I've seen and read this sort of narrative breakdown plenty of times before (or, I thought I had), but I was very impressed with Tony's clear and practical presentation. I started the video but then found myself pausing and lunging for my notebook.
when he talks about booleans this reminds me of the talk from Sorcery! where the dev says instead of booleans you can also use Enum State Variants to have 3 or 4 or 5 resulting states for an 'encounter'
Probably unexpected for the genre, but the game that still gave me the best feeling about choices is swtor. Even minor choices that end with you never seing the involved characters again felt like they were helping develop my main character in their morals and lines they'd never cross - or in desperation do cross later on.
Very good presentation. One thing I would like to add about callbacks is that it can feel like it destroys an entire playthrough if choices you made a long time ago give you a bad outcome that you would have wanted to be good and you feel the reasoning is unfair to you. I think a good way to make callbacks impactful is to transform different paths for future callbacks, rather than turn it into a good vs bad outcome. I don't dislike nitpicking but it can feel less immersive if the choices are really an illusion of choice rather than true choices, that's when you want to minmax the playthrough rather than just go with the choices that match your personality better. In the end if is more a failure of the devs than of the player if a game feels like you need to minmax it to enjoy the content. If we're talking of lewd dating sims, I think a game that mixes heuristics very well with callbacks is Man of the House. Especially the older sister path. I will definitely check out Scarlet Hollow now because good choices matter SFW games are way too rare, I feel like dating sims really made the whole field progress a lot more than triple A ever cared to try.
The key thing is about callbacks in Scarlet hollow is that don't exists solely from other system. Whatever piece of dialogue is being called back to also had an impact of Heuristics, which is turn pile up to determine relations for each character.
13:03 - that may not take a lot of effort in a visual novel, but if you've got recorded dialogue that then needs to be lip-synced, that can quickly spiral out of control...
he already mentioned before that callbacks "scale linearly". your example is of a game where that scaling is , but it's still linear. it's still the best "bang-for-buck" to create impact. it's very similar to how Josh Sawyer talks about barks.
7:35 "You're expanding a bit with new content, you're contracting into a common point and you're expanding again. " I do understand that it is a huge amount of work to do something better. However this exact cheap and widely known trick is exactly what frustrates people and it is exactly why claims that choices "matter" in a game are so often simply false. I think we need to find some other, better way to construct player choices. Look at how player feel about choices in mechanics . Those choices TRUELY matter, because they constantly make a difference. 8:55 Nah - you just make a story save for them so that they always can return to that moment and choose something else.
Imo, the best way to make the player feel like their choices matter in a game is to make the story branch depending on the outcome of the player character's current goal. The more the player wants to fulfil the goal of the player character, the more significant they will feel like their choices will matter, especially when their in game skills not only determine the outcome of a given story mission, but also determine the direction the story takes. To implement something like this, you can use a Dictionary to store the outcome of any given mission like this: `public Dictionary missionOutcome = new Dictionary();` Each Mission would be given a unique string name or id as their key in this Dictionary, thereby allowing you to easily query the outcome of missions at any point during the story. By default, missions would have a value of null to indicate that the Outcome has not yet been determined. Missions with a true value indicate they had a successful outcome. False indicates the player failed the mission.
@@tremorstudio9766if you mean that you don't like when there are clearly right answer to decisions then the game doesn't have that... Well... If if you're two get out of jail free card traits doesn't count witch they shouldn't.
Unfortunately, this game pretends to have choices that are equally weighted, but they don't. Like: a) let a human die x b) let a dog die - and the correct answer is to let the human die, because the dog will be much more important throughout the game than the human
Also the developers have stated that a lot of the major decisions need time to develop before they have consequences and the best they can do in the meantime is to remind us that those decisions happened (Maybe not the exact wording they used but you get the point). So there you have it, those decisions will have consequences later in the game just not yet.
@@ThatGuy-nv1nu Yup. And it's hinted that one of the settings for a future episode is the farm where they have a conflict with someone named... Jules? Julian? I forgot his name, but Duke's family line's part of the research materials in the second episode for a reason. There are also plenty of other choices in the game where it's also weighted evenly (not all of them, but most of them). Even your choice of who to help with their life issues also means sacrificing an opportunity to help someone else who also needs it.
For one - we haven't really got to where the human would be important, and the dog is only important on her own merits (rather than her owner's) if you're able to talk to her. Not that "importance" influences my own choice with the two of them. But also that was the episode 1 choice of a 7 episode game. Taking a while for the impact of it to be felt keeps the branching from spiralling out of control, which it very easily could. The choices are getting progressively more impactful and harder to pick between as they days go imo (and i include choosing a trait as part of that choice - I want Reese to be free, but I also want Tabby to be present in the Stella scene, and these cannot coexist without picking the right trait at the START of the game)
@@oceanicGrimalkin Very well said at the end of your comment and also HOLY CRAP that's why you read about Duke's family line in E2! This is the next-level version of foreshadowing
I've seen and read this sort of narrative breakdown plenty of times before (or, I thought I had), but I was very impressed with Tony's clear and practical presentation. I started the video but then found myself pausing and lunging for my notebook.
same
I'd rather have a fake choice than no choice. The emotions i go through on deciding which choice is morally best are AWESOME to me.
when he talks about booleans this reminds me of the talk from Sorcery! where the dev says instead of booleans you can also use Enum State Variants to have 3 or 4 or 5 resulting states for an 'encounter'
Probably unexpected for the genre, but the game that still gave me the best feeling about choices is swtor. Even minor choices that end with you never seing the involved characters again felt like they were helping develop my main character in their morals and lines they'd never cross - or in desperation do cross later on.
Very good presentation. One thing I would like to add about callbacks is that it can feel like it destroys an entire playthrough if choices you made a long time ago give you a bad outcome that you would have wanted to be good and you feel the reasoning is unfair to you. I think a good way to make callbacks impactful is to transform different paths for future callbacks, rather than turn it into a good vs bad outcome. I don't dislike nitpicking but it can feel less immersive if the choices are really an illusion of choice rather than true choices, that's when you want to minmax the playthrough rather than just go with the choices that match your personality better. In the end if is more a failure of the devs than of the player if a game feels like you need to minmax it to enjoy the content. If we're talking of lewd dating sims, I think a game that mixes heuristics very well with callbacks is Man of the House. Especially the older sister path. I will definitely check out Scarlet Hollow now because good choices matter SFW games are way too rare, I feel like dating sims really made the whole field progress a lot more than triple A ever cared to try.
The key thing is about callbacks in Scarlet hollow is that don't exists solely from other system. Whatever piece of dialogue is being called back to also had an impact of Heuristics, which is turn pile up to determine relations for each character.
13:03 - that may not take a lot of effort in a visual novel, but if you've got recorded dialogue that then needs to be lip-synced, that can quickly spiral out of control...
he already mentioned before that callbacks "scale linearly". your example is of a game where that scaling is , but it's still linear. it's still the best "bang-for-buck" to create impact. it's very similar to how Josh Sawyer talks about barks.
Yesssss black tabby games needed to do one of these sooner!
We're making a narrative rpg game as a team. The presentation was very useful. Thank you very much 💜💜
Very interesting talk with powerful takeaways
7:35 "You're expanding a bit with new content, you're contracting into a common point and you're expanding again. "
I do understand that it is a huge amount of work to do something better.
However this exact cheap and widely known trick is exactly what frustrates people and it is exactly why claims that choices "matter" in a game are so often simply false. I think we need to find some other, better way to construct player choices. Look at how player feel about choices in mechanics . Those choices TRUELY matter, because they constantly make a difference.
8:55 Nah - you just make a story save for them so that they always can return to that moment and choose something else.
Great talk. Thanks!
Imo, the best way to make the player feel like their choices matter in a game is to make the story branch depending on the outcome of the player character's current goal.
The more the player wants to fulfil the goal of the player character, the more significant they will feel like their choices will matter, especially when their in game skills not only determine the outcome of a given story mission, but also determine the direction the story takes.
To implement something like this, you can use a Dictionary to store the outcome of any given mission like this:
`public Dictionary missionOutcome = new Dictionary();`
Each Mission would be given a unique string name or id as their key in this Dictionary, thereby allowing you to easily query the outcome of missions at any point during the story.
By default, missions would have a value of null to indicate that the Outcome has not yet been determined.
Missions with a true value indicate they had a successful outcome. False indicates the player failed the mission.
Super helpful!
Great
Reese best boy
Opps
I would rather have no choice than a fake one
Or rather “good” vs “bad” choices, that what this game looks like have
@@tremorstudio9766if you mean that you don't like when there are clearly right answer to decisions then the game doesn't have that... Well... If if you're two get out of jail free card traits doesn't count witch they shouldn't.
I found myself disliking BG3 and now I really want to play Scarlett Hollow
dang 2022 😮 creators dont make u wait so long for their patreon early releases
Unfortunately, this game pretends to have choices that are equally weighted, but they don't. Like: a) let a human die x b) let a dog die - and the correct answer is to let the human die, because the dog will be much more important throughout the game than the human
Only four episodes are out. We can't possibly judge what choices are the right ones until the game is done
Also the developers have stated that a lot of the major decisions need time to develop before they have consequences and the best they can do in the meantime is to remind us that those decisions happened (Maybe not the exact wording they used but you get the point). So there you have it, those decisions will have consequences later in the game just not yet.
@@ThatGuy-nv1nu Yup. And it's hinted that one of the settings for a future episode is the farm where they have a conflict with someone named... Jules? Julian? I forgot his name, but Duke's family line's part of the research materials in the second episode for a reason. There are also plenty of other choices in the game where it's also weighted evenly (not all of them, but most of them). Even your choice of who to help with their life issues also means sacrificing an opportunity to help someone else who also needs it.
For one - we haven't really got to where the human would be important, and the dog is only important on her own merits (rather than her owner's) if you're able to talk to her. Not that "importance" influences my own choice with the two of them.
But also that was the episode 1 choice of a 7 episode game. Taking a while for the impact of it to be felt keeps the branching from spiralling out of control, which it very easily could. The choices are getting progressively more impactful and harder to pick between as they days go imo (and i include choosing a trait as part of that choice - I want Reese to be free, but I also want Tabby to be present in the Stella scene, and these cannot coexist without picking the right trait at the START of the game)
@@oceanicGrimalkin Very well said at the end of your comment and also HOLY CRAP that's why you read about Duke's family line in E2! This is the next-level version of foreshadowing