Word count vs branching

So, this would indicate that a satisfactory “playthrough count” should be 40,000-100,000 words … since that is the expectations being set… :white_check_mark:

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That’s a difficult spot for anyone who wants to produce IF for any kind of profit, isn’t it?

To have a story that isn’t “too short” in this format, the played section needs to be +40k. Depending on how much there is branching of any kind, that will mean that the real full story is probably at least +60k, and very likely +100k if an author wants to get rid of complaints that the story feels as if it’s railroading you forward.
In sheer number of words, that is starting to get up there with the likes of The Hobbit and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Meanwhile interactive fiction is sold for about a third of the price of ebooks of relative length. If we take the full writing output for one piece of IF, then that will drop further down. Even games that include graphical elements and make efforts to hide the IF nature within a more fancy UI still sell their work for less than ebook prices in many cases.
So someone who wants to write IF and only IF would have to keep writing at least twice as much for less than half the money. While still tolerating complaints about the story being too short / too railroady.

EDIT: And that’s not a complaint about writing IF or money share percentages or anything. Just an observation about the market in general and the expectation of the reader towards the writer.

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This is exactly what is the issue - most consumers don’t differentiate between an IF novel and a YA novel as far as expectations go.

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In the length alone I’d say you’re right, but in the bigger picture the readers do differentiate.

A YA novel is seen as a book. First and foremost. Everyone goes into it expecting to flip over a page and experience a single narrative running through from page to page until the end. It’s a novel.

IF is seen as a game more than a novel because the format not only adds interactivity, but also a gameplay mechanic with the stats. That immediately introduces a whole new swath of expectations and demands, as well as the paradox of the current gaming market where players want cheaper games at increasingly high production values.

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My humble opinion on the issue, from the reader’s perspective, is that a game should have something like 40% of its text shown in a single playthrough. 50% seems nice too. I rarely replay a game a lot (almost never more than 3 times), except when I really love it (like the Infinity series, Lords of Aswick, etc.) or when I am testing it. So having at least 40-50% of its words appear during a single playthrough seems like a nice compromise between length and replayability. Don’t get me wrong, I like games where choices matter, otherwise I wouldn’t be buying CoG. But the story needs to be long enough to get me hooked and happy by the end of it. So, yeah, 40k-50k words by playthrough seems a solid goal for the big majority of games here.

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I am failing at this. :slight_smile: But then, I am also well aware that I’m not doing this for the money.

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I don’t like it any more than you do,(I don’t mind branching games) but it certainly matches with the general concensus some of us came up with a while back. I think people are treating IF as YA length books. Granted they’re IF so we’ll get away with the lower end of the word count, but if you notice if you drop below a 30,000 word play through, complaints often go up subtanstially Below 20,000 words (1/2 the recommended on this list) and the complaints often get very loud. I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive to it, but I’ve seen them turning up on books that I suspect do have that word count more lately. Anyway, I hadn’t seen a recommend length list set out like this before and it was a bit of an “Oh, now I get it” moment for me :slight_smile:

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Quoting @Havenstone


When I finished certain titles, I know that I won’t be replaying them anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, those titles are all good and has potential replayability (Tin Star, Mecha Ace, Metahuman). Heck, even The Great Tournament appears to be made for replayability.

But for some reason, replayability just don’t fit me when it comes to texts. In this case, the IF.
IDK why, maybe because replaying an IF means reading that same block of paragraphs; only small changes regarding the flavor texts. It’s boring.
Unlike video games, where you can have flashy animations and particle effects that keep it being a dynamic experience.

When this thought occurs to me, I’ve to realize that most people will miss quite contents of my WIP if they don’t go for replayability. But I think it’s for the best, tho, as I’ll most likely keep writing some nice story-branching while aiming for the quality of single-playthrough story is supposed to be, which is done right in XoR, I think :sweat_smile:

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In my experience, the branching style that I most enjoyed was @Lucid’s The Lost Heir trilogy. For those who have not played it (you should!), the story branches in totally different directions based on key player choices, and all with very unique effects, and then the story returns to the main plot from that branch but carrying forward the unique effects from each branch. This system seems (in the Lost Heir games and my own WIP story) to greatly add to replayability and the availability and power of choice, while also being conducive to a main plot of more than adequate legnth.

For example, at one point the player must choose to go into hiding for story reasons in one of four locations. The effects of these places, and their own little sub-stories, are extremely unique! In onr place, as a Ranger character, you can get a pet wolf. In another, a pet griffon. In one, you can slay a vampire. But in another playthrough of the same one, you can join that vampire. It’s like mini-COG’s inside of a big COG, and it works brilliantly!

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Not really. My comment was mainly directed to small-normal sized games. I think Choice of Rebels is bigger than that (more than 100-130k words), right? At least it feels bigger. In bigger games, at least to me, as long as a single play remains long enough (and yours, is) more branching becomes a plus, and not a problem. And besides, your game has a very strong game-ish mechanic, and that makes the smaller lenght a much less significant issue.

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Ya, it is a lot bigger then you think:

So, perhaps, even you might enjoy a different focused MC with this title. I have a feeling Choice of Rebels will be a favorite of mine.

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(For Havenstone)

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I was thinking it was around 300k words, 600k is really impressive. So that there aren’t more confusions, let me change my argument to: in order for me to enjoy a game, it has to have a minimum of 40k words per play-through, with at least 100k words in total (with the exception of amazingly writen games). If the total word count is above that, the better, because it means lot of replayability. But that is just me.

As do I. It is one of the most ambitious and best WIP in quite some time, which is saying a lot.

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To be fair, in most IF the writing is of significantly lower quality. Don’t get me wrong, I’d happily pay full price for some of the stuff written by Paul Wang or Kevin Gold, but in the vast majority of cases, regardless of word count, the writing just isn’t up to scratch. IF writers can’t compete with the quality and quantity of traditional novels. Hell, with a lot of the recent games published by COG, I feel like I’ve been ripped off even with the relatively cheap prices.

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Ironically, a lot of the recent titles published by CoG are from successful novel writers - I think even the majority of the “recent” titles were. Moreytown is but an example. If is a harder format to write in because the expectations and the format are based on both written novels and playable games.

I have other theories, such as the recent authors don’t have a firm grasp on mechanic system theory that explain the failings recently; until this latest release the actual writing has been decent and even lauded by the consumer. This kurfuckle with the non-binary npc is an exception for the vast majority of the CoG titles going back at least a year.

Most of the WiP threads I see have authors with ability to write; the deployment and implementation of the mechanics and scripting seem to be the sticking point for many. Perhaps the tools out there like the soon to be released one that @Fiogan mentioned in another thread will help. I know I am looking forward to it helping me.

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It depends on your definition of “successful”. Most of the people who have written for COG are, afaik, relative unknowns as authors. Aside from poor writing, I do agree that a lot of authors seem to struggle with mechanics. Even the games which have otherwise solid prose are seriously hampered by poor overall execution (eg Empyrean, Eagle’s Heir).

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Empyrean, Eagle’s Heir, Moreytown are all written by successful authors in other “writing” fields. One of the criteria to be published under the CoG library is you must already be a successful author.

I believe you are getting the “Hosted” and "CoG authors mixed up. @Cataphrak published in Hosted first, then once he was a proven author, he made Mecha-Ace (I believe) - that is the “usual” and established route established here. The exception to this was @Havenstone but I also believe he has published professionally so that might count towards the CoG publishing requirement.

I’m not referencing the Hosted titles because an established author gets a more favorable deal publishing under the CoG library with traditional perks such as advances. Thus most established authors would chose the CoG route over the Hosted route. Which means they are actually more restricted with all the authoring and editing requirements.

Hosted games are for people like myself that can’t point to previous experience - they are a trial by fire deal that opens doors both internally here and within the industry.

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I’m aware of that. As I’ve said, I don’t consider any of them to be notable or successful authors (maybe the moreytown guy qualifies, although I haven’t heard of any of them). Successful by the standards of IF writers, sure, but otherwise? Debatable.

I only brought up Cataphrak because I really enjoy his writing. Nothing to do with what label he writes for.

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Wow, I really should read that trilogy. I think @Lucid is one of the very best IF writers.

However, I am thinking, why not give a player all of the options on one playthrough? Why not having both a wolf and a griffin as pets, joining a vampire and maybe then slaying him?

When I was writing The Path of Light, I decided to put situations one after another, not instead of another. That leads to a lot of variables and changes in the values of variables, and some would even say a loss of replayability, but I really want to give the reader the best and longest experience in a single reading. I don’t want the reader to miss an interesting encounter.

I think most of the IF stories I’ve read were linear and think I continue writing in this way.

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As for me, length doesn’t matter as long as I enjoy what I’m reading. So what if the story is “short”? Look on the bright side, there might be an upcoming sequel in the works for that story.

Also, I prefer shorter works but are of great replay value since I don’t think of IF as a novel but a game. (Choice extensive games are highly welcome.)

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