Annoyances with games

[Rika-chan]

I've been playing video games most of my life. I've played pretty much every type of game imaginable. Now, I only stumbled onto Visual Novels, or whatever the correct terminology is, in the past couple of years. However, they are very similar to Interactive Fiction which I've been playing for much longer.

I've played some fan VNs, and commercial games, and have enjoyed them. One problem that usually seems to pop up is the same problem from IF: "guess the verb" or in this case, "read the author's mind."

Of course, players want to get the "best" ending (whether games should have good or bad endings is another topic), and I'm no exception. But personally, I find it frustrating and annoying that some of the choices that I make in games, which seem logical to me, do not get me to the ending that I want.

Take Hourglass of Summer, which I'm sure a lot of people have played.

The best ending is getting together with/saving Kaho at the end, as the story seems to revolve around her. I had to look up how to get that ending, because the choices are so counter-intuitive. It's been awhile since I played it, but I remember doing things like saving the Tomomi from the stalker, and saving Mana from being hurt by the falling clock. With the perspective of hindsight, I can see how these things may have tied into the main story. That's all well and good, but while playing the game, it doesn't make sense, because you have to be nice to girls other than Kaho. (Which I wanted to avoid, because I got the "bad" ending, in which I couldn't decide between Kaho and Ai.)

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the game never let me know which choice might be the "right" one if I wanted to get the "good" ending. I don't want it to hit me over the head with it, but it seems like if the game had developed the characters and setting more, then the "right" choice would be more intuitive.

Other times, I'll be given a set of choices to make, but I have no idea what the consequences will be, typically because I don't know enough about the characters or world. So how am I supposed to know which choice will lead to the ending I want?

This is only one example. There are plenty of other games, commercial and fan-made, that do the same thing: expect the player to be a mind reader. At times, I'll go back and try to make different choices, but if I can't get it within a few tries, I'll get bored and frustrated and quit playing.

I realize that some people will disagree with me, and say that it makes the game "harder" because you have to "work" for the "best" ending. I don't know about you, but I don't play games, especially VNs, for their difficulty. I play them because I like the stories they tell.

[dizzcity]

This is something I'm learning about as well, in my studies of Interactive Storytelling.

I think why this happens is because the author is starting with a fixed story idea in their mind that they want to tell. In other words, they're approaching an IF story like they would a linear story - a monologue instead of a dialogue. They haven't really thought about how the user's choices will change the plot of the story, and how to adapt the story to fit the user. To be honest, I have a lot of the same problems too, and it's something I've just recently realised and tried to overcome.

The central issue can be summed up like this: The user is not interested in the story YOU want to tell. They are interested in the story THEY want to hear.

It's a hard thing for any author to grasp - from controlling every aspect of the script to being able to adapt to what the user wants and provide choices that make sense to the user. I now picture writing Interactive Fiction like improvisational drama... no preformed script. Just a starting premise, take what the user gives you, and run with it to its logical and dramatic conclusion.

Easy to conceptualise, hard to implement.

You'll need tons of user playtesting to find out what makes sense to the audience to do at any given point in the story. If someone can do it succesfully, though, that means that EVERY choice is the right one for the user, since whatever they pick will directly change the plot to suit their desires. I'm trying to create a script to follow that principle, and it's blastedly difficult.

Still, here's hoping.

-Dizzy-

[DaFool]

Apparently the advice given to writers: "Start with your ending, then work towards there" does not apply to multi-path visual novel scenario writers. These writers have the benefit of foresight / hindsight, but they forget the player does not.

Thats why for very strong stories, kinetic novels are the best. Only with more atmospheric / adventurous / slice-of-life / road-trip / multiple-small-tales kind of things can the player have the freedom to explore the options and not feel as though they were somehow forced back into a central plot.

[monele]

This whole issue often makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to have radically obvious choices. Not a "what do you do, as the protagonist?" but a "how do you want things to turn out?". That would certainly lead to people reading what they want to read. The story would turn out just as they want it... But still... one important part of reading something is the fact you don't know how things will end (or at least to some extent, who things will happen to lead to some ending).
I know I like to discover things. Maybe they're not great open ended games, but I like the mystery behind VN choices. Is it the right one? The wrong one? What would happen if I took the other path? Actually, to me, VNs are really interesting because of the "what if" situations... But compared to real life, you can actually see what happens if...

Nonetheless, I understand the need to at least be somewhat assured that you'll get an enjoyable experience in the end.
For example, I don't really like main characters dying in stories. I understand how sometimes it makes for stronger emotions and such, but I'd rather feel happy playing, than bawling my eyes out. As cliché as it is, I'd rather have "supposedly dead" people come back to life (they just didn't *really* die) than actually die. But hey, the author still has the last word on this :p.

So yea, it's a real fight between surprises/what the author wants to convey and what the reader wants to see happening.
Not sure about you, but I *hate* spoilers... Telling me and ending just breaks the whole thing to me. So, I'd still take author precedence over my choices...

Now, is there an intermediate choice where we could influence things, yet let the author surprise us? Maybe something like saying "I want a story about princesses... but I don't want to see any monsters or dragons!"... And then, an author would tell a story about a princess being captured by some mean foreign king to be married to him. Now if you didn't mind monsters, maybe the princess would have been captured by a dragon. It doesn't change *everything* (princess is still captured, prince still has to rescue her), but it does catter more to your feelings/needs.

In that way... how interesting would it be to have story options?
( ) Character death is possible
( ) Silly humor
( ) Deep philosophical moments
( ) Mystical elements
( ) Hentai scenes (why not?)

Maybe you wouldn't really make any more choices than these, but at least it would give you a story that fits your tastes.
Now the work of the author on such a "game", would still be to test choices at times. If you didn't tick "silly humor", he would branch away from these scenes, maybe adding some regular dialogues to make the story move to the very same next spot. If you did want philosophical moments, then some character will start thinking deeply about his situation. Otherwise, it will be skipped or replaced.


Maybe that's not what you had in mind, but eh... I'm curious about this ^^

[musical74]

Ah, another person that has played video games forever! YAY!

I've been playing video games since the days that Atari 2600 was BIG NEWS. As such, there are a few things I have discovered that really bother me when playing games. Sometimes they are minor, but occasionally it is a major thing.

For IF games, it annoys me no end to try and figure out *what verb do I need?!?!* Oh, sure, it's blantantly obvious to the author, but maybe not to the people that play the game...*remembers getting thoroughly frustrated because the game wouldn't recognize a list of verbs that seem soooooo obvious*

Another thing that annoys me is linerality. Granted, this really isn't an issue for VNs or sports games, but...I like to explore places. I like to check out other areas (if that's possible). It's very annoying for me when it's *you are going from point A to point B and don't even THINK about going anywhere else.* This one is pretty much reserved for RPGs but still...

Another thing that annoys me is the *what do I do now?!* When games pretty much tell you *OK here you are, you are on your own* and give absolutely no clues as to what you need to do or where to go...I've scrapped a few games on my computer because I had no idea what the heck I was supposed to do.

Last thing is POOR WRITING - and this one's a biggie. If the game has numerous spelling errors or seems very *I put something in here for the sake of putting something in here* - aka Filler text...it's like they rushed it or they didn't really care what people thought about the minor things. Hey, an occasional error here and there doesn't bug me - heck, even games like Lunar 2 has a few spelling errors! - but when there are a lot of errors, or it seems to be *what was the point of all of that?*...nothing turns me away faster than poor writing.

Side note: everything I have mentioned, I haven't seen in these forums Keep up the good job, everyone!

[mikey]

There are plenty of other games, [...] that do the same thing: expect the player to be a mind reader.

This is IMO a matter of the mindset, and it comes from playing too many games. Not that it's bad, and I admit I often have this, that's why I usually end the game to return to it later when I'm able to play as a player, not as a reviewer or even developer. Because what happens is that when you arrive at a choice, you no longer think what would be a good one for the story/environment - you think what would be good to get to the good ending (with a certain character).

Monele's first paragraph shows the problem as well. Too many players just want it THEIR way a bit too much. And I've already heard the term "servicing" the game, rather than designing it.

Well, these are my 2 cents.

[mikey]

I now picture writing Interactive Fiction like improvisational drama... no preformed script. Just a starting premise, take what the user gives you, and run with it to its logical and dramatic conclusion.

Easy to conceptualise, hard to implement.

Just to make sure, you do know Facade, right? If not, it's well worth the download - it was something like 600 MB before, now it's just 160 or so. Really confirms the "hard to implement" part of the statement

[dizzcity]

Yup, yup. I was following Facade pretty closely, as well as reading the development articles written by Mateas and Stern, the creators. However, I was also thinking of Chris Crawford's StoryTron, which will probably prove to be the most powerful tool for Interactive Storytelling when it's finally finished. Storytron's probably going to be to the IF genre what Photoshop is to digital artists.

-Dizzy-

[EwanG]

However, I was also thinking of Chris Crawford's StoryTron, which will probably prove to be the most powerful tool for Interactive Storytelling when it's finally finished.

You horrible... horrible person. Do you realize what you've done? You made me go look at that tool, and now I am going to have to exercise a great force of will NOT to try and port Senior Year to that.

Darn you...

[dizzcity]

Hehe... oops. Don't bother, though. Storytron is still in development, so there are lots of features not implemented yet and bugs to be ironed out.

And trust me, writing something with that program is a lot harder than it seems. As with any powerful, flexible tool, the learning curve is extremely steep. I tried it once, and you'll have to radically alter your mindset in order to write a StoryWorld. I don't think it's possible to port a straight linear novel into StoryTron's system - it's just too different in terms of conceptualization of the plot. Ren'Py is okay because it's sort of in-between true IF and linear storytelling, but StoryTron is a specialist tool built for interactive storytelling at its highest level. (Plot pool, character-variable based storytelling, like I was detailing out in the other thread with the dialogue being controlled by variables).

Stick with Ren'Py!

-Dizzy-

[Mark Thern]

I seriously considered using the Storytron to write my own project until I found out how limited it was in terms of artistic expression. The output of the Deitko interface uses a kind of pidgin English that can only express the most basic of concepts. Consider the following scene:

I thought Alana would start crying or maybe even scream and throw things when she found out about Jamie and me. I never thought her dominant emotion would be one of extreme incredulity.

"You're throwing me over for Jamie? Kevin, she's the biggest slut in school. She made it with more than half the basketball team at Ron's party last week. She probably would've completed the whole set if Micheal and Tyrone hadn't passed out in the front lawn." She shakes her head. "I knew we wouldn't last forever, but I didn't think it would end like this. Have a good life, Kevin." She slings her purse over her shoulder and leaves without a backward glance.

This is literally how the same scene would be expressed with the Storytron:

Alana Incredulity-Credulity Max Low
Alana Opines Jamie Carnality-Chasity Max Low
Alana Reveals Jamie Had_Sex_With Basketball Guy #1
Alana Reveals Jamie Had_Sex_With Basketball Guy #2
(And so on for the other guys.)
Alana Rejects Kevin Medium
Alana Exits Room

It loses something in translation, doesn't it? I think it's a step back from his earlier effort, the Erasmatron, which allowed its authors to express the character's reactions in sentence to paragraph sized chunks. I admire Crawford's intentions and I learned a lot from reading his book, Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling, but I don't think the Storytron is going to enjoy the sort of commercial success that he's hoping for. That said, it's an interesting idea that's worth studying. You might try downloading Trust and Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, a social simulation game that Crawford wrote around 1990 that he's made available for free. It's the closest thing you'll see to a working storyworld before he gets the Storytron working. Also, Revelations: Persona for the original Playstation has an interesting conversation system for talking with enemies that's worth taking a look at if you're interested in variable-based dialogue.

[musical74]

Ah, Persona! I still have this and really love it! Didn't care for the sequel thought...

Odd thing about Persona was that you could talk to your enemies. Yeah, it may have meant it took longer to level up, but if you get some great stuff as a result of chatting with the enemy....wonder why it wasn't implemented outside of persona and persona 2? <I don't have a PS 2 so I don't know if anyone else tried it> It seems to fit so well in Persona....*resits urge to go on massive Persona rant of how great it is*

Looking at what has been said about StoryTron maybe it's not the best choice for learning to write a IF? What would be a good place to START?

*wonders about what mikey meant about servicing the game, and wonders if I want to know*

on original topic: when a game feels *rushed*. By that, I mean it feels like they had a deadline to meet, and if they didn't meet it they were in a world of trouble. So...they make a game that is OK, but there's lots of flaws that could have been ironed out if they took more time. I'm pretty sure everyone can think of one game that seemed like it was rushed to get out to the masses.

[Adorya]

There is a H-doujin game rpgmaker made that use a similar "talk to the enemy" system like Persona : Succubus Quest.
The hero can use a skill named "sweet talk" and various thing can randomly happen : you can offer a gift, money, volontary take a hit, answer a quiz or just chit chat (of course opponent is always a female one so the objective is to seduce her in the "fight").
More details in a thread nearby

[Rika-chan]

Please stop hijacking my thread. Take it somewhere else.

Thanks for the (on-topic) replies. A lot of interesting ideas have been mentioned, and I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem.

The central issue can be summed up like this: The user is not interested in the story YOU want to tell. They are interested in the story THEY want to hear.

If I understand this correctly, this is speaking to an author. I totally agree with this, and I think it's very true. I think for me, it comes from having the mindset from an IF. In an IF, "you can do anything" (within the author's constructed bounds). So, its annoying that I can't "do anything," and that doing something outside of what the author wanted gives me an unsatisfying ending. (I realize this happens in IF, too.) Perhaps in IF, I can't see the boundaries as clearly as I can in a VN.

Apparently the advice given to writers: "Start with your ending, then work towards there" does not apply to multi-path visual novel scenario writers. These writers have the benefit of foresight / hindsight, but they forget the player does not.

Actually, it still could. Plan out the endings you want, and then, from the beginning, plan how the story could make it there. I do think that authors forget that their players may not think like they do, but I realize that attempting to predict what a player will think of a choice, or the game, is difficult and time-consuming. I guess I just wanted to make game makers aware of how other people might perceive their games.

Because what happens is that when you arrive at a choice, you no longer think what would be a good one for the story/environment - you think what would be good to get to the good ending (with a certain character).

Monele's first paragraph shows the problem as well. Too many players just want it THEIR way a bit too much. And I've already heard the term "servicing" the game, rather than designing it.

I don't know what you're assuming about me, but when I play, I try to "role play" to pick the choices that seem to fit the story. The satisfying ending should follow naturally from playing the game logically. My problem is that it never seems to. Why should I have to read your mind? That's rediculous.

Why is it wrong to want the game my way? That goes along with the whole open-endedness, doesn't it? I get to choose where I want the story to go. I find it frustrating when my choices lead me somewhere unexpected or somewhere I didn't want to go. Again, it comes back to the mind reading, because the author's idea of what a choice means is different than mine.

I acknowledge that nothing will ever be perfect. But from the player's perspective, giving players story fragments and then choices, seems to imply that the story should go the player's way. It would be nice, sometimes, if it would.

Finally, I understand that you have your story to tell. I'm an author, too. If it's so important to tell your story a certain way, why not just do a KN instead? I think an choice-driven VN should cater to the player.

Another thought: why do all endings that aren't the main ending have to be "bad"? Why can't there be multiple satisfying endings?

[papillon]

Well, there are games that have multiple satisfying endings, aren't there? Even in games with a Best ending there can still be other Good endings.


Sometimes the problem with choices is accurately getting the dilemna across in a short space in order for it to fit in the selectionboxes! (I know I have one decision point I'm still reworking in my head to be able to phrase the choices right.. It doesn't even MATTER for branching, it's a conversational choice, but I don't want the player to think they were saying one thing and be surprised when they find out what they're really saying)