Achievements

[Destiny]

I fully realize that most people here make pure VNs and that those rarely have any decision (or even topic) that allows a wide variety of achievements.
But Ren'Py can also make stuff like Click & Point, there could be VNs in the style of "The Walking Dead" or "The Stanley Parable" and and and.
There are multiple ways to make a game where you could actually achieve something.

Are you friends of the whole achievement thing?
Do you like to collect them?
Would you like to see them in a VN / put them into a game of yours?
And if no, then why not?

___________________________________________

To my own opinion:
From the four game ideas I have, I can only imagine one having achievements.
Mostly, since it would be a Click & Point game with a lot of decisions that talk about the players moral. There could also be achievements for fast solving of the puzzles and stuff. I personally like the idea, since that game would have only 6 CGs (one for each ending) and I would like to give the player something for actually bothering with playing the game.
I also think that it is a nice way to make fun of some stuff (like a achievement for turning off the light in each room, having the achievement make fun of that behaviour with a funny title) or to at least try and make the player more serious (Achievements for: solve minigame X in Y seconds / save Person A / get ending C / etc).
But I can't imagine it on my other games, since they are either not "important" enough or give the player already a big reward with lots of CGs or something.

Oh yeah, and I personally like achievements and try to collect them.
Even though mostly just for the fun of it and because some achievements make you try out stuff you never even thought of (like the "Kick a chicken towards a talking door" in Fable 2, I freaked when that door suddenly ate the chicken xD).

[SundownKid]

I like 'cheevos, since they get you to do things you normally wouldn't have done and add some extra fun to a game. I think they definitely have a place in VN's, of course, it depends on how linear they are. For something that's very linear like a book, I don't think they would work. If the game had something like multiple endings, and it changed depending on decisions, I can see there being achievements like (Got X ending) or (Made friends with X person).

[gekiganwing]

I haven't been paying much attention to video games in the 360/PS3 era. Every now and then, I'll play a multiplayer game with achievements while at a meetup, or some will appear in a portable game. My reaction is usually "...huh..." or "why?"

For some reason, achievements are included in Koenchu!

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I like Achievements, so long as they aren't rote simple things like "Finished Tutorial", "Finished Chapter 5", etc.

I'm like SundownKid - I like Achievements that show me a different way of playing the game I might not have thought of, or offer a unique challenge that will be a fun change of pace. I thought the first Dead Rising game had nearly perfect Achievements - most of them weren't easy, but were fun to try for. And if you did get them, you also unlocked an in-game reward. They ended up adding immense replay value.

At their best, Achievements should be a kind of "heads up" from the developers to the player - "Hey, here's a really cool way to play the game, or something you might not have thought of doing." They're like a dare your school friends would have given you in a game.

[PyTom]

I think achievements are a good way of signalling people as to what's possible in a game. This is nice for someone who wants to clear the game, but might miss hidden content if he or she didn't know it existed. By setting achievements on various hidden sections, you make it clear what's still missing.

[Taleweaver]

I've played with Achievements a little in "Daemonophilia", and I think it's a pretty neat way of giving a player a sense of fulfillment even if he didn't get the ending he wanted. Plus, as others have mentioned before, it's a way of giving hints without breaking the Fourth Wall too much.

[Aurélie]

I love achievements, and sometimes their inclusion can be really clever. For example, SWTOR's new Legacy achievements, where completing achievements gets you experience points! But I'm a bit of a completionist, so that makes me biased, heh. I think the most important thing is what is an achievement. I know on Mass Effect 1 there are some frustrating ones which make it impossible to get a decent amount of them done. There's one for completing the whole game with each companion, but you can only have two companions in your party at once, and there's way more companions than that. Nobody wants to play a long game 4+ times to get those.

[Flowers from Nowhere]

A lot of VNs use unlockable CGs in much the same way. If you do the actions that let you see the CG then it shows up in a picture gallery. Usually there will be blank spots showing you how many more you haven't gotten yet. Some games also do this with the endings you have managed to get in all your playthroughs.

It sounds like most of you are talking about something a little more involved but I wanted to point out that there are already a lot of VNs which have achievement-like rewards and players seem to like them.

[Destiny]

It sounds like most of you are talking about something a little more involved but I wanted to point out that there are already a lot of VNs which have achievement-like rewards and players seem to like them.

Well, the CGs are a common reward in the VN area.
They are also more or less like a present, as you can look at it all you want.

The achievements that I (and the others, too, I guess) talk about is nothing more and nothing less then a small box appearing that says "Achievement unlocked: Stupidity wins! (Click on Help 20 times)".
It isn't really like a present, as you see only words. Maybe a icon, but that is it. I know quite a few people that find achievements uninteresting or even annoying, so I guessed, just ask around. CGs are kinda simliar to them, so the general interest might be higher then with other game categories. But they are still a lot more simple and "unrewarding", so it isn't quite that simple.

[fullmontis]

The name says it all... Achievements should be something that make you feel like you accomplished something. As the others said, the best example are the ones that help you explore new ways of gameplay or give you interesting challenges. Bad examples would be achievements you would get anyway from playing the game, like "Finished act 2". The bottom of the barrel are probably what I like to call "number achievements", like "kill 5000 zombies". These add nothing to gameplay and are there just to artificially lenghten the game.

Personally, I like achievements when I really liked the game and want an excuse to play it a little more. This happened a handful of times at most. Achievements don't save a game that is trash, they just help make a good game even better IMHO. In any other case, I see them as an annoyance.

[Dragonstar89]

Glad I found this forum! The discussion of CG's being similar has brought me to something I'm going to try as soon as I'm done posting this. I'm thinking that you can use something similar to a renpy CG Gallery, etc., that uses persitent data. Achievements are a great thing for all games in my opinion as everyone said because it helps you create more goals causing people to play longer times, and with visual novels it'll make the player want to go through all possible endings!

[Deshtat]

If you want people to visit every corner of your game, then it might be a good idea.

However, some Visual Novels are so good and touching that people don't always want to explore every possible choices... Some people refused to play Katawa Shoujo more than once : they refused to try another romance choice. According to them, it would have felt like cheating.

I guess that if you succeed to make people feel this way, then it is already the best of achievements x)

[TrickWithAKnife]

I think achievements are a good way of signalling people as to what's possible in a game. This is nice for someone who wants to clear the game, but might miss hidden content if he or she didn't know it existed. By setting achievements on various hidden sections, you make it clear what's still missing.

My view is rather similar. In my case, there is an educational element in my VN, so there will be achievements related to progress.

I'm also planning to provide achievements for using certain game features a pre-defined number of times, and for reaching certain points in optional story arcs.

Most achievements will have a brief description on what they require, to help the player unlock them, and I'm planning to set up a forum so players can discuss progress and tips, presuming it's popular enough.

There will be no achievements for unlocking every path or ending though, as it simply doesn't work well for my VN. It's more about the journey than getting a good ending. I don't want the player to feel they are being punished for picking choice A rather than choice B.

[Destiny]

Most achievements will have a brief description on what they require, to help the player unlock them

One thing that I always like.
I mean, some things can be left vague to allow experimenting, but some vague hints, be it by showing the name of the achievement or a actual hint here the later description will be is always liked by me, to help me know where to start looking.

[Asceai]

The Xbox 360 port of Cross Channel had an achievement you got for looping one week 100 times. I don't if that says anything about achievements or not.