A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

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Agashi
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A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#1 Post by Agashi »

So I am currently writing a GxB fantasy romance, and I have come to an issue: While three of my character routes are well-developed and up to a standard of writing that I'm comfortable with, the fourth is... not coming along as smoothly. To be fair, it's more than simple frustration with the characterization. His story - where it entwines with the main plot - is clunky. He sticks out. To be honest, he's kind of dragging the rest of the story down and the response from other people, including those who have read all the writing I have so far, toward his character has been mostly crickets. :(

Now I know I could just buckle down, re-write his outline, and brainstorm new ways to make him as interesting as the others. BUT I could also use that time and effort to move forward, start writing dialogues, etc. I don't know if it would be worth it to try so hard to make a round peg fit in a square hole. :|

The thing is - and I remember this as being the reason I initially decided on four characters in the first place - that seemed like a good minimum of potential love interests. I've seen VNs with 4-5 characters the most often, I think, but nowadays 5-7 seems to be becoming the new standard. Four characters seemed suitably manageable for me to take on, with this being my first VN, but now I'm worried that it won't be enough to interest players... especially since one is probably going to be cut for the sake of the writing quality staying consistent.

So I ask:
Is there an unspoken "standard" on the amount of potential love interests in an otome VN?
Is that something you take into consideration when you play them?
Is three too few?

I really don't want to include him simply for the sake of meeting some arbitrary goal, but I don't want to limit potential players, either. Particularly since one of the main draws of my VN will hopefully be the amount of player choice and roleplaying possibilities. Thoughts?
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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#2 Post by HiddenCreature »

Is there an unspoken "standard" on the amount of potential love interests in an otome VN?

I'd say the absolute minimum is three. One interest, and it's not really a choice. Two, and it feels like a 50/50 decision where you're forced to make up your mind on who's better. Three creates a sense of diversity in your options.


Is that something you take into consideration when you play them?

Not really. It's how many interactions I can have with the characters that matter. Some people argue that more is better. The problem is the more routes you make, the less content for each individual one. And the only reason there's less, is because it's just easier to limit the number of interactions for multiple routes. Writing a branching story isn't difficult per se, just time consuming.


Is three too few?

No, it's actually more than enough. Whether it's one, two or three, giving people a diverse range of options is not what's important. Let me repeat that: giving people a diverse range of options is not what's important.

What is important is substance and content; how much is done with each individual route, rather than how many routes you have.


There will always be people who won't like the dating options, and in which case, the game simply isn't for them and they'll find one that is.

Games should focus more on making the interests more human rather than an objective. Traditionally your "interactions" are the following:

* Go to the same activity club
* Work on increasing your stats to become more attractive
* Learn all their trivia
* Buy them the right gifts

It's not often you actually get to sit down and talk to these interests, and allow the player to express their opinion, without suffering some Like -2 or Agreement -5 penalty.

To summarize: more options isn't the way to interest players. It's adding quality to what options you do have, that keeps people hooked. After all, what's the one thing people always remember about a great story: the characters.

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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#3 Post by fleet »

I was going to type a response, but HiddenCreature covered what I intended to post (and wrote it better than I would have done).
Some of my visual novels are at http://www.the-new-lagoon.com. They are NSFW
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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#4 Post by anon2045 »

Honestly, I don't think the amount of love interests is that important. My favorite GXB game (Aloners) has only one love interest. What matters more is the quality of your game. While I do see more games with 5-7 love interests, it's really rare to find games that do it well. Even though I was initially attracted to those games, the games that I ended up really loving had less characters and a focus on telling a good story.

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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#5 Post by Agashi »

Thank you for your responses, everyone!

This helps me out tremendously. I think that cutting the character, at least for now, is the best thing to do for the game.

I'm relieved that there are players out there who appreciate the same things I do: good quality writing and interactivity. I'm going to try and bring both of these things to my project. :)
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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#6 Post by gekiganwing »

I recommend writing the characters that you care about, or the ones that are the most relevant to your story. It might be a good idea to take the ones which seem redundant or out of place, and set them aside for future projects. I don't think you'll benefit by including multiple love interests just to fill out the cast.

Most of A Midsummer Day's Resonance was about the relationship between two girls. The story left me stunned, and I still think it's memorable over a decade later. Also, Kana Little Sister was a drama including an unbalanced love triangle. The story had problems, but it built up to several emotionally powerful endings. It's part of the reason why I became a visual novel enthusiast.

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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#7 Post by Godline »

Our otome Kaitlyn in Chinaland has only two love interests (with the option for more in a sequel game). So there's no set limit. There's different types of otome games too. Ones with stat raising, ones without. Ones with bad ends, ones without. You don't need to conform to a set standard.

Are you set on writing the whole thing yourself? You could always get someone else to perfect his route if you don't mind letting others have at your creative work. (I'm not bad at that type of thing if you wanted me to take a look at it). A lot of people do seem to be serious about not sharing their vision however. Something I've never really understood- because I'm always looking for co-writers! Haha.

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Re: A GxB question: When is Enough, Enough?

#8 Post by Agashi »

Thank you both for the input! I feel pretty confident about my decision to take the character out of the game now, especially with all the feedback on this thread... I edited his part out of the main plot last night and found that the whole story runs much more smoothly now. A good sign that I did the right thing, hopefully. :)

You are an angel for offering, Godline! I actually got a co-writer on board with me recently, and she is getting ready to work her magic on another character right now. We might jointly revisit the character at a later time, but it's low on my list of priorities for now since I just finished reworking the common route excluding him. Thank you very much though!
Current Projects:

Image [GxB][Fantasy][Drama][Romance] Play the demo here!

Image [GxB][Sci Fi][Romance][Drama] Nanoreno '17 winner! Now COMPLETE!

Proud writer of Celestial Crossing! [Fantasy][SoL][High School][BxG] COMPLETE!


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