Research poll to better the game I'm working on

[Recca Phoenix]

When you play a ren'ai game, would you rather have the main chara be "you," or to be given a set character?

Also, as a side note, do you prefer lots of story and few choices, or more choices but less written text?

[DaFool]

I like well-defined (hint: well-written) characters. Even if they're people I typically dislike, its better than having a soulless, spineless everyman protagonist (the sort that plagues renai games for example).

I feel uncomfortable with games that let you be totally you in making choices, but have a constrained prejudice towards the kind of paths and endings you're going to get. Even worse are games that are unclear whether you should play as yourself or play as what you think the protagonist should decide, according to the described personality.

But take these opinions from coming from a more kinetic-novel kind of person. People more into interactive fiction are bound to disagree.

Additionally, if I weren't warned beforehand, I am annoyed by too many choices. I like to read stories, not do the exhaust-all-possibilities save-a-thon.

[Zarcon]

Personally, I'd rather it be a set character.
Reason?
When the character is made out to be "you", you better dang well provide a choice I would make. Otherwise the main character is just an empty shell, not a defined character and not "you" due to the fact that your choice may not be represented. You'll be alienated from the main character from two fronts. =/

As for the side note, they don't have to be exclusive of eachother.
For me though, the amount of choices doesn't matter, the story just has to be well written.
Heck, that means it doesn't even have to be a long story if it's excellently written.

[absinthe]

I prefer the game to be somewhere in the middle. I like a character with a set background that affects the story substantially, but who I can define along the way by the choices I select.

I've definitely heard people complain about this, though. Some folks really prefer to be handed a blank slate to work with, and I'm fine with that. But I think the danger in that approach is that it's harder to make things *matter* to the player without a defined character (even if it's just a bare minimum) to slip into.

And if the player doesn't feel as if the game really matters on any level, it's hard to suspend disbelief and really get into the game -- and then things you'd let slide if you were really into it seem laughably cheesy.

Also, as a side note, do you prefer lots of story and few choices, or more choices but less written text?

Honestly, it depends on the game. If the text is engaging enough, I'll want more. If the choices feel meaningful enough, I'll be glad to make them. I don't like games that have no choices or where what choices are there are unimportant, or the other way round, but anything in the middle is fine, as long as it's executed well.

And it depends on the game structure; I think a game that uses a True Love style system can get away with less text because you're virtually always making choices, while one like Divi-dead would be really confusing if the text were pared down any further, and be frustrating if there were any fewer choices.

But take these opinions from coming from a more kinetic-novel kind of person. People more into interactive fiction are bound to disagree.

Additionally, if I weren't warned beforehand, I am annoyed by too many choices. I like to read stories, not do the exhaust-all-possibilities save-a-thon.

Hee, I like to save frequently and try everything, on my first run-through if possible. If not, I tend to play through about twice, once for the novelty, and once to catch anything that really looked interesting. And then I'm done.

I'm definitely a 'more into interactive fiction' person, although one of the things I really love about Ren'Py is the ability for me to keep much greater control over the story far more easily than with one of the IF engines.

[dizzcity]

Personally, I agree with Zarcon, especially when it comes to this statement:

When the character is made out to be "you", you better dang well provide a choice I would make. Otherwise the main character is just an empty shell, not a defined character and not "you" due to the fact that your choice may not be represented. You'll be alienated from the main character from two fronts. =/

The thing is, not many people are good at creating real Interactive Stories centered around the player, because it requires a completely different methodology from that of Visual Novels which come from the creator's mind. I know enough about the process to describe it, and I'd imagine it can be done, but it would be rather difficult to do - especially over the Internet. It's almost like focus testing procedures that big companies do when they're preparing to launch a new product. It would need to be an iterative development cycle, with playtesting at every round.

First, even before you start fleshing out your plot concept, you'd need to gather a representative sample of your target audience. If you want to cater to the general public, you'll need a huge variety of people with different tastes to do your playtesting. Which means you'd probably have to hold interviews and filter out suitable playtest candidates to ensure you can cover as wide a range of player choices as possible.

Then you give them a plot skeleton, with some initial choices laid out. The plot skeleton doesn't have a lot of writing, just enough to give them a sense of the consequences of their choices. At every choice menu, you'd need to gather their feedback on whether the choices made sense, what choices didn't, what choices they were expecting, and why. And after every choice, you'd need to ask your playtesters if the consequences of their choices were as they expected, and what the feelings were.

You'd then have to refine your plot skeleton, modifying choices and consequences until you have something that suits a wide variety of people's anticipated responses. This will probably take up three to five playtest-refine-playtest cycles.

Only THEN do you go into the actual writing of the script, drawing of the graphics, and creation of the music, based on the final plot skeleton. And again, after every major update, you need to check if the new assets are consistent with what the playtesters were thinking of. At this point, you'd probably also need some fresh playtesters who haven't seen the initial plot skeleton as well, just to compare with your veteran playtesters to see if there's any difference. Again, after every playtest session, refine the assets to better suit audience needs, etc.

Rinse and repeat until the entire game is done.

You can see why not many creative types like to use this method of development. It requires a different set of skills from the ability to "dream worlds out of nothing". This requires rigorous adaptive techniques and high flexibility... sort of like improvisational drama. All sorts of changes are made on the fly, based on what the audience does. The end product is something which could be very far away from your original vision for the game, yet may perfectly suit what the audience expects when they go through each choice. What you require for this is the skill "to carve the square peg until it fits into the round hole" (adaptive creativity), not "to create a round peg and round hole out of nothing" (generative creativity).

I'm far better at the latter than the former, which is why I create my own characters and like reading the same.

-Dizzy-

[absinthe]

The thing is, not many people are good at creating real Interactive Stories centered around the player, because it requires a completely different methodology from that of Visual Novels which come from the creator's mind. I know enough about the process to describe it, and I'd imagine it can be done, but it would be rather difficult to do - especially over the Internet. It's almost like focus testing procedures that big companies do when they're preparing to launch a new product. It would need to be an iterative development cycle, with playtesting at every round.

Hmm, I'm not sure you'd really need such an intensive production cycle just to create an effective interactive fiction game using a blank slate main character.

Each of us is human (I assume, anyway!) and we have shared experiences that we can draw on. Writing the piece from the perspective of "you" as in the game developer should suffice, assuming you're not tailoring it too much to your specific tastes -- say, offering the player a choice between soda or tea instead of Pepsi or Diet Pepsi.

I doubt it's possible to create a 100% character free blank slate, at any rate, given that even word choice gives a sense of character to some extent.

Unless by "interactive stories centered around the player" you mean hard-core simulationist worlds, in which case, despite all the attempts I've seen towards it, I'm not sure why you'd *want* to. It seems like overkill for most dating sims (and most interactive fiction, for that matter).

You can see why not many creative types like to use this method of development. It requires a different set of skills from the ability to "dream worlds out of nothing". This requires rigorous adaptive techniques and high flexibility... sort of like improvisational drama. All sorts of changes are made on the fly, based on what the audience does. The end product is something which could be very far away from your original vision for the game, yet may perfectly suit what the audience expects when they go through each choice. What you require for this is the skill "to carve the square peg until it fits into the round hole" (adaptive creativity), not "to create a round peg and round hole out of nothing" (generative creativity).

Making changes on what the audience does is part of any interactive game, though, isn't it? From DM'ing a D&D game to writing text adventures to writing any interactive fiction, it all comes down to offering the illusion to the player that they are controlling the story's events, and that they are interacting with a real, living world.

Even in a heavily simulationist game the changes aren't really "on the fly" -- someone, somewhere, had to have thought up a routine to handle what'd happen in the event that the player interacted with the game world in that particular way.

As a programmer slash writer slash control freak, I like to limit those interactions to a handful of hopefully high quality options that push my story in the direction I've planned for it, however gently to avoid breaking the illusion of interactivity.

My favorite simulationist tends not to really care how the story unfolds; he'd usually rather the player have the freedom to do as many interactions as are practically possible to code in, and whatever story unfolds from those interactions, he's fine with.

I think it boils down to what sort of story you're telling, and what sort of experience you want to offer, to some extent.