Pas encore de mots-clés.
Note: This was written for the otome amino, I'm reposting it here because it's a good hindsight on how I work.
Hello ! I'm back with more nerding out on games aspect from the point of view of an indie dev !
Last time, I had lots of fun discussing basic plot-lines ; this is sort of the second part to that first article.
I also had a lot of fun nice looked charts last time ; this time, I decided to try and go with a cutesy route, so I'll be introducing concepts using illustrations- meet MC and her LIs, Tuto and Rial :)
Note that they're color coded, Tuto is blue, Rial is red. It'll be relevant.
Again, as a small disclaimer; this is all based on personal observations and discussions with friends, and will rely on my opinions. If you disagree- awesome! Tell me so we can talk about it, as long as we remain polite I love to broaden my horizons :)
1. Why add choices in otome games ?
Before we really start discussing it all, I feel it's important to define “choices” in this context. When I mention a choice, I mean during the game, the player gets a prompt with more than one option to choose from. It's not about why you chose to play this otome over that one :)
Otome games are a subgenre of visual novels; what makes it different from plain illustrated stories or animated comics is the interactive aspect. Technically most of what I mention could apply to plain visual novels; Otome games just means one of the focus is romance, and the main character is a female. With a mostly male cast of love interests (if it was all female it'd fall under another umbrella, just like if it was a male main character and female love interests etc-).
What makes an otome game a game is the influence the player has on it; if all you had to do was click or tap to read more of the story, one could argue it's not really a game anymore. Game implies active participation.
In other type of games, it's pretty straightfoward. When you play a fps, you immediately know you have to move your character and shoot people- you press buttons and your character comes to life.
In an rpg, you have something closer to otome games; the player has to move the character but also can follow a story, where you influence what happens with your actions or direct choices in dialogues.
In an otome game, your characters are simple pictures; you can't exactly have them do anything, you don't have a map to explore like in different type of games. The only way you can influence the game is through dialog boxes.
To sum this up, if it wasn't for choices, otome games wouldn't be games anymore. The choices a developer implement in a game is the only way to offer more/different content, and the only way to directly engage a player.
Since I do love myself cheesy illustrations, here is one to sum that up!
What otome games do is give you an option to actually intervene while in a regular novel or story, you might just go “NO why did you do that? Argh!” ;)
Plus, otome games revolve around romance- the main character is often a stand in for the player themselves, or at least someone they can identify with or, at least in intent, someone the player will appreciate or admire. If the player never gets a say in what their stand-in character does, the game could quickly lose their interest.
When it comes to episodic games like a lot of mobile games, you want to keep your player engaged. When it comes to paid games, you want to make sure your player doesn't leave disappointed, if only to avoid bad reviews and get more sales.
2. What are the different type of choices I can see in otome games ?
There's different ways to ask the player to choose something, some more direct than others; in the same way, these choices have different impact on the game itself. That's what I'm going to discuss here :)
A- The direct approach
This one is the straightforward one. In my last blog on the subject, I mentioned how some games basically went “who do you want to romance?” at the start, then put you on their path. These type of choices are well, simple. You just take a decision and it gets applied immediately without anything more to it. I generally don't play that type of games much since it's not my thing, but I believe quite a lot of mobile otome do this- Voltage games come to mind :)
B- The “choose your activity” approach
This one is probably not the most common but I've seen it often enough to mention it. You'll likely have some sort of schedule, where you'll be asked to plan your mc's day; depending on what your mc does, some stats raise. Usually it'll be things like charisma/intelligence; character traits.
Here, the choice you make isn't a direct straightforward “I want to do this” type of thing. You decide on how you'd like to shape your MC to influence the game instead. This is generally reserved for stats raising games.
Re:Alistair++ Does this to some extent; you see a cycle of morning/afternoon/evening, where it asks you what you'd like to do each times.
In a slightly different way, some games also have a schedule of sort where you pick a character you want to spend time with; if I recall well, Dandelion does this; Ozmafia's system works so that you pick one character to spend your weekend with, and the one you spent the most time with is the route you end up on. These ones are more straightforward since you quite litterally pick a dude.
C. The more the better approach
This is another common way to offer players a sense of choice, and, to me, the most organic one. When a situation arise, the player is asked for their input. It has a double consequence; a first immediate one, where you see your decisions play out. Then later on in the game a more global influence, as the action you took impacted the plot or how a character views you.
Using a more concrete example using my little characters; MC can decide to stay after hour at work, or hang out with her coworkers. The player decides she should stay after hour; you see a scene where she works hard. Later on in the game, Tuto, her boss, tells her he's impressed with her performance, while Rial, her coworker, expresses disappointment over her not coming. The choice made had an immediate impact( the scene at work) and a more global influence (one character likes her more, one likes her less).
Mystic Messenger does this in a way; when you talk to people in the chatroom, your answers will influence the character's opinion of you and put you on one of their routes.
3. What are good choices vs bad choices to put in otome games?
I wouldn't say there's a bad way to offer choices overall; as long as the game does provide some interactivity through choices, it fits the bill and will be up to player preferences.
I think the type of choices I described are more like a general skeleton to build on; you also can mix them together (as an example; Mystic Messenger lets you pick between group of characters and then uses a variety of answers to situation to put you on a route.)
What really makes a good choice vs a bad choice in an otome game is more on the content itself.
If you're constantly soliciting your player for irrelevant stuff, it'll grow annoying fast, especially without rewarding them. That's why games like Dandelion tend to be disliked; players don't like to grind, and raising stats can become boring very fast. Raising stats or planning a schedule for a romance can be made fun if done properly- which is the hard part.
If you add too many or too little choices, it can also be a problem; if the only time you give an input is at the very start, or just to pick a route, it can feel like you're not really playing a game as much as just reading a nice romance illustrated novel.
If you ask the player for input on so many things it impacts the plot by stalling it, it'll also be a problem- it'll be annoying and make playing the game tedious.
The perfect solution for a good balance is to only offer choices that will impact the plot of the game. Frequent enough to keep the player entertained and involved in the plot's evolution, but not so much the plot becomes inconsistent.
Another thing to keep in mind when offering choices to a player is what reward they get; if you decide to have a sort of “right” or “wrong” choice, you'll want to make the right choice really enticing. Maybe a nice CG, or maybe a cute scene work. If it's a choice pertaining to character routes, you'll want to show the player if they got the result they wanted- or offer hints beforehand perhaps.
I also believe the amount of answers you can pick when offered a choice is important; when it's only two, it's usually fairly easy to know what to pick. However it becomes more challenging, more fun, and adds to re-playability if there's more than two answers. Adding too many unless there's a good reason isn't generally the best idea though. But say you have three to four options to pick from; it means the player may want to come back to this later on and try something else, and it adds some difficulty, which leads to a higher feeling of accomplishment when the player gets what they wanted to achieve.
4. How would I plan/implement them?
(or: trying to explain my own process/how to code)
Because I feel offering good choices in a game is very important to make the actual game good, when I work on my otome game a lot revolves around that aspect; my plot branches out depending on the player's various decisions. Some of them based on very early picks (one of my big features is different mc personalities and looks; that obviously influences the plot some), some based on later situations.
The way I organised my game, you make some important choices as to who you play as in the start, which will influence the plot as you go on. Once these important choices are done in the introduction part of the game, most of the choices become situational choices; something happens, you take a decision/react to it as you see fit.
Logic wise, when I offer a choice to the player, I like to offer 3 options overall, with two actually showing. The best way to explain it is to use an example so here we go:
You come upon a closed door. You can try to force the lock, knock on it, or decide to turn back and give up on finding out what's behind it.
If your MC is strong and rude, she can try to force it or decide to leave it.
If your MC is smart but weak, she can use her knowledge to tell it's not dangerous to knock or turn around.
Coding wise, this once again involves variables and if/else loops, as well as displaying menus with buttons to click on. I use renpy so the last part is made easy for me really, but I believe if you were to code a game entirely from scratch without that type of helpful simplified code it'd become a little harder.
In my case, I get the code to check if the MC is a certain type; if yes, then it should display the menu with the options that suit the MC in question, then when the player clicks on them send them to the correct cue in the code to display the consequence scene linked to the option picked. If the MC is a different type, it should do the exact same thing, but fitting the different MC type with the different option and outcome.
In red on the screenshot: the start of each “scene” of sort; this is a way to jump to a specific part of the game, as shown with the “jump -insertlabelname-” bits.
In blue on the screenshot: The part of the code that checks what type of MC it is.
In yellow on the screenshot: The pretty useful simplied coding renpy element that calls the choice menu on the screen. It basically just means it displays whatever is written underneath as pretty buttons.
In green on the screenshot: The actual options that will be displayed. This is the text you'll see on the buttons.
The second picture is what would show if the MC picked was the strong MC.
Conclusion:
To me choices in otome games are one of the most important aspect of the game, since it's the only way for the player to influence the plot. It can be done in a few different ways, all of which can be done well despite being more or less complicated. I personally wanted my game to feel more organic once it got into the storylines, while also offering more direct choices at the beginning to tailor the MC to the player.
As always I welcome any sort of comments or different opinions or additions to what I wrote there, and as always- this is all based on personal experience/opinions so, while I try to be factual, I am also a little biased :)