I am a big fan of choice, branching paths and what have you.... having the story notice and remember my choices along with different scenes from those choices.

I think it's mainly matter how you manage the two different paths a choice can bring a player into:
if there's no much difference in a choice or another then players would probably getting tired of replaying it just to see little difference, instead if it opens a completely new story (even if bringing to the same end) then it could be worthy.

I'm for choice, anyway, but I also know you know better what's the best for the game you're working on, all your previuos games had proven me that!
So... Do whatever you want!

tlaero wrote:The balance of choice, though, is that you need to replay the game and go through content you've already seen again in order to see the parts you missed the first time.

Another thing that comes to mind when reading this is that even in a game where you could theoretically see everything in one playthrough, barely anyone will get everything right in one go. So even in that type of game you will end up replaying. And perhaps that involves even more repetition, because there is more to get right: both date A and B need to be perfect, whereas in a branching game you don't have to get A and B right at the same time, just separately.

tlaero wrote:I reserve the right to ignore everything and go with what I want.

Please ignore any ramblings I may personally issue forth and continue doing whatever it is you want to do.

I personally have enjoyed the journeys you have given me so far, and I don't see why that would change in the near future.

tlaero wrote:

Mortze wrote:My opinion won't matter. I'll have to render both dates anyway

Both? There will probably be 4. (-:
Tlaero

Poor, poor, over worked Mortze!

Mortze wrote:

tlaero wrote:Both? There will probably be 4. (-:

Well played.

Choosing just one date per playthrough sounds better to me than the whole game being going through 2 or more dates just the one time, as long as you can get a good ending no matter which date you choose. That gives the game a nice enough grade of replayability instead of just finding out which is the right path and leaving all the other content aside afterwards.

I think for the sort of thing you do, the Tlaero Style as it were, it's better to have multiple dates, building up the relationship over time. So in the interest of the story, it might be best just to chain them.

I think it would be interesting to let the player choose to experience dates in variable order, but still see all of them. But I don't expect that that fits with the "mystery" motif you've been using.

If the alternative scenes are only a small part in story that is otherwise very linear, I would suggest keeping the entire story linear. Clicking your way through a long story over and over to see just a few extra pictures and lines of dialogue is not very rewarding. I usually don't bother and instead go into the game data to see the extra content.

However, this is not a problem if you provide save points. You might only provide the player save points at/near the major intersections to prevent the player from rewinding after every decision.

Providing meaningful choices throughout the game will be what most players want, even if the increased content results in the game being much shorter than it would be otherwise.

Ultimately you have to ask, do you expect the player to play through the game multiple times? If the answer is yes, the entire game must be interesting enough to revisit, not just select portions.

Replaying content is a moot point to me as all tlareo games have to be replayed to acheive everything that is in the game. But saying that i really dont mind replaying old content if the content is really exceptional and having save points help.

It comes down to the quality of the story for me if it is great then it's fun to replay over and over, i am still regularly replaying DwE and RfJ and Pandora (and yes i know pandora is mortze on his own but does not mean it's any less exceptional) even tho i've played them both over 100 times each now and i still never get bored of either of them.

Brad's Erotic Week - which was partially co-written by tlaero - has many, many mutually exclusive choice options. I don't think that detracts from the enjoyment of the game at all. Indeed, the various distinct paths resulting from in-game choices are a strength of the game and virtually guarantee enjoyable replays. It is almost like having several separate games in one.

One does have to maintain a robust set of save-games to fully enjoy that wealth of options, though.

I'd like to endorse the point that Cochise made. It's nice if a game can have more than 1 optimum path as this allows for a concept of equal but different.

What can be disappointing in a game is if the designer puts in an alternative path that is interesting and possibly even more exciting for the player, but which the player knows will ultimately not lead him to completing the game successfully.

I am a fan of being able to do everything in one playthrough, but this comes from many games where the choice has very little consequence on the overall narrative. ie the game is 100% the same except for the sex scene at the end.

I can say that i liked very much how the gameplay in RfJ was implemented:
One main path, period; Then you can use different choice (lewd path) to explorer other side/aspect of the story. This of course imply seeing contents you have already seen, but in case of RfJ this has not bothered me.

On the other side even in DwE you can have different choice that can lead to different scenes (park/beach, sex underwater/sex clouds, ...) but I prefer very much the RfJ way.

Thank you for all the feedback, folks. I'm curious about one thing, though. Many of you have suggested save slots. Has it not been clear that all of my recent games have had 4 save slots? If anyone played DwE or RfJ and didn't realize there were multiple save points available, can you tell me (either here or on PM)? No need to be embarrassed. If you don't understand the UI of a program, it's the programmer's fault, not the user's. If all of the people who suggested save points here didn't realize they already had them, then I definitely need to do something to make it more clear in Finding Miranda.

Tlaero

Four was more than enough. I never used the fourth.