i’m back \v.v/
looking through some of the stories i kinda wish there’s a convienient way to view choice histories, that is viewing dialogue options you picked all the way to the current point. i find myself wanting that when trying to predict characters’ reactions to me from my choices.
I saw this post from scribble-games (creator of 180 FIles) about changing how the relationship bar works. Instead of having a pure relationship bar like most games there could be an opposed stat to it that measures how much you agree or challenge other characters. I think this helps make character interactions a lot more dynamic and nunanced.
I know one work in progress, diaspora, has a relationship system with your usual percentage bar, but also a second one focusing on how much you agree or disagree with their opinions on stuff, and you can disagree with basically everybody on everything and still get along great
I really like this! I’d love to do something more complex like this sort of thing in a future project.
I definitely like the idea of adding heights in character creation! I’d also like it if body types or weight were added as well. And statwise, I’d like to know what stats increase from certain options, like in The Lost Heir trilogy. It would be really helpful and lets me not check my stats after every option, wondering what changed and why it changed. And gender options! While I’d only ever play as a male, sometimes a transman, it’s still nice to see all the gender options we can choose from. Maybe someday it’ll entice me to choose one of them!
By fluff options do you mean options that don’t progress the story and crunch as in these do progress the story?
No, though now that you point that out, I could be. Please give me clear marks of what options will advance things when picked and which ones don’t. There’s no way for me to do that from the text, considering that sometimes I’m told that I have an afternoon free and somehow a 20-minute chat with an NPC consumes that afternoon. Exceptions to be made in case of, say, surprise attacks, when I’m supposed to THINK I have an afternoon but in fact only do have 20 minutes before everything goes to hell.
What I meant in that original post was, when you’re given a number of options from which you can pick X of (generally as a simulation of downtime), don’t force me to pick between raising my stats (crunch) and getting to know NPCs/the world (fluff). In fact, there’s no good reason for there to be a limit on the number of fluff options that I can see.
No need to thank me. Thank YOU for pointing out my post was not clear in communicating what I wanted. 
Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification!
Consistency regarding character personality.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, its that a lot of games nowadays have about 10 or 15 personality traits, with one opposing the other, and it never really feels like any are meaningful beyond the very occasional reference to the strongest stat.
I’d love to see authors prune some of that back in favor of focusing on a few core personality traits, leaving leeway in there for the characters around the MC to notice when they’re in opposition to their usual personality.
Personally, the only two things I can think of is: More poly and more poly with more than 2 ROs and more focus on the games’s main theme cause I feel like a lot of the games I’ve appreciated the least where the one were the ‘selling point’ was very rarely present.
Like a Mecha Fighting game where you very rarely get to fight with said Mecha.
I’d also appreciate at least one game where I get to be the ‘awful RO’ to a character, just for fun. From what I remember of that one WIP where you play an Eldritch entity in a human body, you could kinda be like that and it was a nice change of pace.
More options to be violent, angry, and antagonistic (beyond being a tsundere or something)
I would love to a game where there are no romantic routes. Platonic routes could potentially be interesting.
I like it if there is a choice to not interact with the character we don’t like be it other npc or ro and if the plot forces us to interact with said npc/ro, I hope it will be a very short talk or just straight brief professional and move on.
I know this may sounds like a broken record. I need assertive ro! Make a move on the mc dammit! Unless the mc show no attractions.
I know this thread is a little older, but I came across it and was really interested in what natwwa had to say initially about what they are looking for in a fantasy IO. Although having other fantasy races to choose from is not likely to be present in my WIP, I did use a class system that so far no one has mentioned they liked…and perhaps even found that choice to be burdensome. I also like class/sub-class choosing, managing stats, and all those dorky things about RPG’s. So I have this dilemma and question…
Most RPG’s have this “introduction period” at the beginning where you pick-up stats easily, name your character maybe, choose class or hair or whatever one can choose. You are often thrust right into a situation with characters that your character knows, but you do not yet know. Your first sets of choices have less consequence, i.e: you usually can not die in the very beginning. I know there are exceptions…but most are like this. Furthermore, I took a perspective of “what if this is the first IO this person has read?” so I didn’t want to flood them with dangerous choices early on…this is why RPG’s do this as well…get the feet wet so to speak…Ok…this does feel like you are being pushed along…I don’t know what else to say, so many plot based games are like this. It is not as easy as it seems to get this part right…and…I have run into a lot of complaints with starting my IO this way.
Rail-roady is a word i hear. In my experience, a little patience is very much needed when embarking on a big, new, fantasy game… or even a big, new, fantasy novel. I am finding not many readers wish to take that time to learn about the world…to allow the world to open up to them. They want instant action, instant choice opportunities to change the story. It seems to be more about manipulating the story than enjoying a story…until you get into the romance genre where I feel like the story and character development aspect is appreciated more for itself…at least when I read their reviews.
Anyhow, to second this threads main point. I get told what is wrong and terrible with my IO with little direction on how to fix it or what would be “right”. Overall, the comments are heavy on the negative side…i.e: “what i don’t want.” and very little about what the reader does want. I end up having to infer what they mean and pose ideas to what they mean or simply look up the grammar rule myself when they didn’t know what it was that was “bothering” them so much about the writing. Anyhow, I push for more positive based reviews about what an author is doing right, and what they can do to improve their story…not what is wrong with the story and “I can’t believe you put that in there” check out these three games to learn something" kind of responses.
“You ever try to decide with a friend where to eat and all they can tell you is “not there…I don’t want [blank]. But when I was in Milan they had the best [blank]. You should visit Milan.” But they can not tell you where they actually want to eat in the city that you are actually in?” Yeah it feels a lot like that.
"How do we get more readers interested in COG style books and games? At some point, we all were new to it. The readers giving reviews must consider the perspective of a new reader, of all readers together, and then their own perspective. Otherwise you get 100 different responses to “What makes a good COG game” or “how does one get people interested in their IO novel.” I have read a lot of those threads. They are very interesting; but, there is little consensus. Anyhow, all this from a frustrated writer who is thinking he should of gone a different route to get published or simply kept working as an underpaid vet technician. These things take a lot of time to make. Most of these writers are struggling to make it in the writing world and not getting paid for their struggles. Additionally, you have to learn to code. It is for the love of writing and creation. A little helpful kindness can go a long way. Before those great COG works were legends, they started off in the humble beginnings of critique. I wonder what bones were tossed their way to light the path to success?
I’m not entirely sure if this is on-topic - if other moderators feel there’s a better thread for it please feel free to move it elsewhere
I understand frustration; it can be hard to hear critique that doesn’t feel like it helps you decide a direction to take.
I would encourage you and others who feel similarly to assess feedback and turn negatives into positives - for example, based on critique I had for one of my projects, if someone says “I didn’t like any of the characters” it’s helpful to look at what’s there in the game with a fresh eye and examine why this might be. You might know what’s going on in a character’s head and be so immersed in it that you forgot to think about how they look from the outside without that knowledge. You might have not given enough scenes to get to know them. You might have introduced them with an off-putting scene. And so on.
Or you might look at it and say “well, other people have really liked the characters and I want an ambiguous tone for this game so I’ll leave it as is”.
What I always recommend for writers of any level of experience is to explore other games from the catalogue and look at how they do things. Figure out what you like and don’t like about them, what you would do differently. If there are games you really like, that drew you in, think about why you like them and what gripped you. I don’t know which games you’ve played and enjoyed, but if you’ve purchased them you can look at their code and see how they’re structured. There are also plenty from Choice of Games, Hosted Games and Heart’s Choice that are free to play.
The other thing I recommend is to look at the CoG design guidelines; they’re not entirely up to date nowadays but much of the guidance is still in practice in “modern” CoG games. Not every CoG or HC game follows these to the letter - many play around with the structures. HG games vary even more widely as they aren’t subject to editorial control or style guides. But again, it’s very useful to know what a lot of other games are doing, examine story structures that have been developed over the years that these games have been being made, and figure out whether you want to follow them or do something entirely different.
There are a lot of resources on the forum including @hustlertwo’s excellent rundown on factors that can help (published) games be more or less popular. And, indeed, playtesters themselves are a massively helpful resource that shouldn’t be discounted. Some feedback isn’t actionable (such as the kind that can be summed up as “I’d rather this was a different game”) but a lot of it is.
I’ll have to admit that I haven’t tried your WIP. And the main reason for that is that the MC is not gender-specified, tbh. In COGs and HGs I greatly prefer when I can get to customize my MC, so that I can get the kind of MCs that I like and/or find interesting. And this certainly also includes getting to explicitly decide the gender of my MC. I can’t of course speak for other people, but there is a chance that there are also other people who feel the same I do and stay away from your WIP, because of the lack of opportunity to explicitly choose the gender of the MC. If this is an important part of your vision, I do of course understand that you don’t want to change it. But if it isn’t, maybe changing it would help you getting more people checking it out and leaving comments.
Apart from that, your WIP certainly sounds interesting. And if you actually allowed us to explicitly choose the gender of the MC, I would be happy to check it out.
Hannah and natwa…thankyou for your words. I have been reading other WIP’s recently, but not published ones. I have played published games in the past. Perhaps I should play some more. I did do a lot of research on the coding side of things…as I learned more I coded in more complex things. I also read many forum suggestions…one major suggestion was to not get too complicated your first go around. I followed that rule early, then broke it later on. To be fair, I have accepted a lot of the advice that was given to me. The game is better for it. It is good that people feel very comfortable telling me all the things I am doing wrong. It is part of the process, However, a lot of it feels overtly negative in tone. I give people critiques; I’ve done this in school in the past also. They do not have to be overly harsh and it does help to add in things you like about a story. Every story should have something positive going on aside from “the concept”. I just read a WIP that started with a poem. I loved that and have no idea if that is a popular thing on COG or not. I imagine someone will criticize that saying “Who am I, Where am I, What’s going on!”
Just breath and read on…maybe you will find out. Anyhow, I vote for a true peer review process where we use more encouraging words. They go a long way. The two of you have just proven that…so thankyou.
natwa: Ugghh, i thought about the gender thing for weeks and weeks. I read post where coders were having trouble with making an automatic pronoun inserted. For otherwise…I greatly respect anyone who codes that into their story. I didn’t realize this could steer people away…but I have read other posts suggestion many readers want all this nailed down as well. This actually would not effect my story at all so it would be easy to put into the game. It would not change how others react to you…would that be a problem? i.e if you flirt with the bartender…he is still a widowed male who likely will never move on…but, flirt well enough and he gets confused about that for a second. I’d love to break into romance and create these non-locked games where the characters, and you, adjust to each other through dialogue, this would include not talking, or talking, about certain topics. After reading a bunch of WIP’s…and I did this to and took it down, was the need a writer felt to put up all these disclaimers. I didn’t even know “touch aversion” was a thing in IO books. I guess I do live in a box. Anyhow, what if you could cover these things through dialogue in a more natural way? I don’t know. I bow to anyone who navigates these things with poise. Back to your point, I could easily allow the character to be a gender…but it may not seem impactful to the story. Would it seem like another empty stat? Thank you for your insight.
But that’s just it, those 3 questions are what essentially makes up a story, and an interactive fiction. I’ve read your story. And I couldn’t answer those 3 questions, and I’ve read up to chapter 3 the mountain portion. The issue is It’s hard to read. I thought it was just me. So I stuck your writing in the Hemingway editor app. It’s basically a tool that helps with readability, using an algorithm, and your text lit up like a charismas tree. Here use it yourself: https://hemingwayapp.com/
There is ultimately no story. Yes you did great with the coding, and the exploration. But it gets tedious quick. Go explore this cave, go explore that cave. There’s no central story holding it all together. Sorry if I sound like I’m attacking you. I’m not. But if you put your work online, people are going to criticize. And every post I read in your thread was mostly constructive.
There is an app people use for writing? Good gracious. I mean… I know about the translation apps but I have never heard of an app that tells you whether your writing is good or bad…ok…I may have to sit and think about that for awhile…
So this go around you were much more helpful, thankyou. I even found a compliment! Hopefully you encountered the Windigo or Pine Lemon Yeti.
Central story: Your purpose: this is shrouded in mystery and hinted at…but not defined. I question this problem myself. I think it’s easy to assume the writer may not be aware of potential problems…but often they secretly suspect.
Final thoughts: Ok, time to define the word ‘Critique’. There are two versions of the verb in the dictionary. This forum is geared towards the second version, the literary version. That’s all. I think this is a common connotative, and denotative, error people make when reviewing things. This is not a roasting…it is designed to encourage and help, no? As far as using the Hemingway app…I will play with it; but, I think such a thing could be a problem if abused…I also noticed it wants to limit adverbs or in general it is looking for the most elegant way to write something…and I mean elegant in the logical way. Like an elegant mathematical equation. I can see this being a helpful tool…but…something tells me one should not plug their writing into Hemingway and alter it accordingly…maybe someone else can weigh in on that. Actually, this all seems very concerning to me. Both if my writing is hard to read and that people may be plugging their writing into a crisper machine and expecting writing to sound a certain way…Hmm, i don’t know…for now I will mull that over…
The Hemingway app is named after Ernest Hemingway. An awesome fiction writer, check out some of his work. The app helps with readability first and foremost. The easier your text is to read, the more people will be able to understand it. It does not tell you if it’s good or bad. It limits adverbs because in the literary world, the number 1 rule is: show, don’t tell. And adverbs have a tendency to kill “weaken” verbs. Click on the help tab in the app it explains this.
As for this “roasting” I’ll say yes, there was one person who used a laughing emoji. But I don’t think it was meant to discourage. If you go back and read the comments left. Most of them said the same thing I did.