Visual Novel/RPG/Choose Your Own Adventure Structures

[Blue Lemma]

Since there's been talk about flowcharts, it's a good time for me to post a paper I wrote. I did it as a project for my Graph Theory class. It compares the graph structures of some visual novels (Amgine Park, O3, and Go! Magical Boy), RPGs (Disgaea, Disgaea 2, and Chrono Trigger) and some "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Contains spoilers.

http://www.lemmasoft.net/paper/
username: papers
password: papers

[rocket]

Fight Lavos... ZOMG you bring back the memories!

I can't wait to read this...

[n9261andvari]

Wow...so that's how the flow charts are suppose to look like. *eyes hers*
Lol, my flow chart looks messy compared to those. Anyways awesome document. What does CYOA stand for anyway?

[monele]

"Choose Your Own Adventure" ^^.

*downloads and reads*

[Ignosco]

That was a very interesting read . I'm guessing that some VN's (one example might be those that use exclusively a split-join pattern with the endings based on variables (eg Garden Society) ) might be better considered using a different sort of graph?

[mikey]

Wow...so that's how the flow charts are suppose to look like. *eyes hers*

No.
You see, at least the one I had for Ori Ochi Onoe was hand-drawn with erased and crayoned parts and so on, and I used it for the whole game - I never had it written in a nice form or done in a program - PyTom's generated flowchart/walkthrough was of course much cooler, but this was already generated from a finished game.

[monele]

Well this was interesting, even if I only know a few of the examples ^^. I actually expected more in-depth analysis but it's just me wanting to read about cool games >.>...
My conclusion so far is that most successful story games use regular branching concepts instead of weird ones.

[Counter Arts]

Looking at those graphs, I noticed something.

A visual novel's depth and complexity would be proportional to the difficulty explaining the graph structure verbally or in a single paragraph.

[papillon]

For the heck of it, I'm putting in a hastily hand-scribbled diagram of FH's branch structure. This is absolutely not accurate as far as the number of choices and things goes, it just shows the general shape of things. (the ??? is the branch that I'm still writing at the moment)

[rocket]

Looking at those graphs, I noticed something.

A visual novel's depth and complexity would be proportional to the difficulty explaining the graph structure verbally or in a single paragraph.

Depth and complexity of interaction. Depth of character development, liner plot complexity, etc. are not really captured here...

Not finished giving the article a whirl, just skimmed it, but two thoughts off the top of my head:
1. It would be really interesting to see a larger study, where that analyzes enough games/stories to draw statistical conclusions. I'd like to see trends on time to develop, staff size, cost to develop and see if there's relationships. Also many other patterns could be visible with regards to genres and narrative interaction structure.
2. CYOA seem to be a product of both naive approach to interactive storytelling as well as the technology (apologies if this is already in the conclusion). The move to digital media exploded the potential for complexity to the point where simple branching becomes even more burdensome, while simultaneously providing better ways for the player to achieve immersion and direct control (simulation, command response renditions of an environment with a narrative wrapper). It seems that the evolution went from CYOA, to game with very basic CYOA style wrapper, to game with a more sophisticated interactive narrative wrapper, finally to visual novels where the game is removed (or deprecated) and the interactive narrative becomes even more refined (from both the interaction and narrative components).

[monele]

Depth and complexity of interaction. Depth of character development, liner plot complexity, etc. are not really captured here...

I wanted to say exactly that so... there... I quote it and second it

[Blue Lemma]

Wow...so that's how the flow charts are suppose to look like. *eyes hers*
Lol, my flow chart looks messy compared to those.

I don't think there are "right" ways and "wrong" ways here as far as formatting. As long as it helps you organize and makes sense, it's a good chart

[Counter Arts]

Hmm... when I say depth and complexity, I mean assuming you got a decent writer who knows how to write multi-path stories.

Here is a sample plot graph where you start from the top and you go to the bottom. The points are the events in approximately chronological order from top down and would take typically 5-10 minutes of reading time.

A plot structure like this is what I consider a small-complexity multi-path plotline that should be decently immersive.

The right plotline structure looks a bit boring so I could add a few more nodes and edges to make it more complex structure wise.

SampleStoryGraph.jpg (4.78 KiB) Viewed 3179 times

[PyTom]

Hm... Counter Arts' graph seems a bit over-broad, at least to me. I'm a fan of storytelling, and I think games should focus on that, rather than trying to supply the illusion of being immersive. To me, having three beginnings seems like a lot of extra work, that isn't necessary to tell a story (or multiple stories, as is the case with a VN).

[Counter Arts]

Well it's not like zapping although the structure is similar. Also, what I am not putting in the graph is that the previous nodes you visited affect the version of the future graphs you see. When you join two paths together and you see a conflict because of information the characters learned on only one of the walks to that node, you create a split that is not indicated by a choice and is not seen through one play-through.

This way you can simulate (subtle) cause and effect without writing too much.