Let's talk about the players control over Sammy (Patreon)

While doing research on how these types of games are played, there were a few things that separate adult visual novels from traditional ones from a design perspective that I needed to be aware of. One of the major aspects is these types of games are often played one/no hands and sometimes with the text on auto. Others often skip a vast majority of the dialogue so they can get straight to the "juicy" bits.

So when it comes to giving a choice where the player needs to pick A or B, it requires them to manually pick something. If playing with limited hands, it requires the use of one and if skipping then it will stop things until a choice is made.

With this in mind, I made the design decision to have Sammy make most of the choices herself to not interrupt the flow of the game. If she is drunk then she will pick drunk choices, if horny, then horny choices, if in a bad mood... You get the idea. Only really giving the player choices when it really matters or Sammy is unable to make the decision herself.

This I felt also gave the game a unique aspect to The Fixer. With Sammy making choices it will lead to what is called "emergent storytelling". In short, this means a collection of random mini stories trigger throughout the course of the day to create a larger narrative with the players imagination filling in the gaps.

A simple example might be something like Sammy getting on the bus to school in the morning, but finds herself entangled by wandering hands. A more innocent Sammy will shove them away and take a mood hit, leading to her deciding to have a drink before class and starting the day off tipsy leading to who knows what. A more naughty Sammy might play along with the hands, get carried away, miss her stop and end up at the lake. Since she is at the lake already, may as well hang out at the beach and miss school. This whole interaction would have been guided by Sammy and the player would have had little/no chance to effect how it went other than the choice to get on the bus.

With all that said, since the start of The Fixer I never stop getting comments from players who want more control over Sammy and have a much greater role in the choices she makes. This can range from people just wanting to always have the option of vag/anal to those who want to micro every aspect of her life.

So I am making this post to gather feedback on what people think. Your written thoughts would be most helpful but I am also putting a poll up for those who don't want to write anything can have their voices heard.