What makes an in-game romance interesting?

That’s a fair concern. Even with good intentions, they may end up being read that way. I might start without these additional ROs, and then add them if there are requests during beta.

cough, Hero Unmasked.
cough buy it.

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I think they already have…

Oh My GOD this is bothering me so much what the hell is an RO? I can’t take it I gotta knowand have comfirmation.

An RO is an alternate form of LI

Romantic Option, respectively Love Interest

for me , it’s the personality . I’m picky at to what I find attractive .

I don’t like grouchy broody romance . I don’t like clingy , cry baby romance . I also don’t like romance forced on me (ex: kiss that guy to be able to advance and get your gay romance) . I don’t like cliché romance (ex: girl has to be timid and soft , boy has to be paladin and ass like lol) .or (the rogue of the group has to crack a joke every 5min , the warrior is the silent type and the wizard is the absent minded type with his nose in his book ) .

I also don’t like babysitting my romance .

A good romance is when you feel equal , no matter what title you hold , you are on equal footing when that 1st spark happen .

I also would be happy with an ending like : You lived happily together and continued your adventure !
cose I do not need to be ‘married’ and ‘have kids’ to feel happy in the end lol .

So pretty much personality . The background flesh them out and dialogue will make them alive . Granted , you cannot always fall in love right away and sometimes you will hate some of them . But when they are well done , often the one you hated…turn out the one you fall for in the end .

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Well I generally like otome games which are non-COG romance games and I think Guenevere is pretty bad from a purely romantic perspective.

The romance starts with MC basically already married. To pursue someone else, you have to be a scumbag and cheat on your husband with his scumbag best friend which makes the whole thing worse. Of course, this part depends on the player’s morals and their definition of scumbag. I don’t date females, so I have to choose between an idiot and a scumbag horndog. I think it’s interesting ,kinda like a medieval Jerry Springer, but not really romantic.

I think people are different and like different things and the best solution is to have a bunch of unique ROs to satisfy everyone. The ROs should have a personality than extends beyond the best-friend, flirt, Jerk or whatever trope, but not be so overly specific that they only date demisexual male strawberry blonds with brown eyes who weigh exactly 150 pounds and know how to play accordion. Their values should match the stories theme and plot.Although, If there is a conflict between the government and rebels, it would make sense for a RO to choose a side and feel strongly about MC choosing the same side.

Interesting twists like “JK, I’m not really your sibling, so we can romance” or “Ha, I’m not really the enemy. I was the good guy all along” or whatever are nice, but most authors have a serious problem with pacing and how to slowly lead up to the big reveal. A lot of times, everything seems too rushed and it doesn’t make sense. Interesting games have perfect pacing and a slow reveal of twists kind of like some mystery or crime stories.

I don’t like the games that focus on the romance after the dating phase, because the RO usually seems like a mean bum and I wonder why I married them and continue to stay married. There’s also the one true route thing like in Choice of Romance which sucks.

The ROs should be integrated into the story and not just fall off the world just because you didn’t romance them. They should be present in other RO’s routes. Even if a person doesn’t like the romance aspect of the story, they should still be able to say that the ROs were good characters with good believable character interactions and a decent plot. So, focus on making good believable characters that fit with the plot first and a lot of people will like it.

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This is a bit ideal. The best solution would have the right amount of well-developed ROs to satisfy the majority of the readers. It is impossible to satisfy everyone’s taste unfortunately and creating too much ROs might lose their individuality.

But I especially agree that authors should make good believable characters that fit the storyline and they are just not there just to be romance fodder.

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While I personally agree with everything you said here, I still think it could be interesting to have a character open up differently based on their relationship status with our MC (platonic/romantic).

In the dating sim England Exchange, for example, there are two love interests with whom your relationship will inevitably fail if you pursue them romantically. When your MC is of the same sex, however, your dynamic with them develops differently and you get new insights into their characters because sexual attraction isn’t necessarily a factor. I thought that was quite neat, even though I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend the game for this reason. I’m also not quite sure if you can only get to know them with a same-sex character or if it’s enough simply not to pursue them altogether.

I was also recently thinking that it could be interesting to explore characters who have concepts of romantic relationships that don’t necessarily align with the MC’s. A character who believes that friendship and romance are two distinct concepts, for example. I have some ideas how that could look like but, in the end, I’m not sure it would be worthy to implement such a thing due to most players (probably) preferring a smooth(er) romance path.

I guess, in this case, “interesting” doesn’t necessarily equal fulfilling. Or would any of you gladly romance someone who first has to get over some of their issues? Or someone who might not get over them at all?

I define a bunch as about 4 to 5 ROs, however that is the number of ROs with the correct gender and orientation for each player which is easy to do in a gender-locked otome, but is probably harder on a game open to all genders without gender flipping and with set sexuality ROs.

@feurio
Are the issues fantasy issues such as being cursed and turning into a werewolf every full moon and killing everyone ,or more realistic issues such as having depression or an illness that is not magically cured with the power of love? Either way, someone will probably like the game. There have been games before (well, on a different platform) about being in a relationship with someone that has a terminal illness that have done well. Some people might avoid the game, but I guess you can’t realistically please everyone. However, with realistic issues, you have to make sure nothing seems derogatory or insulting to those with the condition, which can be hard to do for some authors. A demo would best let people know if the romance is acceptable or not.

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Time for my 6am rambles I hope I’m coherent enough even without sleep.

I’m always sceptical when it comes to romance, thanks to its representation in most books and movies that left me yawning or cringing really bad.
I get pretty annoyed when the game presents you with a plot choice and a RO choice aka spend time with them to raise their stats, but you go for the plot choice, expecting the RO to still show up because they’re involved in the plot, right. Just to find out that they had little to no involvement in the story because you didn’t romance them.

If a RO has an interesting/challenging personality that doesn’t get pushed into a stereotype, has deep involvement in the plot whenever you romance them or not, grows as a person by the end of the story, acknowledges this relationship to be part of their life, then I can’t complain at all. A study in steampunk acknowledged the romance in the regular plot in some situations more than others.

I don’t want the romance to feel cut off from the story, for example some major event is happening but depending on who you romances there will be a change in dialogue acknowledging that RO is pale of worry for you, whereas in a friendship the RO might have more confidence in your safety. And I think stuff like this shouldn’t only happen in romance scenes where you have to choose this choice first to trigger the scene in the first place.

Romance should always feel fulfilling and natural. I think it’s really important to set aside some time to let MC and RO bond over time and let the player see that bonding. There’s nothing worse than to pick which RO you would like to romance and the game immediately jumps from friends to lovers. With probably just one page of the game describing how MC and RO had their wedding at a disco.

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This was my main problem with Firebrand in Hero Unmasked. I had a very high relationship with him by the end, but I missed his romance route because (I assume) when we were involved in plot together, I concentrated on the plot instead of talking about our relationship… :sob:

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Usually the romances i go for are characters who progress even without the MC being there or like they have there own agenda but still fall deeply in love with ur MC but can still do things even without them like there world doesnt revolve all over the MC XD or someone my MC can have great chemistry with XD

What’s an LI? I really don’t know what these definitions are.

LI means Love Interest.

Well then what does RO mean?

Romance Option its similar to the word LI too

I think what make a good RO is having the character written and after making them RO, adding the romantic path.
Mostly because I see how I am with it: I see/read a character, and if is complelling, I find myself wanting to romance him.
I don’t mind the “genderbending” of possible ROs, but I find myself from time to time really seeing some were too evidently written as females, and than gender flipped without really thinking about “correcting” them to make them plausible.

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RO and LI are the characters you can romance in a media. They’re usually of the preferred type of the main protagonist, but if we’re talking about IF (interactive fiction), they usually include characters from a broad range of traits and personalities so we can have at least an option that suits us.

The term itself is not limited to IF/CYOA alone. Video games, visual novels, and perhaps normal novels may include RO/LI.

I know what they are but I want a definition. But I already got it