Disliked Elements, Mechanics, and Tropes

[comradelenin]

I gotta wonder what this guy’s understanding of what a revolution is.

“Well I wanted to fight against an evil dictator clamping down on the populace but I wasn’t expecting you to be so violent about it!”

That’s a common false dichotomy too. You’re either doing only the minimum amount of violence possible or even none at all or their evil radicals who’ll be just as bad as the current regime. No in between. And the writers of stories like that don’t seem to comprehend that “group that wants actual liberation and uses violence to get it” and “group of supremacists for whichever demographic they’re fighting for who want to do the same oppression but in reverse” aren’t inherently the same group.

That’s not strictly what Dishonored’s problem is but it’s a convenient segue.

I remember when Bioshock Infinite did that with the Vox and then immediately backtracked in the dlc because it made no sense at all.

Unfortunately it’s hard to criticize this trope without a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork who think either that the latter group just doesn’t exist or that being an oppressed group justifies their stance/magically means they’ll never be able to realize their rhetoric in practice because they’re an oppressed group. You know, the thing we’re trying to change. And if you point to real life groups that fit the bill, they’ll dismiss it as propaganda or something and say every story with a group like this is demonizing civil rights activists.

And then while you’re arguing with those people, the ultra moderates come back and say “see, that’s why violence is NEVER THE ANSWER, just like this story says about a group of progressives fighting blatant Nazi analogues.”

And it’s just a constant back and forth of

to everyone involved. It’s one of those tropes where dealing with people who hate it is just as bad as dealing with it, which just makes me hate it more.

[Qianyixia386]

I really like the concept of interactive fiction, but I’ve grown frustrated with how many modern Choice of Games and Twine-based titles have removed most of the actual gameplay from text-based games. If you look at text adventures and interactive fiction from the 80s and 90s, a lot of them had real mechanics some were even full RPG systems, not just branching stories.

For me, just picking between choices that barely change anything and mostly add flavor text gets boring. That’s not how the original text based games worked they required strategy, exploration, experimentation, and sometimes even skill.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that many modern choice-based games lean toward a young adult fiction writing style. That style is extremely popular now, especially in online communities, but it doesn’t really appeal to me. I feel like its rise in popularity might be connected to how reading habits and expectations have shifted over time.

[Charlie_Haigh]

Many people (myself included) only play IFs for the branching stories. They read them like they would web novels or kinetic novels.

It bares mention that when RPG systems are not properly implemented, they can cheapen the narrative. If I see another cog game treat personality traits like niceness and seriousness as mutually exclusive, I am going to chew my fingers off.

Also, real failure states can ruin the pacing of a story. Every time the reader dies, they get taken out of the narrative completely. Most narrative-focused game genres struggle with this. In fact, one of the biggest game design challenges in horror games is keeping the player at death’s door for as long as possible to milk tension without ever giving the player release.

To me it sounds like you are looking for more parser-based stuff, which is not the type of game that usually created with either twine or cs-script.

[HarrisPS]

Not sure which games you’ve played (eg I write games that use stats heavily, but you may find some of them too YA-ish for your taste) but have you played the World of Darkness tie-in games? They might be of interest - they use some of the WoD mechanics tweaked for ChoiceScript.

The Choice of Games titles use stats to determine success and failure within scenes, which then have knock-on effects on the plot. It varies in terms of the amount of strategy needed, but they do use mechanics beyond simply choosing what path you want to take.

I think the Pon Para games explicitly involve choosing/spending stat points and levelling up, though it’s been a while since I played. The Infinity series can also involve a lot of strategising in order to achieve desired outcomes.

With a different feel, but still mechanically complex, Tally Ho and especially Jolly Good involve a ton of exploration with different stats, and successes and failures, opening up choices and entirely new scenes as well as altering nuances in interactions.

[Qianyixia386]

Well, I am mainly looking for more meaningful interaction. You mentioned personality choices, but in a lot of these games, even the ones that include romance options and character customization, those features often feel like they do not actually matter. Most of the negative reviews I have seen say the same thing: the choices are shallow and the interaction is very limited.

The romance is especially disappointing. It often feels added only to satisfy the part of the audience that is interested in dating sim content. I have seen many Choice of Games titles with three or more romance options, and you are lucky if even one of them is developed into a real character.

A lot of these games feel railroady, where the choices barely affect anything. And because there is such a strong preference in the community for length, many of these stories end up filled with unnecessary scenes and fake choices. I would not mind the long novel style pacing if the writing were consistently strong or if the characters felt fully developed.

I do appreciate that some games allow the player to choose gender, race, and other identity elements, but the writing rarely reaches the quality of something like Disco Elysium or The Last of Us. If a game is going to be centered on story, the writing should match the standard of other narrative centered media. Instead, the characters often feel flat, cautious, and stripped of personality, as if the writers are afraid to allow them to be flawed or distinct.

I have no problem with story focused games when they present actual defined characters, such as Ellie in The Last of Us. I tend to dislike games that try to be both a serious character driven story and a customizable choose your own adventure protagonist at the same time, because it usually weakens both the character and the narrative.

You mentioned parser games, and I actually enjoy those quite a lot. The writing in parser interactive fiction tends to be stronger, more varied, and less trapped in the very common young adult tone. There is usually more imagination in style, themes, and gameplay structure.

I really do not enjoy the current young adult writing style that dominates so much modern fiction, and I am tired of how widespread it has become. It is strange how strongly it has taken over, and how often it seems to be the main form of fiction many adults choose to engage with.

[Qianyixia386]

I’ll have to give that one a proper try. I only played a bit of the demo, but it was one of the few text based games that actually felt like an RPG. A lot of older text games I used to play were closer to sandbox experiences less strictly story driven, and more about freedom to explore and make meaningful decisions.

With storyfocused interactive fiction, the writing needs to be much stronger for me to stay engaged. I need to actually care about the characters and the narrative to connect with it. For some reason, this is easier for me with visual novels probably because VNs usually have clearly defined protagonists and characters with distinct personalities.

Trying to combine a fully customizable “blank slate” protagonist with a structured, emotional story is difficult. Those goals are kind of at odds with each other. It’s hard to tell a compelling narrative when the main character has to be written vaguely enough that everyone is supposed to identify with them.

One Choice of Games title I did really enjoy was Creatures Such as We. The author was an actual game designer, and you can tell. The writing was thoughtful and well constructed it’s one of the better narratives I’ve seen in this genre.

Edit : I will say i think it’s called Sabres of infinity or lords of infinity but it actually felt close to being a text based version of a real strategy like game . It’s one of the few that I could actually see being a top selling game if it had graphics or was even a visual novel .

The vampire masquerade games feel like a full open world RPGs in text format .

[comradelenin]

Been playing JRPG’s and a fair bit of GFL and I’m starting to loathe enemies and bosses with multiple attacks. Like, ok your turn’s over, now’s a good time to go to the bathroom and grab a drink while this boss spams 10 attacks with the longest animations you’ve ever seen for the next 3 and a half hours.