The games that come into my mind are Tin Star, Silverworld and Heart of the House
In Tin Star , my personal experience were Maria Agustina and Carrie , their romantic option are related to Stats but it didn’t felt that way when i read the story , Maria (for my playthrough) was attracted to honourable person , which was depend on how MC deal with fake Marshall steel and whether MC really abide to the duty as a Marshall , which seems to affect on the perception of Maria towards you … i think the same went with Carrie , where she would be attracted by my choice of action and how i “regard” her , the interaction on how my actions affect the stats were so real and logical which made me felt real about the relationship, like if we call her "a woman in trouser " , she will be upset and the relationship stats will drop , which is logical …
for Silverworld Keimia romance, it was based on our choice of actions (which were not related to relationship stats ) in order to start a romance with her, without our choice of action that suit her taste , the romance won’t trigger even if the relationship stats was very high with her ,
For Heart of the House Oriana, we also need to perform certain action in order to spend a night with her , although we didn’t have an actual romantic relationship with her
Hmm… To be honest, I’ve only played one game (Wayhaven), where all you had to do to successfully romance a RO was decide to pursue them — most games require you to do a certain amount of flirting or have a high enough relationship stat.
Beyond that, there are actually quite a lot of romances in COG/HG that have additional requirements. I’ve seen romances tied to stats and character builds as well as romances that required you to make specific choices. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are Keeper of the Sun and Moon, Tin Star, Tally Ho, Tower Behind the Moon, and Love at Elevation. So I don’t think it’s too uncommon.
It can certainly be done well, but IMO you need to know why you’re doing it and how it makes the game better.
I think we need to specify the concepts we’re talking about.
For me, there’s a big difference between having to have 50+ sports-skill to romance a character, and having to choose to gain sports-skill, because the way you raise relationship with them is to train together.
Or needing Kindness 70+ versus being kind when interacting with them.
And there’s a huge difference between having to choose to help a RO at plot point X, and having to have a personality- or skill-stat that is Y or higher…
I have no problem with a character that dislikes me, because I slaughtered innocent before them. With a character not wanting a romance with me because I like Vanilla icecream more than chocolate, that would be a totally different thing. You get what I mean, I definetely do not want a romancable character, like in most VN where you have to say x,y and then z to trigger the romance, otherwise you are closed out from the best ending. I want realistic chars to a point, but not soo realistic, that the relationship end because you once forget to water the flowers or such things. A relationship in a COG should be part realistic, part logical, but not ended over daily nothings like might happen in real life.
I honestly don’t know if it is a coding issue to a degree… Meaning ROs trigger flags based on choices- I know that much- so making a move may be one of those things. The degree of subtlety of the move may vary. For example Wayhaven and Unnatural are good examples of ROs where there are varying degrees of explicit or implicit interest that you demonstrate and to which you respond. Although I love Stronghold, my eyebrow did twitch a little about having to pop the question… in every case. LOL Ah, well. The game is too much fun to complain.
@Kaelyn I agree. I think that so long as the choices make sense, the way the dialogue goes may be different, but I would think that only a few pivotal moments should really affect the RO outcome. Slaughtering innocents, hiding the fact that you are Superman until your children start flying around the house, or streaking inside a church when your RO’s parents are devoutly religious and he/she is their only child… that kind of thing.
I think the thing that prevents me from wanting to make ROs that pursue the MC first–based on stats like Intelligence or Reputation and not on stats like triggering their romance flags or earning their approval–is that I don’t want to make a player feel uncomfortable, harried, or just plain weirded out. If someone was role-playing as a super-genius with 100% Intellect and 70% Wisdom, I don’t want them to feel awkward in having an academic-minded RO suddenly come on to them without any prompting from the player first, especially when there are players out there who’d rather not have any romance in their games at all. I don’t want forced “rejection” (you having to reject a character) to be a part of my game, and I think having ROs with “free will” or personality triggers rather than romance triggers could lead to that.
personally the only one I worry about not having a free will is the vilain . I want them to have one ! To do things! Get in my way, ruin my plan…try to kill me before the end credits . Not just sit there…and wait for me to come and kill them .
As it relates to making characters more dimensional I would like it if they not only made their own decisions but, had their own goals and possibly reasons for helping the MC outside of “we are the companions of the chosen one and are just here to help.” Maybe let them come up with plans to deal with whatever antagonists oppose them and the MC or plans to achieve a goal instead of just going along with whatever the MC decides.
Maybe if it’s not stats like intelligence, strength etc. what would trigger an RO to confess to the MC rather relationship stats which the player boosts with picking choices the RO approves of what triggers such action from an RO then it could work? As for people who aren’t interested in romances maybe an early choice about wanting romances or not could be a solution?
Yeah, that’s sort of silly like when you first join a faction or something similar. Sometimes you can get around that logically by writing some sort of event that “forces” you to make some decision that normally would have went to a higher authority.
In any case, ideally you’ll want other characters in your story to have their own “lives,” from major to minor. Characters are of course going to be affected by your actions (For good or ill), but if you’re not around, then their lives are affected by that as well (Again, for good or ill).
Of course this only matters if you’re going to encounter them later under different circumstances and in a different way, but that’s sort of the point. You can see how things changed when you weren’t around which encourages multiple playthroughs.
