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Affection Values (Patreon)

Published:
2019-04-15 06:55:49
Imported:
2021-03

Content

So something I've been toying around with for a little bit is player feedback for when make choices that increase or decrease affection with characters. On one hand, I feel that if you know how impactful your choice is or if you choose wrong then going back and choosing a different option becomes more of a priority and pulls you out of the story. But at the same time, knowing what selections are actually doing things (because not all of them do stuff) might help?

I dunno, there's an in-built thing I can turn on in the engine that gives a small popup in the top left when stuff happens so I could turn that on, but do people want to see this? Is this something better left turned off?

Comments

Anonymous

That's kind of a Morenatsu/Telltale games thing for me. Though it could be pretty funny if you did something like this. 'Tyson will remember this' 'Hoss might remember this' 'Orlando feels anxious around you' 'Dean notices your bulge' Personally, I prefer simple trial and error to see what happens, but I also enjoy messing with things in general. If anything I'm wondering if it would be smart to use that feature for password related things, e.g. 'You might have saved Roswell'. Seeing that in bright red text always feels like getting it rubbed in my face.

PASSWORDVN
>>21787954

Well remember, we're still in the first act as such, so smart design dictates that you have to build expectation before subverting the trope. So the first instance with Roswell's death teaches that some clues might be visual. Tyson's teaches that it might be locked behind certain menu choices. I won't give anything away, if only because a genuine response to the subversion will get a better end product, but the red text isn't staying forever as far as moving the story forward. There'll be other things. I'll trial using the Telltale style pop-up maybe during Orlando's next update as it might fit there incidentally, but ultimately whether or not it adds stuff to the game as a whole will need to be tested.

Anonymous

Part of good game design is giving your players meaningful choices that they know are choices. If the dialog and decisions don't read as important, then adding a Pop-Up about it just demonstrates the opaqueness of your design. I don't like the Telltale method of "X will remember this" because, well ultimately they used it as a fake-out and to try and conceal their own game's linear nature. Focus instead on making our choices matter, not appear to matter. For the password element, maybe the amount of times you mention it for Tyson combined with the red text is a little much. You can dial it back a bit, but considering how picky Ren'Py is with text some indication is certainly warranted.

PASSWORDVN
>>21842697

That's fair. I'll be honest, part of me is playing that balancing act of ensuring people know that they're being rewarded for either remembering things, or choosing "correctly" in order to get some pay-off later (be it as a sex scene or whatever) while at the same time keeping the pacing of the story relatively stable, if that makes sense? In an ideal world, I'd love to figure out how to put something like a timeline in where you can jump around to crucial moments to save the prompt of needing to save, or sitting there with your finger on the skip button until you get to the choice to actually make a worthwhile choice. But it's beyond my know-how at the moment. I'll review the script as for how often it's mentioned in Tyson's route. I could've sworn Roswell's had more but it wouldn't hurt to check.

Jacek Jagosz

It depends. I'm okay if you don't add anything, as long as you give a guide, what choices are "best". Because I ultimately play go get a good ending with my favourite character. So I'd prefer either "X liked it" notice, or a written guide. What you feel is the best.

PASSWORDVN
>>21857798

In the event of it being a written guide, would you want something that just tells you the most optimal decisions to make, or a more wordy version that gives more details/potential spoilers?