>You die, because you are not strong enough YET. If you press Run, you escape to fight another day. It's pretty easy and understandable. I bet even you can't whine against that.
Now in this game, things aren't that straightforward as a fight or flight response. Instead, those choices are there to show you how bad the mental state of the MC is (the choices with "Give Up" or not) or they are there to show you how to tackle further story choices: the slap choice leading to a game end shows you that further on the game you need to be patient and ready to reign in your impulses. It shows that you will have to deal with some headstrong personalities down the line and behaving badly will get you nowhere. It's even specified before actually starting the game. All these can be understood if you actually read the story and not fastforward through it, which of course can happen if you are interested in getting to the porn fast
, but you might have to be patient about it Sometimes storytellers don't take you by the hand and explain each and every little thing, sometimes things are left unsaid and implied. It might not be your cup of tea and that is understandable, but coming here to bitch about it and saying the dev doesn't understand branching is a bit childish.
- Dec 16, 2017
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You can have choices to influence story and to highlight the MC's mental state. A good example being the paragon/renegade system in Mass Effect or the honour system in Red Dead. Two examples infinitely more suitable to showcasing where the MC is mentally than what has been implemented here, which is simply the same question, thrown in every now and again which basically boils down to "do you want to stop playing now?". Once is fair enough as a gimmick bad ending early on, but the question comes up so often early doors it feels like the developer is actively wanting you to quit the game. Are you SURE you don't want to give up? Ok I'll ask later.Now in this game, things aren't that straightforward as a fight or flight response. Instead, those choices are there to show you how bad the mental state of the MC is (the choices with "Give Up" or not) or they are there to show you how to tackle further story choices: the slap choice leading to a game end shows you that further on the game you need to be patient and ready to reign in your impulses. It shows that you will have to deal with some headstrong personalities down the line and behaving badly will get you nowhere. It's even specified before actually starting the game. All these can be understood if you actually read the story and not fastforward through it, which of course can happen if you are interested in getting to the porn fast
You reference the slap instance which really is probably the most obvious instance of a bad, game over choice on the MC's part, but there are other ones which are odder. The answer to the Dean comes so early in the game you have next to no exposition from the story to warrant saying anything else, and the choice after you get slapped yourself is the most obvious choice to the whole situation cause up till that point you've only got shit from everyone so why even bother? No amount of abuse is worth putting up with that nonsense. So two instances where you're basically asked as a player if you want to continue being put through it, with nothing to suggest anything would even get better if you kept at it. If you read through the dialogue the whole thing boils down to
MC doesn't want to do the thing but feels he needs to (logical), everyone he speaks to tells him to fuck off or you get a few scenes of him wandering the halls of the school getting blackballed, you're then asked if you want to give up. If you say no then you speak to someone else who treats you like shit and then you're asked if you want to give up again. I don't need to be asked if I want to quit time and time again just as a crutch for poor story telling in order to try and flesh out why the MC's in a bad place.
Man, as I've mentioned in another post, this feels like such a small thing to whine about...I don't get it why there's such a hard on for a few choices leading to an obvious game end. The dev explained it in the prologue, I tried to explain it further, if you feel the need to die on that hill, go ahead I guess.
I think I was pretty clear in my simple and somewhat argumented explanation, if not..it is what it is (after all English is not my native language and maybe I didn't do enough to get my point across).
I won't engage on this subject more, a dead horse can be beaten so much before there's no more point in doing it. Have a nice day/night.
- May 28, 2017
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Fully agree. It's really weird to see some people got so obsessed about the few (2-3) game over choices like it's such a big deal. It's also funny that they can't understand that game over is indeed the consequence of the choice they chose. Say fuck off to the guy offering you a job? Of course you don't get the job. Slap a student because you can't handle an argument? Yeah, you get fired. What exactly do these people expect to happen when they choose that option lol.