What kind of ChoiceScript game are you looking for?

General
21

Good question, hard to pin it down to any one thing, as it is usually a feeling you get when reading the story.

Obvious ‘dead end’ choices for example, are fine in isolation but when they occur too often can get annoying. Basically a “but thou must” in terms of progression.

Others include, scenarios where very specific events combine to push the story in a specific way - It has to be well disguised, if it is too obvious… Also, oversights by the author, for example if they author creates a choice situation and offers say two or three choices that are similar, yet fails to offer a choice that is obvious for the reader. Champions of the Gods did this one or two times, I think the first one choice was a good example; I wanted to obey my parents but that choice wasn’t available, it was either behave petulantly or outright lie.

I found that when writing an epic, because of the scope, I ended up taking certain liberties with the story direction. If I didn’t funnel it in a certain direction then the story would bloat out of control and I’d effectively write multiple stories within the story. I felt, as a writer, that my abilities weren’t good enough to disguise that. When I re-read my work, it just felt off, like I was going through a certain progression path and I felt my audience wouldn’t particularly like that. Unfortunately I couldn’t think of a way to solve that. :frowning:

Hope that’s useful info.

22

That’s fair. Though I suppose at that point of no return, the character has to live with the choices he’s made, so I’d forgive an author restricting my options a bit. As long as the choices don’t make me feel tricked in the first place.

My question to you would be, does there have to be an obvious answer for the player? My biggest problem thus far has been making 3 choices all seem viable, not to trick the reader, but to rationalize all the play styles.

I’m sure your good enough to hide plot flow, you already recognize it as a thing. You also see behind the curtain more than the readers do, makes it damn near impossible to suspend your own disbelief around your own work. I know of no writers who happily curl up with their own stories on a rainy Saturday haha. We see warts that aren’t even there.

Bottom line, I hope I get someone as thorough as you testing my work.

P.S. have you heard of Noah Gervais? He’s a youtuber who creates utterly inspired critiques of video games as a storytelling medium. His 2 or 3 hours on mass effect is the best time sink on the Internet when it comes to agency and choice for a gamer. Worth your time.