Set story pathing discussion

[Ozitiho]

I don't usally like being locked out of routes, unless there is a really, really good reason for it. ...

This is true and a very genuine concern for me. I'm not at a stage in the project where I'd be comfortable discussing what it's about. However, on the topic of being locked out of routes for certain characters. I'm confident this can be done well and enjoyed.

One of my favorite VN's is Hoshizora no Memoria. (https://vndb.org/v1474) Paths are chosen per your standard style. You know how it goes. Basically, being nice to someone or not... But for example in one path, another character was touched upon more in depth. For that reason, she didn't become available until after that path was taken. And then there was the girl who was related to the main character's back story and her path didn't become available until you've done every single other path first.

I can totally get where you're coming from... You dig a certain character, but in order to learn more about her, you have to do someone else's path first. There's definitely argument to be made that that is bullshit. But, if the order in which paths are unlocked are somehow important to the user experience, I'd say it's a good thing and makes you want to play the different paths more.

Did you ever play a game that made you feel like you had to do a chore before playing the path you wanted to?

[E-night]

I don't usally like being locked out of routes, unless there is a really, really good reason for it. ...

This is true and a very genuine concern for me. I'm not at a stage in the project where I'd be comfortable discussing what it's about. However, on the topic of being locked out of routes for certain characters. I'm confident this can be done well and enjoyed.

One of my favorite VN's is Hoshizora no Memoria. (https://vndb.org/v1474) Paths are chosen per your standard style. You know how it goes. Basically, being nice to someone or not... But for example in one path, another character was touched upon more in depth. For that reason, she didn't become available until after that path was taken. And then there was the girl who was related to the main character's back story and her path didn't become available until you've done every single other path first.

I can totally get where you're coming from... You dig a certain character, but in order to learn more about her, you have to do someone else's path first. There's definitely argument to be made that that is bullshit. But, if the order in which paths are unlocked are somehow important to the user experience, I'd say it's a good thing and makes you want to play the different paths more.

Did you ever play a game that made you feel like you had to do a chore before playing the path you wanted to?

Yeah, I did. I've played enough otome to run into the 'secret character you must unlock' trope.

For the most current example I am playing Heart no Kuni no Alice (I think that's what it is called) and terrible engrish aside, I'm having fun with it, but there is one character whose prolog (basically who Alice chooses to stay with) I can't unlock, because, as far as I have googled, I would have to play through another character who I'll never touch, I might soldier through the route at some point if I'm espically bored, but it would be a chore.

My personal rule of thumb is: "Does it makes sense in story that this route is not possible to do in the first play round." That is also why I forgave 999 (despite the clumsiness of it) because I could see why.

As a player I dislike being told "You must play in this way".

---

It is not that I don't see why developers do it:
- Pacing of the story
- Save the biggest revelations/plot twist for last.
But as far as I'm concerned, and this is very personal, writers just have to think the storyplot twist in a way fitting for the medium which either mean:
A. Make a story that where the nature of a vn comes into play (ie a story where the multiple other routes possible existence is important for the story)
B. Make all routes equal somehow and write it so that they can be played in any order.

Again this is very personal. I just really, really dislike being told how to play and think when playing/reading a vn (The last one concerns books and movies too.)

P.s Sorry for the weird posting first. I hit enter by accident on my keyboard.

[RotGtIE]

Type-Moon VNs are famous for doing this. I believe that there are two imperatives in creating a VN with routes that must be unlocked by playing through others.

The first is that, for a route to be withheld from the reader, reading the route which unlocks it must be imperative to understanding or fully enjoying the unlocked route. If you are locking a route just to lock a route and force replayability, the reader will probably be annoyed. First of all, if routes are based on individual characters such that the routes could be named after the character most prominently featured in each route, then your audience might want a damn good reason for not being able to choose the route of the character they preferred before playing through the routes of characters they didn't care for as much. They might even mistakenly think that the locked character route does not exist after half of a playthrough, and get bored and quit reading altogether. If they do make it to an unlocked route and they feel that they would have understood it even if it hadn't been locked before they completed another route, they will feel intellectually insulted and annoyed with you. Ideally, the reader should think "this route would not have been half as enjoyable if I had read it before that other route" or "I would not have understood some very important things about this route if I had not read the other one first" when they are reading through a locked route.

The second is that the branching point must occur very early in the overall story. This one is obvious. Multiple routes necessarily impose scenes on a reader that they must reread when they start again. The more they have to reread, the more bored the reader will become, the more likely they will be to skip (and maybe partially forget) the already-covered plot before the route split, and the greater a risk you incur of jettisoning the reader from their immersion in your story. Breaking immersion is the absolute worst outcome you can achieve in writing. The more text you make your reader repeat, the more you tempt this terrible fate. Minimize this risk at all costs.

[Ozitiho]

Type-Moon VNs are famous for doing this. I believe that there are two imperatives in creating a VN with routes that must be unlocked by playing through others. ...

Well, I've made up my mind. I'll let the player choose his own path and then end with one true end.

My story is, like most VN's, a mix of romance and an underlying plot that ties all events together. So in my constructions I have two main goals. One was to give each character a proper path and ending. The other was to make everything slowly build up towards the true path. This last goal is strongly supported by a set path order, because I can introduce new scenes and new points in any order I like and every character would have a proper ending. However, even though there were a couple of nice elements this allowed I was reluctant to get rid of (for example: different intro each playthrough) there are two main reasons I decided against it anyway.

The first reason is redundancy. Why am I making the player go through the first chapter again? Is it worth going through this whole chapter again to get to the branching point? I mean, sure, you can skip. But then why is it there? Does it serve a purpose? I even decided at some point that on the third loop, I would skip a lot of the first chapter. But that was a signal that playing the common path is a chore.

The second reason, and the main reason, is what's been pointed out a couple times. Locking out the player from a certain path. I want to lock the player out of the last path until they've done the rest. I have a very good reason for this. But for the others, not so much. I had some excuses, but no good reason. The fact is that each path doesn't really relate to the next all that strongly. They're all unique in their own way. So then why should the player have to do them in the order I selected?

There will always be players who refuse to play the game throughout multiple paths because they strongly prefer a certain character and all they want is to read their story. That's fine, I should support that. Especially if I believe that every character's path stands out on it's own. Enforcing a certain path order might still be a good thing in another game. But in my game there's no good reason to withhold certain paths from the player until they've finished another path.