Replaying and replaying again!

[A Terrible Rabbit]

I have a question. . . on the loaded question of replay. Everyone likes to know the different paths. . . but I'm a little nervous about my game and whether or not I've given the player enough reason to keep playing. I realized I ended up with a lot of different endings for something I thought would originally be kinetic, hehe.

So, I'm wondering, what do you expect the game to give you on a replay? Naturally, the first answer is to see another ending, but how long can that urge continue through repeating screens of dialogue? What else would you like?
In the case of the plot of Kyuuketsuki BonBon. . .

Basically I have 3 similar paths, that when you complete all three it gives hints to the 'true' story. After you try to replay the fourth time, it switches up and goes up in difficulty. There's also hidden endings and an omake story unlocked if you get a certain hidden ending. But I don't know if anyone's gonna play three endings, and thusly miss out on the meat of the story!

[ludeshka]

Oookay.
I'm no expert or anything (I'm just a newbie struggling with her first game) but I do know about sitting on the player's side of the screen.
...are you sure you want to give the true story away only when we've played through it 3 times?? O_o
You make it sound like it isn't an extra, but the real deal. O_o
I'm all for extras, but the main game should be the thing that makes me more satisfied...

It all depends on whether the normal paths entertain me or not.

Other gamers might absolutely disagree with me...I can even think of a game, Neverwinter Nights in which I enjoyed the expansions better than the original storyline...

I will try out Kyuuketsuki BonBon! (I've lurked a bit on your work-in-progress thread XD)
so when it's done, I'll tell you if it worked for me or not.

[A Terrible Rabbit]

Well. . . it's not exactly like that but I won't give too much of it away.

I'll say that the three plays in the beginning are short, and then after that they disappear for the next 'level'.

[papillon]

Hardcore vn fans are used to the idea of unlockable paths.

If you're aiming at a wider audience, make sure your endings very strongly hint that there's more to see and that they're not done yet.

[JinzouTamashii]

Let me put it this way:

The visual novel should be sufficiently interesting the first time around.

Anything else is just icing on the cake. Without a good cake base, the frosting sucks.

[musical74]

I've been a gamer for 24 years so I think I can shed a bit of light on this!

When I replay a game, I look for a few things: what's changed (new scenes? new characters?) whether I need to go through absolutely everything again (taking 15 hours just to see a new branch? PASS) and whether the plot, and to a minor degree, the graphics, warrent wanting to play through a game again. You may have a wondrous replay planned, but if the original time through was pretty boring, I'm not likely to see it because there wasn't anything really worth seeing the first time, even if it promises new and exciting scenes. Conversely, if it's pretty exciting or there's parts of *WHOA! Wasn't expecting THAT!*, I'll be inclined to try it again.

[Wintermoon]

I generally replay until I get all the endings that I'm interested in, especially if there's a true ending. That said, I dislike having to go through the same text again and again just to get all of the endings. Ideally, there should be a clearly labeled branch point so that I can save at the branch point, play one path, reload, and play the other path.

[LVUER]

I replay a VN until I completely unlock everything, every single text, every single image, and most important is every single ending.

But two things must exist for me to have the reason to replay perhaps more than 50 times.
1. Something different. New character, new line, new information. And it must be interesting or at least funny.
2. Text Skip/Scene Skip. I don't interested in watching same scene over and over, or reading same text in slow pace again and again.

[Freelancer]

I replay a VN until I completely unlock everything, every single text, every single image, and most important is every single ending.

But two things must exist for me to have the reason to replay perhaps more than 50 times.
1. Something different. New character, new line, new information. And it must be interesting or at least funny.
2. Text Skip/Scene Skip. I don't interested in watching same scene over and over, or reading same text in slow pace again and again.

I do the same thing, The promise of extra content is reason enough for me to even try to read through it again. But if you want to make it worth while you have to make the choices sufficiently, drastically change the story, Other wise the only thing you can do is text skip (Like LVUER says) Or the scene skip (The only time I've seen this was in Fate/stay night so I know it can be done but I'm not the least bit sure how.) Also, If there is anything you are hiding in the story, Like The identity of some one or Details of their past Put a little bit in each path and make sure by the final ending the reader knows everything about that universe, Unless you're making a sequel but by the tie you put that universe to rest the fans should know everything about it. Otherwise it's just cruel. (Partly referring to my frustration with, but love of Quine, as well as a few other books, games, anime, T.V. shows, and Movies,)
And to increase replay ability make sure that it is known to the reader that there is more.