daily_adventure_hunter
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Multiple choices X linear story
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 18:19:50 +0000 UTCThis comment was made in my previous post, and I think it deserves to be answered here in a new post because it's something I've been thinking about and it's worth sharing with everyone...
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Verity
Thank you for your hard work, can't wait for Matthew~~!🥰 Just a couple of thoughts - but i think you might be making your life more difficult with trying to keep every story parallel with each other, while trying to juggle interconnections, instead of a more linear approach at least when it comes to characters that appear in the same locations (college, downtown, gym etc). Maybe being more "liberal" with locking certain scene sequences or even whole character events to after certain events have been achieved may make scripting/story writing more effortless, like e.g locking Matthew's entire story to only after a user has successfully finished Josh's story or more specifically locking Matthew's painting club event to only activate if a user has already completed the one for Josh. It'd also encourage users to replay the game while waiting for a future update, trying to discover scenes or scenarios they may have missed in their first run. 🤔
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I came to this same conclusion a few days ago... thinking exactly about the question of the game becoming too complex and taking too long to develop.
In the beginning, the idea was to make a totally open game without a sacred timeline (Marvel feelings here 😂 ). And the stories were developed with this context in mind.
But now that I'm more experienced and the game is growing, I've realized that this becomes impractical, because the “multiverse” is multiplying... with several alternative versions.
I've already started to put the brakes on this proliferation of options and scenarios in Matthew's story
The idea is to make a mix...
I'm not going to give up giving the player the option of following the rhythm and the stories they prefer to play first, but I'm going to create key points in the story that the player will need to pass through in order to unlock other stories of other characters. Especially in the same destination.
For example. In order to unlock Kyle's story, the player will need to at least reach a stage in Josh's story and also make some progress in Matthew's story.
You don't necessarily have to finish these stories first, nor does it matter which path you prefer to follow, but you will have to at least “get through” some dialogue or scene in order to unlock another character's path.
I've already been applying this in some scenes in older stories, but now I'm going to use this feature more and “lock these key scenes” more often
The idea is to follow this line of development from now on:
Each destination, which shares several characters, will have a sort of independent linear story that will need to be followed in a certain order.
This gives me a little more control and predictability over the players' choices.
I'll already know which dialogues and scenes the player has seen. Then I won't have to think about extra alternative scenes just because there's a chance they haven't been seen by the player yet.
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The game is still in development... the idea is to keep improving and refining it.
So I'll be sharing with you the process, the difficulties and all the feedback you give me helps.
Comments
Dom Daniel
This is the best path in my opinion, it opens a way to have one character participate in another character story.
Alex Reqlor
Well....... I hope, at least, that we don't have to go through the story of one guy, jump urgently to another in order to go through his piece of the plot for further advancement. Let it be, for example, a list of the order in which to go through the guys so as not to run into the plot wall. Because, as I wrote above, jumping on the plots of different guys at the same time will destroy the whole atmosphere of the plot and the character of the characters, and the game will turn into purely playful porn for masturbation.
Verity
Yes, this is exactly what i was suggesting. 😊 Creating a completely parallel storyline for every single character could theoretically work, but the workload increases exponentially having to account for every single possible interaction and story connection & it forces you to constantly go back & forth reworking past stories. It could make sense to pursue this way of development if you had a team of code scripters & story writers assisting you, but since IIRC it's an one-man project i think you run the risk of burnout in the long run if you pursue a completely parallel timeline. It feels more natural as well, to me at least, to have some sort of linear progression & story checkpoints to characters that we encounter in the same location as you've already mentioned. Makes it feel like you're on an actual timeline and there's a progression to the world the hunter lives in while we work on his respective hunts. The time you save from not having to potentially rework past stories or accounting for all those variables allows you to also be able to devote more creative effort expanding storylines or adding more events / scenes for a character if you so desire. ❤️
Daily Aventure of a Male's Hunter
I understand your point... but it's not in any way about plastering the story or forcing players to take part in stories or follow paths they don't want to, but rather trying to find a middle ground where you have the freedom to choose but there are certain checkpoints in the story that allow me to provide a minimum of “common ground” from where I can continue with the story. Because if I don't create these fixed points, that takes away my creative freedom, as paradoxical as it may seem. For example, in Matthew's story I want to introduce some scenes with Kyle, for them to interact. But if I haven't somehow introduced Kyle and explained his background, that meeting in Matthew's story wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't know him yet. So I need to make sure that everyone has at least gone through Kyle's scene in Josh's story so that they can start Matthew's story. Otherwise I have no way of introducing Kyle into it. Another example... Dale and Hector. I wouldn't be able to introduce Hector into the game without the player first getting to know Dale... because only then will Hector's story make sense... there will be a background to start from. These are the kind of checkpoints I need to create... otherwise I won't be able to keep all the stories coherent.
Leo Ivankov
im not sure about any of this since i am not a game developer but you do what it's best for your project, as long as we get the chance to have our slaves/lovers interact with each other, yknow to mix things up and create all possible combnations, Im cool! Go crazy!
Alex Reqlor
It's a terrible idea to tie parts of one guy's story to having to pass for another. It's like an MMO system in which you're slowed down from continuing through the story until you level up or get the right level of gear. In addition, as the number of guys increases, it will create a web of confusion for the players themselves. Another potential danger is that you will have to go through relationship options that are unacceptable to a certain part of the fans. I mean, slave routines, it's unacceptable to me personally, and I haven't chosen this relationship option with any guy, and I don't even want to touch on such a terrible possibility. I am ready to wait as long as it takes to develop the current version of the game, that is, a sandbox with the possibility of free passage. Artificially slowing down the plot is a terrible idea, creating difficulties and, most importantly, destroying the unique atmosphere and emotions of a certain guy by having to be distracted by another guy.
