Choosing dates vs replaying content

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Is it better to choose dates and need to replay or to see everything in one play?

I'd rather choose.
90
70%
I don't like replaying content I've already seen.
39
30%
 
Total votes : 129

Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby crossy » Tue, 16Jul05 15:50

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party on this thread but this is a topic I have thought about a bit in the past.

One of the original games I played here on this site (I think it was an early wendy game) had a concept of a basic path that one took through the game. However if you took the "right" action more content would open up. For instance, making sure the bar filled to the top rather than just click and try and find the next hotspot. Whilst both would progress the game only one would open up the content both at the time and later in the game.

There have been other examples of this across multiple games more recent examples of in SITA and BEW are some that standout in my mind for this tactic.

To me these have been the games I have enjoyed most. I think I have heard someone describe it at the Achievement hunter personality. Or at the very least content hunter :) Based on this the Date1->2->3->4 option or the 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 option doesn't really matter to me I would still be playing the game until I had found all the content.

That being said, there is just something from a perspective of story growth that they 1->4 option has over the multiple 1st dates. I liked the progression and character development in RoJ and DwE.

tlaero wrote:These are variations on a theme. We can make x pages in n months. Everything after that is tradeoffs. At the extremes, people can have a long linear game with a lot of character development, or they can have a short branching game with little character development, or they can wait longer for the game to come out. Clearly, the balance between those variables can be tweaked. Instead of short with 4 paths, you can have medium with 2. Or we could wait an extra few months and get another branch, etc. But there's no way around the math.


I appreciate the math and I think there is a line. I think you (and recently Mortze) have struck this balance well.

My vote would be for an option where you choices have down stream consequences (beyond if you do it wrong/badly you fail). And while we're at it games where a "wrong" choice early may end up being a right choice later on. Too many games make it so obvious what the right button to press is it becomes almost surperflous having it as a choice.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby bing6541 » Tue, 16Jul05 16:29

Piggybacking on some comments others have already made...

Given the two options laid out (1 > 2 > 3 > 4 or 1/2/3/4), I'd rather play a game with richer content. For me that means developing a relationship between the protagonist and the object of his/her affection over a period of time. Otherwise, the select-a-date formula results in a game where you meet the other person, go on one date, and then have the ending. Not very realistic.

A couple of games on Chaotic's site have played around with this. Chaotic's latest game (Betsy) gives the player the option of three alternative dates on the first night and three alternative dates on the second night. The players choice of dates (as well as the actions during those dates) resulted in one of several endings, most of which were good in one way or another. Only the Violet date on both nights resulted in the most sexual ending.

dsp3000's game, The Academy, gives the player some options within a somewhat linear story (Day 1 at least). The options result in a code for Day 2 that will supposedly affect the player's options for that day. However, there were many different ways to get the same (best?) code at the end of Day 1 regardless which of the characters you spent more time with or avoided.

Something in the Air gave the player options to go on a date with a certain character, and then pick the type of date with that character. At the end of the day, though, it was still one date and then the ending. Even so, it was fund to explore the entire game, get all the endings/achievements, and see how the story wove together.

Brad's Erotic Week is probably playing with this the most. That is a huge undertaking, and (for now at least) I foresee myself having trouble trying to keep everything organized regardless of the number of saves.

Tiaero, your games (whether with Phreaky or Mortze) have enough variability and replay-ability to keep things interesting. The secret ending in GtkC, the separate paths in CfK, DwE, and RfJ were all fun to explore. And the character development--moreso in the on-screen characters than in the player-character (with the exception of Keeley in LwK)--have been well done.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby kus_hliny » Tue, 16Jul05 18:27

I vote for the parallel variant, as that way game will last longer. As when I play a long game, I am usually too curious how the story progresses, that I do not stop until the game is finished, as opposed to the scenario where I can choose different dates, and do one date per evening :)

I know it is probably not a fair comparison, but in the first visual novel I played, Katawa Shoujo, there are (very) separate paths, and in every path, the story is rich and progress is significant. The game has its slow parts, without eroticism or in written only way, which are cheap from development standpoint, but still creates bigger picture, and makes the characters better defined.

And you can even reuse locations and situations [with twists of different perspective] in all four stories, to make game development more efficient [i.e. more story created in the same time frame \o/], and at the same time more interesting for the player [because of opportunity to get to know her favorite character better even in the path dedicated to someone else]
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby jk103 » Tue, 16Jul05 19:13

Here's a brief rundown of some of the typical story structures.
https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com ... sed-games/
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby TheGreatJoeGargery » Tue, 16Jul05 19:54

I'm going to explain my thought process with my opinion. This is a little difficult because I don't know exactly what is trying to be accomplished by the game (and you can't tell us without spoiling the game) but based on the information you have given and my experience with your previous games, I'm assuming that you go out on a series of dates with Miranda (or a single date) and try to get to know her. I'm also taking into account that your particular strength in storytelling is the ability to take the player on a journey with the character in the game.

The first thing I think of is what is the player getting out of the game. The player's goal is to get to know the woman on the date. This is accomplished by dialogue choices. So we initially have to look at Miranda. How does she perceive herself? This is different from who she is. For most people if you are asked to describe yourself your answer can be completely different from how your closest friends and family perceive you. So we need to keep in mind that the players perception of Miranda may be different from her perception of herself. She will only reveal what the player gets her to reveal through dialogue choices throughout the game. What she will be willing to reveal may also change depending on how she perceives the character. If the player presents themselves as nice and respectful, she may be willing to reveal some more personal details about herself but perhaps not others (like sexual fantasies for example) for fear of offending the player's sensibilities. Also we are not just looking at what Miranda is at the start of the game but what Miranda can become at the end of the game. Can she become more adventurous? Can she become more confident? More independent? Can she let someone past her defenses and open up emotionally? These could be all different things that the player could figure out how to accomplish during the game through combinations of dialogue choices.

This leads into the dialogue choices that the player will have. Some people will be very nice and respectful. If you pick all the nice choices, will she friendzone you? Can you convince her to take a chance on a nice guy? What if she decides she likes you enough that she is willing to teach YOU what she likes and tries to get you to be a little more outgoing and adventurous? The opposite end of this is someone who is just trying to get into her pants. Will the player be overt or covert about this? Will this be a game ending experience or is it possible for Miranda to convince the player that there is more benefits to the date than just sex? Will she come around to the player's way of thinking? In reality people fall somewhere in the middle on this spectrum and not at one extreme.

So, looking at what you want to accomplish in the game, I would use a hybrid of your two systems. I would have a single introductory date which then branches into two or three different dates and you have to pick one of the dates after the first one. On the first date you are answering questions and getting to know each other (or the sides of each other that you each choose to reveal to each other). During that date the game records flags that unlock possible dialogue choices in future dates. Perhaps even the future dates themselves have to be unlocked and if you don't manage to unlock any of the other dates then you lose the game after the first date. So basically you can have the first date being very dialogue heavy and the most versatile date with the most branches, allowing the conversation to go in multiple ways. Then perhaps have more focused storytelling on the second date. T here would still be choices, but a much more limited number of choices due to the narrowing of the players focus. Each of the second dates can revolve around a certain theme and have a more limited number of branches than the first date. The player effectively uses their dialogue choices in the first date to determine where things go from there.

The thing about this is that at the end of the day, the player has "Found Miranda" no matter which of the dates they went on. The Miranda they found though is the one based on their own interaction with Miranda. I heard a lot of talk on this thread about picking "bad choices". I think that the idea of a bad choice may be a concept we have to evaluate. I'd prefer there to be choices which progress the game which result in stuff happening and if the choice was a good or a bad one be left up to the player.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby vkalvkal » Tue, 16Jul05 19:56

I don't like replaying content I've already seem in games like LOP (Eleanor, Living with Temptation, etc.), where I have to build x number of stats to be able to see different events from different characters.

In a game like yours, I wouldn't mind replaying content I've already seem. So, I'd rather have the "illusion of freedom" in my choice of dates than play a linear game.

I believe your games are already good as they're now, but if you're trying to implement things to make them even better, by all means, go for it! We'll be good test subjects! [img]images/icones/icon15.gif[/img]
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby TheBrain » Tue, 16Jul05 20:09

tlaero wrote:These are variations on a theme. We can make x pages in n months. Everything after that is tradeoffs. At the extremes, people can have a long linear game with a lot of character development, or they can have a short branching game with little character development, or they can wait longer for the game to come out. Clearly, the balance between those variables can be tweaked. Instead of short with 4 paths, you can have medium with 2. Or we could wait an extra few months and get another branch, etc. But there's no way around the math.

What's separate from the math, though, is the extra issue of needing to replay content in the branching case. What I'm learning from this thread is that people don't mind replaying within reason. I'm sure that few people would want to play the same scene five times to get two or three sentences of dialog difference. But maybe playing through 4 times to get 4 significantly different scenes isn't bad. I'll keep thinking about it.

Tlaero

You might be able to cheat the math a little bit by picking a variant like:
Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 (excluding whatever was picked the first day)

The basic content of the dates would probably only need minor changes to be made suitable as the second date. The extra work would be creating branches in the dates based on what happened the first night. But this way you could get up to N*(N-1) distinct paths with having images for only N dates (plus some for unique endings). There's a lot of potential for creating replayability, and if you suggest a save after the first day, it's quite friendly on the player as well.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby GleebToo » Tue, 16Jul05 21:06

I prefer the good x bad playthroughts with character development and early path decision as you use sometimes in your games. It feels deep with character development and kinda like two or more games :-) I consider it as a nice compromise between total freedom and total character development. It doesn't have to be good x bad decision of course, so something like this i like most:

INTRO ->
-> Path1 -> Date A -> Date B -> Date C -> End 1
-> Path2 -> Date A -> Alt. Date B -> Date D -> End 2
-> Maybe Path 3 if you have a good idea for a story? :-)

But whatever you choose I am sure the game will be great :-)

PS pretty pretty please do again a game in style of Daydreaming with Keeley :-D Or maybe not with Mortze's current suicidal tendencies :'-(
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby tlaero » Wed, 16Jul06 02:01

I believe I was the first person to make games in this style which took place over the course of multiple days. I did that to be able to tell stories about relationships that grow over time. I guess where most of the games at the time were "virtual date" ones, mine strove to be "virtual relationship."

The format:

Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 or Date4
Ending

Limits the ability to do that.

Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 or Date4
Date2 or Date3 or Date4 or Date1
Ending

Doesn't really make it better, because you can't build the relationship in the second date the player chooses. (Or, you have to make enough changes that you really did 16 dates instead of 4.)

It is definitely the case that user choice adversely affects either the quality of the story or the amount of time players have to wait until the game is released. There's no getting around that.

That said, I'm not going to make a game that I don't like. If I go the "user chooses" route this time, it'll be a combination of less character development and a longer release schedule to allow for enough character development, even though it'll be less than in previous games. So, don't worry about that. I've listened to all the impassioned pleas to have the story take a back seat to the gameplay, and I've even thought about them. But that's just not going to happen in the Elsa arc. I've got a story to tell, and I'm going to tell it regardless of how many people think I'm an old school storytelling luddite. (-:

I'm happy to chat about this stuff as much as you folks would like. It's an interesting discussion that is at least mind broadening. The most important thing I needed to know, though, was how much you folks disliked replaying content. I think I'm getting a good read on that here. Thank you for all your feedback.

Tlaero
Last edited by tlaero on Wed, 16Jul06 03:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby JFR » Wed, 16Jul06 02:44

Lady T, the very best things about your games/stories/interactive fiction/whatever are the story development and the characters. That is your strength and when combined with Mortze's wonderful images makes for an almost unique set of interactive experiences. I don't even really think much about "gameplay" when starting one of your titles. That is all just gravy on the meat and potatoes of your stories.
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby jk103 » Wed, 16Jul06 04:37

tlaero wrote:I believe I was the first person to make games in this style which took place over the course of multiple days. I did that to be able to tell stories about relationships that grow over time. I guess where most of the games at the time were "virtual date" ones, mine strove to be "virtual relationship."

The format:

Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 or Date4
Ending

Limits the ability to do that.

Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 or Date4
Date2 or Date3 or Date4 or Date1
Ending

Doesn't really make it better, because you can't build the relationship in the second date the player chooses. (Or, you have to make enough changes that you really did 16 dates instead of 4.)

It is definitely the case that user choice adversely affects either the quality of the story or the amount of time players have to wait until the game is released. There's no getting around that.

That said, I'm not going to make a game that I don't like. If I go the "user chooses" route this time, it'll be a combination of less character development and a longer release schedule to allow for enough character development, even though it'll be less than in previous games. So, don't worry about that. I've listened to all the impassioned pleas to have the story take a back seat to the gameplay, and I've even thought about them. But that's just not going to happen in the Elsa arc. I've got a story to tell, and I'm going to tell it regardless of how many people think I'm an old school storytelling luddite. (-:

I'm happy to chat about this stuff as much as you folks would like. It's an interesting discussion that is at least mind broadening. The most important thing I needed to know, though, was how much you folks disliked replaying content. I think I'm getting a good read on that here. Thank you for all your feedback.

Tlaero

You really shouldn't look at it as storytelling OR gameplay. The gameplay, in a game, is a tremendously effective tool to communicate story.

Seriously, give these posts a read.
https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com ... sed-games/
https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com ... er-agency/
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby tlaero » Wed, 16Jul06 07:47

I read the articles. They're well written, but didn't cover any new ground for me.

In the end, the time cost of producing a game is in the number of boxes, not how you connect them. More boxes = longer development time. If you want to play this year, there's a hard limit on how many boxes you can have. If the boxes are in a single line, they can build on each other more than if they're in some other shape. The more the boxes can build on each other, the more depth the story can have. The more you divide up the boxes, the more choice you have, but less depth of story. There's no getting around this. There are only tradeoffs between how much depth, how many choices, and how long you spend making the game.

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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby Xyzzy987 » Wed, 16Jul06 17:39

tlaero wrote:Thanks Xyzzy. Yeah, in light of this, mentioning the menu saves somewhere in the intro seems appropriate. Does that mean you didn't see the achievements either? In most of my games there's a bonus scene for getting all of the achievements. People quite liked the one in Redemption for Jessika.

Tlaero

I saw some of the achievements as I achieved them, but no, I've never gone to look at all of the achievements in one place. Didn't know there was a place until now. No biggie, though, maybe I'll go and check it out. Now there's a reason for me to replay the game! [img]images/icones/icon13.gif[/img]
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby TheBrain » Wed, 16Jul06 21:30

tlaero wrote:Intro
Date1 or Date2 or Date3 or Date4
Date2 or Date3 or Date4 or Date1
Ending

Doesn't really make it better, because you can't build the relationship in the second date the player chooses. (Or, you have to make enough changes that you really did 16 dates instead of 4.)

I don't quite agree with this, because you could reuse much of the first date. For example, you have a bar scene, in the first date you have the girl sitting at the bar talking about first date things, in the second date she'd talk about second date things. But the images can stay the same. So the extra work here is dialogue, which I would think is less work than creating an entirely new scene. You could also think of the first date as a short version of the second date (i.e. without the "end game" action); then the effort in terms of imagery would not be much more than 4 separate dates. Or you could give up the 4th date location in favour of more path-dependent content in the other 3 dates. Etc. etc.
This all is, of course, predicated on the idea that the size of your game is limited by the speed with which you create the artwork.

tlaero wrote:I've listened to all the impassioned pleas to have the story take a back seat to the gameplay, and I've even thought about them.

For me personally I wouldn't say my comments have been a plea for the story to take a back seat, and I'd hope that others would not have had that intention either. Rather, I feel your games have had a very strong focus on story, with gameplay taking a back seat. And although your stories have been great, I do wonder what you could create if you have story and gameplay more in balance with each other, neither of them taking a back seat.

Also, I don't think a games story is something that must necessarily be a linear progression. Having a consistent universe, that has events going on that you can explore and learn about, can tell as much of a "story" as a linear game. ArianeB's Something's In The Air is a good example of a game where the individual dates don't tell all that much of a story, but give you pieces to the puzzle of what is going on in the games universe. And because of that, the games "story" (as a whole) is bigger than just the sum of its parts. And therefore the parts can not just be taken individually without losing value, which is something that can not be said for most other "choose your date" kind of games (where let's say a bar-date leading to sex and a restaurant-date leading to sex are completely disjoint).
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Re: Choosing dates vs replaying content

Postby Suiko » Thu, 16Jul07 00:33

Just made an account to reply on this topic. Since I'm what you'd call a "weaboo" (a.k.a. I like japanese stuff) I'm more into VN (visual novel) than anything. So I'm used to have a "Skip Previously Read Text" button when I make a second playthrough. I've tried games like 'Brad's Erotic Weekend', 'Pandora', 'Living with Temptation' and the like. And, yeah, not having the option to "properly" skip already seen scenes makes the second playthrough of some games feel like a chore. Specially on games like, as someone else noted, LwT where you have to build stats. And also some browser games where you have to wait for the image to load before you can do nothing.

So it kind of comes down to the length of the game. If the game have a short-to-medium duration (like games with only one date/girl), the second playthrough comes smoothly because, yeah, there isn't a lot of text to re-read/skip to get to the new stuff. But when the game is lengthy or have multiple endings/girls... sometimes it does become a chore to play it for the second time. Even more when going for the third or fourth.
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