What do you think of individual character stories for otome?

[noeinan]

I can't agree more with everything trooper6 says.

On the topic of money-- personally, I will only pay for a character route if there are a few free routes for me to test first. The reason for this is generally, I don't know the romanceable characters well enough to be interested in them unless I play through a route first.

In games I've paid for, generally there are many datable characters, and there are, say, 3 free ones. Then they sell the rest in packs of two. But! Every guys route lets you see a bit more of at least one of the other guys. So in Guy 1's route I become best friends with Guy 2, even though I love Guy 1.

Then I want to buy Guy 2's route, because he was a swell guy. Or maybe Guy 3 was a total asshole in Guy 1's route, but he's really sweet in Guy 2's route. What's up with that? Who is Guy 3? Did I push his buttons or something? Or is he really an asshole, but was nice just once? (I actually hate the whole "romance with abusive dick" thing, but I'm using this as an example.)

If the prologue is longer and allows you to see enough of the guys to be interested in them, then I might buy a route. But most prologues are pretty short.

Oh, another thing I feel is important is the way you choose the guy in game. I prefer the cannon "randomness" so the MC doesn't actually choose the guy-- otherwise I feel like I have to make the choice that she would logically make. (Who's going to escort you through this dangerous situation over the next two weeks? Mysterious guy 1, mysterious girl 2, or childhood friend 1? Any sane person would go with the person they know and trust.) On the other hand, if the question is framed like "who is assigned to you" or "whose seat is this?" then the player makes the choice, not the MC, so I feel free to pick whoever without making my MC into a dunce.

[Ferdokki]

Hey daikiraikimi, thanks for the post! =)

The problem we're having with giving out free routes is that our game only has 3 pursuable characters. If we give one for free, that's 1/3 of our game given away. =( We're trying to make up for this by giving a long prologue (consisting of 5000+ words). Since this is the method we're using, we're trying really hard to flesh out our characters so that players will know more about them, and will have an easier time choosing which route(s) to purchase.
Yes, we're also planning on having the other characters have roles in specific routes, similar to the scenario you've written with Guy 1 and Guy 2.

I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to when you are talking about "cannon randomness"...

[Googaboga]

Hmm if you are still worried about the prologue maybe you should try having outsiders beta test it or some other kind of closed run through of it before it is officially released. Then there might be time to make some changes if it doesn't win people over as much as you want it to. Although if the game is already totally set and you can't make changes to the prologue without making changes to all the routes than it probably wouldn't be worth it.

As for "cannon randomness" I think daikirai means that he/she doesn't like it when the game is sort of self aware. It's like okay this is a game with routes and the prologue is just here to give you a chance to choose a route so let's just have the MC pick a route and move on. I think daikirai prefers it when the route is decided in a more subtle way rather than the game setting up some reason for the MC herself to directly pick a guy. Because one it is kind of weird to in most cases for some girl to be in a spot where she just gets to choose between a bunch of hot guys. And two if the game has guys that come off as a bad choice for the situation the MC will look bad if she picks one of those guys anyways. That happens in many of the mobile games with routes. The MC is in some ridiculous situation and then the game has the MC herself choose her route.

So instead of the game being like "MC you're going to have to work with one of these hot guys for the next two weeks. Which hot guy are you going to work with?" and then the MC is like "Well I think I'll go with that guy." and 'that guy' is some slacker who's going to make her do all the work. In real life that makes no sense. Why would she want to work which such a person? She wouldn't because that would be dumb. However this is a game and the player wants to do all the routes and therefore has to pick this guy in order to do his route. But the MC still seems like a complete idiot for choosing the guy in the first place. I think daikirai would rather have it be like "I'm your boss MC and this is your assignment." *MC reads assignment*. "Oh it looks like I've been paired with..." *menu pops up and player gets to pick someone*. That way the choice of guy is still in the player's hand but the game isn't so bold that they straight up make the MC herself choose a hot a guy. The game instead frames it as her simply seeing who someone else has chosen as her work partner. Then even if the player chooses that slacker guy the MC can still respond like a sane person and be disappointed that she got stuck with a sucky work partner. I'm not sure if I explained that any better ^^;. Hopefully it helps you understand it a little better.

Of course having one choice where you pick your route isn't the only way to do a prologue. So if your friend has something else in mind than this type of thing probably won't be a problem.

[Ferdokki]

@Googaboga: Oh, we're not worried about the prologue; it's coming along fine. We're still in the beginning stages of game development/production, and things seem to be going well for now. I think the beta-testing thing is a great idea, thanks for recommending it! =D

Ah, now I understand what daikiraikimi was talking about! Well, I didn't really think of these things because we've been unconsciously creating our MC to be a sensible human being. There are no cliché otome moments in our game in which the MC is forced to be with some creep. From all the feedback we've been getting on this thread, we've been revising our story plot/characters to make them seem natural, instead of a romance-in-your-face type of thing. The events and twists are being created to be believable stuff instead of excuses to stick the MC in a scene with some hot dude. The characters she interacts with have separate stories, but they interact in the story in a natural way (ex: two of them are co-workers, so naturally the player will have them in character routes regardless of which route she chooses).
We've used subtle game/story mechanics like that to avoid MC making seemingly stupid or risky decisions.

[Googaboga]

Okay that's good. Before it seemed like you were worried the prologue might not be enough to entice people to buy the routes. I'm glad you're feeling good about it :].

Cool I'm glad that made sense to you. It's nice you and your friend are avoiding cliches. Since many of those mobile games are some of the most cliched otomes available in English it is easy to worry that a game with the same structure will end up being similar in other ways. I personally wasn't a huge fan of those mobile VNs either because of how painful it was to put up with the MCs >.>.

[Ferdokki]

Lolololol, actually, those are the kinds of games my friend likes to play! xD)))
And that's kind of why we were a little lost, because I dislike games like that, but she enjoys games like that...you see the conflict. >.<
But thanks for all your help! We feel pretty confident about the direction our story/characters is/are heading. =)

Thanks again! ;D

[Ophelia]

With the prologue being pretty much the important decision-maker for whether or not you want to purchase the routes, can you perhaps say what kind of stuff makes a good prologue? Or what you personally look for when playing the prologue?

Sorry I'm asking so many questions. It's mainly because I don't usually purchase online games, so I kinda have no idea about what people look for before buying.

Just one tip: Definitely include *at least* the first chapter of every route.

I've played a few voltage games and almost every time I have the same issue - the prologue almost always says nothing about what you can expect from the routes. It shows you the general premise of the story and introduces you to the characters, which is not enough sometimes! I'm always hesitant to buy routes from voltage games, because I am never sure I will actually like the guy I purchased, even if he seemed like a good choice from the prologue.
(Voltage even started doing this themselves, I think, you could read a few chapters of the My Forged Wedding game and I think Kiss of Revenge had something similar?, so that is definitely a step in the right direction.)

As far as I see, the main advantage of buying individual routes is: You don't have to pay that much if you are only interested in some of the characters. Of course, as a developer you should want the players to like all of them, but since for exmaple Voltage builds their characters on stereotypes (the tsundere, the childhood friend, the playboy, the younger guy and so on), it is normal and almost expected that not all of them are universally liked. But building characters on the same stereotypes over and over again is another problem.

Lolololol, actually, those are the kinds of games my friend likes to play! xD)))
And that's kind of why we were a little lost, because I dislike games like that, but she enjoys games like that...you see the conflict. >.<D

Just because she likes those game, does not mean she can't see the problems with those games! I enjoy Voltage games as well, but I am absolutely aware of all the problematic content... playing Voltage games is a bit like reading those Harlequin novels.
...though you probably shouldn't model your game after Voltages games.*


*Except maybe Kiss of Revenge. That game is actually really good!

[trooper6]

I'd never heard of Voltage games. But since that is what your creator friend is thinking of modeling her game after, I'll download Kiss of Revenge and give you my thoughts.

[Chasing Summer]

I’m a huge fan of Voltage Inc games and I don’t mind buying individual routes. Everyone has different preferences though. While some prefer having the whole package in one game, others don’t like paying for a whole game (with maybe 5 romanceable characters9 when they’re only interested in one character’s route.

I believe most people wouldn’t mind as long as the art and plot is good and worth the money. Also, make sure that the process of downloading them won’t be too complicated and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

By the way, having a free prologue is good idea.

[Googaboga]

Lolololol, actually, those are the kinds of games my friend likes to play! xD)))
And that's kind of why we were a little lost, because I dislike games like that, but she enjoys games like that...you see the conflict. >.<
But thanks for all your help! We feel pretty confident about the direction our story/characters is/are heading. =)

Thanks again! ;D

Haha yeah there are two very distinct ways to do the MC of a game. The mobile games almost always go with a generic MC that is meant to be a stand in for the player instead of the other option where the MC has an identity of their own like the rest of the characters. Neither way is wrong and so it can be tricky to know which one to go with. However in some of those mobile games the MCs didn't seem like a blank slate and instead just seemed sort of stupid. That's no fun unless it's a comedy game or something . They aren't all bad though ^^;.

[noeinan]

Hey daikiraikimi, thanks for the post! =)

The problem we're having with giving out free routes is that

Oh, yes, I didn't mention it in my post but I do understand the reason you're not giving away a free route. I wanted to point out my reasoning for not buying routes in general, unless there was a good amount of free content.

If your prologue is pretty long and you think you'll be able to 1. show your writing skills so people know they'll be getting quality when they buy and 2. show that the characters are interesting and entice people to buy their routes then you should be good.

Oh! But with a long prologue, please include the option of skipping text! It's super annoying to have to go through a really long prologue that you've already seen, just to get the the point where you choose a route. Maybe allow for speeding up through the text, so people can look at things they have forgotten, but don't have to slosh through the rest of it.

Another thing that would add to the replayability, actually, is if there are at least a few choices in the prologue and depending on those choices you see slightly different dialogue. Doesn't have to be a huge difference, but enough that someone might actually want to replay the prologue when they start a new character? Just a thought.

I think daikirai would rather have it be like "I'm your boss MC and this is your assignment." *MC reads assignment*. "Oh it looks like I've been paired with..." *menu pops up and player gets to pick someone*.

Also, Googaboga you explained exactly why I dislike having the MC choose the guy instead of having the player choose.

Another alternative I can think of for this would be having the MC choose different "strategies" and having a guy come along with the strategy. Like, in a dangerous scenario you get to choose between 1. sneaking by the enemy 2. going for a frontal attack or 3. taking a different route. Guy 1 is good at sneaking, Guy 2 is the best fighter, and Guy 3 has the best knowledge of the land. The MC gets to choose between three rational decisions and a guy just happens to come along with it. (In this case, each choice would have a picture or something else indicating to the player which guy comes with which choice, but the MC doesn't know which guy she'll get stuck with.)

[noeinan]

Haha yeah there are two very distinct ways to do the MC of a game. The mobile games almost always go with a generic MC that is meant to be a stand in for the player instead of the other option where the MC has an identity of their own like the rest of the characters. Neither way is wrong and so it can be tricky to know which one to go with. However in some of those mobile games the MCs didn't seem like a blank slate and instead just seemed sort of stupid. That's no fun unless it's a comedy game or something . They aren't all bad though ^^;.

Oh hey, we posted almost at the same time, haha.

I wanted to mention another thing regarding the MCs personality... One game that does this really well is Shall We Date: Ninja Love-- at least in my opinion. The reason is, the MC is nearly useless in some routes, but in other routes she is totally badass. (To clarify, she always did something useful, but the amount of usefulness was pretty different route to route. Sometimes it was the generic "she's useful because she's so bright and spunky and it cheers us up! Other times she sliced someone's throat open or used her people skills to spy on an important enemy.)

I started on a route where she was pretty cool, and even ended up killing a general to save her friends. I played the other routes, and liked all of them to some degree-- but my absolute favorite route was one I wasn't expecting. And I didn't like that route necessarily because of the guy, but because the MC was just so independent and amazing. In most routes, the guys liked her because of qualities that were pretty generic, or that I personally didn't respect, but in this route he admired her for the same reasons I did. So it made me like the guy more because I felt he wasn't just braindead and zoned into the MC just because she was the main character and this was an otome game.

[Rosstin2]

Sounds like you're taking on quite a lot.

Complete a couple free routes first, then add a few paid routes. So many routes and so many chapters is really quite massive and seems unnecessary?

How many words is the game? How many will it be?

[Ferdokki]

Wow everybody, thanks again for all the responses! You guys are so nice and helpful! n_____n
Ok, I'll try to comment on individual posts:

@Ophelia: I like your name. =) That's kinda irrelevant, but I just wanted to let you know that. Now moving onto your post. Mmm, I'm not sure how my friend will feel about including the first chapter of every route. =/ The free prologue will already be the first 2 chapters of the game. I feel like giving any more free chapters is going to be a bit too much for our project, as we are planning on having 15 chapters. If we give away 3 free chapters, that's 1/5 of our game. >.< But I totally understand your concern, and my friend and I are trying to avoid making people buy unclear characters. We are writing our prologue so that players can pretty much get the vibe for each pursuable character's personality. We are also trying not to build our characters based on stereotypes, and we've actually spent a couple of weeks trying to make our characters' personalities original, so that the player won't look at these characters as videogames, but rather as someone they could probably run across in real life because their personalities are realistic. Oh, I wasn't making fun of my friend or anything! It's because she understands the problems of Voltage's games that we decided to start this thread, because those are pretty much the only games she plays, and I don't really play those types of games at all. Both of us know there are shortfalls, but we just weren't sure how to correct them for our game. Thanks so much for your response! =)

@ trooper6: I've never played Voltage's games either. However, my friend isn't really wanting to model her game after Voltage's games. She knows Voltage uses clichés, overdramatic moments, and somewhat blank MCs, however, the games also have some really great stuff, especially their ability to hold onto players through their storytelling skills.

@ Chasing Summer: Hi! Thanks for contributing to the thread! =D We have our romanceable characters limited to 3 guys. Three guys makes things easier for both us (the developers) as well as the players, since some people will only pursue a specific person while others may want many guys. We didn't want to make too many guys so that it lessens pressure on us as well as potential customers. Sometimes when I look at character route games, I kinda give up and don't even buy any of the routes because there are too many guys to choose from, and I don't want to have to sit there and weed out who I want.

@Googaboga: Yes, I know what you mean about the MCs. We're trying to make our MC an independent type of girl, one who is admirable and not an idiot. We want the players to like her, and to want to play as her in her world. Additionally, she has her own personality, dreams, and goals; she's not just a girl in the game who's on the lookout for love.

@ daikiraikimi: Yeah, I understand what you mean, and honestly, I myself don't normally purchase games unless I know for sure that I want to spend my money on the content (that's why we posted this thread, because I don't buy individual routes much at all, and my friend mainly buys the ones from Voltage). Lol, a "skip" option was one of the first things my friend programmed for the game. xD We both know how tedious it is to have to go through an entire script over again just to get the alternate endings. And yes, we are also working on putting in some decision-making choices in the prologue. Naturally, they won't affect the separate routes (because they will be programmed separately), but we're planning to make enough variety so that the player can get different dialogues and relationship/no relationship points. OMG, I know that game! I actually really liked "Shall We Date: Ninja Love". n____n I understand what you're talking about in regards to the MC of the game. Similar to that game, we are planning out the relationships between MC and the other characters to be more "natural" instead of making MC like the guys solely for the purpose of making this an otome game, or for making all the guys swoon after MC simply because she is the only one interacting with them. ;D The only thing I disliked about the "Ninja Love" game was what you mentioned, that in different routes, the MC had a much lighter character role. I didn't like that. =P In some roles, I felt like she was just being a character-filler, and that she didn't really matter. In those routes, she became the type of MC that is only in the game for the purpose of romancing. >.<

@ Rosstin: Hi! Thanks for joining the discussion! =) For our game, we are planning on having 3 characters/routes to purchase. Since it's such as small number, we can't really afford to give away any free routes. Instead, we are planning on giving away a free prologue that will be 5000+ words. Then, the player can purchase the characters/routes. Each character/route will have 13 chapters and 2 endings each. You get these endings based on your decisions in the routes. The reason there are so many chapters is because the story is complex, and we want to give our players a lot of gameplay for their money's worth. I can't remember the exact number of words we are planning on having.

[qirien]

It's tricky to decide how much to give away. There are some financial reasons for wanting to give away prologue + 1st chapter, though. Even though it seems like a lot of the game you are giving away for free, you might get more people buying it that way. And if people don't buy it, then you haven't lost anything, because they probably wouldn't have bought it no matter what.

Based on everything you've said about your game (3 routes, 15 chapters), here are three packaging methods I think could work. What do you all think?

* Free prologue, rest of the game (all routes) single price (probably around $15-20?)
* Free prologue + first chapter of each character. Buy individual character routes (around $3-5 each?). If you are doing routes, you really need at least the first chapter of each route so people know at least something interesting about that character other than their first impression. You want people to know enough that they are thinking "That guy is fascinating! He did X, but he seems Y..." or "Wow, he and the MC would be a perfect match! They're both so X!" or "Something interesting in his past has made him X, and I want to know what it was!" or "Is he serious?!" or something like that.
* Free prologue + buy Acts (groups of chapters) separately (probably ~3 acts, $3-5 each?). This only works if your chapters are fairly long (at least 15k words or so?) and there are some good breaking points in the story. This also might make it more difficult if people want to play through all the routes, but would make it easier to gauge interest, as you would not have to have the entire game completed before beginning to release.

I think option 1 is the simplest and best, personally, but Voltage seems successful with #2 (though they usually have many more than 3 routes). If your target audience includes lots of Voltage gamers, then that model might make sense for your game, too. I think some casual gamers are more likely to make lots of smaller purchases, while more serious/old-fashioned gamers might see that as money-grubbing.