Sapphi wrote:What I am kind of iffy about is the romance option. Unless you can make the romantic routes important to solving all of this, it might feel tacked on and distracting to the story. Of course, there are ways to do it well.. it's just that a red flag always goes up every time I hear "This is a mystery game... BUT ALSO YOU CAN DATE PEOPLE!"
The focus definitely isn't on romance, to be sure. I'm kind of curious as to why "a red flag always goes up" (hurr hurr *shot*) seeing as there are plenty of stories out there (and not just VNs, but movies, video games, shows, etc.) that do a fine job of integrating romance into a non-romance-oriented plot. But yeah, probably something like 70% of the interactions you have with the love interests have to do with friendship, philosophy, and the task at hand.
Sapphi wrote:I am also kind of wondering why the America/Japan choice - I mean, what if I'm a girl and want to play as an American? More importantly, imagine the work it will take for you to write two versions of the same game, carefully making everything as accurate as possible in both settings... if I tried to do that, I think I would lose my mind. Wouldn't it almost be two separate games at that point anyway? Since it seems you would meet different characters depending on the country in which you lived... In that case, I would pick one setting for this game, and maybe the other for any sequel it could have.
To make one thing clear, while there are four romantic options for each gender, there are only six in total; two are shared because you meet them over the Internet. Pretty much everything having to do with computer research is the same, it's just the different genders start in different places. And there aren't that many additional characters. For the most part, the story is the same, especially since the most important points in the story take place online. So yes, while the settings are both different, and you do meet different characters...
...You know, I just changed my mind mid-post. Holy crap. orz
Sapphi wrote:I really like the premise. It's a mystery I'm already curious to know the answer to, especially since it promises to comment on society and is not a simple "whodunit" game.
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For what it's worth, I think your setting and mystery are interesting enough as they are. I love the idea of a research system in the game and the city-crawling for clues thing.
Thank you very much. I think I really needed your comments before I got in way over my head. The most difficult route isn't always the best one, and the ideas I've already come up with for the Japanese portion of the game could potentially be adapted into a sequel.
...I need to think about this.
kaleidofish wrote:It would be cool if the two protagonists had to solve the mystery together, like there's only certain information that the American boy can collect, and certain info that the Japanese girl can get. This would mean making it so that their stories aren't exact mirrors of one another - they're two separate characters that players get to experience when they need to (I guess have optional character switch moments?). You could make them online friends, brought together by some common interest.
Actually, I was setting up the protag you didn't choose to be the one who dies at the beginning. Y'know, the other one who could change the world. However, I definitely was planning on making some info only obtainable on the Japanese side, and some only on the American side (mostly in the form of the cryptic secret report-styled emails you get, the first of which I quoted at the beginning of the post).
Again though, Sapphi's post is making me think twice about this... so who knows? I'll update with the direction I choose to take ASAP.
