Oh oof, I’m reading this and having some brief uh-oh moments
Anyway, some things that pull me out of a story is a lore dump in a condensed paragraph. It’s okay if there’s some explanation given, but if I’m supposed to play a character that lives in this realm, I would assume the MC already knows about these things. Which means I should know about them. Nothing’s more jarring that having your character say “ah yes I understand completely!” And you’re behind the screen questioning what in tarnation is actually going on.
And one that makes me immediately close and delete a game: No spacing between paragraphs. I almost chucked my own game in the trash when I play tested and forgot to double space between paragraphs. It was pandemonium.
LMAO trust me, I’m reading these and even writing my own little list, I’m sweating. @Rydinger
I have yet to have an MC that says “What in tarnation!?” in response to something and that realization saddens me.
And pure dialogues. Many many dialogue options to pick one by one, and the one you’re talking to only answers with talking:
The MC strikes up a conversation with someone!
Options:
Why did you join the group? √
What’s your opinion of that?
I see you’re talented at this.
And then it goes:
“I joined the group because of blah blah blah”.
Why did you join the group?
What’s your opinion of that? √
I see you’re talented at this.
And then:
“That’s really horrible don’t you think blah blah!”
Why did you join the group?
What’s your opinion of that?
I see you’re talented at this.
It’s rather dull and felt like interviewing. It’s interactive fiction after all. I don’t want the tons of information being dumped on me through only dialogues, no actions, no emotions, no interactions, and the MC is felt like missing, and it’s me holding a microphone to interview the character for a talk show.
Most of the points I was going to bring up have already been made…so I will go for a few little things that always take me out of it liiiiike:
Making my MC’s constantly wink or snort.
***I am a flirty person, so are my MC’s - in real life I may wink on occasion, but it certainly isnt EVERY SINGLE TIME I flirt with someone. That’s just weird…who would even flirt back if you were always all twitchy when you were trying to be sexy!!!
And I just don’t snort. I have noticed that when a writer puts that the MC “snorts” while laughing or whatever, they dont just do it once…nope, you will likely be snorting constantly for the rest of the story. I feel like in real life the reason snorting while laughing is cute, is because it usually isnt the norm, so when a snort comes out it is an adorable surprise…making whatever was funny even MORE funny because it got the elusive snort. But some of the stories I have read have you snorting like a pig every other page and it just makes me grooooooan.
So yeah…you don’t have to wink EVERY TIME you flirt and you don’t snort every damned time you laugh! And while we are on the subject - shy people aren’t constantly rubbing the back of their necks! Guuuuuuh
OH OH OH and how often in real life, does someone lovingly stroke your cheek when you arent even kissing and they have a crush on you??? I mean, yeah it may happen on occassion, every once in awhile…but if someone did it to me all of the time, it would annoy me or give me a complex. I certainly wouldnt go all heart eyes over it, it is creeper behaviour, yo!
Maybe it is repetitiveness that gets me…ooh especially when the same words are used constantly…we all have access to the internet/a thesaurus! (Although this is why beta testers are around I suppose to point it out when necessary)
Woah, I am ranting…my apologies, I will just back out slowly now xoxoxox
I’mma have to disagree with you on the winking thing, as both me & my OCs do it often, and we absolutely LOVE it when it’s done to us.
I DO agree with you on the repetition aspect, though. There are a lot of ways to convey attraction, shyness, anger, happiness, etc. No need to overuse actions when there are plenty others that can do just as well, of not better.
As has been said before, games that focus too heavily on stats. Min-maxing, and stat punishments are bad enough. But sometimes a game will tie those choices in with relationship or personality choices, so that if I want to do something with a specific character I enjoy, I am going to do it poorly and lower my relationship with then because I didn’t have a high enough strength stat or something. It makes it hard to make interesting choices if I have to constantly be referring back to my stat page to estimate my chances of talking to a friend.
i understand where you’re coming from with this one when people use it near constantly but normally when i write that someone snorts, it’s not like…Oink, like a pig, or like you’re laughing really hard. it’s like a derisive noise that one makes when they’re amused by something that they don’t necessarily want to be amused by. like something that happens in response to someone saying something ridiculous. it’s so hard to describe though. i suppose one could use scoffing as a substitute? but then scoffing seems like it conveys a more aggressive, dismissive noise. descriptive language is hard…
Games that are so stat heavy that I don’t get a chance of playing a character that I want because I need to be more worried about “if I don’t have my stat X at 30 at point E and my stat Y at 26 at point B I’ll get a terrible ending and everyone will hate me”. Like, seriously? There are games that make us restart over and over because if our shy and insecure mc doesn’t punch person X at this point in the game we won’t have enough strength stat to pull off a scene.
Not to say a game should be without stats, but give us the option of working with it on different ways.
Ooh, this seems like a very helpful thread! Especially because I try to make my story as immersive as I can.
A lot has already been said before, but the first thing that comes to mind is when it’s obvious that a choice is a fake choice. There are exceptions of course, but usually it’s something like “no matter what you feel”, where it’s obvious that all the choices lead to that line.
The other thing is character customization for the sake of character customization (usually when it’s back to back pages of it). Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE character customization, but it just disappoints me when it’s never acknowledged again.
Like, why would you ask me those things if you’ll never mention it anyway? In videogames, it’s fine because I can see my character. But in a story, seeing it acknowledged every so often builds my trust in the author because I know that the author cares about the small unimportant choices I make, even if it’s just my character’s favorite ice cream flavor.
This is most jarring with heights: Once I had a short MC kiss a tall RO, and it just… kind of happened. That’s a missed opportunity right there. Sure, it’s extra work, but adding that flavor text makes the scene a lot more meaningful and personal. It makes the story more cohesive as a whole.
I’d rather not have the customization, than have it and then disappoint me.
There’s also the MC getting too comfy too quickly with a character they just met… but I think I’m already desensitized to it.
For me, the most jarring thing that can throw me out of a story is when I’m talking with another character and make a choice I think is rather straight forward but is then translated into something entirely different (and usually insulting).
Here is a dramatic example;
Freya smiles at you and waves a hand toward the gardens. She hasn’t looked this excited in many years. “Would you join me on a walk? We haven’t done so since we were children.”
Of course! Spending time with Freya is a rarity.
I’m exhausted from training. I offer to go walking with her tomorrow night instead.
I’m not interested in spending time with Freya.
Option 2: You wave her off with a frown. “We’re not children anymore, and I can’t just go out into the gardens for an hour like we are, Freya. If you want to go tomorrow then I will. Otherwise, just forget it.”
Like wtf??? Explain what the reaction will be a little more before I select it. This happens all the time lol.
There are some story that did this to me:
Premise is interesting but the execution as interactive fiction was … ugh.
Too many words with few options and almost just had 1 option after 10 pages. Not to mention when your choice altered NOTHING for the story.
(And this one is for me as non-native: the words that are too flowery is distract me from the narrative, and makes me confuse. Its seems the authors just wanted to extremely show their knowledge of vocabulary.)
For the interaction aspect, too many stats drove me insane. I automatically stop to read it, because my gamer-side always wanting to boost any stats I see and again—can’t focus to the story.
Another that bugged me: when the authors use too many, I said TOO MANY fuckin symbols and unnecessary bold or italic it made my eyes bleeding.
Ugh yes. I get it if there’s a stat check and you’ve played a character that’s either intimidating or mean-spirited like that, but if my cinnamon bun of a character suddenly acts like a grade-A douvhebag, no. I’m gone.
Adding to this, sometimes one-liner dialogue as a reply just doesn’t work. If they all sound casual, what we supposed to do? Magic 8-ball help me.
To be fair, the entire point of having a WiP on this forum is so that people can critique them an help the author make them better…
I don’t think that the Question-and-Response form of conversation is that bad. It can allow readers to skip parts of dialogue that they don’t particularly care about without skipping the entire conversation. I guess I’m not really entirely sure if it’s the base setup that people are objecting to or if it’s more how the author handles it (which would be true for any conversation, really). I have quite a few conversations which are set up as Question-and-Responses, but I would certainly not say that they are devoid of actions, interactions, and emotions.
Regarding my own dislikes, I definitely agree with everyone about stat-heavy games. Stats are an easy way to flavour the story, but in quite a few games, almost every choice feels like a “What’s your best stat?” quiz.
I agree with most of what people said! I would add: when ROs or even MC can have different genders but they were clearly written to be a specific one. Some of my straight female MCs tend to stare at the male ROs’ “curves” in certain games This is just an example, ofc. Related to what @Franzinyte said: if the customization gave me the option to make a short MC with a weak physique but during a romance scene MC carries the RO around bridal style no problem. Bro. This ties with the gender stereotypes because often is how you would see a male MC treating a female RO. I’m sure there are the same problems the other way around (choosing male MC but feels like a female MC, etc.) or with different combos, feel free to add them. I just happen to play fem MCs with male ROs so I noticed those more.
I can only speak for myself here, of course, but my experience with this kind of conversation has been that the individual questions and responses are not well integrated into a whole. There is little to no transition between topics, which is understandable considering that transitions would require the author to write an inordinate number of combinations/possibilities to accommodate player choice/the order in which the player chooses the #options.
Additionally, real conversations don’t feel like this, at least not to me. Once I pick a topic/question, I expect a conversation to go irreversibly down that path, with perhaps another *choice later on with #options related to the topic I picked rather than circling back around to a main “hub” of ideas. The only situation in which this maybe feels natural to me is if the game is trying to evoke the feeling of making awkward small talk at a party with people you don’t know!
And the fact that these things (often) are skip-able makes me care less about them to begin with since they don’t matter. If the only point of these questions and answers is to give the player information, I think there are better ways to do it.
Maybe it can be done well, but in general, I have to agree that these kind of dialogue options break immersion (for me).
ETA: after having written this I now realize (one of the many reasons) why I loathe the dialogue in Cyberpunk 2077
A ton of questions about how my character looks and acts before I even know much about the setting. Having 5 to 6 pages of description in a row that all impact my character prior to even starting the game puts me off personally and makes it feel too much like ticking off boxes. In RPGs it works but in a book it really doesn’t, at least for me. I find trickling in description/personality choices throughout the first quarter or the first half of the book to be more effective.
The game telling me my character feels a certain way about this person when I’ve just met them is also jarring. You obviously need a preexisting relationship with characters in most games but I find sometimes I dislike a character I’m forced to love, or vice-versa, at least being able to have some nuance there helps, like maybe I resent the brother who raised me for years or something, or I actually have some respect for that demanding boss I’m working for.
On a different note, being asked how my protagonist feels about a character (sometimes how they’ve felt about them for years) when I’ve only just met said character is jarring too. Even one or two pages establishing who said character is and giving examples of what they’ve done helps in this regard. Having multiple characters introduced in one go that I have to choose my relationships with is also a no go for me and pulls me out of my immersion.
Also, games that seem to chastise me for not having the opinion of a character that the author does. It’s one thing if other characters respond to my choices, that’s great, but sometimes it can feel like a certain character is an author’s clear favourite, that they’re so super super awesome and cool according to the writer that when I decide my character dislikes them the narration seems to paint my character as bad, or worse, jealous/secretly likes them deep down. It can happen the other way too with characters I’m meant to hate, but I find it’s more common with author favourites. Don’t know how exactly to explain this one though.
As others have said, min-maxing is an issue for me too. I like stats having an effect and obviously a character with no combat skill isn’t going to fight off an assassin, but needing to closely analyse the stats and pick certain choices that boost them just to not get a bad ending is too much and can heavily restrict choice in the worst cases. It tends to make me less focused on the story and instead frustrated trying to work out exactly how to get a decent ending.
nervous sweating Wait hold on, I make my characters do this so damn much but it’s more like, just, a fidgeting thing-! frantically goes through my WIP because this is becoming akin to “letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding”
Omg, this is such a VN expression! I remember it really stuck out to me the second time I saw it somewhere, because it seemed to me like such idiosyncratic phrasing then — I couldn’t imagine two different people using it.
Now I’ve read it so many times I don’t even remember where I saw it first.
Regarding the conversation hubs, if the options are having a hub or having pages upon pages of conversation where you decide nothing and do nothing but click next, I’ll take the hub every time. If I can’t decide what to say, at least let me decide when to say it!
This is so important to me, as well. It’s a lot of work (evident by looking at the code for games), but Jolly Good or Tally Ho is filthy with these call-backs and references to choices you’ve made or things you’ve stumbled upon.
It’s contained to one portion of the early story, but in Jolly Good, picking a costume actually changes if you can complete certain actions because of the way the costumes fit. These things not only immerse you in the story, but make you actively respect every word in it.
to point it out when necessary)
This is just an example, ofc. Related to what 