A minor question to the fellow writers in the thread, but do you feel it’s better to have a series of checks to differentiate the friendship route from the romance route of a RO. Or would it be better to have a stat that can be increased and decreased?
I am at a crossroads, literally, with what choice I want to make before things snowball out of control.
How do you all feel about failure. As in a player can die or in some way end the book prematurely.
I’m torn because I feel that wouldn’t feel good as the player, but also it would give a genuine feeling of jeopardy, setting a real failure state. On many games I’ve played/read I’m quite happy to throw my MC onto the pyre as I know he’ll survive which can make the stakes feel quite low. The book ending there and then with a stupid series of decisions would have depth. But also be frustrating?
In my game it would be getting kicked out of the academy or dropped from the team entirely and your football career being over.
Good idea or terrible?
If you want to give the player that threat of failure, I’d say do it - but give them a safety net too.
Choicescript has a built in checkpoint system now. I’d advise giving them a checkpoint at every chapter, letting them save in multiple slots (especially if you can render a game unwinnable and not realise it until the next chapter) and making sure they can reload if they fail - or whenever they want, really.
That does sound ideal l, I’m glad that’s a system that’s been added.
I would give the player every opportunity to avoid that scenario, it would be made very clear where they were heading, I would hate a game that suddenly ditched me with little to no warning or for reasons I didn’t understand.
Thanks!
Yes please! I would like that very much. Thank you.
I was toying with this thought the other day, and I guess it would depend on how it will manifest as a relationship in the story. Is there an inevitability to the relationship developing from friends into romance, or does it take a series of specific actions to trigger? Can you be just good friends but have a wild fling with another character you barely know?
I think personally I would use them in combination, checks to assess whether the player wants to initiate a romantic development, then perhaps 2 incremental stats for friendship and romance progression and how that might influence outcomes.
For context I’m currently plotting out a story where relationships can be for convenience as much as passion, so they need to be able to respond/develop quickly under certain circumstances whilst slow burn for genuine ones.
I guess that is something that I should have to consider. Currently in my story plans, certain ROs have different-ish methods of romance. One is a very slow burn, one is (potential) ex trying to get back together, one just sees you as a(potential) fling and nothing more, and one hates you for some valid and invalid reasons.
So it’s best to go case by case with them.
I’d lean more towards a separate flag for romance vs friendship, and then you can use that relationship bar to track the general level of closeness or whatever. That way you can still invest in the friendship and have it develop without accidentally being forced into a romance
I have enjoyed stories that do both.
Not having a fail state can be enjoyable because I know that all I’m exploring is different paths. I don’t need to worry about the stats or making the ‘right’ choice.
Having a fail state means that I sort of min/max a little more because I want the best ending. That being said, it definitely can add a feeling of accomplishment when I’m ‘winning’ and coming out on top of those checks.
So at the end of the day, I guess ask yourself If you want something that feels like a game to win or like an exploration of paths.
Oh excluding what I have asked, I already have them separated but it’s an end all be all check instead of a progression one.
In today’s news, I hate updating Node… but at least I had a headache already, so it wasn’t giving me one!
Just wanted to share that after 7 years, My Best Friend is nearly done 
In fact, once the gameplay mechanics and stats are tidied up, that’s it! I’m really happy with the story now. Particularly, the new chapter written since February feels like what it was missing and building towards all along. I had a bad heartbreak then, so this…isn’t a consolation, but it’s something.
A week into December and I find myself rethinking my approach to writing and overall work ethic.
Over the past year, I’ve written about 240k words for my current WIP. My pace is slower than it was when I was writing Saturnine, and yet I find myself going back (either to fix bugs or add content) more than I used to. Maybe I’ve grown more critical of my work, maybe this new project is harder to debug due to its complexity, or maybe it’s just a matter of me having less time. Or maybe all three.
Either way, I find myself not quite satisfied with either the quality or quantity of my work. I know the wise, principled thing would be to slow down and carefully polish each update before publishing it, but like…look at where we are. Everyone expects humongous wordcounts and frequent updates, and I’m officially in the business now. Which also means getting published is no longer a theoretical prospect, but something I have to think about, and I keep weighing the needs of the story against what’s popular at the moment and what HG is likely to accept and…
I think I’m headed face-first toward complete burnout at this rate. I know something has to give, but nothing feels right to sacrifice. If there’s some writer wisdom™ I should have, beyond the stuff you can get anywhere, it would really come in handy right about now.
Speaking of revisions, I’m doing some, and I absolutely do love how my new submarine-spaceship theming feels.
“Is that a freaking sonar they’re using?” Commander Sol asks, looking flaggerbasted. “How does that even… nevermind. Dive! Dive! Dive!”