How do I do a Timed choice?

Discuss how to use the Ren'Py engine to create visual novels and story-based games. New releases are announced in this section.
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Counter Arts
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#16 Post by Counter Arts »

I am quite glad that mrsulu said I was thinking like a mapper. I am both although actually I am more narrativist than mapper. I am however more interested in at least average levels of both, or having them both quite high.

I like getting the "true" endings of every girl. However I would actually like to think about the plotline I got as a result of analyzing the system somewhat. But also getting a true ending on my first playthrough is good too.

lol... maybe I have just adored Type-Moon Fundisk games' system so much that I'm starting to gradually desire to make a system that is inspired by that.


But I'll answer that reflex question first.

Yes, there would be difficulty levels. However, I would like for them to be determined by what ending and for what character it is for.

Like, for the main heroine you can have a normal ending, a true ending, and a happy true ending. The difficulty goes up as the more satifing the ending is.

Then multiply this by the number of characters with variations and you get something that hopefully the narriative player as well as the mapper player can enjoy.

Of course, through enough hints in the game, the player can probably guess what are his odds of getting a certain type of ending or girl.

"The school idol is great and all but... I don't like her you know? A lot of guys do but there's something not quite right."

This is quite an obvious hint that you'll be getting into trouble if you try for her. Float around dangerous stories of things that happen like... people disappearing and I hope players get the hint. If they don't then... hey... they were either quite unfortunate to miss all the paths that gave them those hints or they couldn't figure out the foreshadowing.

The fun is either playing through again and realizing it's there on the second run or hearing how other players' war stories as two narrivists talked about how much of a surprise or how just blatantly obvious what was going to happen.

Now for my comment on Type-Moon's fandisk games.

They are like a mapper's dream. You play the same storyline over and over and over in order to actually progress the main storyline. You die or get a conclusion, you go back to the start. But apparently there are endings! No really, like when credits roll with an epilogue and you go back to the title screen after. You just gotta find out how to get them.

Now I would like to hear some narrative players comments on a game like that.

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#17 Post by Cazel »

Hmmm, I wouldn't say a game like that is necessarily a mapper's dream. I rather think that I would qualify as a mapper. To me, I haven't really finished a game until I've seen all the possible endings and feel somewhat cheated if a game doesn't have at least some degree of difficulty. At the same time, I hate blind choices, not just choices whose result you can't predict, but especially choices whose result you can't determine. If I keep getting unsatisfying endings based on conscious decision making and feel forced to use the try every variation method of play, I quickly get bored if I keep seeing the same story over and over. I never finished (to my mind) either GSK or MB for this reason. As such, the game as you present it sounds like a game I might play through a couple times, but would probably never fully complete.

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#18 Post by Counter Arts »

Well the actual timeline length would be short as you are doing multiple iterations. And I'm guessing they skip scenes you've already seen.

One of them you're trapped in your own dream that keeps on repeating. However, if you try to "deviate" from the expected path you just might find... a crack in the event horizion or it just not being there... or the person who's been making your dreams.

So after a few times I'm guessing you'll get a general idea of the framework. Then you think meta-game of how you can screw up the structure.

And slowly you'll notice the events that you mapped out slowly start to change too.

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#19 Post by Quin »

Just wanted to inject a personal anecdote here that will reflect my opinion on the matter.

My favorite games in the ren'ai/dating-sim/VN genre are from the Tokimeki Memorial series. Of course, there's one biiiig problem for me... I can barely read enough Japanese to even attempt to play. For the most part, this isn't a terrible game-breaking handicap. Since the game usually pauses and awaits a button press before erasing text from the screen, I can read the text at my own leisure, look up kanji and words I don't know... even write down words that I'd like to learn

One place I ran into a problem early on in the first TokiMemo game was the prologue. Over 100 lines of text are displayed with no pausing whatsoever. The only way I was able to figure out what was being said was making a video capture and saving screenshots from it.

Not every fan of VNs is a quick reader, and for many, English isn't even their primary language. If you make a game which requires quick reading, you alienate those players. Just a thought...

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#20 Post by Counter Arts »

lol... and I've tried to play Sakura Wars with hardly any knowledge of kanji and not very good Japanese listening skills. The timed system was actually what made it fun.

The "prevent the slap of two rivals by standing in the middle and getting slapped by both" was quite fun. And yes, I was quite surprised at this since I was watching an animated cutscene before it quickly switched to VN mode and gave me one choice and really fast moving timed bar.

With timed choices you'll alienate some while draw others in. Styles of stories do that anyway.

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#21 Post by Megaman Z »

I'll probably have to remember this come NaNoRenO. One of the ideas floating around for my project (which, in concept, is close to completion on storyline... minus a reality check on how feasible it would be to do it in under a month) would require a time limit on some (not all, fortunately. I'm not that evil) choices.
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#22 Post by PyTom »

Honestly, a timeout on one choice may perhaps be more evil then a timeout on all choices. If one times out all choices (like Love Hina Advance did), then one can get used to it. (And in my case, hit pause on the emulator.)

On the other hand, if you make all choices this way, the user will see it coming, and be mentally prepared for it.

Either way, I strongly recommend adding a call to renpy.choice_for_skipping() before the line of dialogue before a menu. If you don't do this, then the user will drop out of skip mode right at the menu, which means he has to go immediately from skipping (where he's not paying huge amounts of attention) to a timed choice (which deserves undived attention) with no sentinel inbetween.
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#23 Post by Megaman Z »

someone who doesn't quite know how I am planning on using this wrote:Honestly, a timeout on one choice may perhaps be more evil then a timeout on all choices.
well, it beats being able to sit there for an hour deciding on something that should (in perfect logic) be timed (like, for instance, should I try and pull [name removed. wait for April, guys!] from the edge of the balcony or should I let her fall off. probably going to be timed to a nice 20 seconds for you to decide.)

besides, if they WERE paying attention, the lines of dialouge leading up to it would clue you in that it is a timed choice.
Either way, I strongly recommend adding a call to renpy.choice_for_skipping() before the line of dialogue before a menu. If you don't do this, then the user will drop out of skip mode right at the menu, which means he has to go immediately from skipping (where he's not paying huge amounts of attention) to a timed choice (which deserves undived attention) with no sentinel inbetween.
point taken. I do plan on doing this a FEW lines before each choice, regardless of if it's timed or not. this allows them to read those lines, and make a choice based on that.

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#24 Post by Counter Arts »

besides, if they WERE paying attention, the lines of dialouge leading up to it would clue you in that it is a timed choice.
lol... maybe I should have a caution icon flash on the screen with a warning siren blare before a timed choice and lower the music and have the sound of a ticking noise when you make the choice.

I guess we just can't assume that people have played it before and already know that there is a timed choice.

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#25 Post by PyTom »

It's worse than that... If a person is skipping quickly through the game using the skip mode toggled by TAB, they may not be paying much attention to the game at all.

I have a fairly good memory for things. So when I'm playing a game for the second or later times, I will often skip large portions of the game. When I get to a menu, I will figure out where I am, and then make the choice. This is usually fairly easy to do. But since skipping is rarely instantaneous, I will normally do something else while waiting for the game to hit a menu.

For example, I might check email and this forum, or read a few usenet messages. I will then come back to the game, and check it to see if it's done skipping. If it had timed out automatically after coming back, I would be angry.

And you won't like me when I'm angry.

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#26 Post by Counter Arts »

If you have played it a few times before, wouldn't you know that there's a timed choice somewhere?

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#27 Post by nyanya »

What???? You can't do choices... I thought you could only do people.
:| *runs away*

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#28 Post by Radhreni »

Well, if a person was skipping through the text on the -first- playthrough, they deserve what they get :twisted:

Anyway, if I were going to incorporate such a feature, I'd at least give the player a 'heads-up' before the actual timed decision. Heck, the first time it came up, I'd probably include a small explanation/tutorial about the 'timed choice' system and what to expect.

Then again, I also would note that the game itself isn't straight VN.

(When I first saw the title of this thread, I was thinking of 'timed choice' more along the lines of an auxiliary decision you can make, but it has to be done between, say, event C and event H (e.g. Shion's investment e-mails in Xenosaga ep. I). That's probably substantially easier to do than the aforediscussed timed choices, though, isn't it?)

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Turn-based better than real time

#29 Post by herenvardo »

Turn-based is the key!
If you try to apply timed-choices and so on, you'll have to face a lot of tricks to go over that, such pausing, rollback, and so on. Anyhow, it breaks the spirit of a Novel Game, for many reasons:
-> Not everybody is equally fast while reading. In addition, there are a lot of potential players who defend with english only at a basic level, and will read the options even slower.
-> Different people will have different reflexes. This means that the reflexes of the player affect to the plot of the game, which is supossed to be affected only (or, at least, mainly) by the choices, and not by the player's physicall skills.
-> Reaction time of player is not the same as reaction time of character, and this should be taken in account. By using timed-out options and/or menus, you make matter only the player's reaction time, without any way to compensate in the case character has better reflexes than the player: this breaks the sense of 'being in the character's skin' which is one of the most important characteristics of both Novel & Role Playing games.

Personally, the game I'm working in includes some rpg features that require a bit complex implementation (i.e.: using plain phyton because Ren'Py is not designed for this kind of features). The most juicy (interesting an complex) one is the combat system, which will make the player go to buy at least a weapon before entering that dark, wild forest :twisted: . Anyhow, It'll work on a turn basis, and the character's speed will affect the amount of actions it can perform each turn, no matter how slow is the player.
If you still want use real-timed features, go on, but do 'at your own risk', because it's not a novel game feature.

Just opining ^^
I have failed to meet my deadlines so many times I'm not announcing my projects anymore. Whatever I'm working on, it'll be released when it is ready :P

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#30 Post by Counter Arts »

Playing Sakura Wars was still fun even if I didn't know enough Japanese to entirely understand what exactly what I was doing.
-> Different people will have different reflexes. This means that the reflexes of the player affect to the plot of the game, which is supossed to be affected only (or, at least, mainly) by the choices, and not by the player's physicall skills.
Physical? It's as physical as taking a timed multiple choice test. No... wait... less physical since you don't have to fill in a bubble sheet. It's your brain that's doing the work.
-> Not everybody is equally fast while reading. In addition, there are a lot of potential players who defend with english only at a basic level, and will read the options even slower.
There's always the option of saving right before the choice. And you could say that it can really push them to read faster.

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