I don’t know if I have clinically diagnosable aphantasia, but if not, I certainly have a distinctly weak visual imagination. I’m not a huge fan of elaborate visual descriptions in books - even if they’re beautifully done, they don’t do much to help me actually picture things. I don’t see a movie in my mind while I read, it’s more like existing with clearly limned thoughts, emotions, and interpersonal relationships inside a blurry memory, flavored with other kinds of sensory impression. I’m existing inside a character’s mind, not watching them or seeing through their eyes.
Of course I can’t speak to your particular experience any more than you can speak to mine, and of course there are readers whose minds make words into pictures easily. But it’s fairly safe to say that, in general, there’s no inherent connection between visual imagination and the enjoyment of books.
That’s interesting, because I don’t like overly elaborate visual descriptions either, but for the opposite reason. I have a ridiculously strong imagination (and synesthesia on top), so visual descriptions are often annoying to me, because by the time I reach them in a text, my mind has already fully created the, dunno, let’s say throne room I just entered. And having to overwrite / changing my own imagination is very difficult, once an image is established in my head, because it is so strong and instantaneous.
The interactivity is more of an interesting bonus for me. I really like the feeling of finding a scene I didn’t know existed and exploring different possibilities. I like it when stats are used in a literary rather than gamey way though, and the story is what I care about most.
My favorite ones all seem to be really good at balancing both. Fallen Hero, Soul Stone, Wayhaven, The Evertree Series, Pon Para, Moreytown, Rent-a-Vice, Lost Heir, to name a few(jeebus I read a lot of these) they all seem to keep me deeply engaged whilst also reminding me to really play to my strengths. This format brings out an amazing level of focus I rarely have in my day-to-day. But, If I had to choose I’d say it’s more important to me that the story is well crafted, the play shouldn’t lack, but it’s secondary. If only slightly.
I agree with this. I think some authors use the blips from NPCs in order to keep the reader from saying screw it and going elsewhere, especially when things look pretty hopeless or annoying. This is especially true with more romance-based games where you have LIs that consistently behave like assholes–it’s somehow supposed to make up for them being jerks by showing that they are conflicted. That way, the author can drag out them being jerks for longer because, “see, they aren’t really jerks!”
Personally, I don’t find such POV switches useful because it doesn’t benefit my MC, which is the one who actually needs to see the other side, at times. Same thing with the ambush thing. I mean, if the author feels the MC needs encouragement/a head’s up/various information, then do it in story! Have a tertiary NPC talk to the MC and give them the information they need. Done correctly, this is far more effective than POV switches and doesn’t cause problems with meta gaming by giving the reader information the MC doesn’t have.
I’m the same way. I loved the Wheel of Time series, but every time RJ started describing a dress, I felt like I was being tortured for no good reason. Because I couldn’t picture what was described, it sounded like whomever designed the things was color blind and the women were dressed like they belonged in a freak show. Likewise, I hate overly detailed descriptions of landscape. Yeah, I get it, there are a bunch of trees/water/whatever. Say so and move on, unless there’s some special reason the MC should notice this stuff. I’d much rather be reading character thoughts about what’s going on around them and the people they are forced to deal with. That, I can get into.
I also think one reason overly flowery descriptions of surroundings/visuals bug me in IF is because not all of my MCs are overly observant. And very few of them are the type to think in such flowery terms. So it ruins the immersiveness of a game to have the MC suddenly wax poetic about a sunset or flowers blooming (especially the ones who couldn’t identify a rose from a weed!).
Imo, it comes down to how you execute your game. And you can’t satisfy everyone. Some people like branchy routes, some want a linear path, some play for romance, some play to get a sense of power through the MC and so on…
At this point, execution comes in. How you present your game to the whole market and how much it captures the attention of a majority of the market depends upon how you execute it.
Simply for giving an example, I’d like to provide two examples -
The Fallen Hero series, it contains a significant amount of choices and branching. On the other hand, you have something like The Wight King(wip) which for the most part is heavily text focussed during the early phases of the book. Yet both of them are absolute successes in my books.
One could argue that one employs flowery text and vivid descriptions while the other uses simple on point descriptions to describe the scenes and proceeds as usual. However, I’ll hazard a guess and say it comes down to execution. The author knows what the player wants to see and read in the scenario and isn’t focussed on showing off their writing skills. How immersive you make the world, the pacing and the flow and diligently MAINTAINING it throughout the entirety of the book(s) is a gargantuam feat in itself.
To be honest, I mostly play these games to romance fictional boys and for some fun escapism, usually done with an interesting well-defined MC. I prefer games not be too stat focused, especially to the point it gives me a bad ending, thus souring hours of gameplay for me.
So I guess the answer would be both? I like to be involved in character-focused and romance-focused scenes. I do enjoy reading and gameplay, but less so gameplay that is stat focused and reading that features walls of text with my character barely involved or lacking any emotional reactions or thoughts.
Yeah definitely don’t like when my character is completely uninvolved. I kinda think stats shouldn’t be there if they don’t do anything, but I do like them. I don’t really like actual combat mechanics though, like health and damage values.
I like CSGs for the exploring – which might be a bit different from what many people mean by either “playing” (passing stat-based challenges to meet some kind of win condition) or “reading” (appreciating beautiful prose, well-drawn characters, thrilling plots).
To me, the chance of story-exploring is what sets interactive novels apart from regular ones. You have the chance to dig into different corners of the story’s world, or see how events would have played out differently, or how characters develop differently in response to your different actions or traits on the MC’s part.
Choice of Robots immediately established itself as my favorite on its release, because of that last-chapter split where you could end up in totally different worlds (i.e. genres of robot fiction) based on your choices to date. The interesting thing about the Robots stats for me was that they opened up properly different stories to experience and explore, not that they set up challenges with win/fail states. The same is true for more recent CoGs I’ve really enjoyed, like Heroes of Myth.
I don’t object to more “game-y” win/fail stats challenges as a secondary feature of CSGs, opening up minor wins/achievements/dopamine bumps. But they’re always secondary to me. I usually only look at my stats once or twice in a game, early on, to get a sense of the themes; after that I start making choices, see where they take me, and then come back and see how the story would look to a different character making different choices. If the story can’t be experienced to my satisfaction that way – if it has to be played as a game with close attention to stats – I’ll rarely go back to it. Every once in a while a very game-y CoG will grab me – Lucid is particularly good at hooking me into his, for some reason – but for the most part, I’m here for the story.
At the same time, I’m here to explore the story in the way you really only can in a game. The pleasure of exploration is something I prioritize in lots of my favorite games, whether an open-world RPG like Witcher 3 or a 4X like Civ. A well-done CSG lets me do it for a novel, which can be way more story-intensive than just about any other type of game.
I agree with this, so much. I’ve usually phrased it to myself in terms of “inhabiting” rather than “exploring,” but the concept is the same, I think. It’s like … a multiverse in microcosm, where everything is somehow within reach.
This definitely resonates with me. The main reason I got into and fell for gamebooks;which were the reason I discovered Choice of Games; and other media with interactive stories in the first place, was the way they allowed me to explore different paths and options and ways the story could go. The way I could and can approach these kinds of books and games and other, similar kinds of media with the attitude of “I wonder what will happen if I try this, let’s check it”, and particular being able to start again and try doing things in a different way, if things didn’t work out the way I wanted in the first place or I just want to explore what happens if I do things a bit differently. And although you could say that the more storybased “traditonal” or “pure” computer or video games do the same thing,to me it’s much more easy to get into that mindset with the ChoiceScript game/ gamebook hybrids.
TBH, I would have loved if life was a bit more like that, if you could go back and try out different choices if what you chose didn’t work out so well or you just wanted to see how life might have turned out differently if you had made different choice. But, then again, that life is not like that really make me appreciate even more this space and other, similar kind of spaces where you get to experience stories that you can replay over and over again and get different outcomes and/or experience and explore different paths each time.
Like I said earlier on, building a character that I can imagine in other situations after I’m done with a COG/HG “run” is probably even more important to me these days than exploring the different paths of a story. But I would say that exploring different paths and “what will happen when I chose this” is probably the second biggest reason for why I enjoy COG and HG games. Although I have to admit there are certain choices I tend to steer away from, since they go strongly against my values and that I do prefer when I know what the different choices are(i.e that I can see them in front of me and don’t have to puzzle out what they are or what command to write in order to be able to make them, like you have to do when playing parser-based Interactive Fiction). But,still, even though they are certain limits as to what I’ll explore and try out, I like exploring most of the paths and/or choices available, so I still consider using COG or HG to explore and try out different paths and choices to be one of the things that I enjoy most when playing and reading a CG/HG.
I mostly read it because it answers the questions of “What if the character was like this? What if they did that? What if this happened?” the replayability is just an added bonus. Another reason is that it gets hooked far easier than books, as I’ll be considering what happens with my choices and what are the consequences, making me focus on it more intently. I never come to play, I don’t like very “gamey” ones, meaning I don’t really like games like life of a wizard or the lost heir series, I prefer ones which are more focused on the narrative and writing part, like I, the forgotten one. I never consider these games, I always think of them as interactive novels, the exception to this is of course one’s which are more focused on the gaming part, then I’ll consider text based games. But I don’t like text based game, I don’t come here for them, I come for the interactive novels.
Of course though, this all comes down to a matter of taste.
Plenty of it is definitions, yep. The way I define it, though, I don’t see any reason to oppose playing to reading. What I’m exploring, what I’m enjoying, is a written story. I’m exploring the characters and plots and setting – all things that people who like reading tend to enjoy. I’m enjoying the way that those explorations can reveal themes and subtext. That’s both playing and reading, not an either-or.
And it focuses on one particular aspect of gameiness. Some people who enjoy the “playing” are more enjoying the stat balancing and getting the best “win” possible. Nothing wrong with that – I’m happy that my game has ended up facilitating that kind of enjoyment by fans aiming to get different hard-to-reach stat combos. For my own personal satisfaction, though, I don’t care about stats and do care about interesting stories.
Some of the most interesting story paths to explore go through loss and failure, which brings the two ways of “playing” into some degree of tension with each other. In my game, for example, if you choose to lose your first major confrontation in XoR, it opens up options you wouldn’t otherwise have – a signal of how I mean to keep writing as the series goes on. “Losing” game one will open up new opportunities in game two.
I tried pretty blatantly to signal that there was a way to use any of your three possible primary strengths to win. Combat isn’t the only way to get things done.
I guess the signal didn’t work for me, especially since I only saw 2 options, but there are 3 stats? Or maybe you’re referring to an entirely different scene than I am, I dunno.
I tried pretty blatantly to signal that there was a way to use any of your three possible primary strengths to win. Combat isn’t the only way to get things done.