Do you like them super detailed, or simple? Do you want them to show everything or want to keep some stuff hidden? Do you want character opinions to show?
I personally think that super detailed ones are great, but I think that some people might find them clunky. And I definitely don’t want to just shove stuff in there to make it longer.
Detailed but I prefer when I can’t see the opinions. If the game is well written, I can pretty much know what is the opinion of the character. I find more interesting to guess.
I’d prefer to know most of the things about my character, but some of the more mundane or obscure things could be left out, especially if the stats screen is already pretty big. Also, most people who have heard about CoG, pick up a game, and find a long stats screen would probably not play.
I don’t know. I remember being attracted to Life of a Wizard in part because of all the stats. I’m not as enamored but I still like a stat-raising game (as long as they don’t over do.) It’s an easy way to make it obvious my choices are being tracked in some way. Also! Though this is not choice script, 7kpp has tons of stats; all well organized and seemingly used. <3
Personally, I’d prefer a bunch of stats to none at all, specifically in a choice-script game or similar.
@leo
I think the number of stats dpends on how long and diverse a game is. A short, linear game like Choice of Dragon needs less stats than an epic like The Lost Heir trilogy or Guenevere.
If you want to get your game official and not just hosted, you need some stats that impact the events of the game and the outcome of choices, otherwise it might be rejected as official game as happened with Divided we Fall.
As to which stats should be shown and which should stay hidden, as a rule of thumb all stats that show things that are the MC should know about like abilities, skills, knowledge, equipment or money should be visible while stats reflecting things that are less obvious like the relationship values or health of party members may be hidden or not. Stats that might spoil things should definitely stay hidden.
I’m not sure what you call ‘character opinions’ , can you explain it please?
I prefer the stat screen to be the basics of what you need. Your name, gender, extra stuff (like for a hero game your Hero Name) alongside your primary stats. Keep it simple, but also add a reference page for your relationship stats, and one for a definition of each stat and other items of importance. And if it’s a diverse story like @Cataphrak Infinity series, definitely a page for some of the basic lore of who, what, and why is happening.
It’s worth mentioning that for debugging purposes it pays to include all stats and choices for the alpha through beta tests at least. You could leave them ambigious like 1 0 1 0 0 1 or something as long as you have a code key referencing them. That way, if someone reports a bug, you can see exactly which path they took to get there if they’re kind enough to copy paste it.
I like super detailed stat screens most of the time, I also tend to like descriptive stat screens better then ___ vs ___.
I really really love the Tin Star stat screen, I found the descriptions pretty fun to read, I hope more games follow this approach.
Yeah. The ability to change from a number/percentage based version to a worded story version was highly entertaining imo
