Otomejam week 6: Talking about player choice and consequence visual novels

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[@Aizera]

The games that get it right make me feel like I'm falling in love with somebody rather than doing a math problem to optimize the maximum possible bond with the designated NPC of my choice. lol Also I always like replaying the game to bond with each different character, even if I already have a favorite/personal bias. And I still want it to be an immersive experience each time

[@coffeedripstudios]

Hi Aizera, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree that having to do math problems to figure out how to get a good ending is pretty immersion breaking. We didn't show much information at the start of development (ex. early screen shots all you see is the bond level tracker) but we decided to make more information available for the player who wants to strategize around point mechanics. However, everything is designed to be very lenient so you should be able to go through and as long as you interact consistently with 1 LI, you should be able to explore their full route and choose your actions in whichever way feels most natural/in character for you. This is, in essence, a fluff simulator XD

[@efai]

Hi Jen, I also don't like it when the game locks you on a certain path or if you don't do everything 100% right you ruin your chances with that character.. I faced the same dilemma with choices.. so I created a class for decisions and save almost every single player decision.. I also save behaviors, if they are nice/rude to someone, if they flirt or if they were flattered when the character flirted with them, etc.. so I can decide which things are important for which character and also the most important choices from the list.. it has a lot of options and freedom, but on the other hand, I have to know about all the options they can do and keep a list of them.. btw: I would like to try this game, when will it be available to play ?

[@coffeedripstudios]

Hi Efai, it sounds like your choice tracking is very detailed and customized for the player. I started doing that with one of my games but it got a bit overwhelming for me. Creating class just for decisions sounds like it would help with that. I'm hoping to finish before the deadline but it will be out by June 30th at the latest. Thanks for showing interest!

[@efai]

@@coffeedripstudios that's right, I have a dedicated class for all decisions and I just need to track all possible decisions in the game or at least the important ones.. it's not so bad, because with a good memory you can easily go back to your project and check what the decision was or just make a list of decisions and look at it.. and you can really do meaningful things with it and almost completely customize the story for the player, but it's a lot of work to do all the branches, so it's better to have important decisions and then only those that add/change a few sentences.. you can check the decision class in my project.. it's very easy, just save and get the decision and check if the decision exists, so it won't cause any errors.. In the comment I also have how the data will look when I save the decision so that I can work with it and not forget the pattern.. and to understand it (or basically any other of my classes) you just need to learn how to work with lists, dictionaries and list of dictionaries in python, so it's just the basics, nothing advanced.. and I'll definitely wait until you release it, I'm curious about this game :)

[@gokcetunc1476]

Helloo thank you for the video! ı waiting for the game with great excitement and once ı saw the video ı immediately jumped in ^^ well this will be a long comment since ı finally got lots of free time ^^ wow thats alot of words! thanks for the hard work! As a player ı usually dont like when a choice ı randomly pick literally decides ıf ı will get a good or bad ending especially ıf ı also cant make any sense of it so being able build my own character or my own path always excites me alot more than normal type of visual novels since ıt gives me a feeling of being able play the game as ''myself'' which is actually important to for someone who has weird anxiety like me. by calling it weird ı mean when ı play games ı ALWAYS do my best to get ''right choices '' and sometimes ı sometimes imagine my own self as a main character with a question like ''would ı survive ıf I WOULD GO THOURGH THİS?'' or for otome/ dating games ''would character love ıf ıt were ME?'' and ıf game doesnt give me much of a choice then answer would be usually ''no'' and that makes me feel kind of disconnected to game world especially ıf the game doesnt really introduce the ''main character'' much in the name of ''giving to players the feeling of creating their own story path '' or things like that (ım totally fine with well introduced characters tho since ı can see that story is about someone else not me clearly) but in games that gives me so many choices and/or variety of endings ıt makes me feel like ı dont have to reach a ''true ending'' since there no such thing and what ı should reach is the path ı want to have and the being able to decorate room to catch the interest is amazing idea! ıt both gives so many choices to player to decorate to room with their preferences and be able catch the interest of game characters :3 thats amazing freedom that we can have our own preferences instead of being have to find right choices but ı guess ıt seems difficult to ''program'' them all? then perhaps the game can come out as an demo or uncompleted to be able to not miss the jam and then can get updates? rushing can be pretty tiring afterall point system is so cool! well ı hope there is no negative points XD 0 points are fine but no negative plss and also different responses in different bonds are pretty good too ıt makes things lots more realistic the fact that you can do speedrun whole moth to 10 days is cool but ı guess ı will keep playing for all days ıdk ıt actually changes anything but ım fine with slow process :3.... oh well ı am curious about how they will spend their time with me in their full bond level too x3 so ı guess ı will go both... chancing opinionnss haha ıts actually relaxing to know that having only ''Im good by myself'' ending which well perfectly fine with me :D (ı cant just like sad/bad endings although they can make story deeper) overall the process of the game is amazing and ı am sooo excited for this ı hope things will go well for you and ekkoberry for this project (well of course for everything too) thanks for the all hardwork again and also thanks for the video ^^ ıf ım correct game will be out on end of the 8th week right? which means there is technically 2 weeks to go... ı dont wanna sound impatient since taking things slowly ıf possible is best choice for health but ı will keep following updates so ı can at least have small peeks >w< Have a very nice day!

[@coffeedripstudios]

Hi gokcetunc1476, thank you for sharing your experiences and enthusiasm. There is no negative points for any choices. The biggest penalty you get is a grumpy/confused reply at worst LOL. You won't have to worry about about bad endings either, as all the LIs kinda grow enough by the end to even take rejection in a fairly non-toxic way, (dating them up to day 30 and not ending up with them). This game is mostly just pure fluffiness as the art/aesthetic would suggest. I'm really glad to know you are looking forward to the release of this game and I hope it won't disappoint. I always put my full passion into these projects even when its a gamejam so it's a little nerve wracking the closer we get to release. We started the 1st week of development at the end of April into May, so technically we have 9 weeks. We hope to be finishing early but it will be released by June 30th at the latest.