SHINAN'S PROFILE

post=99552
This could be averted by introducing various possible love interests for the main character, and allowing the player to choose between them, or stay single if they so wish.

The problem with multiple love interests is if you still want that emotional story going you're either in for a heck of a lot of work or the love interest won't really be much of an issue in the grander scope of things. However having few possible love interests as well as the option to not go for either is probably a bit easier to work with.

2. Love does not happen in five seconds, five minutes, or five days.
3. Sexual tension is mostly subtext.

I think these two are probably the most difficult to translate into a game. How much time is enough time? It will be different for each player. One will go "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY" while another may go "Wait what. Where did that come from?".

And it all depends on the subtext. Going too subtle and players may not pick up on it. Going too obvious and it will be too tacky.

It doesn't help that game writing is pretty damn limiting. You (usually) don't have tones of voice. You don't have body language. You can't really make a subtle animation because people will see it and go "Wow, he custom animated that, this moment must be important!"

Ah the limits of these couple-o-pixel high characters.


How do we make our very own Weighted Companion Cubes?

Inspired by the over-sexualisation topic there came up the issue of romance in them games.

So I thought I'd make a topic on it. Tips and tricks on how to make romance subplots. How to make them effective even when they are sidetrack in the overall arc.

I'm a big fan of love myself so I will let this love topic include everything from the typical romances to also using other kinds of love effectively. (I guess the family love and patriotic love are two other common themes that can be useful to deliver that emotional punch you sometimes need)

Following will be some very rambly thoughts.

1) Non-main character PC love.
One thing I think can be very useful in subplots are a budding romance between characters that are not the main character. I'm an RPGer so I don't like it when "my" character is forced to do things I don't generally want to do. With other characters it's a lot easier. And since you may not be privy to EVERYTHING other characters do you can leave some to the imagination. (especially if you suck at writing romance and courting)

Example: have two sidekick PCs obviously fall in love. Use all the regular tropes but do not play out the scenes where the main character is present. Instead use those lovely "confidence moments" when a party member approaches the main character for advice. For a gameplay payoff you can always end up with one of the pairing getting kidnapped and helping the other one to save the day and reuniting the lovebirds!

2) Minor character love
This one's useful for short dramatic punches. One of my favorite past-times is encouraging deaths and having characters die left and right. So you can introduce loving couple and kill one of them off for dramatic effect and showing how evil the bad guy really is! Of course you will have to establish this couple. Usually by introducing them early and not stamp cannon fodder on their foreheads. It could just be a small thing.

Example: The emotional payoff of talking to a newlywed couple early on in the game and later encountering the same couple after a terrorist bombing is usually better than just seeing one side of it once.

3) Family
This one's probably the easiest to do for main characters too. Having a sibling or other family member that the character holds dear. It can be someone older to look up to or someone younger who is just cute and friendly. If established correctly the player will want to help this family member ones he/she gets into that inevitable trouble you established him/her for. (alternatively you can kill him/her off. That works too.) Of course not all players will feel sympathetic towards the family member but as always you can't win them all. And you can always do it with another non main player character.

Alright those were some of my examples of easy-to-use romantic subplots. How to go about doing them? I guess the hardest part is probably the writing. Juggling between "going nowhere" and "fucking on a first date" is probably difficult. Personally I have little experience in writing romances, I like to skip all the parts where the romance develops and just see snapshots of other people (see 1)). You can probably tell that I haven't got that much experience in "real life" romances either so I can't draw from that, which is why I hardly ever bother to try.

However those of you who are trying. Give tips and tricks on simple things to make it work. Musical numbers? Dialogue choices? Turning down the lights and putting on some early nineties music?

Note that this isn't really a topic on whether you should do it or not or if it's even a good idea. This is more of an implementation topic.

post=99360

You hardly ever see a game where a guy and a girl are close friends that don't step past that base

Actually, isn't it exactly like that in most JRPGs? Even in the cases where the girl has an obvious romantic interest in the guy, the former is too much of a coward to admit it, and the latter is usually too dense or innocent to realize (kinda ironic if you stop to think about it).

That still isn't "close friends". That's more of "sexual tension all over the place". (And unanswered love and all that other stuff that sitcoms are made of)

There's not a whole lot of "we're really good buddies. Rock on!". You'll find that with the hero and his sidekick. But the sidekick in this case is never of the opposite gender.


But yeah it's true. Love usually isn't a big part of the RPGs. It's like action movies. Somewhere between the second and the third act the guy and girl get together but it's not really the point, instead it's just the short downtime before the Final Showdown.

There's also the video game fans that essentially just fall to the hype. Developers tend to promise all sort of things and claim that their game is the second coming. Then the game ships with bugs and content missing. A casual gamer that didn't follow the development might be happy that the game is good but someone who followed it all along will be disappointed that promised feature x isn't in.

I would take Empire Total War as the example. There was a promised multiplayer campaign that the game wasn't shipped with and the game had some nasty bugs. The reception was overall pretty good though, but hardcore fans were disappointed with what they saw.


You could say a different example is the Batman game. Essentially when you hear "Batman game" you think of a shitty license game that couldn't possibly be good. The expectations are lowered so when the game actually is good it's like the second coming. (Chronicles of Riddick also)


I think it all boils down to that gamers for some reason believe the hype...

I wouldn't mind short individual projects focusing on setting a mood. Many topics in game design seem to talk about the mood-setting thing. And it would be nice to have some projects showcasing "your" idea of what sets a good mood.

Perhaps even going so far as making mostly uninteractive short moodsetter game videos...