I’m probably the youngest member here
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Readers: when picking dialogue options, do you prefer if the author repeats whatever option you picked in the after-choice narrative or not?
- Yes, I like it when the dialogue option I picked is repeated.
- No, I prefer when it’s not repeated in the text.
- No preference.
- Other.
0 voters
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I realized too late that if you don’t repeat the dialogue and you have to leave the phone in a hurry, when you come back you don’t know what you had chosen, so I’m repeating all the choices now.
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I can definitely see how frustrating that is now that you mention it. I probably had the same frustration when I had the exact same scenario. Good to know! I think I might repeat the dialogue options from now on because of this.
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I’m reviewing the whole book, so it isn’t as frustrating as to not know which symbol to use for dialogue and such, thanks to being in a country that uses different punctuation for novels as the standard here on CoG.
However, I had my doubts at the beginning but it seems I didn’t gave much importance to it, so I can’t complain.
1 Like
To me, repeating the dialogue again interrupts the flow of the story because I am essentially reading the same sentence twice. It adds to the word count but nothing else.
I tend to avoid games that use that style (most notably: Wayhaven), but I am clearly in the minority here, so 
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I prefer:
Dialogue Choice: No, coffee without sugar, please.
You smiling at the waiter, tell them your choice of drink, ‘No, I don’t need sweet things, coffee without sugar, thank you.’
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I somewhat agree with that.
Dialogue choice: “It looks bad,” I say.
You cross your arms, your face scrunching up in disgust. “It’s so fucking ugly that it makes my work look good. Do better,” you say, holding back the urge to vomit.
Obviously I exaggerated a little bit lol but it just makes me shout “Wait, WHAT!?” when choice dialogues go differently to what I was expecting.
17 Likes
I agree with both of you.
It’s disorientating when my character says something I didn’t pick, but it’s nice to have whatever was said expanded upon either with dialogue or actions in case I forget what I picked for whatever reason.
I can see that. Interrupting the flow of story/keeping the story flowing is pretty important for me as well. Thank you for sharing your opinion! 
9 Likes
No prob! To add on to my post, I think I tend to prefer descriptive choices instead of just dialogue. Based on your example, something like:
*fake_choice
#I greet the disembodied voice back.
"Hello to you too."
#I questioned the voice.
"What do you want?"
#I stayed quiet.
I hope you’ll find whatever works for your writing style!
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Agreed! Descriptive choices are a good alternative to the repeat dialogue or dialogue that’s nothing like the OG choice!
Thanks again for sharing!
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I think it really depends on the type of game. If you need to think a lot about these +3 and +4 choices it would be good to see the question repeated. As said, it would be good to make the next choices more descriptive then. If the stories needs to keep flowing and there is no questions directly after your choice, why repeat the question, it would just take you out of the story. Good poll!
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Similar to my last question, how old were you when you first got into these games? I realized I’ve been playing these for over half my current lifespan the other day ago and that was a weird feeling. 
- 14 or below
- 15 - 20
- 21 - 25
- 26 - 30
- 31 - 35
- 36 - 40
- 41 - 45
- 46 - 50
- 51 - 55
- 56+
0 voters
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Count me in the under 14 camp if we’re counting print media. My answer of 34 reflects how old I was when I read CoDragon.
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Now that you mention that, i did remember reading a Give-Your-Goosebumps when i was in Grade 10 so that would put me in the “under 14 group”. My answer of 15-20 was the time i became a member of the forum.
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For COGs, I definitely found my first one when I was around 17 or 18. Choice of the Dragon, baby!
But as for IF itself, I think my first foray into them was actually on Neopets, of all things! They used to have this thing called the Neopian Adventure Generator, which let users make their own IFs. It was really fun.
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Other;
Over all (excluding the plot) I would like to read a story that the author is comfortable in writing. something that they know, but this also opens a possibility to lock in characterizations and a chance that it’s not open of a story that I would generally read/like.The examples of such would mainly involve more social issues, such as gender-locked MC (because the author doesn’t know how to right other genders) and sexuality locked MC (once again because the author doesn’t know/isn’t comfortable in writing otherwise) . It’s basically just things that the author could learn about and cater to audiences that could relate but actively choose not to.
other;
I think there should be restrictions within reason to who should be able to read CoGs with sensitive and mature content, not to completely gatekeep some topics from younger audiences since that’s just a sh*tty thing to do. If there is an active way to manage them then I’d think it’d be fine for them to be fine for HG/CoG. A lot of the WiPs I find with sensitive topics will tend to have warnings and a tw list to look through at the start, even having a choice to have warnings at the start of each chapter. I do believe that people know what they look for however and so as long as people know what they’re getting into , i think they should be able to judge whether that should read it or not
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You just unlocked a wave of nostalgia I didn’t know I had! So. Many. Babysitting adventures.
I honestly thought that Howling Dogs and Depression Quest are my first ventures into IF until now. If not for the latter (well, to be more accurate, the horrid stuff that happened surrounding the latter), I wouldn’t know if I will be here.
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I read this first as how old were you when you discovered COG, big difference there 
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Authors: when you write your stories, do you prefer to write in consecutive order or do you prefer to write in non-consecutive order?
- I prefer to write my story in consecutive order/the order the reader would view it in.
- I prefer to write from one scene non-consecutive scene to another/bounce around.
0 voters
To all: what do you think are the benefits and drawbacks of consecutively or non-consecutively?
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