What I hear you saying here is a) that what you want is more choices and more page breaks and b) that you’re skimming the text.
We could give you more choices, but like visual novels, they’ll be fake choices. (Which is not to say that we will add more fake choices and page breaks, but that we could.) But I can’t help you with skimming the text.
See, I have this theory that a lot of our readers–those that complain about our games being too short–don’t read the story. They click through to a choice, make the choice, and go on to the next choice. Maybe they skim a paragraph or two to make sure they understand the choice if it isn’t immediately clear. If that’s your style of play, our emphasis on prose and narrative and choices that matter is going to feel very short, and there’s nothing I can do about that; our games are designed to be clicked through as fast as you can make a decision.
Now, admittedly, maybe that was the wrong choice on our part. Episodes and Choices seems to be doing the opposite, and they’re making quite a lot of money. So what the fuck do I know?
The majority of choices in games, whether ‘official’ CoG’s or Hosted Gameas are already fake choices. If we’re fortunate some might change a little bit of flavor text, or a small amount of a value, but to many of them don’t do anything at all.
I can easily display instances of this in CoG stuff, whether recent or not.
And no, I actually have no problem with this. There is only so much that a single writer can do in a game.
I have to disagree. If a choice affects stats or branches the game, it’s not a fake choice. By that definition, by no means are the majority of choices in COGs fake.
If those affected stats has no major change by the end of the game, then yes it is a fake choice. And yes, I’m considering even a one page ‘epilogue’/‘ending’ to be very minor. Most of those choices don’t branch the game either.
If you wish me to give a detailed page by page case, on a good sampling of games, I will do so. Considering many Choice games on steam showing that I have put in over 20+ hours does show a good familiarity with the source material.
Games that I would actually hold as mattering would tend to be the larger ones like Slammed, Tin Star, or Choice of Robots.
Other games that I consider where the majority of choices don’t matter, which I would sample?
Hero Unmasked comes to mind. Whether you defeat the villains or not has little bearing. Whether you are friends with the cops or not, has little bearing.
The only choices that really matter to most players is if they are attracted to someone in the game, and manage to get with them…or at the end, whether they beat the villain, or have something else happen.
Game like Diabolical comes to mind. Success or failure, it moves onward. Yes, there is some slight branching if you decide to hit a certain target. As for the romances, they aren’t that critical to the game, and easily achieved.
And if you speak of the very ending when you defeat the even more bad guy? Sorry, one choice out of a list of things doesn’t amount to a big ‘choice matters’. The only exception was a few special cases which I don’t want to spoil here.
For the record, I do like Diabolical and Hero Unmasked. And I recognize the limitations to what one writer is able to do, as well as what a writer might intend. A game like Life of a Mobster or Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven are going for a different experience than the two I mentioned above.
Cherry-picking Diabolical is a bit disingenuous. Which is not to say that you’re wrong–Diabolical does suffer from the spirit of what you’re describing. But a better test would be to take a set, such as, “games published by COG this year” and evaluate whether or not your claim is true.
As you said that you enjoyed Diabolical: despite that structure, it’s one of our better-selling titles in terms of lifetime revenue.
Very well, then let’s do that. Sixth Grade Detective, the Daring Mermaid Expedition, Hero Project: Redemption Season, The Sea Eternal, Avatar of the Wolf, Welcome to Moreytown, and Runt of the Litter seem that way.
I’m not saying there aren’t key choices, and some branching, but essentially most of it tends to be window dressing/flair to a player.
In 2017, we’ve published Runt, Eagle’s Heir, Moreytown, Demon Mark, Avatar, Hero Unmasked, and Thief-Taker.
If you wind back to September of 2016, you could add in Versus 2, Cannonfire Concerto, Empyrean, Saga of the North Wind, Congresswolf, and Sorcery is for Saps.
Runt of the Litter does have a minor branching where you play a entirely different path (going through the mountains after something to fight against the Gryphon disease or to the Wyvern camp after more information on your enemies).
Sixth Grade Detectives have several ways to solve a case.
I was looking through ones that came to mind. However, yes, I already mentioned Hero Unmasked, Runt of the Litter, and Moreytown. I would add Thief-Taker and Avatar of the Wolf to that as well. And of all those, I liked all of them but Thief-Taker, though with a normal set of caveats every player brings to their preferences.
I meant to amend my post, but I will agree that you will get some branching, etc. And Runt of the Litter is definitely better on that, though it doesn’t last long.
However, with 6th Grade Detective, yes you can solve a case the same way, but there is no end ‘failure’ which to me makes it meaningless.
IIRC you can actually fail in Sixth Grade Detective.
Like when you go after Sashi’s D&D book, you might not find it was the new girl who took it and then you can try to truck Sashi by buying a new one, ofc she wasn’t fooled by it.
In this instance I would consider it a false failure state since you are doomed to fail. Now if they had a stat check where she would be fooled by it? Then yes.
I have to disagree with your characterization of both Avatar and Thief-Taker. Avatar has a broad set of endings, which turn on the decisions you make throughout game. And Thief-Taker, while it may not branch with fireworks, the game is very complex with a lot of opportunities to succeed and fail that build very different stories. To say that the majority of their choices are fake choices is false.
But you aren’t doomed to fail, you can find out the new girl took the book, then you can say it was her or keep it a secret, if you don’t find it was her then you can admit you failed or try to trick Sashi.
Even if we leave Avatar of the Wolf and Thief Taker out, of the 7 games you mentioned for 2017, that still leaves Moreytown, Runt of the Litter, and Hero Unmasked as still hitting the criteria…3 out of 7, almost 50%. (The only one I won’t say anything about is Mark of the Demon as that is the only one I didn’t play)
And this is where a person will definitely run into a perception problem. I won’t disagree with you that there may be a lot of stuff going on under the hood. However, Thief-Taker did not seem different to me, whether someone passed/failed, nor did it to a couple people I know (and yes, I know, anecdotal evidence really doesn’t count).
Part of the later replies in this thread came about because some people did feel that stuff they chose in games didn’t matter. Even if there is more going on, if the perception is that it doesn’t…well, that is the take the reader/player will have then and pass on.
Even in my WIP, The Magician’s Task, where there is a huge amount of replay ability and several mini scenes per chapter that can’t all be reached in one play through, probably half of my choices still end up being *fake_choices. However, this is just because they don’t Branch out, but every single one without exception has unique text attached to it and stat changes. If those aren’t considered real *fake_choices then I guess I’ve never used one.
If I may ask @Lys, it seems to me that you’re saying that whether or not the choice effects the ending means that it’s branching. (Please correct if I’m wrong on this, though.)
To which I have to ask- doesn’t that make almost all the choices and branches themselves a little… well, useless with that kinda outlook?
Maybe I’m coming at it from more of a ‘destination not the journey’ kind of mentality but from what I’ve read it sounds like you could read a CoG or HG that is word-for-word identical no matter what choice you make- everything is the same- up until the very last choice? Where when you’re offered, say, three different endings that, sure, may be vastly and extraordinarily different but are still the only point of difference no matter what you did elsewhere in the book, that such a thing is what would define that game as ‘branching’, and as ‘not having too many fake choices’?
I guess I’m a little confused with some of the examples you pointed out saying that the small differences didn’t matter much, the fact that you read different text for a different choice didn’t really matter, all that mattered was the ending.
I guess what I’m asking is that: if you went through and got an entirely different page of text, with different things happening within it, different characters coming along or being effected in different ways, just an entirely different scenario than you would have gotten before hand but it still doesn’t effect the overall ending of the game, just that one contained point in the plot, would it be considered a fake choice still?
I’m probably horribly misreading this, but I got curious after reading your post. I’m sorry if I did misread it, however.
First let me say that @RenaB, I want to say that you have a very well-thought out reply/questions, and I hope my own does it justice.
I guess what it boils down to is personal perception. If enough readers/players feel something ends up being a fake_choice, even if something does change within a game, then that is the feeling they get away with.
For example, if we have two traits, one where a person is kind, and another is cruel, and it may change some flavor text in the game, but otherwise does little at the end? Then many people would perceive that to be a fake_choice.
This doesn’t mean every player will do so. As you said,
And if the player only plays once, then they certainly won’t notice it. If they play more than once, then they might see it as wallpapering.
That would depend entirely on the person. This is where that bit of perception comes in again. Someone like me? I would probably view it as a false choice. That doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it, but neither would I suspect my choice would matter in the end.
Of course not. As you said, the ride is normally what is more important, not the destination. However, when the subject itself came up about whether a choice mattered or not, that was what I was addressing.
If I didn’t enjoy most of CoG’s work, I wouldn’t be here. But that doesn’t mean that I may not find some critique/fault with them (just as others will find criticisms of my stuff). Some people have expressed similar points as well.
Does this mean the criticism is invalid? Of course not.
Does this mean the author should listen to it? The answer is also of course not. Criticism (in the constructive sense) is very much a personal thing, and won’t be the same to all readers/players.
You saw that here; though I loved 6th Grade Detective, I didn’t feel that it offered that much difference. @Urban disagreed with me, even pointing out areas where such things happen. Did I feel that made enough of a difference to me? No. But that does make @Urban wrong? Of course, not; it was sufficiently different enough to qualify for him and I’m not going to try and change his mind
And this also comes down to the fact that an author shouldn’t necessarily take that commentary into account. If 70% of people think a work is fine, but 30% don’t? Then unless there is something in that 30% the author thinks they should improve, then they should probably ignore it.
As far as fake choices go, I have to say, not every choice can effect the story. That’s just not feasible. Like in my WIP, for example. Some of the choices don’t really change much.
But just because fake choices don’t branch the narrative doesn’t mean they’re useless. Fake choices can still be used to give the reader an avenue to display their personality in the world of the story, or let them express their opinion on certain places or events.
Even if not every choice branches the narrative, these “fake choices” still can have a use, at least in my eyes.
