Hanako Games

A few questions about what you like in a game

#1 by Seraphian - Nov 7 2017

Hi everyone!

So I've decided to make a game, I'm coming along pretty well but I have a few questions about what people prefer in a game? It's a life sim/dating game hybrid built on Renpy with the DSE module for the dating sim elements. The setting is a cyberpunk 2040-ish. It's designed to address some things I've never liked about dating sim games with a female protagonist, and heavily inspired by how deftly Hanako handles some of those problems in games like Magical Diary. Namely you can still get the "best ending" deciding not to have a relationship and focusing on your academics or career, and vice versa. It also has a "friendship" mechanic where you are rewarded for having an active social life and good friends; you can't just be a boy-seeking missile with your interactions and just have your romance partner, well you can but you'll suffer in places for not having a wider social circle.

So to my questions:

How many lines of dialogue (roughly) do you like between interactive choices? Do you like to read with occasional interruptions or participate in an active game with occasional reading or somewhere in the middle? How much intro are you willing to tolerate without any interaction to set the scene and setting?

Do you prefer deterministic where the same actions always have the same outcomes, the same exact path will always have the same result and choices will succeed or fail based simply on pure stat checks? Or semi-random where choices can succeed or fail based on random chance and your choice of actions can have variable outcomes (think like "Magical Diary" where a class could fail, or succeed with you gaining 1-3 points of the relevant skill at random)?

Do you prefer transparent skill checks and preferences, where you know what stats different NPCs like and what's going to be required or do you prefer to figure that out on your own from context and dialogue. For example, would you like to be told in some kind of profile that Mike is from the countryside and likes intelligence and introversion, or would you prefer to figure that out from the fact he's shy, always hangs out in the library, talks about his family in the countryside, etc?

Do you like additional setting details in hyperlinks or a dictionary or codex or the like, or would you just skip it?

Re: A few questions about what you like in a game

#2 by Bloody Vikings - Nov 8 2017

Honestly, a lot of this depends on the game under consideration.

Default mechanics? Long, interesting text sections, please? Engrossing and novel mechanics? The story can be shorter and I won't mind much.

Intro length? Unless it's really gripping reading, no more than a couple of --CONTINUE--s worth of text, please.

A little randomness is good, but if it feels like the RNG has more say than my choices, I won't bother playing. (Unless, again, it's an amazing story.)

As far as visible odds and the like, I strongly prefer that it be conveyed by text by default, but have a way to get a more numerical evaluation. (Hovertext is great for this in my opnion.)

And if the details are something vital, either a clickable popup box or hovertext, please. If I have to back out of the game to go read through an encyclopedia of the world, my enthusiasm wanes swiftly.

Re: A few questions about what you like in a game

#3 by KitCat - Nov 9 2017

So at (

Bloody Vikings:

And if the details are something vital, either a clickable popup box or hovertext, please. If I have to back out of the game to go read through an encyclopedia of the world, my enthusiasm wanes swiftly.

) I think, is better say usually cyberpunk words than discovered own... or use some which not so that land know easy.

Seraphian:

Do you like additional setting details in hyperlinks or a dictionary or codex or the like, or would you just skip it?

Hmm... Civilization go my mind... But... which program youre will use, it say lot what you should use...

I like read long "episodes" at fanfictions... but at game... no so long...