Good day peeps just discovered the forum despite already playing several HG and CoG stuff.
Quick background, I absolutely adore Tin Star, the Heroes Rise series, Choice of Gaslight, and most recently the Fallen Hero: Rebirth. Haven’t been getting into the newer games as the theme hasn’t really gripped me so far, but I still replay Tin Star now and then, despite probably already exhausted the options. I’ve been writing unprofessionally (I guess that’s the word to use?) for several years now, but it’s mostly for RP stuff. For those who don’t know, RP is a form of co-operative writing method where people meet, usually on forums, and write a story together, but taking turns with each other, building upon each other’s reply and do both plot and character development, and the hook is that neither of the participants has to agree, or even aware of the ending of the story, so all of the participants have the capacity to steer the whole plot into perhaps what the other direction that another participant doesn’t like.
I love to write, but before this, the only outlet I’ve known to spill those writing itches is the RP, and nowadays, I can’t seem to find the right partner to RP with, either due theme conflict, style conflict, schedule/posting rate conflict, or just not getting any partner at all due to either too few users, or too many so the topic just gets buried over. After a considerable long in-between, I decided the writing itch was too much and decided to try out this outlet. I briefly considered Wattpad but decided to go the way of CoG/HG instead as it’s much more in-line with my other hobby, which is gaming and specifically visual novels. I also have tried the other Choices games, which are based on the android app Choices. Those were certainly, interesting, to say the least.
So while I’m consuming the how-to basic about ChoiceScript, I want to know several things that are considered the ‘acceptable’ things, as well as the adjustment I need to make to migrate from the RP style writing onto the CYA style writing. Do note that this is also a question on which one would be ‘easier’ to start with, considering that regardless of my preferences, I still have to write a story with options and branching stories, something that I haven’t really dabbled into before.
(I assume I need to have a certain post to be able to make a poll, which I’m currently unable to as there’s no option to on the gear icon, so please bear with the old styled poll)
First of, the characters, specifically the one you’re playing as. Which approach do you prefer when dealing with creating your character? In a way, I’m asking whether it’s better to write/read a story where you have a clear idea of your character, or where you can ‘tweak’ the image of your character depending on how fitting it would be with the storyline you’ve chosen so far.
- Establish early on, so there’d essentially be a separate chapter where the game hashes out you and your history, and then building the story based on that, locking off certain routes from the start
- Establish on the need to know basis, where you build the history, and perhaps your appearance, based on the stories that you’ve read so far, locking off routes proactively
0 voters
Then, on the topic of the depiction of other characters
- A detailed written description of their appearance and personality, locking several few traits in so the further writing will assume those characteristic
- A relatively blank slate where you can choose their appearance and personality, with the further story having callback to these choices, locking you to a certain responses/route depending on the characteristic of other characters
0 voters
The latter would’ve been much harder to write consistently, as you require a placeholder character to base the story, then flesh out two, or more, differing part of the story, which may just become a tangling mess of choices and plotline if not handled correctly
Speaking of choices
- Choices that result in a relatively minor outcome
- Choices that outright results in a different route
0 voters
From the VN background, I, of course, assume that the latter would be the norm, but several of the CoG/HG games that I played seems to be much more welcoming to a new writer, where the outcome is relatively minor, but it adds up an invisible point where it’ll decide the endings, which is where those differing stories were shown. Basically, should the story be like a root, or like a brush, where it’s relatively straight until the end where it branches out
On the invisible points tangent, which is probably my number 1 consideration before I start thinking about the story, and how should I approach the writing style
- Stats, money, equipment, type of house, connections, allies, invisible stats, GIMME EVERY DETAIL
- Just stories with the only thing barring you from getting to certain route/picking certain choices is the choices you made before
0 voters
I honestly don’t think I can make the former option workable, as the games with these options usually just end up making me do an ‘optimized run’. This is more about the existence of those ‘free time options’, where you’re able to work/train to build up your stats, and then pick certain choices based on the stat you build up, versus an option where you need to choose between doing A or B, where, for example doing A would let you into a hint/tips/knowledge that can make a certain option available, while doing B doesn’t.
Onto the style of writings
- Less text, more choices, so much more minor choices that may not impact the story that much aside from little details
- More text, fewer choices, so most of the choices would be a major one that’ll decide the endings
0 voters
Then
- Shorter story, but with more routes to take to encourage replayability
- Longer story, but with fewer routes, or just a single one with different endings
0 voters
Phew, I guess that’s all that I wanted to ask at this point in time. Sorry for the wall of text, nice to meet you all, and thank you in advance!