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Relationship values - It takes two.

(Minor spoilers for "Romancing Walker", "Love and War" and "The Way" herein.)

How do you build a relationship - a friendship, a mentoring relationship, or even a romance - throughout the course of a computer game?

One approach is simply to tell the story passively:

Mr. X: There. I've defeated Minion A. Now to move on to the big boss.
The lovely Miss Y: Oh, Mr. X, I adore you! Be my Valentine!
Mr. X: Heh heh, I'm da boombastic love-machine!

When done well, this can work. Take a game like Cave Story. When Quote and Curly first meet, they appear to be enemies - but as the game progresses, they uncover their shared past, and re-affirm the comradeship they once shared. This is done without a single player "relationship input" (granted, you have to take steps to save Curly during one battle, which are far from obvious), but it works because (a) they aren't particularly deep characters, and (b) they make a good fighting team.

When done badly, you'll have the audience grumbling about how romance is for middle-aged women and not macho gamers. You'll also probably hear that the author must have been smoking weed / reading Stephenie Meyer / watching too much Titanic, and so forth.

Another method - beloved of dating sims, and of RPGs with dating sim elements (hello, Romancing Walker and Love and War!) - is to present the hero with dialogue or puzzle options which can either make or break his relationship with the female cast. For example, if Ryle of Romancing Walker chooses to say goodbye to Orubia in a dismissive manner, he loses the chance to gain "relationship points"; if he's gentle, he gains points. Similarly, if Ryan of Love and War is nice to Lavie or Marianne, this (presumably) goes towards building up their relationship in future episodes. This approach works well because it leaves matters in the hands of the player (who may prefer Orubia or Fina, Lavie or Marianne) rather than having the author dictate terms about which "ship" he prefers.

However, there is an element of verisimilitude lacking even here, because - as anyone who's been in a real-life relationship knows - relationships are built from reciprocal interactions. If you're giving the lovely Miss Y a gift, Miss Y has to accept and like your gift; if she doesn't like the perfume you bought, you're not going to score any points in real life. Admittedly, a "realistic" relationship model in a game is harder to pull off than simple "scoring", but it's feasible (Facade, and arguably Katawa Shoujo.)

The Way takes an interesting approach in one of its endings. This ending gives you the opportunity to "hook up" with one of the main female characters, but its success depends on two things. First, your relationship points with the character in question (so far, nothing new), and second, a score that reflects how ethically you've behaved in the game so far. If you've been acting like a heel, sorry - no girl for you. This is clever, because it reflects the truth that to hook up with the right person, one must - to paraphrase a quote from a Lun Calsari interview - also try to be the right person.

While I salute all these approaches, what I have in mind for The Year of the Cat is a little different.

Without going into spoilers, there are two characters - let's call them A and B - who have a shared past. A and B can "end up together" in one of the game's planned endings: however, the "relationship score" that determines this is influenced by the actions of both A and B, who are both playable. In other words, A and B both have to make certain choices, or behave in certain ways, if the relationship is to work. (I'm not sure if this is ultra-simplistic or profound, but it's what I'm going with.)

For another character, C, relationship values in The Year of the Cat work this way. C can, early on in the game, make a choice that forces the story on to one of two paths. However, even after embarking on that second path, the actions of A, B and D - taken together - can possibly change C's mind. There's a bit of a moral here - sometimes a man goes from bad to worse because no one tried a little kindness - but C's free will is not overridden. C can still choose to remain on this path; it's merely that C is given the option of second thoughts.

There are, of course, many other ways in which relationship points can be calculated and used to add to the mimesis of a computer game, but I'll stop here.

As Pope Francis would probably say, it takes two to tango.

Posts

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Cave Story ... heck yeah! It's just a great plot in general. I'll always remember that part where you "defeat" the Core in the Geothermal area and you actually DROWN. My god. That damn tow-rope. Auh. But seriously, sorry I've been a bit MIA lately. I noticed you reviewed my poem. Thanks! You story here sounds pretty awesome, I must say. I like relationships that are a bit complicated, or where the characters are friends rather than strangers who "fall in love at first sight" ... If you want some romance try out like, the best romantic game ever ... Hatoful Boyfriend. haha. No actually the best romance I've read of all time was in Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro
Professor_Q
"Life is a riddle I wish I had the answer for..."
3237
Well, I'm certainly no Ishiguro (I love The Remains of the Day, myself), but yes, I'm going for something a little more complicated than "hero and distressed damsel fall in love at first sight"! (Of course, if I fail, we still have Romancing Walker..) =)
I considered discussing the matter of relationship values more in the comments of your Romancing Walker review, but this is a better place for it.

The game which, to me, sets the standard for doing interesting things with relationship values is the second Star Ocean game. It doesn't have the best romantic writing of the games I've played by any means, but it operates on some principles that I don't often see in video game romances, which I would like to see as the default rather than an exception.

First off, characters' relationships are built up through experiences that give them opportunities to interact and relate to each other, not simply through proximity and observation as they adventure together. Realistically speaking, people can be made to feel attraction to each other simply by going through exciting experiences together, but it's a very shallow basis for a relationship and doesn't tell you much about those people's compatibility. Rather than relying on dramatic experiences that draw characters closer to each other, I find it much more satisfying when the story presents opportunities for the characters to show things they actually like about each other.

Second, the choices which draw characters together are not simple expressions of preference or affection, but things which actually relate to the characters' individual personalities. If the choices which pull your characters together amount to "will you be nice to character A?" or "which character do you like, A, B, or C?" then it fails to reinforce the player's perception of them as people with distinct character. On the other hand, the choices should not become too obtuse, lest the player stop treating the choices in terms of their understanding of the characters' personalities, and start treating them as a guessing game where savescumming is key to success.

Third, pursuing development in character relationships is its own reward. Romance or friendships between characters aren't simply thrust at the player, they're given the opportunity to pursue them, and the incentive for doing so isn't that you have to put up with it for some Infinity Plus One Sword, ultimate spell, or achievement for one hundred percent completion, but simply because the interactions between characters are fun to see. If the player doesn't enjoy these character building scenes, they don't have to go out of their way for them. If they do want to build the relationships between characters though, it won't simply amount to making a series of choices through the narrative and having the characters' relationship values silently tick upwards, it will mean a substantial amount of additional interaction between those characters.

One thing which Star Ocean 2, and most other games with relationship values for that matter, do not do, but which I strongly recommend, is that the player receive continual payoff for investment into building character relationships, not just an eventual payoff at the ending. It doesn't have to involve big animated cutscenes or extensive dialogues (although it certainly could if you're willing to put the effort in,) but it's nice to see occasional feedback showing that your character's feelings for each other are changing. Maybe you add an extra line of dialogue now and then between characters reflecting the state of their relationship together. Maybe you vary the line a character gives when you place them in your active party depending on how much they like the party leader. Maybe you make characters stand closer to each other in certain scenes if they like each other more, or have them share a bed at inns if their relationship has reached a certain point, and so forth. I think it's more interesting if the player feels like the characters' relationships are a regular feature of the game, not something that merely comes into play in the ending.
Professor_Q
"Life is a riddle I wish I had the answer for..."
3237
author=Desertopa
I considered discussing the matter of relationship values more in the comments of your Romancing Walker review, but this is a better place for it.

The game which, to me, sets the standard for doing interesting things with relationship values is the second Star Ocean game. It doesn't have the best romantic writing of the games I've played by any means, but it operates on some principles that I don't often see in video game romances, which I would like to see as the default rather than an exception.

First off, characters' relationships are built up through experiences that give them opportunities to interact and relate to each other, not simply through proximity and observation as they adventure together. Realistically speaking, people can be made to feel attraction to each other simply by going through exciting experiences together, but it's a very shallow basis for a relationship and doesn't tell you much about those people's compatibility. Rather than relying on dramatic experiences that draw characters closer to each other, I find it much more satisfying when the story presents opportunities for the characters to show things they actually like about each other.


I think this is a very good observation. Misattribution of arousal is, of course, a favourite Hollywood trope - so common that it even gets a lampshade hanging at the end of Speed, for example. It's also probably the basis for most "save the princess" plots, at least those which go beyond the Super Mario Bros. I level. =)

Second, the choices which draw characters together are not simple expressions of preference or affection, but things which actually relate to the characters' individual personalities. If the choices which pull your characters together amount to "will you be nice to character A?" or "which character do you like, A, B, or C?" then it fails to reinforce the player's perception of them as people with distinct character.


Agreed. It shouldn't be that simple.

On the other hand, the choices should not become too obtuse, lest the player stop treating the choices in terms of their understanding of the characters' personalities, and start treating them as a guessing game where savescumming is key to success.


This is also true. Sometimes the subtlety element is difficult to pull off correctly, though.

Third, pursuing development in character relationships is its own reward. Romance or friendships between characters aren't simply thrust at the player, they're given the opportunity to pursue them, and the incentive for doing so isn't that you have to put up with it for some Infinity Plus One Sword, ultimate spell, or achievement for one hundred percent completion, but simply because the interactions between characters are fun to see. If the player doesn't enjoy these character building scenes, they don't have to go out of their way for them. If they do want to build the relationships between characters though, it won't simply amount to making a series of choices through the narrative and having the characters' relationship values silently tick upwards, it will mean a substantial amount of additional interaction between those characters.


Exactly. It means optional scenes / sidequests / etc. - in other words, more screen time to watch that relationship grow.

One thing which Star Ocean 2, and most other games with relationship values for that matter, do not do, but which I strongly recommend, is that the player receive continual payoff for investment into building character relationships, not just an eventual payoff at the ending.


Hey, quit peeking into my script! =)

It doesn't have to involve big animated cutscenes or extensive dialogues (although it certainly could if you're willing to put the effort in,) but it's nice to see occasional feedback showing that your character's feelings for each other are changing. Maybe you add an extra line of dialogue now and then between characters reflecting the state of their relationship together. Maybe you vary the line a character gives when you place them in your active party depending on how much they like the party leader. Maybe you make characters stand closer to each other in certain scenes if they like each other more, or have them share a bed at inns if their relationship has reached a certain point, and so forth. I think it's more interesting if the player feels like the characters' relationships are a regular feature of the game, not something that merely comes into play in the ending.


True. Romancing Walker did the "ending" bit quite well; the challenge is to take it one step higher. After all, when you fall in love with someone, you don't silently watch that relationship grow until your wedding day; there are immediate rewards and reciprocations scattered along the way.

Perhaps we should compile an anthology of essays on RPG relationship values and ask FLARE to write the introduction. =)
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