I think another thing I hate in some CoGs and HGs is the fairmath thing. It sucks if my skill is 80+ and it only increases by 1 when I improve it.
@JanThatsMe I’d suggest posting those suggestions on the UI thread. I think that’s a really good point and it would be nice if achievements could be turned off. I suspect it may be impossible/difficult since many platforms use achievements.
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I often just don’t look at the achievements page until I’ve run though a game at least once as sometimes there are spoilers. If enough people think it’s a problem though, could it be addressed by an *if or similar command to set the stat screen with hidden values or visible ones (Since you can make achievements hidden when writing the code.) Not sure how to make one of 2 achievement screens become visible depending on the choice though, may be harder than it looks.
I just used fairly vague language in the actual achievements (“use part of a classmate’s hero uniform in a sexual way”).
I don’t think they are too spoilery.
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Customisable Characters.
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So basically, after reading over this thread, the takeaway is “no matter what you include in your story, someone will hate it.”
Write what you want to write and don’t worry that some people will have complaints.
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@HornHeadFan Yeah, thing about it all is, I’ll still play the games that have one or two things I actively don’t like. Admittedly, if a game is full of horrible grammar or spelling, and just plain poor writing, well, that’s a different thing. But yeah, most unlikeable things can just be ignored.
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I love this thread because different people hate different things, and some are solvable.
Thanks to this thread, I altered the achievements in my WIP to avoid spoilers (ie I was purposefully vague on the Achievements page, and made sure the pop-ups happen the page AFTER an achievement has been reached, so it doesn’t spoilerify that page’s piece of story).
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3 things I hate
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You have to buy the rest of the game after a couple of good chapters cough Unnatural
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No checkpoints so when you die that’s it and you have to restart or get bored and do something else
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No moments that make you feel badass like if you get shot and then something happens but I dunno what it is because I can’t buy the rest of Unnatural OK maybe this goes back to the first point
Edit: The only thing I now hate is needing certain stats for choices, I’d appreciate checkpoints but won’t hate that they’re not there. I was young and stupid when I made this comment.
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@SheaMcD
You first point is not really valid, writing a game can be really hard and developers need to eat 
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I agree with ballmot, I like being able to read the first section of a book to see if I like it enough to buy it. If someone’s gone to the trouble of writing a good story + put in all the work for the coding, I think a couple of $ is fair to reward them for that. If the story’s not your cup of tea you can discard it. Not everyone likes the same thing. If I don’t want to pay as much as they’re asking for a book, I wont start reading it so I can’t get disappointed.
I wish check points were easier to implement. I’m not sure how the stories that do that have it. I’m currently trying to write some manual check points into my story so people don’t have to go right to the begining but it’s going to be a fair bit of work (not just the linking involved but may need stats reset properly and things like that).
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I’d like to respectively disagree with all three…
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I think this is better than buying it outright and finding that you don’t like it? I hate IAP, but the free part is really the trial version without the version part.
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Aesthetic choice, I’d argue. Not having checkpoints adds to the immersion of the game, if you ask me. Look, I love Sabres of Infinity, but after making a bad choice, I tried my hardest to kill myself so I could return to the checkpoint. And when I was in mortal danger, I shrugged as I could return to the checkpoint in a second.
Of course, I do like having checkpoints, but I can see why some writers just don’t include it. -
Something too general to hate, isn’t it? Would you hate Choice of Romance if you didn’t have a scene like that?
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Not sure why you are singling out unnatural. Most games are like that.
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First off I don’t hate that they’re not free its just I don’t want to spend money ( I’m selfish and greedy) second the only reason I hate no checkpoints
because when your near the end and you choose something bad that your character doesn’t have a high stat and you die and need to restart
third I singled out unnatural because I really really liked the story but again I don’t want to spend the money even if it is worth it
PS choice of romance good story but again I never spent money to buy the rest
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If the game is worth the money, as you say, but you still don’t want to spend on it, that’s not on COG/HG, that’s on you.
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@SheaMcD
To be honest, I actually joined the CoG forums for the chance to play games for free, but ended up staying because of the community. I have never seen such a high amount of friendly and helpful people in the same place.
Give it some time and you will understand the authors and the reasons behind some design choices.
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I do like this forum everyone here is nice (except me) and I love playing through the W.I.P’s hope all of them get made Into proper Hosted games or they get finished at least
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On the topic of pricing, there is one thing I guess I can use the word hate for, because it caused me to wonder why a certain company even exists and why its customers let it exist the way it does. It is one aspect of game selling I can admit I wish would stop existing.
This is not directed at any Choice games I have ever played, or any that may be released-- but rather, this was inspired by a visual novel app company I used to buy from. Thinking about it, I found myself a bit worried that Choice games might try to take the same payment route. I’m not going to mention specifics, I’m just gonna stay on the topic. This may come across as a bit of a rant, but that one game from that one company just sent me a bit off on wondering why it’s okay for them to do that.
…I would love to buy your game.
I have enough money to by your game.
Good games, I can be a loyal customer.
You know what I don’t want to buy?
Your chapters. I want to buy your game. The whole game. In one upfront payment. Not each individual chapter in ten payments. At least include an OPTION for me to buy the whole thing at once. Paying per chapter? Paying a dollar or more or having to buy tokens per love route and scene, even? The hassle of going through payment screens that are best only seen once per game? What? Really? Are you TRYING to annoy your customers? Because annoying your customers is definitely a good strategy for profit. (Though apparently it works for some reason, the company is still at it and other apps are inspired.)
I prefer to whip out my card once per buying a game. Because when I buy a game, I kind of expect it to be, like, the whole game.
Your visual novel is not Second Life, and the tokens you ask people to buy are not used for outfits/land but for a whopping 2,000 words of a scene.
Your visual novel is not Skyrim, and the next chapters that should be included in a whole unit are not DLC. They are the original chapters. DLC implies a bonus, something ADDITONAL to the original. You buy the original one time, and it is complete as is. You can buy DLC but they are ADDITONAL, not original content. Please don’t follow the example of these kinds of apps, Choice of Games. Please?
soaks my head
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Indeed. I must agree with you, that’s the reason why I didn’t buy Zombie Exodus.
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Well you can play all of zombie exodus free by restoring saved games it continues to the next chapter free