Tips on branching

[Arcanum]

I've been left wondering what to use to branch my VN. Watching some works around, I can see branching as being much more than simply obvious choice picking or stats grinding to get the right guy, which I find very frustrating =< It's not a question on what ought to happen, but how to get there.

My VN has an amnesiac heroine looking for clues to her past, and I'd really enjoy implementing a system that rewards the player on her "search for the truth". So far, I've been thinking on awarding points to choices that shows her to be curious/inquisitive, and though these points, a few paths will open for exploration. Say, she will find hidden books, or characters will start answering her questions (I'm further thinking that characters might become fed up with her, too, so she'll have only a certain number of questions she can pose before their affection drop and they refuse to answer questions) But I think that will be too simple, since it will still be sort of obvious what kind of choices show her to be curious … >> Also, a high number of choices might be frustrating, since I only have five endings planned. What do you think it's best, should I go for something simpler?

[psy_wombats]

If you're using a points-based system to get to the endings, then there's no problem with a ton of choices. If that's the case, then each choice does have a meaningful effect, even if it's only a small one. If half the choices don't do anything for endings, then it might be a bit of a problem if there are too many.

[HotLimit]

That sounds fine, it doesn't matter if the choices are obvious because you have the affection-rating drop thing to balance it out.

[armornick]

Well, in an amnesia story you don't actually have to make every choice modify the points. For instance, in Amnesia: The Dark Descent you can read all the books to learn about your past but it doesn't do anything in terms of gameplay. You can play through the whole game without reading the books. This can be done in a visual novel as well.

[LVUER]

I don't know about that. Since the strong point in VN is the story, unlike Amnesia series that relies on lots of other things such as horror, scare, tension, and gameplay.

It's kinda like playing Fate/Stay Night without properly learning all the characters and mechanism behind the Holy Grail War.

[yummy]

Instead of a simple menu, you might want to try a system based on events, according to specific places of a map, where you would give some hints as to what your main character thinks about that specific place.
For example: a hill near a school backyard, where there might be strong memories.

[Arcanum]

Yeah, Amnesia is definitely about trying not to have a heart attack, at least for me, urgh. The puzzles and gameplay make it so that the story, while interesting, doesn't actually change (say, you can't finish the game without knowing Daniel's past), and the only moment you're actually prompted into different paths is in the end. I sort of want to get away from that - I feel you have to build the character through the VN instead of having a couple of character defining moments.

I'll look into that map idea, though, it might work! Thanks, Yummy.

[Greeny]

What you might want to consider is an approach where the charachter can develop in two different ways;
If they don't find out much about their past, (either through not wanting to or trying and failing) then they develop a personality based on the recent events, while if they find out about their past they'll become a lot more likje they used to be.

This way you could have the ending end in different ways even if the character is in the exact same situation.