Was having a think about cogs (whats new) and what i always look for in a game and what i try to avoid and i thought i’ll ask the forum what factors of a cog do you always look for and what you try to avoid everyone has different tastes i know , just wanna get a general feel of what people like and not like . I’ll go first!
Yays are diverse roles , gender , race and sexuality i do love it when games include everyone whether that being the character you create or the NPC’s you interact with. Being a young black girl i find it hard to find characters i can identify with but COG has done a great job for me so far so thanks for that btw
ROMANCE i am a sucker for romance i know it’s shallow but i try to avoid games with no romance at all costs.
Nays Are combat and fighting scenes… i do love kicking the bad guys butt but i find a lot of the times there is no real strategy just blind choices focusing on what stat only (sometimes they don’t even count). But when games get them right ,which can be hard in written form it’s real fun. so kind of a nay/yay? idk.
Yay - It sucks me in and makes me want to return until I’ve finished it. Bonus points if it makes me want to replay it, which haven’t happened once yet.
Nay - Longwinding blocks of text that goes on and on about things I have no reason to care about, instead of baking it in naturally.
Yays - opportunities to choose how I want my character to feel, a wide variety of realistic romance options, good foundations for strategies when it comes to making choices, timed missions, intensity and pressure, difficult decisions which affect the rest of my storyline
Nays - luck-based choices, too much backstory, too many memory flashbacks, unclear choices (usually with stat effects, I sometimes have difficulty discerning which stat is going to be affected - this is particularly annoying if there are stat checks coupled in), cardboard cut out characters.
Yays- Good writing that flows well. Meaningful choices, comedic comments by the author about whatever’s going on in the story (if done well). Realistic characters with flaws. Oh and the more endings the better.
Nays- Honestly, I’m pretty hard to disappoint. The only things that really put me off a game are boring characters, and when the writer starts writing page after page of text without a choice. Because then I get bored and start skimming through it. Then I obviously end up missing stuff that may be important.
Yays are similar to yours diversity and romance . a big one for me is the option to be asexual and refuse their advances but still keep up with the romance or being able to have a friendship with opposite sex without any romantic feeling involved. Also i love being able to customize my character even if only has a limited change to how characters see me past the first chapter it helps me build up how my characters looks like in my head i know know Mr Pickle has a hella cool mustache . and finally I love heavy character based games that are all about the people and nothing else.
Nay HISTORY i try t get into it but any mention of past figures im gone lol its sad cuz im missing out on a lot. but the ultimate is fake choices if i wanted choices that lead no where i would not be reading an interactive fiction
I agree with a lot of what you said - I really like when there are choices that allow you to choose your gender and sexuality, and I love when there’s romance.
Also, I definitely don’t like “dice rolling” type combat, but realistic and in depth combat is something I enjoy. If you read Trial of the Demon Hunter, may I get your opinion on the combat in that story?
Nay - Way too little choices, or choices that don’t matter in the slightest. Generally I like choices to at least customize your character or add something to the plot, but many of them through out CoG’s library just don’t do anything but scream FAKE CHOICE. Also, I like to have choices every 2-3 pages, but there are a few titles where you may not get one for like 5-20 pages, which just makes it drag on for me.
Yays-The characters fitting the context; if you are trying to be historically accurate to the civil war, then have a female general that is a thing I don’t like.
Nays-un meaningful choices that don’t even try to disguise what they are.
p.s. I made a topic called “a poll on circumstances in media” that deals with a lot of stuff like this if you want to check it out. Sorry for not posting a link.
trail of a demon hunter is on i think gets it right i love cogs that make me think before a choice and because our hunter has no super powers or anything like that i kinda got a feel what my limits where and what choices would be stupid to make so i had to stop and think could i realistically do that and survive the process which is rare so yeah liked it one of my firsts cogs actually bought back memories so i went to play it again forgot i bought it on mobile (that i dont have) so i bought it again on the web store lol oh well also the inventory system is awesome
Yay - Meaningful choices and a reasonable amount of freedom in how I play the pc. Romance is always a bonus.
Nay - Huge blocks of text with no line breaks. Pages and pages of exposition with no choices in it to keep the player involved. Deciding how the pc feels about something without allowing the player’s input.
This is a more minor one but graying out choices that I’m unable to take for whatever reason bugs me. It’s more fun for me to not know what choices I missed out on in one playthrough and then get to find them through making different decisions in later playthroughs. It’s not enough to ruin the game for me, but I prefer when those choices are hidden completely.
I really like greying out choices and I rarely ever hide them because I think it’s a good idea of showing the reader what they could have done had they chosen different choices in the past. Plus, hiding too many choices can make it seem like you don’t have very many of them in the first place, when you actually do.
I’ve got to agree with Samuel on this one. If a reader comes across grey choices, that’s a signal for replayability. If the reader comes across a “Charming Skill: Passed” or similar popup, that’s a signal for character uniqueness. These little tidbits slap even the most attention-deprived players in the face, shouting that their choices matter.
The Telltale games are known for their classic “Clementine will remember that”, which is often all it takes for the player to become fully immersed.
Yay- Historical settings and especially ones that stay true to what actually happened during that time period. I also like choices that make me think and settings involving war.
Nay- Honestly the only thing that really disappoints me is bad writing and bland characters.
The best is in Life of a Wizard where you have four or five versions of a skill check and you can’t pass ANY of them, and end up picking option ‘run away screaming.’ Nothing like incentive to play better on the second go.
Strong writing with few grammatical issues. I’m sorry, but glaring grammatical issues really pull me away from the narrative and I end up focusing on things other than the story itself.
Interesting characters and snappy dialogue. If I don’t care about the people, I won’t care what happens to them even if the plot is engaging and nicely constructed.
A feeling that I guided the story. Even if I didn’t determine the destination, I’d at the very least want to feel like I determined the journey to get there.
Yay- Honestly, the biggest thing for me is good skill checks. Knowing that your character is good enough to detect a hidden assassin, for example, is immensely gratifying.
Nays- I like almost all CoGs I’ve played, but the two things that turn me off most are bad grammar/ spelling and underwhelming endings. Gotta love a good climax.
I like to be able to play a female and to be bisexual. I know it’s selfish and petty, but if an MC limits me in terms of these basic things, I have a hard time connecting with them. I’d rather have a basic pronoun shift and an absence of facial hair, and no other differences, if the other option is to be a man for the length of the game. (If you can pull off an MC that is completely gender-ambiguous, that is awesome and I will play it, it is just more difficult to do in English.)
I hate classic fantasy, aka Tolkien Rip-Offs. Some fantasy worlds with elves and orcs and warring clans may be brilliant, but I am not willing to give them the chance. I have serious issues with Medieval settings, especially if they’re also in the subset of “historical fiction that does not acknowledge how awful it was to be alive in that place and time (specifically if you are some kind of minority.)” I do not want to experience a colorful cleaned-up version of Medieval Europe; I want to cut that entire trope and section of history out of our fictional consciousness. But that is just me.
I love inventive sci fi. Like Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Cordwainer Smith-style worlds. I also love to play criminals, whether it’s light-hearted heist fiction or serial killer serials. Detectives, criminologists, and on a related note, psychics or really well-written sociologists - people who can thoroughly understand the characters they come across - are great.
And I also do love sex and romance. If there are good love interests and/or sexy scenes in games that are already good, that makes them perfect. Oh, Black Magic, we game perverts love you so….
those were things I was hoping to accomplish, so I’m glad you feel that way about it.