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I mean I don’t see why those two thing have to be in conflict as we haven’t gotten to sex yet in either title.

As long as prior actions doesn’t force new actions and you can always pick between the forward and the shy options (and of course the rejection options), it should teoretically be possible to write an mc who is shy in one area, but confident in another.

Edited for a brain fart :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Depends on how it’s written. There’s an issue when there’s only one flavor of shy—where you’re sweet and innocent and blushing—and one flavor of forwardness, aka ‘oh hey hottie, wanna boink?’ On a whole----don’t kill me, Chani—I think TWC is somewhat better aligned for my ace brain, but TSS did give you a wider range of how the forwardness/shyness works. (Though, TWC overall is much better at giving you the opportunity to flesh out your MC in other ways. It’s…kind of hard trying to play a calm and collected MC in TSS, tbh.)

It’ll be interesting to see how Soul Stone War does it through the whole game. It does have some very proactive NPCs. (DaeDae…good that she’s super cute about it, lol.)

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Yes, nuance is ultimately hard to do because at some point the writer just have to stop writing options.

But mechanically it is a way to have pursing romances the player opt in to.

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What I will love is the choice to block all the Npc initiative in romances. There are so many games in general where they eagerness to almost trying to force me to romance them without even knowing their names.

Mainly males Npc … Like seriously, the fact I am a woman doesn’t mean I want to be courted like an animal. But I am one of those cases weird as I hate romanticism.

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As with so many things that come down to preference, it’s hard — perhaps impossible — to come up with a solution that pleases everyone.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not pleasing everyone. Not everyone is going to like ROs who are aliens, work as sky-diving instructors, or initiate the romance, but that doesn’t mean those ROs shouldn’t get to be in games.

That said, I understand not liking forward ROs goes beyond not liking sky-diving instructors. One thing you could do is have a choice at the beginning of the game that asks the player if they’re O.K. with ROs initiating the romance. Many WIPs ask the player if they want to see explicit sexual content, and I think this is similar; in both cases it makes more sense to ask the player than the character.

Coding-wise, it’d be pretty easy to check if ros_can_initiate is true, alongside any other checks you’re running.

(Ninja’d by Mara!)

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While this isn’t yet done in the HC label to the best of my knowledge, I can think of a couple of CoGs off the top of my head where the PC is the pursued.

Affairs of the Court has the PC as a junior partner to their RO, and has them be pursued - though they have to manage how they respond to it.
In Psy High, Taylor and Ali/son take the lead in indicating interest and initiating romance with the PC.
In Choice of Rebels, Breden will make a move if you don’t and you’re compatible.

And for how not to do it, in Heroes Rise, Black Magic doesn’t have a problem with forcing their kisses on you if you don’t go for it and don’t expressly reject romance on first meeting.

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I like from the first examples that there is directly choices to reject quite adamantly those unwanted advances. However, Affairs has a tendency to try to force lovers. Like in the Vega case I have to reply NO five times in a row to indicate I won’t want to have a relationship with the old Grandpa I was never interested on him and hell if he won’t enter in my bed.

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Thanks, I haven’t played any of them except Heroes Rise and rejected Black Magic because of what she did to keep her powers (Lucky was a much better choice IMO).

I’m also not a fan of playing as a teenager ans I think Psy High is about teenagers, isn’t it? But I’ll check the other titles whenever I can, thanks.

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Agreed. It makes a certain amount of sense for the setting, but is definitely beyond the point where we today would consider it sexual harassment, and I take great pleasure in particular in getting rid of Gabriela de Mendosa.

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This is a gentle reminder to please keep conversations directed at the topic at hand and not at the individuals themselves.

Focusing replies on the individuals themselves instead of the topic at hand can lead to friction between members and often causes the thread to derail.

Whether the romances has choice involved or not when being pursued has become a circular argument. To avoid that: if you have already stated your position, please take a short break and allow others to share their perspective too.

Please avoid repetitively hammering a single view without adding anything new.

Sniping back and forth will often lead to the system closing the thread down, let’s avoid this if we can.

One other thing – unless you have a published game under your belt – please be considerate of those you criticize for “making mistakes” or “taking the lazy route” … there is a lot of underlying disrespect for the author/developers in this thread.

  • Finally, if you see disrespectful posts please do not reply to them. Rather, please use the report feature and let forum staff deescalate friction.
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Oh, I hope I have not come across as disrespectful. I have repeately said that I do not think that the writers are lazy.

Another option which might be really, really meta, but which could work is to just flat out have it in the text like this: (the cursive being choices)

Not knowing what to say, I placed a hand on her shoulder.

She froze underneath my touch and for a second I thought she would shrug my attempt at comfort off, but then she turned her head and smiled.

“Thank you.” She said. “But you need not worry about me.” (friend option)

For we just looked at each other, then her eyes dropped to my lips and before I knew it she kissed me. (romance option)

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True, we haven’t. It’s mainly M’s route (my favorite one of the four) that I find irritating that way. I mean, A is a bit of a tween angst machine himself, so having the MC be just as bad makes sense. And N is your typical RO from the old “gloved hand touch is scandalous” romance books. F is different, and fun. But M is supposed to be all about boning and is completely hostile to the idea of any emotions–I just want the same for my MC, and not to feel like she’s forced into falling in love with someone who wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire (unless it would get him laid :stuck_out_tongue: ).

That was actually my point. There is no separation between sexual confidence and emotional constipation. So far, I have yet to see a game that actually does separate the two. TSS gives the player the option to have their MC pursued (with A, at least–if they’re waiting on R to pursue, they may as well give it up, but that makes sense for the characters), and it feels like it was meant more for adults. TWC is great, but it does have more of a tween feel, with the ROs as well as the NPCs. Book 2 may change that, but right now, that’s the impression I have.

Nope, no killing. :stuck_out_tongue: I am curious, though–how does TWC work better for ace? Is it the shyness? Just curious, so don’t feel pressured to answer if you aren’t comfortable with it!

For TSS, I think Cara did a great job at giving the option for calm. My MC was pretty chill about the whole thing and I didn’t feel like she was forced into being otherwise. In TWC, I feel like MCs are forced to be… nice? Even when they aren’t “people” people (my main MC has 1% in people, if that tells you anything!), they don’t get real options to respond in kind to other characters’ BS (like M, I want an option to be just as rude and nasty to him!). With Rebecca (don’t kill me for this!), the MC has no real option to be hostile toward her, just mildly resistant. My MC hates her and wants nothing to do with her, but the best she can do is flinch away when the woman tries to touch her.

Getting off topic here, but wanted to respond to that. :slight_smile:

I agree about Soul Stone War! I can’t wait to get that one. I have a feeling that the romance there (back on topic, yay!) might approach what the OP was talking about. Morkai and DaeDae are far from shy and definitely pursue the MC, which is so freaking awesome.

Edited to add:
If you haven’t checked it out, take a look at Supernatural in New York. I don’t know about other paths, but the path with Grey actually gives the player a chance to “choose” how Grey responds in one point, making him the pursuer. It’s not exactly what we were talking about here, but I like it and it works really well.

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I’ll admit that it’s been a while since I played TWC, but aside from the romance with M, there’s less of an…assumed awareness of physicality from the MC’s point of view, so to speak. (And to be fair, to not be aware in M’s route would be too dumb for even the acest of aces.) It might come off as childlike, but…that’s just how it is. As for as shyness goes both the shy options in TWC and TSS are a bit too blushy for my tastes—though TSS is kinda better about that—but there’s less of a “oh wow, your heart is beating under the NPC’s gaze” in TWC. (I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a Stare of Desire, ever…if someone does that, I mostly think they’re picking a fight lol or I’ve buttoned my shirt wrong and it’s only later when people tell me that it was supposed to be a Flirt Signal.) Also, if you start picking the romance options further down the road rather than immediately, TWC has more ‘later’ spots where the MC can start noticing their own feelings and still have time to develop stuff prior to romance lock than TSS.

Also…on the calmness end, my experience with it is that most options in TSS would give you 3-4 choices for varying degrees of emotional/dramatic, while there’s often just 1 flavor of calm and 2 at most (and 2 would often come when there are like 5 more emotional reactions). And it’s mostly ‘chill’ instead of ‘thoughtful’. And going by the characters, I think Cara favors writing more emotional and expressive people than Sera and…that’s fine? It’s different. (There are things that I think TSS clearly excels over TWC, but I’m not sure if it’ll be the same things you find them to be, e.g. the cast interaction is a lot more interesting, and the variation is pretty insane.)

Although this is also off topi I wanted to respond to that too. >_>

On SSW : As far as the dudes go I’m team Straasa (though Morkai’s fun too), but DaeDae’s hypercrush on the MC is so utterly cute cries. Also, I think Morgan’s really good at building a gradient for the MC noticing their feelings----you have the shy option, the forward flirt machine option, the forward and sincere option, the Denial Is a River in Egypt Option, and the friendmance option. It’s great! I have no idea how she writes these things lol but I must bow to her thirst.

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I liked the way Keeper of the sun and moon handled being asked out. Normally games punish you for Not wanting to romance someone. Like you build a, from your point of view, nice friendship, suddenly the character tells you, how much they love you. You politely decline, and boom friendship is lost. In Keeper of the sun and moon you can Tell someone, that you are not interested, and they like you as a friend just like before. That was a quite nice difference to other Games.

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Actually, I can’t think of one choice of games/hosted where the friendship is lost when you reject a character. (Unless you pick a hugely rude option). Not unless we go wayyyy back.

I don’t really think that is a trend?

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I do not think it is a Trend, mostly because most Games do ask you who you want to romance. And I must clarify, that I did mean Games in General and not just Hg or cog titles.

What I would like as an Option, would be a char asking you to hang out and then I get to decide if it was just as Friends, or more than that. So for example, you are visiting a Club or the Cinema, and then you can tell the game, we went
as friends or we go as a date , or something like that.

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Not true. I never showed interest in half the RO but was repeatedly flirted with by both the electric theater gal and the patron noble lady for making choices that favored my character build and impressed them in the process. (I’m bad with names).

It seems to me you specifically want NPCs that are set in there ways and require more than a simple rejection to convince to back off. As the name of the game is “choice” it’s going to be a scarce story element, especially since there will always be those reviewers who find the harrassment of the stubborn RO and the way it detracts from their chosen Romance off putting.

I don’t pursue romance when I play 7th sea because of how polarized the RO’s are. It’s understandable given the goal of that title, but it’s negative impact is not something I can ignore. To have characters bother me during a romance free playthrough would be equally mood killing.

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I personally would like to see not just romance, but other types of relationships as a two way street. Most games leaves it up to MC(us) to go an visit people to determine the relationship and I can understand that. It gives us the choice which is pretty big and important considering these are CYOA.

So why not add more choices? For example, TWC and TSS have scenes where you see through the RO’s perspective. Why not add choices to the scene?

An example: RO is meeting with a friend in the park to seek advice. RO likes MC but is unsure how to approach. Should they ask MC out? Hint to MC that they like them? Let MC make the first move? Or maybe RO should just give up? Insert friend shaking RO to chill out.

Also, I feel that not many friends/ROs will search MC out just to spend time with them even if the relationship bar is high. It feels like it’s almost always up to MC, which creates a feeling of not being desired or worth their time to seek out.

I’d like to see someone with a high relationship bar(don’t matter what kind) seek MC out for whatever reason. Like “Hey, I could use some company/help for such and such. Want to come?” And then give us choices of if we want to or not(and maybe choices as to why after we make the choice).

I suppose the big issue is something like that would take a lot of extra work and time for all those additional choices/scenes for authors.

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I believe that most readers (not all and not singling anyone out here) underestimate this.

If you are asking for an additional love-path; you are looking at three to six scenes extra work … which means about 30,000 - 60,000 words. So, if you have 6, or 8 RO … then you are looking at over 150,000 words just for one additional love-path per character.

That is one half of some games… just saying that it is not as easy-peasy as some in this thread think it is.

ymmv.

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That isn’t what I meant to convey to you at all, and I’m sorry you got that inaccurate impression of me. Also, I’m aware that if I wanted NPC’s to be persistent in their pursuit of the MC it would be dragged through the dirt by the reviewers and more importantly make people very uncomfortable.

Which is why I didn’t suggest that idea to put people in an inescapable romantic entanglement in the first place. My idea(which you can see above the statement that I originally quoted you on), was if the RO started flirting with you only after you had already demonstrated a romantic interest in them. That way any flirting done by them is in response to the MC/player’s actions and could hopefully make NPC’s more believable as actual characters/people while also respecting people’s need to be the one initiating the romance. Not the nightmare scenario that you believe I’m supporting.

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