Lemma Soft Forums

Okay, so I have a question.

I am currently not only planning my vn, but also its sequal (ok, I know its not a great idea, but hear me out.) I am not planning the whole sequal right now, just the beginning so I know how I want to end the first one.
My question is how I would start a sequal to a vn with multiple endings.

Some will end in the main character becoming a hero, some will end in him becoming a villain. Now, how would I continue this in the sequal?

I would like the sequal to continue from the 'good' ending, but how do I make this obvious to people who get the 'ok', 'bad' or 'not linear' endings?

One way would be to place a prologue in the sequel stating that it is based on the specified ending.

I have found that games often just tell you what ending you got when you reach it.

"You reached the bad ending."
"You reached the true ending."
etc.

fleet wrote:One way would be to place a prologue in the sequel stating that it is based on the specified ending.

I like that idea, thanks!

you could code a system where the game detects the previous game ending, its possible to do but takes forever to code.

firecat wrote:you could code a system where the game detects the previous game ending, its possible to do but takes forever to code.

Couldn't a person just use MultiPersistent Data?
http://www.renpy.org/doc/html/persisten ... ersistence

trooper6 wrote:

firecat wrote:you could code a system where the game detects the previous game ending, its possible to do but takes forever to code.

Couldn't a person just use MultiPersistent Data?
http://www.renpy.org/doc/html/persisten ... ersistence

Yeah, that is a good idea... but what if the player plays through each of the endings, you know, to see what happens? I suppose you could maybe randomize it and somehow include the prologue thingy?

I remember this from Castle Chase http://castlechase.dragonflydev.com/, which was not made with RenPy, but still, the idea was that you played all the endings if you wanted, then chose the one you liked better, and the game would remember it for the sequel.
I'm pretty sure that could be done with RenPy too.

ludeshka wrote:I remember this from Castle Chase http://castlechase.dragonflydev.com/, which was not made with RenPy, but still, the idea was that you played all the endings if you wanted, then chose the one you liked better, and the game would remember it for the sequel.
I'm pretty sure that could be done with RenPy too.

Thanks!

You could always pull a Daggerfall and make all of the endings canon through weird time shenanigans :^)
This would necessitate having completely different characters in between games and probably some manner of time-skip.

I'm doing a game that's split into three parts and I'll probably use multipersistent data to transfer information between the games. And if there are multiple saves/ playthroughs with different results... I guess I might give the player an option to choose which they'd like to choose to continue from at the start of the second part? I'm not sure how it works exactly coding-wise but this is my current plan. My VN also returns to one core path at the end of the first part, so that makes everything easier - I only need to write parts of the story differently, not multiple completely different stories.

Perhaps you could export a file with the value of path-dependent variables at the ending of the first game, and then have a mechanism in the second game to "load" a particular file. Those who've played Bioware games like ME or DA probably know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't know enough about how save files work by default (and going through that seems like it would be a pain) to try to use the default save files, but exporting just key variables to a text file should be pretty simple.

I didnt know about multipersistant but it seems like a good idea..?

I guess this is sorta a less complicated way of how telltale does it?

Pff a few days late to the party but if you feel importing a save is too tedious or beyond your means, not worth it, whatever, I don't think there's much wrong with simply asking a player at the start of game two what their choices were in game one. A bit like a quiz 'Was protagonist a hero or villain? /hero/villain' etcetc. I've seen this done in a few games.. mm star wars knights of the old republic 2 for instance.. it was more organic, you had a guy who didn't know much about what had happened repeating what he had heard and you could correct him (thus solidify what your choices had been in the first game) or tell him he was right (ie 'protag was a man, and-' 'no, she was a woman!').

I imagine that with drastically different choices you'll have a lot on your plate with game two (which is why most games with sequels leave the biggest, insanest plot turns for the very end, or/and force a cannon ending on players), so if you intend to allow for a sequel wherein your player could be a hero or a villain and who knows what else, more power to you!

Thanks everyone for your help!