Adding onto the clothing element, typically when a WIP asks you what clothing you wear, its either for a one off event (typically some form of dance/masquerade/etc) OR it assumes that’s your style for everything.
The former is fine, its just picking an appropriate outfit, but the latter kinda drives me nuts. Like if it asks what you prefer to wear, and you say t-shirt and shorts, thats still just that, a preference. It shouldn’t mean that you wear a t-shirt and shorts at all times. I like wearing that, but I still know to wear at least business casual when meeting with important-ish people or when representing the workplace.
Do you think then that having a style option and secondarily having an “accessorizing” option where you can choose how flashy they dress would be a good way to balance this to make it more fitting?
So if for example you like to wear suits but you are “barebones” about it, you don’t add anything extra or accessorize the outfit beyond the suit itself. If you wear suits but are ‘extravagant’ about it, you wear suits with specific cuffs, colour coordinated ties and attention to the textures where someone who takes a more barebone approach might not bother.
Response to @dreamofeden :
I think it’s nice when an option is presented for a type of scenario when it comes up, like you might wear grungy streetwear normally but when you go on a first date being presented again with being at the closet and deciding if you want to go with what you normally wear or to select something new (and then have your date comment that you dressed for the occasion) would be sweet and also feel more real.
Okay so i love character customizations, it just helps me fell more grounded to the story especially when your choice as a visible impact to the story. For example I do not remember the game but it had a skin color choice available and since i am black I chose a black woman and it said something like “so you are already so aware to the way the world views you” i legit almost cried because that was freaking nice (at least for me) so yeah, the more customizations the better connected i am to the characters because then they start to feel more like me. but then i understand some who do not want it because some people play to escape and it is difficult to escape with a character that is just “you”
I remember being really surprised when I noticed that Mortum has a different response to a specific choice you can make depending on if your character is also black or not. You can make an ‘off colour’ reference jokingly to Mortum about wanting a different kind of ‘hot chocolate,’ and if you are black it is viewed with brevity, but if you are anything else they get a bit upset and say that the comment is inappropriate. I think that attention to detail is pretty awesome.
I feel like that is the only real scenario I can think of where skin tone actually matters in an IF (though in general I think not taking any strong weight to it is better than the potential alternatives). I, the Forgotten One has a dynamic skin tone / hair system IIRC, so that your family and people around you look similar because due to it’s historical setting the author thought it would be odd for the main character to look significantly different to everyone else.
Also, I just realized, I don’t think I have played a game yet where you pick your apartment or apartment style and people will comment on it beyond just like a single passing one. (I know Wayhaven will have one of the characters make a passing remark about how nice it would be to stay in or whatever, but I mean it factoring in a little more?)
Another customization thing I’d love to see more of, freckles, birth marks, glasses, or accessorizing (like mentioned earlier). Having an advantage with your left hand since most people anticipate right handed attacks would be another cool customizing option.
@dreamofeden That, too. We don’t change clothes in this house.
@Phenrex Hm, I can see that making for a more dynamic character customization that’s likely to satisfy more people. Ultimately, you can’t make everyone happy, but that might mitigate my initial complaints. I’d respect an author who goes to the trouble to make that work.
Well, I respect all authors because making IF is hard lmao.
I’ve done some work on making a really extensive CS character creator, and one of features I added that I’m really happy about, is the ability to randomize either the full character, or the different aspects of them, as well as choosing things manually.
It also generates a random character when you first load it up, which means the people who don’t care about appearance can just continue on, or change a few things, without there having to be a specific ‘canon’ appearance, which can feel a little shitty, if its very different from the character you want to play as.
Same. And there isn’t a single right way to do it. Whenever I take polls like this, I always want to add a caveat that I don’t want all IF authors to cater to my personal preference. I want there to be IF out there for everyone. I want long stories and short ones, character-driven novels and plot-driven storygames, fixed PCs and fully customizable characters, gender-variable playersexual ROs and ROs with fixed identities.
Something I personally would be further interested in is whether or not people prefer to have relationships at the start of the story or if they prefer to form them ‘from scratch’? I feel like for me my general preference is that the characters already have pre-existing relationships because it makes it feel more realistic for romance or the like to spur up even during moments of conflict.
For an example, I finally bit the bullet and bought Golden Rose. I played through it, and thinking of the pacing while I could kind of see it for two companions you’ve already known for some time I couldn’t see myself ‘romancing’ the other characters in the span of a few days. (To me timeline matters a lot too with romance, I feel like a story needs to span a few months to feel grounded if the relationships are all new in order for the characters to get to know one another as people. Obviously some ROs might not need that kind of connection to get down with it first, but that relationship dynamic is it’s own thing )
One of my favourite things about Fallen Hero and what made it jump out to me about how good it would be was the fact you could define the relationship you originally had with Ortega at the beginning of the game and it had significant long lasting impact on the relationship going forward.
In principle I like the idea for the reasons you say; in practice, it might be a hard sell as a romance can be so personal. I can see a lot of players saying “but my character wouldn’t have chosen to be with this person” (I’ve observed this discussion about pre existing friendships) or “but I want to get together with this other character but my current partner will be sad” or “this feels like the pre existing love interest is the correct/canon one”.
I think when it comes to prior romances, players generally want to make that choice themselves - it’s an area where the value of playing a ‘blank slate’ is considered high.
Which isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be done - it just goes against some of the usual expectations.
I think a major thing here is the choice. If I’m understanding right, Ortega isn’t always a prior romance - if they were, maybe players would have bounced off it. (Or maybe not!)
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear but I meant having a choice for your prior relationship. The ability to have pre-established people in your life and deciding whether you like them, dislike them, or have had a crush on them helps it feel like the main character exists in a world bigger than themself. I don’t know if that makes sense but yeah, I feel awkward for having worded it so poorly.
Another good example is being able to select your prior relationships with people the main character canonically knows in Mind Blind. (Like how you can choose if you liked, avoided, or had a crush on Grayson, if you confessed or if you kept your feelings hidden away, and there’s a lot of this complexity with various relationships). I think this kind of dynamic-ism in the relationships feeds into re-playability while also making the world feel significantly more alive.
I’d like to see more IF that explores established relationships. Domestic noir is one of my favorite literary genres, and I’ve never yet seen it attempted in IF.
The thing is that I don’t want to be reminded of my eye color every other paragraph, especially if the game switches POV and I’m just greeted with tons of flavor text about how my green orbs catch the light, but it gets kind of annoying when we’re not given any options at all. I think that height customization plays a really important role, just because it plays an actual role in differentiating how certain characters address you, if you’re more intimidating or less, and it can be brought up in both POVs without feeling like the beginning of a “My Immortal” chapter lol
Regarding that, I know that most games with the option count it more as an accessory than a disability (that’s really kinda frustrating and like almost ableist, now that I think about it), but it gets kinda frustrating sometimes when I’d like to make my character comically myopic like myself but am locked into glasses as a fashion choice. I think it’s fine for historic settings since I know that’s what you’re locked into if you want to see back then, but in modern day a lot of people (obviously including myself) wear contacts. Fixes the same disability but does so invisibly, which I think makes it a sufficiently distinct option. Just feel like if you’re doing a modern setting and want to add the glasses option, you should probably also have an option for contacts.
Re: eye color, I personally like the option since my eyes are green and is one of the few things I like about my appearance, but yeah it’s honestly not a very relevant choice unless you seriously force it à la Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way giving a rundown of her entire appearance every scene. It’s not like how height comes up naturally in basically every interaction. I think ideally I just hope for a cute comment from an RO or something, to acknowledge the customization without getting obnoxious and purple prose-y.
^This. I sometimes click off games that start with running though setting a list of heaps of character variables, many of which I’m pretty sure will never be mentioned again right near the start of the game before I’ve gotten invested. (Especially if it’s done like a check list: I look in the mirror. “My gender is…” “my eyes are…”, “my hair colour is …”, my hair length is.." my height is…" etc). A couple of relevant questions are fine, but if there’s going to be detailed character creation that isn’t going to be seen again, I’d personally like the option to skip it and I’ll just imagine my character as I want anyway. (I think its fine to have for those who want it, but also to give an out for those who only want the active variables set.)
I’m thinking this might be in part due to the rise in individually set gender flippable RO’s being set on the fly (or at the start of the game)? I personally prefer characters to be their own person first and RO’s second so they actually have set character (unless it’s a big part of the plot or there’s few ROs in which case there’s more of a case to be had for flipping.)
Wish list: The ability to easily store prior character creations for detailed characters for subsequent playthroughs rather than having to go through the character creation list every time which can get tedious. (I know its doable but it involves skipping the start menu messing up a whole lot of other things like disable reuse choices in the game. I wish there was a way to cause certain variables to remain set between plays natively through CS so you could skip if you want to.)
When you changed how Shepard looked in Mass effect it would generate a code you could share with others and would allow them to use the same customization options you selected.
I also like the idea of using appearance presets that set several variables with one choice. It’s also possible to make part of the customization optional, which is something I want to experiment with.
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