Choices of no return?

[shaye]

(You can tell I had no idea what to name this thread. If there's a more appropriate title I could give it please feel free to tell me.)
Alright, so I was planning something about the game we have in development with a friend and I came with the idea of coding the game in such a way that it prevents rollback choices (so your typical visual novel stuff, I guess), but at the same time once you reach an ending of the game and go replay it to reach another (either by save or new game) there won't be any more choices. Instead what you'd get would be a kinetic version of the visual novel with the choices you've already made, so there would be no way of seeing the other ending. (Unless you cheat and re-download the game I assume.)

The point of this is that just as in real life you can't modify stuff you've done by re-tracing the past / going back in time so whatever you pick is definite and it does give the sensation of being a relevant choice for both you and the protagonist.

My question is, how would you as a player feel about this? I think it's an interesting thing to try do but I wouldn't want it to be unpleasant or frustrating to whoever plays it.
Thank you very much!

[Rozume]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of making a Visual Novel? I don't know about you, but I play VNs to make choices, and see the results of my choices.

It sounds interesting, but it doesn't sound very fun. There are plenty of ways to make your choices relevant and definite without restricting the player (for example, you could remove the choices the player already have made in their second play though).

[Shinoki]

I wouldn't want to not be able to see the different routes--I'm a bit of a completionist, but it would be cool to add an extras section where you can replay the game a kinetic novel kind of like how you can replay ecchi...scenes...in...ero...games... in extras sometimes.

[Aviala]

This reminds me of the web game One Chance. It's a game where you get one chance to save the world from a terrible mistake you made. You can only play it once unless you know how to cheat the game (by clearing your cookies and browser history or something like that, I guess?).

I think it only works because the subject of the game is what it is. The mechanics support the narrative, which is brilliant game design, in my opinion. It really makes your every choice feel heavy. But I don't think this kind of limitation should be implemented without a very good reason because it has the potential to annoy the players. If you think your game would really benefit for making the choices final, then go ahead and do it, but if you're making a basic school romance VN, I'd suggest staying away from mechanics that have the potential to anger the player.

[shaye]

Alright, thank you all for the feedback, it's been very useful! I think I'll stray for this option for the time being until I can come up with something that will really benefit from it!! I appreciate all of your help [bows].

[papillon]

It's been suggested before - it's been done before, in other games. See "One Chance"

However, in anything other than a short game, it's annoying. Intentionally messing with the player to make an artistic 'point' is a cheap trick which will produce little more than an annoyed eyeroll. More than ten years later my husband and I are still making fun of a particular indie game whose devs argued that they were intentionally making the game uninteresting and unintuitive in order to evoke the emotional experience of disappointment and frustration. (No, you just made a terrible game.)

A short game which is very up-front with the player that you can only do it once and your choices will stick is okay, especially if it invites players to have conversations with each other to see how it could have ended differently. It amps up the stress of the decisions, which some people will find exciting and others will find too painful to play at all.

But don't pull a trick on your players after playing and expect them to be anything other than angry.

No, it's not realistic that you can go back and change your decisions - but if people were looking for actual reality they wouldn't be playing video games.

edit - I see someone brought One Chance up before I finished typing

[Rossfellow]

However, in anything other than a short game, it's annoying. Intentionally messing with the player to make an artistic 'point' is a cheap trick which will produce little more than an annoyed eyeroll. More than ten years later my husband and I are still making fun of a particular indie game whose devs argued that they were intentionally making the game uninteresting and unintuitive in order to evoke the emotional experience of disappointment and frustration. (No, you just made a terrible game.)

Aww, I had the idea of a troll ending that would be triggered by trying to undo a particularly awful event in the game. I guess I gotta be really careful with that.

[trooper6]

I think making your players annoyed, irritated, and upset is a perfectly valid artistic choice.
One this has consequences however, and you have to be ready to accept those consequences.

[Kinjo]

I did this once with my Umineko fangame Inquisition of the Golden Witch. The premise was that you had to solve the mystery in one shot, collecting as many clues as time would allow you, without any way to go back and pick other options. I wrote a fairly lengthy blog post explaining my experiences with it.

Basically, what other people are saying is correct... sort of. It was an interesting experiment, but it frustrated a lot of people. However, people still found the game very fun. Possibly because it was a detective game and there was still a mystery to solve, regardless of whatever choices the players picked.

A short game which is very up-front with the player that you can only do it once and your choices will stick is okay, especially if it invites players to have conversations with each other to see how it could have ended differently. It amps up the stress of the decisions, which some people will find exciting and others will find too painful to play at all.

This is also what I did. Right at the start, a screen saying there is no way to reverse choices. And everyone was encouraged to discuss the clues with each other so that they could combine their efforts and solve the game together.

I did allow a "new game plus" mode after the answer was revealed so that players could ultimately go back and see all of the clues that they missed out on. I think that was a good move, because then at least people would feel less cheated out of a game, and all the additional work the author did could at least be seen.

Whether this would work for a different kind of game remains up in the air, but I'd be really interested in playing one, myself.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Maybe instead of making your game have no replayability, you could instead set up persistent choices. So even if they replay the game, the choices of the previous play-through have impact. Visual Novels tend to thrive on giving the player agency and choice, so I don't think locking them out is the best idea in the world, but I think the idea that your choices have permanent consequences is a very interesting line to investigate.

I also think this is more in line with reality as well. While we can't roll back in real life, our choices aren't as set in stone as they seem because we can constantly affect what happens after. Very few choices we make are extremely permanent and undoable.

[RedVampyr]

I was interested in what you said about not having rollback. I like the idea of a player making a choice and having to deal with it for the duration of the game, that would make the choices and actions in the game seem like they carried more weight and have more consequences. But I think keeping the player from replaying to make a new choice isn't really something I'd be interested in.

If you instead made it where you could not rollback through one save file, and had to start a new game to see other choices, I'd be more interested in that.

[trooper6]

Oh, I want to say for the record, that I am not against deliberately making your audience feel uncomfortable. I think that is a valid artistic choice. But then, I really liked the film "Requiem for a Dream" and I listen consume a lot of disturbing art. So...I don't think it is necessarily bad to make your audience frustrated or upset. Though I think it must be done on purpose for a reason. And while some people will appreciate that sort of experience, a lot of audiences don't want that experience and you will limit your audience. Which isn't necessarily bad. But it is what it is.

[Ernestalice15]

Well, I don't really like when I can't do all options in the game, so I'll end up uninstall it and never want to play it or watch other players to play it anymore. So, I need to ask you this one question, do you want to play such game yourself? I saw that some people have mentioned about a similar game called One Chance, and I think you should try to play it before trying to make one, to see if you really like the idea or not.

The thing is, when I write something, I want players to read it all, so I'm trying really hard to make them enjoy the story up and down, not pushing too much, and not pulling too much. So, perhaps I'll suggest these options for you :
1. No rolling back, auto-save, but you can reset the game
2. No rolling back, can't reset the game, but make players be able to save many data
3. No rolling back, auto-save, no resetting the game, but no bad ending, which means everything you choose will lead to normal or good endings. If you try to make romance/dating VN, then no ending where player won't have the pair at the end, or make the options as obvious as you can, or at least make one of the datable characters easy to catch.

If you want to troll players more and make them annoyed, then I would suggest to prepare yourself of many people may not comprehend what you're trying to do, and not play your VN. Well, assuming I'm your VN friend, I'll try to play it once, maybe.

[SelLi]

I'm thinking of having elements that are out of the player's control being randomly chosen at the beginning of the game without the player knowing until far later on.
Then when the player replays the game after beating it, they will get a different randomized choice.
Once the player's played through all the choices, they'll be able to choose what they want from a menu somehow.

Different from choices of no return, but similar in that when something in the story changes, the player can't just reload from an save or scroll back.

[RedVampyr]

I'm thinking of having elements that are out of the player's control being randomly chosen at the beginning of the game without the player knowing until far later on.
Then when the player replays the game after beating it, they will get a different randomized choice.
Once the player's played through all the choices, they'll be able to choose what they want from a menu somehow.

Different from choices of no return, but similar in that when something in the story changes, the player can't just reload from an save or scroll back.

I'm in love with this idea, I would love a game's story that worked like that.